Why do trains suck in the U.S.? (9 min. Video)

[enoreeman]

I just hate being crammed into a sardine can with zero comfort and no fresh air to breathe.

 

[leacrane]

I love that video. It is simple. It avoids the political cliches that are spouted when people moan about Amtrak. The first 3 minutes pretty much summed up what people who want more trains ignore

This is a huge sparsely populated country compared to EU nations. How many people are willing to take 15 to 60 hours traveling long distance when they could fly in 3 to 6 hours.?(I am. You too. But we are a tiny minority)

As far as the NE corridor the video points out how expensive a rebuild would be. Plus try to get folks from the rest of the country to pay for it.

The idea that some corporate government conspiracy led us to be built on highways and airplanes is just nonsense. They are what people want and what makes sense with our size. The video points out that in Europe people can get door to door by train. Impossible here with our suburbs. I love trains. 10, 000 miles on Amtrak last year

You know what.?95pct of my acquaintances have never been on Amtrak.

.

 

[Eric S]

Eh, I tend to think the population density arguments are misleading at best. Yes, the USA as a whole has a low population density relative to many other countries - but that includes huge wide-open spaces in Alaska and the West that few if any would suggest should have fast, frequent rail service. Looking at the states east of the Mississippi River (ignoring the portions of LA and MN east of the river) and the story is different - the population density is not much less than Spain. Look at the Great Lakes states plus the states between Maine and Virginia, and you get a density somewhat greater than Spain and somewhat less than Austria; California falls in that range as well. Look at the states on the East Coast with corridor service (basically NEC plus NC, VA, and New England) and you're looking at a density a little greater than France. Focus on just the NEC and it's even higher.

And you don't have to believe in a "corporate government led conspiracy" to see that it took massive government intervention in the transportation industry to get us to where we are today. Of course highways and airports are busy - in many places rail and transit services are virtually nonexistent. Where there is relatively fast, relatively frequent rail service today, people ride in fairly large numbers - look at California as one example. Same story for transit. It's just that it's not being provided in most of the country - that is a major reason that huge numbers of people have never been on Amtrak - hard to ride a service that does not exist.

 

[jis]

East of the Mississippi the US is quite similar to France and Germany when it comes to population densities, specially along significant corridors of commerce. This is true of many parts of the West Coastal states too. So the argument about population density argument, while cogent in quite a bit of the flyover country - indeed the reason that it is flyover. It is not true in significantly more than a third of the country by area.

 

[ToniCounter]

East of the Mississippi the US is quite similar to France and Germany when it comes to population densities, specially along significant corridors of commerce. This is true of many parts of the West Coastal states too. So the argument about population density argument, while cogent in quite a bit of the flyover country - indeed the reason that it is flyover. It is not true in significantly more than a third of the country by area.

but gas is dirt cheap, compared to France and Germany. that's why most people in the US drive between cities.

 

[jis]

East of the Mississippi the US is quite similar to France and Germany when it comes to population densities, specially along significant corridors of commerce. This is true of many parts of the West Coastal states too. So the argument about population density argument, while cogent in quite a bit of the flyover country - indeed the reason that it is flyover. It is not true in significantly more than a third of the country by area.

but gas is dirt cheap, compared to France and Germany. that's why most people in the US drive between cities.

That is a different issue. I was merely commenting on the oft trotted out population density fallacious argument for many parts of the US.

 

[Dave Van]

but gas is dirt cheap, compared to France and Germany. that's why most people in the US drive between cities.

The price of fuel is just one factor. The governments of Euro countries make car ownership VERY expensive from purchase, daily use and taxes. Many places require a permit to drive in cities alone......can you see having to purchase a permit every time you wanted to drive in DC or NYC?? This is above tolls and taxes.....all this along with rail subsidies make rail more attractive.

 

[slasher-fun]

Comparison with SNCF is full of mistakes:

- At 0'50": A train from Rennes to Paris costs 27€. That's the cheapest price you can get. The most expensive ticket is 86€ in 2nd class and 120€ in 1st class. On average, the price is about 43€ in 2nd class and 65€ in 1st class, that includes the discounts traveler can get from buying a reduction card, traveling in group, etc.

- At 3'25": Amtrak operates 300 trains a day while SNCF operates 14,000 trains a day. Most of these trains are actually regional trains (i.e. Metrolink in SoCal, Caltrain in SF Bay, METRA in Chicago, etc.), so you can't compare this figure with Amtrak, which only operates long-distance trains.

