NE corridor carved out from Amtrak

[Az]

2 hr flight is unfair, since it's more expensive, and you add a couple of hours of airport "action" on each end.

The thing to compare rail to is cars. If it's faster than a car, then it has great potential, IMO. However, NY-Chicago takes less than 16 hrs by car, AFAIK.

Btw, what's with the bad schedule performance, I thought Amtrak had right of way on all tracks ( as it should have )

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Az
2 hr flight is unfair, since it's more expensive, and you add a couple of hours of airport "action" on each end.

The thing to compare rail to is cars. If it's faster than a car, then it has great potential, IMO. However, NY-Chicago takes less than 16 hrs by car, AFAIK.

Btw, what's with the bad schedule performance, I thought Amtrak had right of way on all tracks ( as it should have )

The air travel comparison is valid, and its why I think Amtrak is more viable on shorter routes. The shorter the route, the more likely that air hassle + travel time = train time. But on a longer route, even with the airport hassle, the time savings is just too significant. Teh car comparison isn't as valid because the primary use for trains could be business people, who can get work done on planes and trains but not in cars.

And iirc, Amtrak never has right-of-way, and always has to cede its track to Conrail when their needs conflict; that's the main reason why Amtrak, especially on longer routes, have so much trouble with their schedules.

[Az]

Teh car comparison isn't as valid because the primary use for trains could be business people, who can get work done on planes and trains but not in cars.

I am not sure I get it. If travelling by car takes approximately the same amount of time, and costs approximately the same ( I assume this, I admit ), how is it an unfair comparison?

I guess it's a whole different world here, so it's difficult for me to understand.
Israel Railways, the government monopoly of all tracks and trains, runs both cargo and passanger services. It loses money on passanger service, it makes money on cargo service ( approximately making ends meet ), and it's expansion is funded by the government. Train tickets here are competitive against car travel.

[Zylka]

Originally posted by DanS
I'd be interested in hearing from AS about how many tens of billions it would take to do bullet trains in the NE corridor.

ALBERT SPEER?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Az

Teh car comparison isn't as valid because the primary use for trains could be business people, who can get work done on planes and trains but not in cars.

I am not sure I get it. If travelling by car takes approximately the same amount of time, and costs approximately the same ( I assume this, I admit ), how is it an unfair comparison?

I'm suggesting that the real difference is the difference between being transported and having to do the work of transporting yourself. You can't read a book/watch a movie/play civ/ work on that quarterly report while driving yourself to NY. An airplane and a car are both venues for work or leisure; a car is only a venue for driving yourself. If you take a train or plane, you give up money; driving, you give up time and money.

[VetLegion]

Israel is probably different since I assume it started building the rail network from the ground up matching demand and didn't have a decline of traffic yet.

Most networks in other countries are ancient, in Europe and USA the track length reached the peak before first world war and declined ever since as railroads seem to be in a constant downsizing process.

[Az]

Sort of. We did have an ok network, ( for the time ) in the beginning of the century, it was then modified by the british, but it was crippled by warfare in the independence war and never restored to it's previous "glory". So basically, you're right. sort of.

I'm suggesting that the real difference is the difference between being transported and having to do the work of transporting yourself. You can't read a book/watch a movie/play civ/ work on that quarterly report while driving yourself to NY. An airplane and a car are both venues for work or leisure; a car is only a venue for driving yourself. If you take a train or plane, you give up money; driving, you give up time and money.

So, what's the problem with Amtrak NY to Chi again? don't people drive that way, too?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Az
So, what's the problem with Amtrak NY to Chi again? don't people drive that way, too?

Nobody with any money (and the train is not significantly cheaper than cheap airfare) or any time constraints would bother with the train on that route. Plus, cars are actually significantly cheaper than the train in the US, where we don't tax the hell out of our gasoline. So teh train on long routes becomes a compromise transport that pleases no one because it's both expensive relative to driving and very slow relative to flying.

[Az]

WRT non-taxation of cars, are cars in the US subsidized (i.e. does whatever taxation that is applied to them cover highway maintenance and development costs, as well as enviromental damage)?

[Theben]

I agree that we should start with the NE corridor, maybe LA-SF-Oakland also. It would HAVE to be high-speed. A Chicago-Detroit or Chicago-Milwaukee route might work too.

and to Oerdin on his assessment of who should own the rails.

[Sandman]

If you're going to meddle with the railways, it's not a good idea to have a state-owned network and privately operated rolling stock. That's what Britain has.

[Spiffor]

This is the sqdly trend in many countries. Though Britain, as it has been a trailblazer in this field, has shown many failures that other countries are trying to avoid (efforts about a good coordination betweem companies, efforts about avoiding local monopolies etc.)

As much as I hate to say it, the competition of privately operated rolling stock seems to be working acceptably well in Sweden.

[Az]

AFAIK, There is no price competition there. the private companies are simply subcontractors that operate the rolling stock.

[Spiffor]

Yes, I think it works that way (at least, in Germany, the privatized sector works that way): there is a bidding process, and the subcontractors have to win and to keep the favour of the political institutions.

[DanS]

Most networks in other countries are ancient, in Europe and USA the track length reached the peak before first world war and declined ever since as railroads seem to be in a constant downsizing process.

It is more complicated in the US, at least for passenger rail. Passenger rail basically died 50 years ago, and you only have very minimal intercity traffic outside of the NE corridor.

However, recently, we have been seeing a renaissance of commuter rail, as our cities become larger and the auto traffic becomes more congested. For instance, in the Washington, D.C. area (which has more than doubled in population the last 30 years), the Virgina commuter rail started in the early 1990s. Overall, in the Washington area, there are about 45,000 people who take commuter rail to work. Normally, the commuter rail runs on the track that the freight rail companies own and maintain.

Freight rail is healthy in the US and operates some 140,000 miles of track. It transports about 1.6 trillion ton-miles a year, or over 5,000 ton-miles per person in the US. There has been no letup in growth of ton-miles transported over the last 100+ years.