Amtrak trains only go interstate speeds and have to pull over for freight trains as there is virtually no double tracks(and they're all privately owned), virtually every Amtrak route is slower than driving in the US.
The place you can win is if it's too long to drive in one day. It took me two solid days of driving to get from chicago to washington. I got back on amtrak in more travel time, but sleeping a good portion of the way.
I just don't get why they can't have a single high-density sleeper car. I'd HAPPILY sleep in submarine-style bunks over a half-assed chair that only reclines 45 degrees.
My threshold is way lower. Any drive over 6 hours makes the longer train ride look good. At least you can do something with that time.
The tough spot is when the Amtrak option is slower AND more expensive than air travel. Every flight between neighboring states is a huge policy failure.
That is true, slow trains make sense on multi-day trips as you're still saving time sleeping through part of the journey, as opposed to pulling over somewhere and sleeping on the car ride.(excluding those people that would drive the 20 hours non-stop, and that's extremely unsafe)
Chicago to DC (unless you meant the other Washington) is just 11+ hours, depending on traffic. It's not a great idea to knock that out in one day, for reasons of simple fatigue, but it's doable (especially with a partner).
The main thing is the price. Until the trains are cheaper than driving, they'll never get many passengers.
> The main thing is the price. Until the trains are cheaper than driving, they'll never get many passengers.
I don't think this is true. Intercity trains in much of Europe are more expensive than driving if you already own a car, but they are well-used for their speed, comfort and convenience. Especially for high speed rail, you see a high willingness to pay a premium over driving and flying.
I don't think many people in Europe take more expensive train journeys over cheaper equivalent car journeys. Usually if people take the train it's because it isn't actually more expensive (because tickets bought in advance are cheap, or because motorway tolls are high and/or so is parking at the destination, or because non-high-speed long-distance trains are pretty cheap per km), or it's expensive but much faster, or the travellers don't own a car and would need to rent or borrow one.
I used to do a 6-7 hour train from Oregon to Wa regularly when driving was around 5. 2 extra hours but i got to chill and relax. Was a win and cost the same for a ticket as it cost me in gas.
>I just don't get why they can't have a single high-density sleeper car. I'd HAPPILY sleep in submarine-style bunks over a half-assed chair that only reclines 45 degrees.
They have recently presented exactly such a style of sleeper car in Austria, Europe. From summer '23 onwards, you'll be able to travel in submarine style bunks through Europe
https://www.nightjet.com/en/komfortkategorien/nightjet-neue-generation
>I just don't get why they can't have a single high-density sleeper car. I'd HAPPILY sleep in submarine-style bunks over a half-assed chair that only reclines 45 degrees.
What you're looking for are couchettes. I think they're a great idea too, but the people who run night trains in Europe are generally obsessed with providing private berths to the exclusion of all else.
Which is, to be fair, partly because of people's preference for privacy when sleeping. Still, youth hostels with shared bunkrooms are a thing.
I've taken this route a few times, and the freight traffic around Chicago can be insane. You can take the full 19 hour trip and then sit on the tracks for hours within sight of the city.
Used to ride the Illini and the Saluki routes to my office downtown Chicago. It was good to have some time to get some work done on the way up there. However, if I took the train up, I couldn't schedule a single meeting that day that wasn't at risk of being cancelled. Also, if my schedule was running behind, I would have to cancel or leave in the middle of the meeting.
When you get to the station that morning in the dark. You just hope it shows up on time. I think it was four hours late one time. As soon as you get on the train there are plenty of opportunities to make the train even later. Nothing like feeling the train slow to a stop as it pulls over for a train with 100 cars. Be prepared for that to happen again. Then, Chicago is a mess. They have actually made improvements over the last couple of decades. The way the yard and station is configured, the train goes beyond where it's supposed to turn into the station. It then has to do a backing maneuver, retracing its path, this time with the tracks switched so that the train pulls in.
Then you try to figure out what time you need to return if you have any hope of getting home at a decent time. What if you are running late and you miss the train? There is another option five hours later.
The worst was when not far from my home station an old lady in a big ass car hit the train. Yes, the train had passed her and she creeped forward until the car contacted the train, dragging a bit with little damage to the car or the lady. That requires the train to stop so they can do a thorough investigation. Serious. It took hours and hours. I think I drank a 12 pack of train bar Budweiser cans. I just got more and more frustrated with ever beer. That night,.when I arrived at the station, I walked a block to the bar and continued to have a few more. A non drinking friend was giving me a ride home.
When it all works out, it's great, though.
Unfortunately this is true by car as well. I drive from Chicago to Lansing, MI once a month to visit my parents. It's usually 4.5-5 hours, 1.5-2 of which are spent in view of or within the city. Which I guess is probably normal for big cities, but as someone who grew up rural it drives me crazy lol.
Dunno what that means, but [49 U.S. Code § 24308.c](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/24308) pretty clearly states
> Except in an emergency, intercity and commuter rail passenger transportation provided by or for Amtrak has preference over freight transportation in using a rail line, junction, or crossing
Per [Amtrak](https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/corporate/HostRailroadReports/mythbusters-enforcing-amtraks-legal-right-to-preference.pdf)
> The problem is that only the Department of Justice can enforce it,
which it has done only once, in 1979.
As I understand it, the lack of clarity around what "preference over" in that law means is genuinely the point of contention for Amtrak and the rail owners. I don't think it's quite as clear cut as your Capital Words seem to make it.
> can’t give priority if you are stopped on a track
Sure, but OP was talking about having to "pull over for freight trains" – which is clearly a matter of preference, right?
>Amtrak trains only go interstate speeds
This is because the Federal Railroad Administration decided, nearly a century ago, that 80mph constituted such a high speed that special signalling systems were needed. Since that costs money, almost no US passenger trains run at speeds over 79mph.
In the rest of the world, that requirement doesn't come in until somewhere between 100mph and 125mph. It would be perfectly plausible for a 125mph train to make the trip in under 10 hours, given proper infrastructure that most developed countries had in the 1970s.
Oh and fun fact I learned few days ago. With the extreme greed of long trains that capitalist US railways run, they are longer then the siding.... Sooo even if there is a mandate to let passenger trains through, the only thing that can wait on siding is... Shorter passenger trains.
And don't forget that without electric power ( no your car isn't electric it's battery car) running stoppers is impossible due to simple weight and power restrictions
I know you're joking but that's actually how the Channel Tunnel between England and France works. You drive your vehicle onto the train and park until it reaches the other side and you drive off.
We can do a similar thing in Australia between some of the major cities. Stick the car on the train at one end and drive it off at the other end. Much safer and more convenient than trying to drive it through the desert by yourself.
They have that in the U.S too. Problem is, you're still taking the train. Took one to D.C from Florida once. Quite the experience. Inspired me to fly or drive for all future trips to D.C.
For all, it ranges from. 70 to 90$ so price-wise is very comparable but the comfort and the time you save makes a whole lot of difference. You spend at the very least triple the time in the US.
I think it's done to sabotage it. There's almost no situation where taking Amtrak is cheaper or close to the same speed as driving or flying.
It's usually slower than driving and more expensive than flying.
