I forgot how nice it is to use the train
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@doctor-phibes said in I forgot how nice it is to use the train:
My best ever business trip about 3 years ago included a return train journey between Zurich and Milan, through the alps. I spent a fair amount of time looking out the window just saying 'I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this!'
Let me guess, the train was filled with white males?
#CheckYourPrivilege
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I’ve done one overnight train trip on Amtrak. It was an expensive hell. Sorry, @George-K and I get that it’s a different experience when getting a private car, but at that kind of price I could drive to the destination and stay overnight at Ritz Carlton’s the whole way and still be ahead of the game…
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@axtremus said in I forgot how nice it is to use the train:
In the USA, though, I don’t recall ever finding a train trip that’s cheaper than flights for the same origin/destination pair, and the train trips will take longer overall even after I factor in airport time.
Northeast Regional service is definitely cheaper between Boston-NY-Philly-DC. Acela is probably more expensive though.
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And Acela is faster NY-Philly and a wash from NY-DC considering airport time.
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@jon-nyc said in I forgot how nice it is to use the train:
Northeast Regional service is definitely cheaper between Boston-NY-Philly-DC. Acela is probably more expensive though.
I once took the Boston-DC ACELA after a big snowstorm as they'd cancelled the flights. Some big-mouthed fucking twat from DC was directly behind me and talked at some poor unfortunate girl for the entire time about all the people he knew. If I'd been sitting in the airport I could have either walked away, or told a security guard that he was acting in a highly suspicious manner. As it was, I was trapped in hell for about 6 hours.
They don't factor that into the equation.
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@jon-nyc said in I forgot how nice it is to use the train:
@axtremus said in I forgot how nice it is to use the train:
In the USA, though, I don’t recall ever finding a train trip that’s cheaper than flights for the same origin/destination pair, and the train trips will take longer overall even after I factor in airport time.
Northeast Regional service is definitely cheaper between Boston-NY-Philly-DC. Acela is probably more expensive though.
The cost differences between the NE Regional and Acela are not trivial, but the time differential is.
Here's the price breakdown for a DC departure early tomorrow morning (about 7 AM). Note, there is no "coach" on Acela, they call it "business," and there's no "first class" on the NE Regional. The only upgrade is to business from coach.
So, if you want to save an hour and 15 minutes, "Business Acela" will cost you about $40 more than NE Regional.
That said, D4 and I rode Acela 1st Class from DC to Boston in 2015. Loved it.
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@jon-nyc said in I forgot how nice it is to use the train:
@axtremus said in I forgot how nice it is to use the train:
In the USA, though, I don’t recall ever finding a train trip that’s cheaper than flights for the same origin/destination pair, and the train trips will take longer overall even after I factor in airport time.
Northeast Regional service is definitely cheaper between Boston-NY-Philly-DC. Acela is probably more expensive though.
And the I-95 is a shit road to drive on.
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@ivorythumper said in I forgot how nice it is to use the train:
the I-95
No the in the northeast
Just I-95
That's a California thing
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You can get from DC Union Station to Arlington in 8 freaking minutes by train. If that's mot magic, I don't know what is.
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How California’s Bullet Train Went Off the Rails
Building the nation’s first bullet train, which would connect Los Angeles and San Francisco, was always going to be a formidable technical challenge, pushing through the steep mountains and treacherous seismic faults of Southern California with a series of long tunnels and towering viaducts.
But the design for the nation’s most ambitious infrastructure project was never based on the easiest or most direct route. Instead, the train’s path out of Los Angeles was diverted across a second mountain range to the rapidly growing suburbs of the Mojave Desert — a route whose most salient advantage appeared to be that it ran through the district of a powerful Los Angeles county supervisor.
The dogleg through the desert was only one of several times over the years when the project fell victim to political forces that have added billions of dollars in costs and called into question whether the project can ever be finished.
Now, as the nation embarks on a historic, $1 trillion infrastructure building spree, the tortured effort to build the country’s first high-speed rail system is a case study in how ambitious public works projects can become perilously encumbered by political compromise, unrealistic cost estimates, flawed engineering and a determination to persist on projects that have become, like the crippled financial institutions of 2008, too big to fail.
Political compromises, the records show, produced difficult and costly routes through the state’s farm belt. They routed the train across a geologically complex mountain pass in the Bay Area. And they dictated that construction would begin in the center of the state, in the agricultural heartland, not at either of the urban ends where tens of millions of potential riders live.
The pros and cons of these routing choices have been debated for years. Only now, though, is it becoming apparent how costly the political choices have been. Collectively, they turned a project that might have been built more quickly and cheaply into a behemoth so expensive that, without a major new source of funding, there is little chance it can ever reach its original goal of connecting California’s two biggest metropolitan areas in two hours and 40 minutes.
Fourteen years later, construction is now underway on part of a 171-mile “starter” line connecting a few cities in the middle of California, which has been promised for 2030. But few expect it to make that goal.
Meanwhile, costs have continued to escalate. When the California High-Speed Rail Authority issued its new 2022 draft business plan in February, it estimated an ultimate cost as high as $105 billion. Less than three months later, the “final plan” raised the estimate to $113 billion.
The rail authority said it has accelerated the pace of construction on the starter system, but at the current spending rate of $1.8 million a day, according to projections widely used by engineers and project managers, the train could not be completed in this century.
The state was warned repeatedly that its plans were too complex. SNCF, the French national railroad, was among bullet train operators from Europe and Japan that came to California in the early 2000s with hopes of getting a contract to help develop the system.
