I assume many folks here would be from the US. Hence, I thought what better place to clarify my doubts about US trains than this forum. US once used to be a world leader in terms of passenger rail as well. Is it true that many of those old tracks were then dismantled and/or turned into freight only? Is it also true that many railroads came under the aegis of same companies that had an interest in motorways and that created a conflict of interest? In terms of current rail in US; is it cheaper to travel via air from X to Y and assuming a direct train exists between those two destinations, than via train? Which would you classify is still the most passenger railway dense state in the US and do you view optimally the high speed rail in the near future in US [ I assume they are building on in California ?] Lots of questions, I know, but I was intrigued and no better place to ask than folks who love trains. I know couple of my friends in the US but only one of them has taken a train ride there yet.
Passenger Travel Today I can only speak for Boston, Massachusetts to Washington, DC. aka 'The Northeast Corridor'. It depends on several variables. One step-daughter, her husband and children live in Boston. I live in 'Northern Virginia', (outside of Washington DC) Boston family insist that in general they can travel faster and cheaper by air. The Acela takes longer by at least 4 hours but I have traveled it for less than air. You have to buy your tickets way in advance. I have heard that from down town Boston to down town New York City can be faster and less expensive if you eliminate or adjust for taxi / Uber at each end.
Spoiler: Why Passenger Train Manufacturing Is Booming In The U.S "The United States ranks below many industrialized nations when it comes to ridership on its passenger rail, but investment in U.S. rail is picking up." Video says most aging US rails are privately owned by freight companies and, aside from "priority", it would cost $117 Billion to upgrade to newer, high-speed tracks. Spoiler: How Railroad Crossings Work by "Practical Engineering" (lol he uses an "Arduino" to control his toy crossing)
Yes, there are many abandonments and a lot of tracks which see no passenger trains. Most did see passenger service of one type or another once upon a time. The greatest road network in the world enabled bus services to become faster, for one thing. For another, we built cars. So many that we run out of places to put them. Add the fact that much of the interior is sparsely populated--closer to Australia than India--and most of our passenger trains turned into the answer to a question no one was asking any more. I believe you're referring to the Ford/Firestone/oil company war on trolleys. That primarily saw tracks within cities, in the middle of the street, get replaced with city bus services. Since the government (unnecessarily, though they still falsely insist we'd have no trains without their interference) took over passenger service, travel by air is generally less expensive than rail, and sometimes extremely so. The takeover happened because the largest railroad in the country went broke trying to provide required commuter train services for New York City, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, among others. So, people in much poorer states than those wound up subsidizing trains for the world's richest cities, while not having any service available within 400km or more of them. Because democracy is where a rich majority can steal from a poor minority. You know. Mob rule. No, that boondoggle in California is dead. It needed high speed tech because it wandered this way and that trying to serve every city with any political clout, and the map of it wound up looking like a double zed. It was slated to cross mountain ranges no private railroad ever attempted to cross. It never stood a chance. But someone got rich off if it. California, with its geographic size and its population, still supports more passenger trains than the vast majority of other states.
When they showed the first graph regarding country's investment into train, China was way ahead of any other. It reminded me that China faces a more unique problem. Since China has more high speed rail than rest of the world combined, it has achieved that by building lines to even smaller cities that don't provide enough revenue. China, is hence, subsidizing some of it's lines. What makes worse is that these rails can't be use for freight transport either there, thus, if these trains stop running, it would essentially mean a loss of investment. Of, course it is an interesting contrast with my country where we are struggling to build the first stretch of high speed rail still [ problems more of political/social in nature rather than technical]. The second video popped up in my feed too. I have watched some videos from that channel : p.
There is a push towards air infrastructure here too with many Tier 2 cities also getting decent airports. There was a time when India only had 4 international airports for the whole country. Problem with Railways comes in that politicians have always treated it as a cash cow; milking it for their own purposes. New useless kinds of trains are run, station names are changed but the core problem of building new tracks and doubling/tripling existing ones is hardly tackled. I think the only thing of note they have done is gauge conversion and electrification of most lines in the country. But with air prices becoming lower between two given set of cities, the premium segment [ who would have once might taken the train ] shifts to the air segment. And with more low cost airlines coming in, the high end tiers [the highest end in Indian Railways is basically AC First Class in which you get a cabin/couple for yourself] have fares equivalent to airlines. So, whilst not in the near future, but if the Railways here don't improve [roads have improved by a lot whilst Rail speeds linger the same it was half a century ago], it might face a bleak future.
"Not in my backyard" Is a massive block to high speed trains and any rail development. 'This is my home. You are not building a railroad through it."
Case in point, we lived on Boston's "South Shore" when I was young, with a NYNY&H branch serving. Passenger service ended in 1959 and the line fell into disrepair. After endless legal challenges and mitigation, the branch was partially reopened in 2007 for commuter service at a cost of $534,000,000.