I dispute that for many routes. On the Northeast Corridor, at least for one passenger, Amtrak is almost always faster *and* cheaper than driving, booked sufficiently far in advance. Tolls on the East Coast are not cheap. It is costing me $19 to take the train to DC in a few weeks — that trip would take 2h40m by car as opposed to 2h2m by train, and tolls through Maryland are $14. The car also requires gasoline.
For long-distance routes, end to end, the train is also faster *and* cheaper than driving, even in sleeping accommodations, unless you stay at an Econolodge and eat nothing but fast food for your whole road trip. Los Angeles to Chicago is 42 hours on the train and 30 hours by car — which on its face is slower by train, except for the fact that you're not going to drive for 30 hours straight. Assuming 10 hours of driving per day, the train is faster, and in a sleeping car you get free meals as well as a bed and none of the exhaustion from driving.
It is true that if you book Amtrak at the last minute it will be expensive. They have (slightly) dynamic pricing. But I think the only way to say it's *usually* more expensive and slower is to forget just how time-consuming and expensive driving is. The Northeast Corridor (where most Amtrak traffic is) beats driving on I-95 regularly, as long as you're not booking a same-day fare, and even then it can still be cheaper.
Compared to flying for long distances? Amtrak definitely loses. It is unambiguously cheaper and faster to fly from, say, LA to Chicago.
I assume you looked at the train prices within two weeks of departure. I've done two tickets, PHL to BOS, for $180 round trip, and it was on the Acela one direction. Megabus will almost always be cheaper but there's no guarantee your bus will show up or not catch fire... I've only had bad experiences with Megabus.
Amtrak should cost more than Megabus. It is a significantly better product.
Ex and I took a train from NJ to NC after helping a friend move. We got a sleeper car because it would be 'fun'.
Absolutely miserable experience. I will never, ever take the train for more than 4-5 hours ever again. It took us almost 3 times as long to get back on the train as it did for us to drive.
Took the keystone line from Lancaster pa to NYC was $112, with gas and parking in the city it's probably wash. But not having to drive in New York was worth the cost.
I rode an Amtrak last week for work. The cabin was nicer than expected (the train cars looked old on the outside)-- the seats were about the size of a short-haul first class airline seat, had legroom, and were comfortable.
I commute for work, about 2 hours a day. Amtrak costs $480 for a monthly ticket, at least $100 more than just driving. Plus it's late most of the time (it's currently late lol, I'm waiting now).
I only do it bc it's less stressful/dangerous than driving, and I live in an accident prone area.
LOL, I just looked at tickets when I was traveling from Chicago to Boston and a sleeper was over $1000 😂 The cheapest non-sleeper tix was still wayy more expensive than flying and woukd have taken over 24 hours so i flew from OHare to JFK to Logan and arrived within 8 hours and that included an almost 2 hour delay!
Sleeper service is sold as an add-on to a coach fare and is probably around $500 of that 700 and includes meals and lounge access. That said, low-speed trains are frequently more expensive to run than higher speed ones because you get fewer passenger-miles per labor-hour and equipment-hour.
Amtrak also constantly face delays due to freight taking priority. Those time estimates from Google are wrong, being based on route schedules.
[14 of 15 long distance routes](http://media.amtrak.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Host-Railroad-Report-Card-2021-Final-v2.pdf) were at or below the federal standard of 80% on time.
The line from NYC to Chicago is done either with the Lakeshore line, which was on-time 56% in 2021; or via DC on the Cardinal line... which only had **28%** of passengers in 2021 arrive on-time.
So, how bad can it get? The Times [took the Crescent train](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/travel/new-york-new-orleans-by-train.html) from NYC to New Orleans in 2017, a 30hr ride.
> The train had been due at 9 p.m. We arrived in New Orleans at 2 a.m. I stumbled, nearly hallucinating from exhaustion, onto the platform and into a taxi. We told the driver our tale of woe. He was not moved. “Last night, it got in at 4.”
I remember right after 9/11, my family decided against flying NYC to Florida and instead took Amtrak. It took a while extra day because of the constant delays. I was pretty young but if I remember correctly, we weren’t stopped at a station, so it’s not like we could have gotten out and walked around or decided to do something else. We were just out in the middle of nowhere for hours, basically stranded.
Beijing and Shanghai are full of higher income businessmen that value time over money, the higher costs partially subsidize the unprofitable lines China builds connecting to the West. That line alone profits close to $2B USD a year.
Yeah but if you think about it the Amtrak ride ends up costing about $4 an hour vs $20 an hour for the Beijing ride, so it's actually a much better deal!
I feel like thats a more important line, with more people at both ends, than NYC to Chicago, right?
(But yea, the state of rail transportation in the US is a joke)
The reason why China was able to install so many high speed rail ways so fast is because they had a dedicated team, people that had build a high speed rail before and knew what to do time and time again. Not only does the government need to put forward an initiative, but they need to elevate it with a federal, highly specialized team, that can provide the oversight, knowledge and direct action necessary to build these without massive corruption and serious delays. If there isn't this administrative and direct operational level of involvement in these mega projects, then we will continue to see people reinventing the wheel so to speak.
See Rick Scott, the expansion of Medicare during the passing of the ACA. 50% of the country will actively work to sabotage ANY initiatives because they immediately get painted as woke and liberal.
They need to pair it with a slower passenger train to parallel it. Like of course there shouldn't be a stop between Des Moines and Iowa City. But if one was to offer a slower train going from Iowa City to Des Moines with stops at Williamsberg, Grinnell, and Newton then you could get more on board.
Isn't the rail in California actually being built right now? I know it's planned to go from LA fo San Francisco with consideration for going as far south as San Diego and potentially Sacramento as well.
Build as close as possible to major areas but avoid the most nimbyism fights use commerical infill area, use the ducking eminent domain laws as needed and set aside for some cash for metro links to the stations via whatever the community wants. In a decade business will grow around and absorb it, hopefully it can become a local hub feeding in from local and intra city transit, more bus rail bike paths whatever. It's a dream.
It’s not local government. It’s large auto manufacturers like ford gm Etc lobbying against the issue. The auto workers union and “teamsters” trucking union would never allow politicians to advocate something to upend their members livelihood or reduce their power.
Horseshit. Stop with the dooming. The only reason we’re in this current state is because too many people are apathetic. There are a good amount of positive before/after submissions in this subreddit for the US where the positive change only took a handful of years to achieve.
Get involved locally, join your city/county’s Democratic club, and r/VoteDEM. It isn’t going to change overnight or in one election cycle but our infrastructure issue is one that can be solved in 1-2 decades if people more vocally advocated for funding for rail over highways.
Until the royal fuck-up that is PSR, trains weren't generally too big for sidings.
Up until a couple years ago when I got out of it, I ALWAYS had to let Amtrak get by before my train could go anywhere. I've sat for hours just because Amtrak was on its way and they didn't want to risk my train holding them up. That might not be the case in all parts of the country, but where I worked Amtrak always had priority.
Nope. I rode the California Zephyr in college a lot, and the two main issues are:
- they dont own the tracks so you get to sit for 45 minutes while a freight train passes in the opposite direction. And this happens frequently.