- At 4'30": SNCF owns all the tracks, so priority can be given to passenger trains. Tracks are actually owned by SNCF Réseau, formerly Réseau Ferré de France, a different company from the ones that run the trains (SNCF Voyageurs). The rules are the following: a train on time cannot be delayed in favor of a delayed train, if both trains are late then priority is given to the passenger trains over the freight trains, if they're both in the same category priority is given to international trains. So late passenger trains can be delayed even more by on-time freight trains.

- At 7'25": Taxpayers pay for half of the operating costs of every journey. Wrong. For long-haul TGV trains, taxpayers pay... nothing. For regional trains, taxpayers pay 20%. For the few long-haul Intercity trains, taxpayers pay 65%.

- At 7'55": Amtrak is designed to be a for-profit yet government subsidized corporation. Exactly like... SNCF.

One right thing in this video: most of the US is too sparsely populated to sustain high-speed rail transportation.

 

[slasher-fun]

Many places require a permit to drive in cities alone......can you see having to purchase a permit every time you wanted to drive in DC or NYC??

Many? Actually, exactly five:

- Durham, a small city in the UK (48,000 inhab.)

- London, UK (22 km² / 8.5 sq mi)

- Stockholm, Sweden (34 km² / 13 sq mi)

- Valetta, capital of Malta, but still only 6,500 inhab. (0.8 km² / 0.3 sq mi)

- Milan, Italy (8.2 km² / 3.2 sq mi)

The main factors are actually:

- High price of gas

- High price of owning a car in some countries

- Efficient public transit system and sometimes cycling network, local, regional or long-haul, car-sharing options.

Because of this, in Denmark for example, only 59% of households own at least one car, 13% own at least two cars (and, you guessed it, 41% don't own a car). An average Danish person travels ~1400 km / 870 miles on train each year. A US person travels... 80 km / 50 miles

 

[MisterUptempo]

but gas is dirt cheap, compared to France and Germany. that's why most people in the US drive between cities.

The price of fuel is just one factor. The governments of Euro countries make car ownership VERY expensive from purchase, daily use and taxes. Many places require a permit to drive in cities alone......can you see having to purchase a permit every time you wanted to drive in DC or NYC?? This is above tolls and taxes.....all this along with rail subsidies make rail more attractive.

One must consider the massive subsidies provided to the fossil fuel industry that makes gasoline so cheap in the first place. Plus federal gasoline taxes haven't been raised in nearly a quarter of a century. Each year $20 billion or more is taken out of general revenues to cover the shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund.

The video seems to make an "all or nothing" argument; since we can't have France's system, let's not really try to have any viable system at all. Only near the end does he advocate for attempting some things to make rail suck a little less. Bold visionary, this guy.

 

[ToniCounter]

The price of fuel is just one factor. The governments of Euro countries make car ownership VERY expensive from purchase, daily use and taxes. Many places require a permit to drive in cities alone......can you see having to purchase a permit every time you wanted to drive in DC or NYC?? This is above tolls and taxes.....all this along with rail subsidies make rail more attractive.

many parts of the DC metro area can take 2 hours to drive just 20 miles....

especially on the Beltway and/or I-270/I-66/I-95/I-395

 

[jis]

One right thing in this video: most of the US is too sparsely populated to sustain high-speed rail transportation.

Most of the US by land area, not by population centers and concentrations. So in a way even that is a non sequitur and not particularly useful in making any logical decision about the appropriateness or lack thereof for building HSR or even expanding non-HSR rail service in certain parts of the USA.

it is also true that most of Asia is too sparsely populated. but so what?

 

[Dave Van]

The price of fuel is just one factor. The governments of Euro countries make car ownership VERY expensive from purchase, daily use and taxes. Many places require a permit to drive in cities alone......can you see having to purchase a permit every time you wanted to drive in DC or NYC?? This is above tolls and taxes.....all this along with rail subsidies make rail more attractive.

many parts of the DC metro area can take 2 hours to drive just 20 miles....

especially on the Beltway and/or I-270/I-66/I-95/I-395

I attended my father-in-laws funeral at Arlington Nat last week. Got turned around and ended up on Key bridge and thus Georgetwn.....in my crew cab 4x4 2016 Ford F-150........I know how bad traffic is in DC and will not return if I don't have to.

Slasher...agreed the city permits are not THE big issue owning a car....just one of many.....like ultra high annual inspections in UK......

 

[me_little_me]

but gas is dirt cheap, compared to France and Germany. that's why most people in the US drive between cities.