The company’s recommendations for a direct route out of Los Angeles and a focus on moving people between Los Angeles and San Francisco were cast aside, said Dan McNamara, a career project manager for SNCF.
The company pulled out in 2011.
“There were so many things that went wrong,” Mr. McNamara said. “SNCF was very angry. They told the state they were leaving for North Africa, which was less politically dysfunctional. They went to Morocco and helped them build a rail system.”
Morocco’s bullet train started service in 2018.
"California's politics are too dysfunctional. We're going to North Africa, where the people are sane."
The most direct route would have taken the train straight north out of Los Angeles along the Interstate 5 corridor through the Tejon Pass, a route known as “the Grapevine.” Engineers had determined in a “final report” in 1999 that it was the preferred option for the corridor.
But political concerns were lurking in the background. Mike Antonovich, a powerful member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, was among those who argued that the train could get more riders if it diverted through the growing desert communities of Lancaster and Palmdale in his district, north of Los Angeles.
The extra 41 miles to go through Palmdale would increase costs by 16 percent, according to the 1999 report, a difference in today’s costs of as much as $8 billion.
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@bachophile said in I forgot how nice it is to use the train:
Couldn't see more than the first paragraph, but looks like an interesting trip.
Here is a story (a bit old but still interesting) about a couple of guys who took the train from Vienna to Pyongyang DPRK. DPRK does not ordinarily allow travelers to enter via train (except via one crossing in China). Authorities in Russia made a mistake and at the border, they were not stopped.
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Probably lots of legal challenges about routes and environmental impact. Maybe shitty contracts that have union guys getting paid handsomely while waiting for legal permission. Etc.
Also who knows if the above ‘estimate’ is legit or exaggerated.
DON’T let them eat cake.
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@jon-nyc said in I forgot how nice it is to use the train:
Probably lots of legal challenges about routes and environmental impact
Yup. Remember when the contractor said he can't do it and left for Africa because it's less dysfunctional?
Also there's a lot of politicking going on. The original route has been amended so as to service one politician's home town - with the attendant massive increase in cost and delays.
The "Brightline" train in FL that's references? Not really a fair comparison. Brightline used existing tracks and rights-of-way making it much cheaper. Not mentioned is that Brightline is not really high-speed rail either. The locomotives they use are rated up to (I believe) 130 mph. I doubt the track work is capable of sustaining that for most of its run.
Current Operations in South Florida: 79 mph
Orlando Extension from West Palm Beach to Cocoa: 110 mph
Cocoa to Orlando International Airport: 125 mphBrightline is considering a HSR project in Texas connecting Houston and Dallas. The plan is to use Japanese tech and totally new infrastructure. I haven't seen cost estimates.
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About five years ago I took an Amtrak, the Silver Meteor, from Florida to NYC. My daughter had just moved to New York and wanted her cello and I was tasked to get it to her. I had to deliver the cello personally because that's what I was instructed to do so I could either drive it up, fly it up, or take the train. I tried the train because of George's great pics of his trips. Mw wife wasn't coming along so that made the choice easier. I bought tickets for myself and the cello and it was a great experience--going up. The ride was nice except the train tracks from Washington to NYC were pretty rough. Also no great scenery. Lots of abandoned factories and rusty infrastructure, but over all the experience was enjoyable and relaxing. Though--it seems the train the the choice means of travel for a lot of people who I guess are at odds with the authorities. At almost every stop someone was getting hauled off the train in handcuffs.
The ride back should have been good but I got a seatmate this time. She was a HUGE woman from Haiti, I think. She was nice enough, she didn't speak English and ate food, lots of sour, smelly food, from a paper shopping bag she had on the floor. All in all it was pretty intolerable. I was able to call a friend and he picked me up in Savannah and drove me to my car in Florida. He could smell the Haitian food on me.
That was the last time I was on a train. My wife and I are thinking of taking a day trip, or maybe an overnight, on the Brightline here in Florida. Could be fun.
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@Tom-K said in I forgot how nice it is to use the train:
I got a seatmate this time
I never understood why Amtrak seats don't have an armrest between seats.
I've only done coach between Fort Wayne (business class)/Chicago and Chicago/Milwaukee.
Otherwise it's a sleeper - every single time. Yeah, it's expensive, but at least you get meals.
ETA: Yeah, scenery. You'll notice I haven't posted many (if any) pictures of our trips to New Orleans and back. I mean, Mississippi...
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https://www.fox5ny.com/news/nyc-boston-less-than-2-hours-heres-how
Imagine being able to go from the Big Apple to Beantown in 100 minutes.
After nearly ten years since its inital proposal, the bullet train is finally gaining popularity among lawmakers.
The proposal known as the North Atlantic Rail (NAR) is a passenger rail that will take travelers from New York to Boston at speeds up to 225 miles per hour.
Rick Harnish, the executive director of the Chicago-based High Speed Rail Alliance, part of the coalition behind the proposal says the service will make travel more enjoyable.
"You need to make it easier for people to travel. You need me to make it less expensive for people to travel, and you need to make it more productive," Harnish said.
The two cities are roughly 216 miles apart, which is typically a four-hour ride via train or car--meaning the rail would nearly cut that trip in half.
That's two hours quicker than the Acela service, which is the fastest train that Amtrak now runs.
and
There are major concerns about the project though.
Not only is the project expected to cost around $50 billion, but environmentalists worry about the impact construction could have on the ecosystem.
(expected cost of USD$50B probably means actual cost of at least 3x that)