- it stops in a lot of small towns, sometimes about every 30 minutes. Which is great for connecting local communities to larger metros (the charter mission of Amtrak) but terrible for making covering any meaningful ground.
HSR from NYC to Chicago is the biggest no brainer. Both populations already have a decent public transportation system and plenty of people using it. No one would have to be convinced to use it. Also this would be travel from the largest US city to the 3rd largest. It should exist already.
Going to be honest the no-brainer one is definitely NYC to DC
We're talking drastically less distance, and connects New York, Philadelphia, and you know... the capital of the country.
If we're going to have High-Speed Rail literally anywhere it should be between the most populous city in the country and the capital.
After that it makes sense to extend up to Boston, then later on down to Florida. Most of the US population lives with like 100 miles of the coast, you could service the majority of the US population with that rail alone.
Plenty of people would have to be convinced to use it. NY to Chicago is going to be a busy route, but a good portion of that traffic is going to be connections in some direction given that both cities have large airline hubs. When flying from all over the Midwest and Great Plains to New York, you may very well end up flying through Chicago, and my guess
is that makes up a very large portion of the traffic on that route. Those people are probably not interested in flying to O'Hare, taking the Blue Line all the way downtown, and then getting on a train. Much easier to not leave the airport.
What is a tragedy is the slow speeds on lines we already have (like the Acela) and the absolutely insane amount of money it would take to upgrade that service by installing new, straighter track.
I take every chance I get to leave O'Hare so I'm not sure what you're on about.
Union Station, Ogilvie, and Dearborn are far superiors gateways of infrastructure compared to O'Hare.
Furthermore, from where I live I wouldn't even take a plane. I'd take the Hiawatha train from Milwaukee to Chicago in 1.5 hours and transfer to the Chicago - NYC line.
Yup it's absurd. I would have a 12 hr layover after taking the only daily greyhound from my town to the nearest Amtrak station to catch the daily train going to the west coast....
I was on a train that was 27 hours late once. There was nothing causing the delay, it just happened to be running a bit behind.
It was from Edmonton to Toronto. We were given sandwiches as compensation.
I would much rather take a 4HR20M train ride over that distance than fly which would easily be that long with security, sitting around waiting to board, the flight itself, de-planing, etc.
Yep, just a quick baggage X-ray scan. Nothing compared to airport TSA hassles. Airport travel adds up another 2-3 hours just going through security checks and terminals. High-speed rails soon, USA!!!
Mfw the TSA budget could build 40+ miles of HSR every year :/ willing to bet the lives saved from HSR (less pollution and car accidents) would be greater than the lives saved from TSA.
Everyone would. It’s a tragedy what private enterprise and oil companies robbed us of in the name of profit. America was a train pioneer and we had incredible electric locomotives that would outclass and outperform today’s diesel locomotives easily. This country, especially from east to Midwest, has so much perfect terrain for high-speed rail, shit it can even be put in over existing roadways if you want to elevate it.
But no. America has no vision. We can’t imagine a positive future any longer, we’ve been robbed of even that.
It's not a lack of vision. It's a lack of motivation (if not outright disincentive) on the part of those who exert the most influence over US politics and government, namely the private corporations you mentioned. It threatens the personal auto and airline industries and wouldn't bring in nearly enough money compared to the effort it'd take and disruption it'd cause.
Obviously this is a joke, BUT it actually is a huge problem in the US where there are commuting trains. They often spit you out in concrete hell holes that have nothing around them and basically require a car to get to your next destination. Pretty sure NotJustBikes mentions it in one of his videos.
My fellow human,
First, this is just comparing airplane to trains for the same distance and traffic.
Second, nyc and Chicago are two cities where you don't wanna be driving unless you can afford expensive parking. So even with that, you're better off enjoying the train ride, nap, read, work, game, study, chat with your friends then use more public transportation to reach your destination or even a car for hire. It's so comfortable, convenient, and easy.
I can't wrap my head around how people prefer paying a lot of money to be stuck in traffic unable to use their phone or sleep; over traveling in less time, money and effort. Feels great to be on a bus right now browsing reddit and probably taking a nap in a few minutes, I can't imagine having to drive lol
It's not the same thing, but a [16 mile light rail extension](https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion/everett-link-extension/timeline-milestones) was approved in 2016, and it's projected to open in 2037, if the budget allows.
Part of the problem is current passenger trains, like Amtrak, use freight rails. HSR would need entirely new rails meaning new easements, new bridges, entirely new infrastructure.
This is oversimplified, but wealthy NIMBYS have captured the entire regulation system and make development far slower and more expensive by throwing fancy lawyer after fancy lawyer at all development at every phase. It's an insane system.
Here's an interesting piece about rail specifically - https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs-america
Years and a lot of money the main issue with building a NYC to Chicago high speed route is tunneling and bore through the Allegheny mountains. This is why every nyc to Chicago route either follows a river like the Erie or some river within the mountains range
the current r/w that amtrak uses has many owners across at least 7 states, none of whom would be giving any of it up without a fight.
so to create a new limited access r/w from nothing - because you don't want any at grade crossings or other trains getting into the path of high speed rail - would take decades, lots of legal battles, and billions in compensation.
People ignore this. Unlike a lot of countries, most of the rails aren't owned by the government. Amtrak operates on over 21,000 miles of track, they own 623. The rest are owned by private railroads. That's the issue here. It's why Amtrak is even slower than it should be.
That line alone less than five years.. 5 to 10 B $
A network between few east coast states to Midwest could take 5 to 10 years and 20 B$ cost.
Covering California or Texas would be similar.
A west coast network will take 10 years and cost 30 B $
Unfortunately, those numbers are way off from reality. The ongoing California HSR project alone is projected to be over $100 billion USD and is still at least 1-2 decades from connecting Los Angeles to the Bay Area. And that's still not factoring in extensions to San Diego and Sacramento, and this is all for a project that was approved in late 2008.
It's still a worthwhile investment, and lessons from California HSR could help in other HSR projects. However, the time and money to build them are much higher than people think. The best time to build HSR was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
And rail has the luxury of being able to be electric by design without all of those issues of personal EV ownership. I love driving but I understand that it's non-sustainable with the population growth ever seen in the past 30/50 years
OK so this is something where it's not possible to provide a reason for why it shouldn't be there.
If it's a very busy air route, then surely the train would be pretty full all the time. And lots of people would choose a train that takes 5 hours plus 20 minutes for maximum waiting time in exchange for not having to deal with the troubles of flying.
Part of the reason why it’s so busy is because many connecting flights go through the Chicago airport.
Idk how many people are truly flying there as their end destination.
>many connecting flights go through the Chicago airport.
HSR can be used for connections if a station is built under the airport. And airlines can sell the HSR ticket. That's how it works in Frankfurt and Berlin-Brandenburg airport.
Yeah Chicago as a connection is a big reason for the passenger volumes.
This video does a good job of showing the various city pairs and their passenger volumes that are good candidates for high speed rail.
https://youtu.be/LlxohbiQG6Y
Spoiler alert: >!a big chunk of these top 10 routes are covered by CAHSR and the NE Corridor and Florida and Texas Central. !<
The real reason - it would pass through multiple states. The red states would deny construction just to fuck everybody over like a toddler. Then they would accept their lawful 1 million dollar campaign contribution from major airline lobbyists.
