150mph is pretty slow for a decent cross country high speed rail service. For example the Chinese HSR hits Max speeds of 240mph with the single longest bit of track covering just over 1800 miles so not only is it possible its already been done.
China’s high speed rail loses enormous amounts of money. Even when you consider the secondary and tertiary economic effects. Even the Chinese government has more or less given up on it.
All public transit doesn’t make money. Even the United States interstate system hasn’t made a single penny in profit.
Public transit shouldn’t need to make a profit. It’s cool if it does, but it inherently shouldn’t need to.
The benefits of making people travel for jobs and places to spend money generates more tax revenue and more money for businesses than if they were stuck at home otherwise.
Precisely this. “Hey you need to make money” is what’s effectively killed Amtrak, and it killed passenger rail in much of the US (what wasn’t torn up by highway building).
It loses huge amounts of money because they’re connecting the entire country, even remote rural areas. There are benefits to that but profit is not one of them.
Compare it to the interstate highway network in the US. We have good highway access to every state, every region, no matter how remote. I live near interstate I-90 and it serves a huge amount of traffic, well worth the cost. The same is probably true at the other end 3,000 miles away, but can you say that about most of the distance? Very few people would drive the full distance , and Montana for example, can’t have much traffic. This road loses an enormous amount of money, for most of it.
The entire interstate highway system in the US loses an enormous amount of money and is just not worth it financially. However I would argue it was well worth doing, has been a huge benefit to the country, and is exactly analogous to the same question about a nationwide passenger rail network
What do you mean given up? They’re still laying more rails and running more trains than ever. Even running dozens of trains a day, like 95% of the time the trains are fully booked, or it’s just soft sleepers and maybe standing available if you try to book the day of, or even a few days in advance for longer routes.
They said average speed. Those max speeds are only reachable along certain parts of the track, sometimes straight up unachievable between some stops. Mostly they travel well below their max speeds. I would not be surprised if the average speed is not that far from 150 for most of the lines they service, though I don’t have any numbers on hand.
So leave Saturday morning say 8, take a train at 9, get there around 9pm, get to your hotel by 10pm go to bed by 11pm get up at 6. Go have your breakfast meeting, leave for the train station around 8 to leave by 9am to get back by 9pm to get home, get ready for bed and go to work in the morning.
That is not a weekend trip to me. That’s a sitting in transportation for an entire weekend and not doing much of anything.
Sounds about the same as flying. Took 12 hrs to get from Cleveland OH to Venice FL. Took a redeye to Chicago, had a layover then took a flight from there to Sarasota FL. Left around 2AM and got in around 2PM.
Airplanes travel faster, but the whole system moves slower. Can’t say whether a train system would be better though…
Update: for shits and giggles, I looked at getting a ticket to Chicago on our rail system. The fastest route was 10HRs and it involves driving to Indianapolis and taking the shortest direct train from there. To put that in comparison, my drive to Chicago is ~5.5hrs. Greyhound Bus gets me there in 9 hrs.
So no, it’s not even close. That’s how bad the rail network is here. If you want to get somewhere, you need almost 3x the time to drive, you’d still need to drive for hours, and the cheapest ticket is 55 bucks one way.
Jeez not sure why that was so rough
Today’s flights
Like why would anyone take that third flight with the stop? Just show up slightly later for cheaper… “I left 8 hours later and got their 20 mins later”. Airlines are crazy sometimes
The airlines are just showing your all the options. There’s a plane going to Denver and a plane leaving from Denver to your destination. The system is not doing anything to determine if that’s a good idea or not, it’s just showing you there are connected dots there. It’s not a planned itinerary that someone decided on.
I usually like the demeaning flights if I have to fly, so I shoot for Spirit. And I try to keep to just a backpack if I can, a tiny suitcase I can carry on instead if I need dress clothes.
Last time I flew Nashville to Orlando I threw a couple items in a grocery bag and went with that. All my toiletries are usually in a small zip up bag.
Spirit is terrible, but when it’s $44 for the flight why not. I’m already going to get sexually harassed by TSA, I’m not really fretting the attendant running in circles wondering where the pilot is at.
Then don’t make that choice for that trip? Make that choice where it is a good choice. For x stops, there are mathematically like x^2 possible trips, each with varying number of people that make that choice. If there are ten stops, there’s like 100 possible trips that are possible on a line and many of this will be the best choice for many people
Do you disagree with the interstate highway system if you’d never drive to Vermont? Do you disagree with the global air network because you’d never fly to Talinn (shout out to my Estonian buddy in this thread). The network effect, connecting the dots, supporting the vast number of intermediate trips is what makes the whole system worthwhile, even if you personally would not use parts of it
There ain’t shit in the middle except for Colorado.
I say this tongue in cheek, I definitely have a plan to fly my family to Denver to start an RV road trip, because I think the most beautiful places in the US are out in that no man’s land. The coasts are just the best parts.
150mph is pretty slow for a decent cross country high speed rail service. For example the Chinese HSR hits Max speeds of 240mph with the single longest bit of track covering just over 1800 miles so not only is it possible its already been done.
