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I guess eventually we will have 24 lanes each way from NY to Fl via new Turnpikes meanwhile Amtrak will still be ambling along at 60 MPH on the one/two tracks from VA to Fl.
Car drivers just don't want the train. Unless they can put their cars on the train.
A major mistake was made in the formative years of Amtrak which illustrates why centralized planning for transportation is not a good idea.
In the last years of passenger operation by the private railroads, all four of the rail passenger carriers serving the market between Chicago and the Pacific Northwest pursued a "two-schedule" strategy. One daily departure in each direction carried full amenities like diners, observation cars and, in some cases, Vista-Domes (great fun for a railroad buff who knew how to read trackside signals). A second, more-"plebian" schedule handled storage mail and "express" (UPS-oriented high-value shipments) that actually contributed far more toward the indirect expenses.
But when Amtrak was established in 1971, the bureaucrats who organized it (and were to order new equipment some nine years later when the service was envisioned as permanent, rather than a stop-gap measure mostly for the benefit of the elderly and the non-flier) thought only in terms of the long-distance "cruise ships" and the "head-end" business that covered much of the "overhead" was abandoned.
Amtrak did make an attempt to recover some high-value perishable business with a fleet of "express cars" equipped with running gear suitable for passenger train speeds c. 2005, but it was a case of too little and too late; this sort of thinking is regrettably common in "businesses" not directly answerable to the discipline of the private sector.
And I really doubt that we need another layer of self-perpetuating bureaucracy to "co-ordinate" fluctuations in traffic. The vast majority of long-distance travel is now the province of the airlines who, I can assure you, know how to make the best use of a large, but still finite pool of equipment. And individual responses, driven by supply and demand, have been encouraging more people, the young and adaptable in particular, to organize less of their personal lives around the auto-centric culture. We can adjust, and in fact, are already doing so.
You nailed it right there. People are complaining about the interstate highway system killing passenger trains off, and the trucking industry (which is actually in bed with the rail roads), and big oil. etc. None of them have brought up airplanes though which is another major factor of what killed passenger rail in the United States. Trains can't compete with an airplane going 600 mph across the country. People don't want to spend more than a day traveling across the country on business or during a trip when flying it can be done in a few hours.
But of course trains can't compete with planes for long distance travel. But are we discussing trains in that context? High speed rail is meant for medium-distance travel, say 150 to at most 500 miles. But people keep bringing up absorb situations for practical train travel, as in across the country or halfway across the country. No one flies from western Massachusetts to New York City, but a train could be reasonable.
A major mistake was made in the formative years of Amtrak which illustrates why centralized planning for transportation is not a good idea.
However, France's state owned SNCF does rather well and even makes a profit. A number of countries have well run government owned rail. Amtrak is just badly run.
I understand your argument, but the fundamental difference between the passenger-oriented European systems and a very efficient, but freight-oriented North American system would make this a long and costly process. Developments on the Northeast Corridor and the breaking of ground for a West Coast system are steps toward what you're looking for.
Ok, though that doesn't contradict that intercity rail within the Northeast is generally bad for international standards. The freight volumes in most of the Northeast aren't that high; it's not that freight oriented of a system. Looking at North America as a whole may give a simplistic picture. For example, in the high passenger volume and low freight NYC area, using positive train control rules borrowed from Europe rather than the freight oriented rules being made in the US.
Although the US mainline rail system is freight-primary, with different needs from those of Europe south of Scandinavia (e.g. critical trunk lines are thousands of kilometers long and lie in sparsely-populated territory), the same can’t be said of the Northeastern commuter rail lines, most of which only see a few daily freight trains and are dominated by tidal flows of commuter trains with high traffic density at rush hour. Rush hour traffic levels approaching 20 tph per track are routine, with 24-26 on the Northeast Corridor entering Penn Station from New Jersey. It is incompetent to try to adapt a system developed for long-distance low-cost freight railroads and ignore one developed for busy commuter lines just because it has an E for European in its name.
But of course trains can't compete with planes for long distance travel. But are we discussing trains in that context? High speed rail is meant for medium-distance travel, say 150 to at most 500 miles. But people keep bringing up absorb situations for practical train travel, as in across the country or halfway across the country. No one flies from western Massachusetts to New York City, but a train could be reasonable.