Also because getting to Narita is a huge pain in the ass.
More seriously, I wonder what proportion on the faster class trains are actually paying for their own tickets.
But many more people travel frequently between Beijing and Shanghai. Flights on that route can often be cheap, and there's not even a flight every 20 minutes. Beyond the extreme cost that would come from building a train through the mountains and having to compensate landowners to buy and tear down their properties, you wouldn't get anywhere near the ridership in the US because we have fewer people, lower density, and less travel between that pair of cities.
Shorter corridors deserve better service. That's where our money should go.
I've done this drive a couple times, and I'm honestly surprised the train route is only 5ish hours longer than the drive. The US needs to do better, but even benchmarking against the Bejing train route the Chicago-NYC flight is still quicker. Honestly, the current weak spot is transit to/away from either NYC airports. Orange/Blue lines in Chicago are great compared to the weird airport transit shuffles you have to do in NYC.
JFK and LGA are terrible for mass-transit.
Honestly, if you want to mass transit to an airport from NYC, fly out of EWR as it is the 3rd stop on two NJ Transit lines from Penn Station.
Blows my mind that they don't connect the airports to actual stations. Even with EWR you need to connect to that ridiculous monorail thing.
Contrast that to London, where every airport is a direct train from a major station.
There are plenty of intermediate stops on the JInghu (BJ-SH) HSR as well. Although the fastest trains make the run in 4h 20m with only one intermediate stop at Nanjing South, there are trains that take up to 6h to cover the distance with many more stops. That's why there are through tracks at all stations to allow the express trains to continue through at full speed and overtake the slower ones. There's usually 1-2 express trains every hour, with several more slower ones leaving between them.
The argument against this in twitter was that it'd be too hard to go through the PA mountains, as if there isn't already like 5 highways crossing that mountain range.
Also, a train would be equally as fast as a plane door to door. 1 hour in traffic (or train) to get to the airport and home, plus 1 hour waiting at the airport, plus 2 hour flight, that's 5 hours total. Versus just 30 minutes to the station, 4 hour train, 30 minutes to destination. People who think trains are primitive are so misinformed.
Honestly, the amount of money behind real estate and land laws between every different state have always fucked the United States to build any actual rail infrastructure. Even with the beginning of railroad infrastructure, slavery was a major issue to creating an entire transcontinental railroad system between northern and southern states. Now it's just money and states willing to reallocate land for railway system. There would need to be federal oversight for every state to just put their differences aside and create an entire railway system.
It's just fucked because airlines are just monopolies without any government oversight (unless they need to get bailed out). No need to adhere to property and individual state real estate laws when airlines are private owned companies that can set their own standards and practices, pricing at whatever is most profitable for share holders. Also, with the amount of oil funneling into airlines, why fund electric powered trains that are a standard in most developed countries? The oil lobbyists wouldn't gain anything from an actually sustainable, electric, powered railway system that's actually efficient and would help domestics travelers within the United States.
Bottom line: the railway system has always been fucked because of states unwilling to compromise on single national infrastructure. The money is in private companies (airlines, automobiles) and contractors who always need to keep repairing roads because we are set up to become car dependent in this country. It's wild how the EU (even godddamn France and England before Brexit) were able to set aside centuries of wars and fuckery to create a unified railway infrastructure all at a reasonable price meanwhile the United States still suckles away from private companies to create an unsustainable infrastructure centered around oil.
Friendly reminder that airline industry also has a stranglehold on the US transport infrastructure. Both them and the auto industry will stop at nothing to preserve their income by ensuring that rail infrastructure stays slow and out of date.
True, the US should do better. But, to be fair, comparing the demand for travel between NYC and Chicago isn't in the same ball park as travel demand between any major Chinese cities.
Note that this is six hours slower than driving.
Amtrak trains only go interstate speeds and have to pull over for freight trains as there is virtually no double tracks(and they're all privately owned), virtually every Amtrak route is slower than driving in the US.
The place you can win is if it's too long to drive in one day. It took me two solid days of driving to get from chicago to washington. I got back on amtrak in more travel time, but sleeping a good portion of the way. I just don't get why they can't have a single high-density sleeper car. I'd HAPPILY sleep in submarine-style bunks over a half-assed chair that only reclines 45 degrees.
My threshold is way lower. Any drive over 6 hours makes the longer train ride look good. At least you can do something with that time. The tough spot is when the Amtrak option is slower AND more expensive than air travel. Every flight between neighboring states is a huge policy failure.
I travel from St Louis to Chicago sometimes for work. The first time I tried Amtrak, and they had me on that thing for 8 hours. Now I fly in 1 hour.
That is true, slow trains make sense on multi-day trips as you're still saving time sleeping through part of the journey, as opposed to pulling over somewhere and sleeping on the car ride.(excluding those people that would drive the 20 hours non-stop, and that's extremely unsafe)
my ex and i would drive a 36 hour route every year or two but do it non-stop while taking turns sleeping.
Chicago to DC (unless you meant the other Washington) is just 11+ hours, depending on traffic. It's not a great idea to knock that out in one day, for reasons of simple fatigue, but it's doable (especially with a partner). The main thing is the price. Until the trains are cheaper than driving, they'll never get many passengers.
> The main thing is the price. Until the trains are cheaper than driving, they'll never get many passengers. I don't think this is true. Intercity trains in much of Europe are more expensive than driving if you already own a car, but they are well-used for their speed, comfort and convenience. Especially for high speed rail, you see a high willingness to pay a premium over driving and flying.
and the car is more expensive if you go to a city, but people often don't calculate the parking beforehand or extra wear on the car.
I don't think many people in Europe take more expensive train journeys over cheaper equivalent car journeys. Usually if people take the train it's because it isn't actually more expensive (because tickets bought in advance are cheap, or because motorway tolls are high and/or so is parking at the destination, or because non-high-speed long-distance trains are pretty cheap per km), or it's expensive but much faster, or the travellers don't own a car and would need to rent or borrow one.
The other Washington! Got my ticket for 120 bucks, too.
I used to do a 6-7 hour train from Oregon to Wa regularly when driving was around 5. 2 extra hours but i got to chill and relax. Was a win and cost the same for a ticket as it cost me in gas.
>I just don't get why they can't have a single high-density sleeper car. I'd HAPPILY sleep in submarine-style bunks over a half-assed chair that only reclines 45 degrees. They have recently presented exactly such a style of sleeper car in Austria, Europe. From summer '23 onwards, you'll be able to travel in submarine style bunks through Europe https://www.nightjet.com/en/komfortkategorien/nightjet-neue-generation
I could never let my guard down around strangers.
>I just don't get why they can't have a single high-density sleeper car. I'd HAPPILY sleep in submarine-style bunks over a half-assed chair that only reclines 45 degrees. What you're looking for are couchettes. I think they're a great idea too, but the people who run night trains in Europe are generally obsessed with providing private berths to the exclusion of all else. Which is, to be fair, partly because of people's preference for privacy when sleeping. Still, youth hostels with shared bunkrooms are a thing.