The price of fuel is just one factor. The governments of Euro countries make car ownership VERY expensive from purchase, daily use and taxes. Many places require a permit to drive in cities alone......can you see having to purchase a permit every time you wanted to drive in DC or NYC?? This is above tolls and taxes.....all this along with rail subsidies make rail more attractive.

Here are some more factors:

Country History: European countries suffered severe damage in two world wars, particularly the second. For years before that, there were big differences in class with the lower classes unable to afford private cars or horses resulting in more use of transit. The wars destroyed track and infrastructure resulting in a population impoverished and with little working transport allowing the countries to rebuild state run rail from ground zero both with new money and a clean slate as well as a population wanting or needing to travel in a world full of new track going everywhere and old roads as well as few airlines with no competition.

Individual History: People continue ways of doing things like they always have. By the time Europe developed decent highways and sold cheap cars, people got used to the cheap rail and lack of need to drive themselves. Like so many New Yorkers in years past, few had drivers' licenses with fewer buying cars so they got used transit. Cheapie airlines and competition even between state owned monopoly airlines is a relatively new phenomena as is the idea of driving oneself everywhere. It is only in the last 20-30 years that the middle class has considered rail to be passe and driving one's own car as being "cool" and it will take years (we started in the '30s) for them to change because of the built-in rail infrastructure and mind-set.

In the early years of WWII, the U.S. was the only fully mechanized war machine (trucks). Even the vaunted German tanks were accompanied by an army often traveling using horses pulling artillery and supplies. Roads were poor when compared to rail so people used rail to get around whereas Americans traveling between cities even in the '20s and '30s got used to a fast-improving exurban road system but a rail system not as quickly modernized.

 

[ToniCounter]

why must one travel so swiftly?

 

[MARC Rider]

United, on the other hand, can cruise at 535 mph and isn't at the mercy of topography like the train and the car. Even accounting for the extra travel time to Dulles to get a direct flight and security and all that, its a four hour trip by plane. No matter how much priority you get, you can't overcome a ten to one advantage in speed.

While your point is generally correct, I have discovered, thanks to the miracle of Southwest Airlines wifi route tracker, that very often jet airliners cruise at considerable lower ground speeds. They aren't going much faster than an Acela when they take off and land, and it takes quite a while for them to reach cruising speed while they climb. On my last trip to the west coast, we never exceeded 450 mph. A lot of the time we wren't going much faster than the old prop planes. Must have been a hell of a headwind. (On the other hand, going east, we were rocking along at 550 during the cruise phase.)

BTW, I recently made a time-estimate comparison for a Baltimore-Savannah trip by plane vs. train, and the plane was 7-8 hours, including connections, 2 hour minimum security cushion, and excess travel times to airports. The real problem with Amtrak for the Savannah-Baltimore trip is that 1 hour plus layover in Washington they now have in order to be able to use the Palmetto as a Regional.

 

[jis]

While your point is generally correct, I have discovered, thanks to the miracle of Southwest Airlines wifi route tracker, that very often jet airliners cruise at considerable lower ground speeds. They aren't going much faster than an Acela when they take off and land, and it takes quite a while for them to reach cruising speed while they climb. On my last trip to the west coast, we never exceeded 450 mph. A lot of the time we wren't going much faster than the old prop planes. Must have been a hell of a headwind. (On the other hand, going east, we were rocking along at 550 during the cruise phase.)

Suffice it to say that under the same headwind condition the prop plane would have had slower or faster ground speed than the jet by the same factor.

I have clocked ground speed almost as fast as 700mph on some occasions. Such variances are usually accounted for in the schedules to some extent, but on very long flights it is sometimes impossible to do so without creating ridiculous schedules. For example with extremely strong jet streams in the winter I have on occasions arrived in Delhi on a non stop flight from Newark more than an hour ahead of schedule. Surprisingly though, because of clever route selection away from the jet stream, the reverse trip is not as hopelessly hobbled as one would expect. They fly straight north perpendicular to the jet stream into the Arctic region where there is no jet stream and then after they have traveled west to the right point they fly straight south across the jet stream to Newark. The distance flown is longer, but the net time taken is shorter than if they battled the jet stream head on.

BTW, I recently made a time-estimate comparison for a Baltimore-Savannah trip by plane vs. train, and the plane was 7-8 hours, including connections, 2 hour minimum security cushion, and excess travel times to airports. The real problem with Amtrak for the Savannah-Baltimore trip is that 1 hour plus layover in Washington they now have in order to be able to use the Palmetto as a Regional.