OP means It’s impossible for Americans because we’re just so dumb.
Emotionally dumb. Self gimped in ever way. It’s all quite performative of us to collectively fail to accomplish anything as a nation.
China’s high speed rail loses enormous amounts of money. Even when you consider the secondary and tertiary economic effects. Even the Chinese government has more or less given up on it.
All public transit doesn’t make money. Even the United States interstate system hasn’t made a single penny in profit.
Public transit shouldn’t need to make a profit. It’s cool if it does, but it inherently shouldn’t need to.
The benefits of making people travel for jobs and places to spend money generates more tax revenue and more money for businesses than if they were stuck at home otherwise.
Precisely this. “Hey you need to make money” is what’s effectively killed Amtrak, and it killed passenger rail in much of the US (what wasn’t torn up by highway building).
It loses huge amounts of money because they’re connecting the entire country, even remote rural areas. There are benefits to that but profit is not one of them.
Compare it to the interstate highway network in the US. We have good highway access to every state, every region, no matter how remote. I live near interstate I-90 and it serves a huge amount of traffic, well worth the cost. The same is probably true at the other end 3,000 miles away, but can you say that about most of the distance? Very few people would drive the full distance , and Montana for example, can’t have much traffic. This road loses an enormous amount of money, for most of it.
The entire interstate highway system in the US loses an enormous amount of money and is just not worth it financially. However I would argue it was well worth doing, has been a huge benefit to the country, and is exactly analogous to the same question about a nationwide passenger rail network
What do you mean given up? They’re still laying more rails and running more trains than ever. Even running dozens of trains a day, like 95% of the time the trains are fully booked, or it’s just soft sleepers and maybe standing available if you try to book the day of, or even a few days in advance for longer routes.
They said average speed. Those max speeds are only reachable along certain parts of the track, sometimes straight up unachievable between some stops. Mostly they travel well below their max speeds. I would not be surprised if the average speed is not that far from 150 for most of the lines they service, though I don’t have any numbers on hand.
So leave Saturday morning say 8, take a train at 9, get there around 9pm, get to your hotel by 10pm go to bed by 11pm get up at 6. Go have your breakfast meeting, leave for the train station around 8 to leave by 9am to get back by 9pm to get home, get ready for bed and go to work in the morning.
That is not a weekend trip to me. That’s a sitting in transportation for an entire weekend and not doing much of anything.
Sounds about the same as flying. Took 12 hrs to get from Cleveland OH to Venice FL. Took a redeye to Chicago, had a layover then took a flight from there to Sarasota FL. Left around 2AM and got in around 2PM.
Airplanes travel faster, but the whole system moves slower. Can’t say whether a train system would be better though…
Update: for shits and giggles, I looked at getting a ticket to Chicago on our rail system. The fastest route was 10HRs and it involves driving to Indianapolis and taking the shortest direct train from there. To put that in comparison, my drive to Chicago is ~5.5hrs. Greyhound Bus gets me there in 9 hrs.
So no, it’s not even close. That’s how bad the rail network is here. If you want to get somewhere, you need almost 3x the time to drive, you’d still need to drive for hours, and the cheapest ticket is 55 bucks one way.
Jeez not sure why that was so rough Today’s flights
Like why would anyone take that third flight with the stop? Just show up slightly later for cheaper… “I left 8 hours later and got their 20 mins later”. Airlines are crazy sometimes
The airlines are just showing your all the options. There’s a plane going to Denver and a plane leaving from Denver to your destination. The system is not doing anything to determine if that’s a good idea or not, it’s just showing you there are connected dots there. It’s not a planned itinerary that someone decided on.
Pre-covid, and peak season would be my guess. It was January 2020 that we went.
I usually like the demeaning flights if I have to fly, so I shoot for Spirit. And I try to keep to just a backpack if I can, a tiny suitcase I can carry on instead if I need dress clothes.
Last time I flew Nashville to Orlando I threw a couple items in a grocery bag and went with that. All my toiletries are usually in a small zip up bag.
Spirit is terrible, but when it’s $44 for the flight why not. I’m already going to get sexually harassed by TSA, I’m not really fretting the attendant running in circles wondering where the pilot is at.
Then don’t make that choice for that trip? Make that choice where it is a good choice. For x stops, there are mathematically like x^2 possible trips, each with varying number of people that make that choice. If there are ten stops, there’s like 100 possible trips that are possible on a line and many of this will be the best choice for many people
Do you disagree with the interstate highway system if you’d never drive to Vermont? Do you disagree with the global air network because you’d never fly to Talinn (shout out to my Estonian buddy in this thread). The network effect, connecting the dots, supporting the vast number of intermediate trips is what makes the whole system worthwhile, even if you personally would not use parts of it
Cross country doesn’t have to be coast to coast.
There ain’t shit in the middle except for Colorado.
I say this tongue in cheek, I definitely have a plan to fly my family to Denver to start an RV road trip, because I think the most beautiful places in the US are out in that no man’s land. The coasts are just the best parts.