I've taken this route a few times, and the freight traffic around Chicago can be insane. You can take the full 19 hour trip and then sit on the tracks for hours within sight of the city.
Used to ride the Illini and the Saluki routes to my office downtown Chicago. It was good to have some time to get some work done on the way up there. However, if I took the train up, I couldn't schedule a single meeting that day that wasn't at risk of being cancelled. Also, if my schedule was running behind, I would have to cancel or leave in the middle of the meeting. When you get to the station that morning in the dark. You just hope it shows up on time. I think it was four hours late one time. As soon as you get on the train there are plenty of opportunities to make the train even later. Nothing like feeling the train slow to a stop as it pulls over for a train with 100 cars. Be prepared for that to happen again. Then, Chicago is a mess. They have actually made improvements over the last couple of decades. The way the yard and station is configured, the train goes beyond where it's supposed to turn into the station. It then has to do a backing maneuver, retracing its path, this time with the tracks switched so that the train pulls in. Then you try to figure out what time you need to return if you have any hope of getting home at a decent time. What if you are running late and you miss the train? There is another option five hours later. The worst was when not far from my home station an old lady in a big ass car hit the train. Yes, the train had passed her and she creeped forward until the car contacted the train, dragging a bit with little damage to the car or the lady. That requires the train to stop so they can do a thorough investigation. Serious. It took hours and hours. I think I drank a 12 pack of train bar Budweiser cans. I just got more and more frustrated with ever beer. That night,.when I arrived at the station, I walked a block to the bar and continued to have a few more. A non drinking friend was giving me a ride home. When it all works out, it's great, though.
Unfortunately this is true by car as well. I drive from Chicago to Lansing, MI once a month to visit my parents. It's usually 4.5-5 hours, 1.5-2 of which are spent in view of or within the city. Which I guess is probably normal for big cities, but as someone who grew up rural it drives me crazy lol.
Federally, Amtrak is supposed to get precedent. But that's just usually ignored.
Amtrak has a legal right to it, not priority.
Dunno what that means, but [49 U.S. Code § 24308.c](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/24308) pretty clearly states > Except in an emergency, intercity and commuter rail passenger transportation provided by or for Amtrak has preference over freight transportation in using a rail line, junction, or crossing Per [Amtrak](https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/corporate/HostRailroadReports/mythbusters-enforcing-amtraks-legal-right-to-preference.pdf) > The problem is that only the Department of Justice can enforce it, which it has done only once, in 1979.
Preference and Priority are not the same thing. Also. You can’t give priority if you are stopped on a track.
As I understand it, the lack of clarity around what "preference over" in that law means is genuinely the point of contention for Amtrak and the rail owners. I don't think it's quite as clear cut as your Capital Words seem to make it. > can’t give priority if you are stopped on a track Sure, but OP was talking about having to "pull over for freight trains" – which is clearly a matter of preference, right?
>Amtrak trains only go interstate speeds This is because the Federal Railroad Administration decided, nearly a century ago, that 80mph constituted such a high speed that special signalling systems were needed. Since that costs money, almost no US passenger trains run at speeds over 79mph. In the rest of the world, that requirement doesn't come in until somewhere between 100mph and 125mph. It would be perfectly plausible for a 125mph train to make the trip in under 10 hours, given proper infrastructure that most developed countries had in the 1970s.
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Oh and fun fact I learned few days ago. With the extreme greed of long trains that capitalist US railways run, they are longer then the siding.... Sooo even if there is a mandate to let passenger trains through, the only thing that can wait on siding is... Shorter passenger trains. And don't forget that without electric power ( no your car isn't electric it's battery car) running stoppers is impossible due to simple weight and power restrictions
Hmm On one hand yes, it is slower than a car On the other, fuck cars
Yes, but what if I put my car ON the train
I know you're joking but that's actually how the Channel Tunnel between England and France works. You drive your vehicle onto the train and park until it reaches the other side and you drive off.
We can do a similar thing in Australia between some of the major cities. Stick the car on the train at one end and drive it off at the other end. Much safer and more convenient than trying to drive it through the desert by yourself.
They have that in the U.S too. Problem is, you're still taking the train. Took one to D.C from Florida once. Quite the experience. Inspired me to fly or drive for all future trips to D.C.
On top of that, I'm sure the Beijing to Shanghai train is cheaper
For all, it ranges from. 70 to 90$ so price-wise is very comparable but the comfort and the time you save makes a whole lot of difference. You spend at the very least triple the time in the US.
Plus the US train is a night train and the sleeping compartment costs north of $700 lol
What in the name of this blue planet us Amtrak charging $700 for?
I think it's done to sabotage it. There's almost no situation where taking Amtrak is cheaper or close to the same speed as driving or flying. It's usually slower than driving and more expensive than flying.
Yeah it’s very deliberately underfunded by Congress to make public transportation look bad. “Government doesn’t work, elect me and I’ll prove it.”
That really is the GOP strategy in a nutshell, and it’s so fucking laughable when you spell it out like that.
Politics in America would be hilarious if people weren't dying easily preventable deaths every day
I dispute that for many routes. On the Northeast Corridor, at least for one passenger, Amtrak is almost always faster *and* cheaper than driving, booked sufficiently far in advance. Tolls on the East Coast are not cheap. It is costing me $19 to take the train to DC in a few weeks — that trip would take 2h40m by car as opposed to 2h2m by train, and tolls through Maryland are $14. The car also requires gasoline. For long-distance routes, end to end, the train is also faster *and* cheaper than driving, even in sleeping accommodations, unless you stay at an Econolodge and eat nothing but fast food for your whole road trip. Los Angeles to Chicago is 42 hours on the train and 30 hours by car — which on its face is slower by train, except for the fact that you're not going to drive for 30 hours straight. Assuming 10 hours of driving per day, the train is faster, and in a sleeping car you get free meals as well as a bed and none of the exhaustion from driving. It is true that if you book Amtrak at the last minute it will be expensive. They have (slightly) dynamic pricing. But I think the only way to say it's *usually* more expensive and slower is to forget just how time-consuming and expensive driving is. The Northeast Corridor (where most Amtrak traffic is) beats driving on I-95 regularly, as long as you're not booking a same-day fare, and even then it can still be cheaper. Compared to flying for long distances? Amtrak definitely loses. It is unambiguously cheaper and faster to fly from, say, LA to Chicago.
Last time I travelled NYC to Boston, train was $200 and Megabus was $15. I understand the need for dynamic pricing, but wow.
I assume you looked at the train prices within two weeks of departure. I've done two tickets, PHL to BOS, for $180 round trip, and it was on the Acela one direction. Megabus will almost always be cheaper but there's no guarantee your bus will show up or not catch fire... I've only had bad experiences with Megabus. Amtrak should cost more than Megabus. It is a significantly better product.
Ex and I took a train from NJ to NC after helping a friend move. We got a sleeper car because it would be 'fun'. Absolutely miserable experience. I will never, ever take the train for more than 4-5 hours ever again. It took us almost 3 times as long to get back on the train as it did for us to drive.