Yeah we are since people keep bringing up wanting to travel over 500 miles via high speed train whenever rail gets brought up on City Data. Short distances it works but for long travel across multiple states (not small states) your better off flying. Quite a few people on here just don't seem to comprehend that.
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Originally Posted by nei
However, France's state owned SNCF does rather well and even makes a profit. A number of countries have well run government owned rail. Amtrak is just badly run.
The regular rail road companies used to offer passenger rail service but it stopped making money so that stopped the service. My view on Amtrak is that what service it does offer when it's on time is great but it's not always are even usually on time in a lot of areas. If you could find a way to make passenger rail profitable for for the rail roads again you would see passenger rail service explode throughout the country faster then anything Amtrak could offer.
The only problem is can passenger rail actually be made profitable in the United States? Outside of the densely populated Boston-Washington DC corridor and a few other areas it seems like that is not the case. Even in the densely populated Boston-Washington DC corridor that might not be the case since Amtrak loses money ever year badly run or not it doesn't provide much enthusiasm for the rail roads to create passenger rail throughout the United States.
For advocates of increased public transportation via rail (and I consider myself among them) it really needs to make a profit so money spent on increasing public transportation gets general support instead of derision which it currently gets a lot of. If it makes money consistently you will get more public support for it. Which means projects connecting the country and costing all together combined costing more than a trillion could get built.
Now as far as the European and Asian comparisons go the fact of the matter is North America is just not as densely populated as France or Japan is. People bring these countries up not an accurate comparison to the US. Japan is slightly smaller then California and has a population over 126 million people. The US there is no real comparison to that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei
Ok, though that doesn't contradict that intercity rail within the Northeast is generally bad for international standards. The freight volumes in most of the Northeast aren't that high; it's not that freight oriented of a system. Looking at North America as a whole may give a simplistic picture. For example, in the high passenger volume and low freight NYC area, using positive train control rules borrowed from Europe rather than the freight oriented rules being made in the US.
The Freight volumes in the Northeast aren't that high if you focus on New York and New England. Pennsylvania freight traffic is very high and New Jersey also sees it's share of freight rail traffic to. Which makes sence for New Jersey since things like Intermodal containers go to New Jersey and then are drove into NYC. Although there is or at least were talks about building a new intermodal terminal on long island to deal with freight going into NYC. Anyway the point I'm getting at is that to be blunt New England really doesn't make much of anything and did not have near as strong as of an industrial base as other areas of the country have or had. New England is known as a blackhole for freight in most cases. You can get freight going to New England but getting Freight coming out of New England is whole other story. New England is the oddball when it comes to rail in the United States.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei
Although the US mainline rail system is freight-primary, with different needs from those of Europe south of Scandinavia (e.g. critical trunk lines are thousands of kilometers long and lie in sparsely-populated territory), the same can’t be said of the Northeastern commuter rail lines, most of which only see a few daily freight trains and are dominated by tidal flows of commuter trains with high traffic density at rush hour. Rush hour traffic levels approaching 20 tph per track are routine, with 24-26 on the Northeast Corridor entering Penn Station from New Jersey. It is incompetent to try to adapt a system developed for long-distance low-cost freight railroads and ignore one developed for busy commuter lines just because it has an E for European in its name.https://pedestrianobservations.wordp...train-control/
As far as the blog about the Metro North crash goes it shows is just all around incompetence with a lack of implementing required standards. Getting waivers for those standards because it didn't feel like implementing them. Then blowing the money they are given on union pay increases and then crying foul about lack of funds for more safety features. If anything to be honest the blog gives those who are anti public transportation more ammo because it points out overall stupidity and wasting money of those involved.
You nailed it right there. People are complaining about the interstate highway system killing passenger trains off, and the trucking industry (which is actually in bed with the rail roads), and big oil. etc. None of them have brought up airplanes though which is another major factor of what killed passenger rail in the United States. Trains can't compete with an airplane going 600 mph across the country. People don't want to spend more than a day traveling across the country on business or during a trip when flying it can be done in a few hours.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cwa1984
Yeah we are since people keep bringing up wanting to travel over 500 miles via high speed train whenever rail gets brought up on City Data. Short distances it works but for long travel across multiple states (not small states) your better off flying. Quite a few people on here just don't seem to comprehend that.