There are many many city pairs for which an existing train journey, or a possible future train journey would be way more convenient and take shorter time overall than a plane journey.

 

[MARC Rider]

- At 3'25": Amtrak operates 300 trains a day while SNCF operates 14,000 trains a day. Most of these trains are actually regional trains (i.e. Metrolink in SoCal, Caltrain in SF Bay, METRA in Chicago, etc.), so you can't compare this figure with Amtrak, which only operates long-distance trains.

Amtrak only operates long distance trains? Then how did I get to Select Plus status by making lots of 40 minute, 40 mile rides on the Northeast Regional? Acela Express? Keystone Service? Empire Service? Lincoln Service? Hiawatha? Pacific Surfliner? Capitol Corridor? Cascades? These are "long distance trains"?

I think Amtrak is mostly regional trains with a few long distance trains to make it a national network.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

There are many many city pairs for which an existing train journey, or a possible future train journey would be way more convenient and take shorter time overall than a plane journey.

Doesn't Amtrak have a bigger share of the New York to Washington travel market than any airline in the country? Same with New York and Boston? It's clear trains in that time frame can work in the US.

 

[MARC Rider]

There are many many city pairs for which an existing train journey, or a possible future train journey would be way more convenient and take shorter time overall than a plane journey.

It would be an interesting exercise to come up with a list of city pairs outside of the WAS-NYP northeast corridor in which a train journey has the potential to be more convenient and possibly shorter time overall than flying. Baltimore/Washington to Charleston/Savannah is one to start with. It would also be interesting to see which of these corridors could go into service quickly with minimal track upgrades, etc. But then, I'm a bit of an incrementalist when it comes to making changes.

 

[jis]

Orlando to Raleigh for example is an amazingly convenient overnight journey. So is Jacksonville to Washington. I have done Trenton to Savannah on business trip a couple of times too.

 

[slasher-fun]

Amtrak only operates long distance trains? Then how did I get to Select Plus status by making lots of 40 minute, 40 mile rides on the Northeast Regional? Acela Express? Keystone Service? Empire Service? Lincoln Service? Hiawatha? Pacific Surfliner? Capitol Corridor? Cascades? These are "long distance trains"?

I think Amtrak is mostly regional trains with a few long distance trains to make it a national network.

Well, I guess we just have different definitions of "long-distance" trains To me, a 5+ hours trip between Chicago and St Louis, or a 7+ hours trip between Portland and Vancouver are long-distance trains. Which does not mean you can't make 40 minutes, 40 mile trips using these trains on a short section. By "regional trains", I mean the examples given above in the US: SNCF operates for example 6,200 trains daily in Paris and its suburbs, with most of the trips taking about 1 hour from end to end.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Based on current speeds: http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/67033-city-combos-where-amtrak-makes-as-much-sense-as-flying/

Someone once said trains don't have to beat planes, they have to beat cars. I would guess they also would have to beat buses. But if they are the fastest land transportation option they should be fine.

I'm always in favor of the overnight train but that does cut into your intermediate pair argument. I once calculated average speeds of each LD trains and remember about 50 mph average or 400 miles for an eight hour trip. Get that to 60 mph and you are close to 500 miles for the same eight hours.

 

[MARC Rider]

Amtrak only operates long distance trains? Then how did I get to Select Plus status by making lots of 40 minute, 40 mile rides on the Northeast Regional? Acela Express? Keystone Service? Empire Service? Lincoln Service? Hiawatha? Pacific Surfliner? Capitol Corridor? Cascades? These are "long distance trains"?

I think Amtrak is mostly regional trains with a few long distance trains to make it a national network.

Well, I guess we just have different definitions of "long-distance" trains To me, a 5+ hours trip between Chicago and St Louis, or a 7+ hours trip between Portland and Vancouver are long-distance trains. Which does not mean you can't make 40 minutes, 40 mile trips using these trains on a short section. By "regional trains", I mean the examples given above in the US: SNCF operates for example 6,200 trains daily in Paris and its suburbs, with most of the trips taking about 1 hour from end to end.

So basically, SNCF is equivalent to Amtrak plus Metro North plus LIRR plus NJT plus SEPTA plus MARC Plus Tri-Rail plus Sun Rail plus Tri Rail plus Metra plus Denver RTD plus Coaster plus Metrolink plus Caltrain plus Sounder plus any other commuter lines I left out.

 

[jis]

Hasn't SNCF been sort of divided up not multiple operating companies?