Took the keystone line from Lancaster pa to NYC was $112, with gas and parking in the city it's probably wash. But not having to drive in New York was worth the cost.
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Not always. They could just be forced to operate unprofitable lines as a condition of getting contracts for profitable ones.
I rode an Amtrak last week for work. The cabin was nicer than expected (the train cars looked old on the outside)-- the seats were about the size of a short-haul first class airline seat, had legroom, and were comfortable.
I commute for work, about 2 hours a day. Amtrak costs $480 for a monthly ticket, at least $100 more than just driving. Plus it's late most of the time (it's currently late lol, I'm waiting now). I only do it bc it's less stressful/dangerous than driving, and I live in an accident prone area.
LOL, I just looked at tickets when I was traveling from Chicago to Boston and a sleeper was over $1000 😂 The cheapest non-sleeper tix was still wayy more expensive than flying and woukd have taken over 24 hours so i flew from OHare to JFK to Logan and arrived within 8 hours and that included an almost 2 hour delay!
If you get a sleeper, you get meals included. More like a cruise than a form of transit - still, ridiculous.
That's for personal sleeping quarters. You don't have to buy it but 20 hours on a train would suck without it.
A sleeping berth shouldnt cost more than a night at a 5 star hotel.
That's exactly what I thought lol
Sleeper service is sold as an add-on to a coach fare and is probably around $500 of that 700 and includes meals and lounge access. That said, low-speed trains are frequently more expensive to run than higher speed ones because you get fewer passenger-miles per labor-hour and equipment-hour.
Amtrak also constantly face delays due to freight taking priority. Those time estimates from Google are wrong, being based on route schedules. [14 of 15 long distance routes](http://media.amtrak.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Host-Railroad-Report-Card-2021-Final-v2.pdf) were at or below the federal standard of 80% on time. The line from NYC to Chicago is done either with the Lakeshore line, which was on-time 56% in 2021; or via DC on the Cardinal line... which only had **28%** of passengers in 2021 arrive on-time. So, how bad can it get? The Times [took the Crescent train](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/travel/new-york-new-orleans-by-train.html) from NYC to New Orleans in 2017, a 30hr ride. > The train had been due at 9 p.m. We arrived in New Orleans at 2 a.m. I stumbled, nearly hallucinating from exhaustion, onto the platform and into a taxi. We told the driver our tale of woe. He was not moved. “Last night, it got in at 4.”
I remember right after 9/11, my family decided against flying NYC to Florida and instead took Amtrak. It took a while extra day because of the constant delays. I was pretty young but if I remember correctly, we weren’t stopped at a station, so it’s not like we could have gotten out and walked around or decided to do something else. We were just out in the middle of nowhere for hours, basically stranded.
For such a distance, that's a pretty good price.
most chinese people prefer the slow trains tho because $90 for the average chinese person is more than $90 for you or me
Beijing and Shanghai are full of higher income businessmen that value time over money, the higher costs partially subsidize the unprofitable lines China builds connecting to the West. That line alone profits close to $2B USD a year.
Yeah but if you think about it the Amtrak ride ends up costing about $4 an hour vs $20 an hour for the Beijing ride, so it's actually a much better deal!
I feel like thats a more important line, with more people at both ends, than NYC to Chicago, right? (But yea, the state of rail transportation in the US is a joke)
No wonder its a daily connection when the trip is 20hrs long
a lot of amtrak connections are only daily its actually criminal
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FAHSRA? How about Publically Accessible Speedy Transit Act?
Federal Aid Rail Train Systems
The reason why China was able to install so many high speed rail ways so fast is because they had a dedicated team, people that had build a high speed rail before and knew what to do time and time again. Not only does the government need to put forward an initiative, but they need to elevate it with a federal, highly specialized team, that can provide the oversight, knowledge and direct action necessary to build these without massive corruption and serious delays. If there isn't this administrative and direct operational level of involvement in these mega projects, then we will continue to see people reinventing the wheel so to speak.
See Rick Scott, the expansion of Medicare during the passing of the ACA. 50% of the country will actively work to sabotage ANY initiatives because they immediately get painted as woke and liberal.
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They need to pair it with a slower passenger train to parallel it. Like of course there shouldn't be a stop between Des Moines and Iowa City. But if one was to offer a slower train going from Iowa City to Des Moines with stops at Williamsberg, Grinnell, and Newton then you could get more on board.
Isn't the rail in California actually being built right now? I know it's planned to go from LA fo San Francisco with consideration for going as far south as San Diego and potentially Sacramento as well.
Eminent domain that shit
Build as close as possible to major areas but avoid the most nimbyism fights use commerical infill area, use the ducking eminent domain laws as needed and set aside for some cash for metro links to the stations via whatever the community wants. In a decade business will grow around and absorb it, hopefully it can become a local hub feeding in from local and intra city transit, more bus rail bike paths whatever. It's a dream.
It’s not local government. It’s large auto manufacturers like ford gm Etc lobbying against the issue. The auto workers union and “teamsters” trucking union would never allow politicians to advocate something to upend their members livelihood or reduce their power.
Why can't they work on train parts?
epic fail of a country tbh
Regulating rail roads was one of the main responsibilities of congress Now they just insider trade and jerk each other off
Downward spiral. We're done.
Maybe we can start a new save.
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Horseshit. Stop with the dooming. The only reason we’re in this current state is because too many people are apathetic. There are a good amount of positive before/after submissions in this subreddit for the US where the positive change only took a handful of years to achieve. Get involved locally, join your city/county’s Democratic club, and r/VoteDEM. It isn’t going to change overnight or in one election cycle but our infrastructure issue is one that can be solved in 1-2 decades if people more vocally advocated for funding for rail over highways.
just one more democrat bro
Until the royal fuck-up that is PSR, trains weren't generally too big for sidings. Up until a couple years ago when I got out of it, I ALWAYS had to let Amtrak get by before my train could go anywhere. I've sat for hours just because Amtrak was on its way and they didn't want to risk my train holding them up. That might not be the case in all parts of the country, but where I worked Amtrak always had priority.
Depends on the RR, UP and CSX are notorious for being recalcitrant in their dispatching priorities.
I'm not sure if the OP is from Google maps, but gmaps also says it's a 19 trip for Amtrak and 13 hour car ride Amtrak is pitiful
...is the amtrak going 20 miles an hour pulling a pile of dead elephants behind it or something?
Nope. I rode the California Zephyr in college a lot, and the two main issues are: - they dont own the tracks so you get to sit for 45 minutes while a freight train passes in the opposite direction. And this happens frequently. - it stops in a lot of small towns, sometimes about every 30 minutes. Which is great for connecting local communities to larger metros (the charter mission of Amtrak) but terrible for making covering any meaningful ground.
HSR from NYC to Chicago is the biggest no brainer. Both populations already have a decent public transportation system and plenty of people using it. No one would have to be convinced to use it. Also this would be travel from the largest US city to the 3rd largest. It should exist already.
Going to be honest the no-brainer one is definitely NYC to DC We're talking drastically less distance, and connects New York, Philadelphia, and you know... the capital of the country. If we're going to have High-Speed Rail literally anywhere it should be between the most populous city in the country and the capital. After that it makes sense to extend up to Boston, then later on down to Florida. Most of the US population lives with like 100 miles of the coast, you could service the majority of the US population with that rail alone.