Ouch! We paid how much for that? @Hardcoaler Are you sure you didn't slip a zero or two?☻ /jkg For what it is worth that line now stretches all the way to Plymouth, MA.
Interesting that passenger trains are promoted so hard as the answer to all our imagined and/or manufactured problems, yet lines continue to be turned into hike and bike trails. Even as you folks in the northeast are trying to reclaim abandoned lines, we are ripping out similarly situated lines in the Breadbasket because our traffic isn't that bad yet. Is Forewarned really Forearmed? Or is it just Foreshadowing?
Boston has one of the oldest subway systems in the US, right? The only thing I know of is when Wendover Productions recently did a video on it on Youtube detailing the challenges that it has to face in the modern era.
The vast majority of lines in the US were both freight and passenger, most were always predominately freight. Many low volume lines have been abandoned, that being a low volume of any traffic, freight or passenger. Most railroads in at some point owned a trucking subsidiary but they were never competitors, they were mostly used for feeder service or drayage. The primary problem was that the automobile and trucking competed with the railroads and then passenger air service took hold and that completely destroyed passenger rail service. By the 1950's the only thing supporting passenger rail were the contracts the railroads had to carry US mail on passenger trains. When the US Post Office went to airlines to handle the mail, it killed US passenger service. The thing that is tough for people from Europe to understand is the immense distances of the US. A train takes days to complete a trip that takes hours by air. I don't want to spend a week traveling by rail to attend a meeting and return that I could do in one day by air. In US cities the housing, shopping and workplaces were designed to support auto traffic, so public rail transit wasn't efficient for the average commuter. The railroads and their right of ways in the US are owned by private companies that are purely freight operations. If passenger service (Amtrak or commuter) wants to operate on one of those lines, they have to be a tenant on the freight line and have to fit into the traffic flows with the freight trains. The freight lines, for the most part were designed in the late 1800's and have curves and speeds for 50-70 mph operation. The curves and grades are too steep for operation above 150 mph. To get higher speed lines, new right of way has to be purchased and completely new railroad built, very expensive and even more so considering the great distances. While there is lots of talk about high speed lines in the US, nobody has come forth with the billions or trillions of dollars it will take to build one, so mostly it's a lot of talk and wringing of hands and people driving or flying.
That dollar amount is only for existing heavy and light rail. A lot of which will go only to the east coast. And it is a grossly over-optimistic number. Adding new service and getting the US to a more competitive appearance, vs the world, will easily cost additional trillions of dollars, for a nation in a staggering amount of unrepayable debt already. The California HSR project, still unfinished has ballooned and ballooned in cost, now somewhere between 120 and 130 billion dollars, with years more to go of construction. Also note that while most of us appreciate our environment, burdensome regulations, ($$$$$$$$$$....), and endless litigations ($$$$$$$$$$) drain away scarce funds and causes delay after delay, or even (deliberately) kills projects, every year. But what those outside out North America most often cannot envision, is the sheer size of this Nation. The county in which I reside is half the size of Belgium, and by itself larger than 80+ other nations on this planet. (About 1000 kilometers east to west.) This State, is the fourth largest and the size of all Bangladesh. Plus, we have several mountain ranges to conquer. The price tag for adding any new route infrastructure, is uncountable billions of dollars. (If you ever get past being a "proposal", (endless lawsuits, again), to even beginning any actual planning.) The places I wish to or need to travel, there is no rail passenger service. Restoring such has been decades in argument, for those places where it once existed. If it was not abandoned years ago. Plus, once I get to where I wish, I have no alternative but my feet, and hiking for miles- unless I rent a car. (By the end of this week, we are expecting temperatures well below zero, daytimes, and twenty degrees even lower at night. Walk? Ride a bicycle? Only a fool believes this is possible.) Now the price of the trip escalates. It is much cheaper, and way faster to simply drive my own vehicle.
Yes, that's correct, late 1890s I think. Some years ago I saw a TV show about its construction, American Experience - The Race Underground.
I'm trying to envision how far $117 billion would get you trying to build 200 mph rails through the Rocky Mountains. 150 miles? Our coasts are nearly 5000 km apart.
Like it or not, high speed rail is horribly expensive and because it is a fixed route system, is horribly inefficient in the greater scheme of things. Air travel is faster and cheaper for longer distances, and is more flexible since planes can be shifted between routes at the drop of a hat.
To create a rail passenger network remotely similar to that of Europe, for example, would cost trillions of dollars and far more than one lifetime. That is if we had the money. The USA is broke. Private sector investment in such an endeavor? No way they are that foolish. They'd get a better return on their money by simply burning it.
Further Regarding Freight: The commuter rail in the Boston is beholden to the freight on the North Shore. This has resulted in significant delays at times. Frequently because a CSX train is in the way waiting for something. Note: This is old new and may have changed.