...
Except that when traveling, say, from El Paso, TX/Las Cruces, NM to Denver, CO, one is NOT better off flying.
There are few, if any, direct flights from ELP to DEN so a trip that should take at most around an hour, ends up taking 3,4,5 hours because one has to fly to Phoenix or ABQ or DFW or Houston because of the hub system.
The only current public transportation alternative is Greyhound and that takes 12+ hours.
I am sure that many other examples of this sort of gap exists in the under-served west.
Yes, I've no doubt that it would cost many fortunes to run a line parallel to I-25 or to cut across the desert in any fashion, but, to argue that flying provides reasonable alternatives for this sort of travel is simply not accurate.
Except that when traveling, say, from El Paso, TX/Las Cruces, NM to Denver, CO, one is NOT better off flying.
There are few, if any, direct flights from ELP to DEN so a trip that should take at most around an hour, ends up taking 3,4,5 hours because one has to fly to Phoenix or ABQ or DFW or Houston because of the hub system.
The only current public transportation alternative is Greyhound and that takes 12+ hours.
I am sure that many other examples of this sort of gap exists in the under-served west.
Yes, I've no doubt that it would cost many fortunes to run a line parallel to I-25 or to cut across the desert in any fashion, but, to argue that flying provides reasonable alternatives for this sort of travel is simply not accurate.
You have flights going from El Paso to Denver that take a little over 5 hours. Yes you stop in Phoenix but it still beats driving roughly 9.5 hours or taking a bus that takes over 12 hours to get there.
The reason why it takes longer to get there is the additional stop. El Paso just has a small population is the reason why it doesn't have direct flights but considering that flying cuts hours off the trip you would better off time wise flying vs taking the bus or driving.
Yeah we are since people keep bringing up wanting to travel over 500 miles via high speed train whenever rail gets brought up on City Data. Short distances it works but for long travel across multiple states (not small states) your better off flying. Quite a few people on here just don't seem to comprehend that.
Can those who do bring up long distances explain why they're using them as examples?
Quote:
Now as far as the European and Asian comparisons go the fact of the matter is North America is just not as densely populated as France or Japan is. People bring these countries up not an accurate comparison to the US. Japan is slightly smaller then California and has a population over 126 million people. The US there is no real comparison to that.
It really is an accurate comparison in some cases, that's a bit of a myth. The Northeast US (including Maryland and DC) has a similar population density to France. California has a similar population density to Spain. Nothing compares to Japan, true but there is definitely some overlap with Europe. And even looking at overall population density of less dense places can understate the use of rail. Washington and Oregon overall aren't high density but most of the population is concentrated in one corridor from Eugene northward with Vancouver just over the border. The rest of the region is unsuitable for anything close to high speed rail. The population of the corridor matters for a rail line not the entire region. I've taken high speed rail in Spain, the area south of Madrid on the rail line was rather empty, not even much in the way of towns. It's less crowded than the Northeast Corridor or any of the rail lines nearby. Or, maybe even a Portland-Seattle line
Quote:
The Freight volumes in the Northeast aren't that high if you focus on New York and New England. Pennsylvania freight traffic is very high and New Jersey also sees it's share of freight rail traffic to. Which makes sence for New Jersey since things like Intermodal containers go to New Jersey and then are drove into NYC. Although there is or at least were talks about building a new intermodal terminal on long island to deal with freight going into NYC.
Ok, but not every line has lots of freight. The Northeast Corridor doesn't have much freight, and neither do most NJTransit commuter rail lines. The Philadelphia-Harrisburg Amtrak line is one of the more successful ones off the Northeast Corridor, even if Pennsylvania in general has a lot of freight.
Quote:
As far as the blog about the Metro North crash goes it shows is just all around incompetence with a lack of implementing required standards. Getting waivers for those standards because it didn't feel like implementing them. Then blowing the money they are given on union pay increases and then crying foul about lack of funds for more safety features. If anything to be honest the blog gives those who are anti public transportation more ammo because it points out overall stupidity and wasting money of those involved.
It does show incompetence, but the main point is those standards are a bad fit for the railroad.
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). A second, more-"plebian" schedule handled storage mail and "express" (UPS-oriented high-value shipments) that actually contributed far more toward the indirect expenses.