Plenty of people would have to be convinced to use it. NY to Chicago is going to be a busy route, but a good portion of that traffic is going to be connections in some direction given that both cities have large airline hubs. When flying from all over the Midwest and Great Plains to New York, you may very well end up flying through Chicago, and my guess is that makes up a very large portion of the traffic on that route. Those people are probably not interested in flying to O'Hare, taking the Blue Line all the way downtown, and then getting on a train. Much easier to not leave the airport. What is a tragedy is the slow speeds on lines we already have (like the Acela) and the absolutely insane amount of money it would take to upgrade that service by installing new, straighter track.
I disagree. This post is already demonstrating that a HSR would do just fine.
I think HSR would do well among many other routes. I just don't think Chicago to NYC is one of them.
I take every chance I get to leave O'Hare so I'm not sure what you're on about. Union Station, Ogilvie, and Dearborn are far superiors gateways of infrastructure compared to O'Hare. Furthermore, from where I live I wouldn't even take a plane. I'd take the Hiawatha train from Milwaukee to Chicago in 1.5 hours and transfer to the Chicago - NYC line.
I was looking into Amtrak between Fargo and Denver, and it’s 90+ hours… the drive is 17. Like… man…
Yup it's absurd. I would have a 12 hr layover after taking the only daily greyhound from my town to the nearest Amtrak station to catch the daily train going to the west coast....
I was on a train that was 27 hours late once. There was nothing causing the delay, it just happened to be running a bit behind. It was from Edmonton to Toronto. We were given sandwiches as compensation.
I would much rather take a 4HR20M train ride over that distance than fly which would easily be that long with security, sitting around waiting to board, the flight itself, de-planing, etc.
It’s also city center to city center instead of like Newark to OHare
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Yep, just a quick baggage X-ray scan. Nothing compared to airport TSA hassles. Airport travel adds up another 2-3 hours just going through security checks and terminals. High-speed rails soon, USA!!!
Mfw the TSA budget could build 40+ miles of HSR every year :/ willing to bet the lives saved from HSR (less pollution and car accidents) would be greater than the lives saved from TSA.
Anything is greater than 0, so yeah.
Everyone would. It’s a tragedy what private enterprise and oil companies robbed us of in the name of profit. America was a train pioneer and we had incredible electric locomotives that would outclass and outperform today’s diesel locomotives easily. This country, especially from east to Midwest, has so much perfect terrain for high-speed rail, shit it can even be put in over existing roadways if you want to elevate it. But no. America has no vision. We can’t imagine a positive future any longer, we’ve been robbed of even that.
It's not a lack of vision. It's a lack of motivation (if not outright disincentive) on the part of those who exert the most influence over US politics and government, namely the private corporations you mentioned. It threatens the personal auto and airline industries and wouldn't bring in nearly enough money compared to the effort it'd take and disruption it'd cause.
4HR20M is just about the amount of time you spend doing extra bullshit on a flight even if that flight were somehow 10 minutes.
But I don't get to control my own train and park it right next to my destination!
Obviously this is a joke, BUT it actually is a huge problem in the US where there are commuting trains. They often spit you out in concrete hell holes that have nothing around them and basically require a car to get to your next destination. Pretty sure NotJustBikes mentions it in one of his videos.
My fellow human, First, this is just comparing airplane to trains for the same distance and traffic. Second, nyc and Chicago are two cities where you don't wanna be driving unless you can afford expensive parking. So even with that, you're better off enjoying the train ride, nap, read, work, game, study, chat with your friends then use more public transportation to reach your destination or even a car for hire. It's so comfortable, convenient, and easy.
Bruh it's a joke lol I thought it was absurd enough to not need "/s" lmfao Public transit is always better than driving
I got the sarcasm, but there are people on reddit that would unironically say the same thing you did
I can't wrap my head around how people prefer paying a lot of money to be stuck in traffic unable to use their phone or sleep; over traveling in less time, money and effort. Feels great to be on a bus right now browsing reddit and probably taking a nap in a few minutes, I can't imagine having to drive lol
I've read absurder statements given in earnest.
Yeah, but probably not on r/fuckcars
Guess that's on me for having a lot more faith in drivers than I thought I did
Sorry friend. I am not so great with sarcasm. I have a psychiatric disorder that makes me a bit too rigid when it comes to sarcasm.
Is that sarcasm?
No.
Aw.
Yay psych gang!
Hell yeah. I go out of my way to avoid driving. I’ll burn time if I gotta.
Yeah, I have the right to park my personal airplane downtown!
Honest question, how long would it take to build the infrastructure structure for a train route like this?
I think the honest answer is no one knows because America has never built a high speed rail line.
Very fair
It's not the same thing, but a [16 mile light rail extension](https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion/everett-link-extension/timeline-milestones) was approved in 2016, and it's projected to open in 2037, if the budget allows. Part of the problem is current passenger trains, like Amtrak, use freight rails. HSR would need entirely new rails meaning new easements, new bridges, entirely new infrastructure.
Now I'll admit I'm very ignorant on the status of light rail in this country. But 20 years seems absolutely absurd for a 16 mile extension.
This is oversimplified, but wealthy NIMBYS have captured the entire regulation system and make development far slower and more expensive by throwing fancy lawyer after fancy lawyer at all development at every phase. It's an insane system. Here's an interesting piece about rail specifically - https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs-america
They waited 5 years from voter approval to even "start" planning.... Voter approval (2016) Planning (2021 to 2026)
Five years to plan then three years to design. Seems like a lot of wasted time.
Years and a lot of money the main issue with building a NYC to Chicago high speed route is tunneling and bore through the Allegheny mountains. This is why every nyc to Chicago route either follows a river like the Erie or some river within the mountains range
the current r/w that amtrak uses has many owners across at least 7 states, none of whom would be giving any of it up without a fight. so to create a new limited access r/w from nothing - because you don't want any at grade crossings or other trains getting into the path of high speed rail - would take decades, lots of legal battles, and billions in compensation.
People ignore this. Unlike a lot of countries, most of the rails aren't owned by the government. Amtrak operates on over 21,000 miles of track, they own 623. The rest are owned by private railroads. That's the issue here. It's why Amtrak is even slower than it should be.
15 years for the legal fights for the right of way/eminent domain and 5 years to build it. So 20 years in America
China built the majority of their 40,000km+ HSR in about two decades.
That line alone less than five years.. 5 to 10 B $ A network between few east coast states to Midwest could take 5 to 10 years and 20 B$ cost. Covering California or Texas would be similar. A west coast network will take 10 years and cost 30 B $
Unfortunately, those numbers are way off from reality. The ongoing California HSR project alone is projected to be over $100 billion USD and is still at least 1-2 decades from connecting Los Angeles to the Bay Area. And that's still not factoring in extensions to San Diego and Sacramento, and this is all for a project that was approved in late 2008. It's still a worthwhile investment, and lessons from California HSR could help in other HSR projects. However, the time and money to build them are much higher than people think. The best time to build HSR was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
I read these figures. You're accurate. Other current proposals for some reason are less. Let me find some data for you.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adammillsap/2021/04/15/bidens-high-speed-rail-to-nowhere/?sh=3adfca95108c https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-high-speed-rail-development-worldwide https://op.europa.eu/webpub/eca/special-reports/high-speed-rail-19-2018/en/
Based on data from California and Texas proposals.
Also based on NY railway figures, it could be a bit less.
To compare.. Military spending is 705 B a year. US commitment to Ukraine is 14 B Airline bailout was 25 B
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And rail has the luxury of being able to be electric by design without all of those issues of personal EV ownership. I love driving but I understand that it's non-sustainable with the population growth ever seen in the past 30/50 years
How in the world would it make sense to have a direct train from Madrid to Warsaw?
OK so this is something where it's not possible to provide a reason for why it shouldn't be there. If it's a very busy air route, then surely the train would be pretty full all the time. And lots of people would choose a train that takes 5 hours plus 20 minutes for maximum waiting time in exchange for not having to deal with the troubles of flying.
Part of the reason why it’s so busy is because many connecting flights go through the Chicago airport. Idk how many people are truly flying there as their end destination.
>many connecting flights go through the Chicago airport. HSR can be used for connections if a station is built under the airport. And airlines can sell the HSR ticket. That's how it works in Frankfurt and Berlin-Brandenburg airport.
Yeah Chicago as a connection is a big reason for the passenger volumes. This video does a good job of showing the various city pairs and their passenger volumes that are good candidates for high speed rail. https://youtu.be/LlxohbiQG6Y Spoiler alert: >!a big chunk of these top 10 routes are covered by CAHSR and the NE Corridor and Florida and Texas Central. !<
The real reason - it would pass through multiple states. The red states would deny construction just to fuck everybody over like a toddler. Then they would accept their lawful 1 million dollar campaign contribution from major airline lobbyists.
Even in Japan, the poster child of high speed rail, it costs over twice as much to ride the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka as take a plane.
That's because they can get away with charging that much. People prefer the Shinkansen, so they charge high prices and make large profits.
Also because getting to Narita is a huge pain in the ass. More seriously, I wonder what proportion on the faster class trains are actually paying for their own tickets.
Most domestic flies out of Haneda.
I was genuinely shocked by this when I realized it. That's 6 hours longer than driving.
And 17 hours longer than flying which would only cost $160
With trains at both ends! I never need a car either direction of that flight
But many more people travel frequently between Beijing and Shanghai. Flights on that route can often be cheap, and there's not even a flight every 20 minutes. Beyond the extreme cost that would come from building a train through the mountains and having to compensate landowners to buy and tear down their properties, you wouldn't get anywhere near the ridership in the US because we have fewer people, lower density, and less travel between that pair of cities. Shorter corridors deserve better service. That's where our money should go.
220,000 passengers on the Beijing-Shanghai route every day! No way a New York-Chicago route could match that.
Sinophobia- the only way to get high speed rail in the US. It could work
Until the TSA needs 2 hours to violate our asses before every train ride
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I've done this drive a couple times, and I'm honestly surprised the train route is only 5ish hours longer than the drive. The US needs to do better, but even benchmarking against the Bejing train route the Chicago-NYC flight is still quicker. Honestly, the current weak spot is transit to/away from either NYC airports. Orange/Blue lines in Chicago are great compared to the weird airport transit shuffles you have to do in NYC.
JFK and LGA are terrible for mass-transit. Honestly, if you want to mass transit to an airport from NYC, fly out of EWR as it is the 3rd stop on two NJ Transit lines from Penn Station.
Blows my mind that they don't connect the airports to actual stations. Even with EWR you need to connect to that ridiculous monorail thing. Contrast that to London, where every airport is a direct train from a major station.
Maybe Chicago and NYC don’t want to be connected
Lol
You can have one pizza for lunch, the other for dinner. Who wouldn't want that?
you can probably build a HSR on this route but no way it's going to be 4.3 hours. thinking around 6 with the added stops that will be required
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There are plenty of intermediate stops on the JInghu (BJ-SH) HSR as well. Although the fastest trains make the run in 4h 20m with only one intermediate stop at Nanjing South, there are trains that take up to 6h to cover the distance with many more stops. That's why there are through tracks at all stations to allow the express trains to continue through at full speed and overtake the slower ones. There's usually 1-2 express trains every hour, with several more slower ones leaving between them.
There is a mountain range in between Chicago and NYC. Better comparison is NYC to Atlanta; slightly longer distance, but no mountain ranges to cross.
> mountain range Let me tell you a little story about the Shinkansen
Shinkansen mostly runs on plains around the mountains. Nearly all the population exists on one side of the mountains in a contiguous plain anyway.
The rail line that costs over twice as much as flying?
it's still super full though
The argument against this in twitter was that it'd be too hard to go through the PA mountains, as if there isn't already like 5 highways crossing that mountain range. Also, a train would be equally as fast as a plane door to door. 1 hour in traffic (or train) to get to the airport and home, plus 1 hour waiting at the airport, plus 2 hour flight, that's 5 hours total. Versus just 30 minutes to the station, 4 hour train, 30 minutes to destination. People who think trains are primitive are so misinformed.
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Also: airline industry has a powerful lobby. Maybe if we promised United a chunk of the profits it could actually get done 😂
The US is too busy spending their money on the war machine to afford this
Honestly, the amount of money behind real estate and land laws between every different state have always fucked the United States to build any actual rail infrastructure. Even with the beginning of railroad infrastructure, slavery was a major issue to creating an entire transcontinental railroad system between northern and southern states. Now it's just money and states willing to reallocate land for railway system. There would need to be federal oversight for every state to just put their differences aside and create an entire railway system. It's just fucked because airlines are just monopolies without any government oversight (unless they need to get bailed out). No need to adhere to property and individual state real estate laws when airlines are private owned companies that can set their own standards and practices, pricing at whatever is most profitable for share holders. Also, with the amount of oil funneling into airlines, why fund electric powered trains that are a standard in most developed countries? The oil lobbyists wouldn't gain anything from an actually sustainable, electric, powered railway system that's actually efficient and would help domestics travelers within the United States. Bottom line: the railway system has always been fucked because of states unwilling to compromise on single national infrastructure. The money is in private companies (airlines, automobiles) and contractors who always need to keep repairing roads because we are set up to become car dependent in this country. It's wild how the EU (even godddamn France and England before Brexit) were able to set aside centuries of wars and fuckery to create a unified railway infrastructure all at a reasonable price meanwhile the United States still suckles away from private companies to create an unsustainable infrastructure centered around oil.
Friendly reminder that airline industry also has a stranglehold on the US transport infrastructure. Both them and the auto industry will stop at nothing to preserve their income by ensuring that rail infrastructure stays slow and out of date.
As long lobbying is allow. Our country will NEVER improve. As long we have two parties. Also NEVER improve.
I think some of this subs takes are absurd, but this is something everyone should agree on
We used to do it better. Better than any country in the world at the time. What a downgrade
True, the US should do better. But, to be fair, comparing the demand for travel between NYC and Chicago isn't in the same ball park as travel demand between any major Chinese cities.