Born American, grew up in Europe, came to the US for a few years, and back and forth since. The subject of trains comes up a lot for me so I've put some thought into it. This video is the most accurate set of factors I've seen to date on the logistics of trains in the US. Thank you for making it!
I'm not sure if anyone believes me, but I'm using my real name on this profile, and my father, before he died this year, was the previous CEO of Amtrak. He was Joe Boardman. He always told me that the real solution for our country wasn't the top speed of the train, it was minimizing the number of stops, and maximizing the average speed of the train. Your video has been completely accurate, as far as my understanding of his perspective goes. Thank you for the upload. I'm a regular viewer.
Philip Boardman I’m so sorry for your loss. Your father Joe was an amazing advocate for passenger trains in this country, and most if not all Amtrak riders wish he was still with us!
I just know I refused to use them because the trains would go down every time there was a thunderstorm in florida because they wouldn't relocate the computers.
@@clairekennedy8767 I'm in the UK, and used to commute regularly to a large nearby city (Manchester, not London, for all that it matters). There are broadly two sorts of train I could catch, to do that - the ones that stopped at every little station on the way, and the ones that only stopped at the major stations/hubs (express trains). Given a choice, I chose the express trains as they got there so much quicker (the express trains were also largely of a different rail franchise with train stock that was more comfortable, but that wasn't the main reason). Interestingly, they closed a lot of those smaller railway stations and minor branch tracks in the UK in the 1960's - thanks to the now infamous Doctor Beeching (google him), and it's only recently that those smaller stations and tracks have started being reopened.
As a citizen of the Great Plains, I would’ve _killed_ for a train between two cities I had to make a 4 hour round trip 3 times a week while going to school. I would still love more trains.
In Wyoming we do own more then 1. you have your gas efficient car, your gas guzzling 4x4 for winter or towing things. Ranchers have multiple vehicles for ranch work and going to town to haul supplies.
I live in one of the rural states. As much as I would love high speed rail. I'd settle for better Amtrack coverage or even just better local bus service. At least in the rural areas, people prefer cars mostly because the public transit doesn't work well. Between bad coverage (like Amtrack), bad schedules (like one bus per hour on local routes), and other problems (like missing your connection because the bus is running late) taking public transit becomes very risky when you need to get somewhere. When it can take over twice as long to reach your destination on public transit and they still might not get you there, suddenly maintaining a car looks more reasonable. Why is public transit so bad out here? 1. Low population densities make setting up a good system very difficult. 2. The voters want lower taxes more than public transit. 3. It's very common (at least where I've lived) for people not to trust the government to do things right. The logic being something like, "If they can't build a road correctly, why should I trust them to run a transit system".
@@adamorick2872 True, though on the other hand one car is only used by a few people, whereas one bus is used by many people, so fewer buses are needed to serve the same amount of people. I'm not entirely sure, but I'd suspect that auto makers make more money from selling cars to households than selling buses to transit companies
I found your explanation refreshing: You gave the facts of the situation without bashing America. I have never been to England, but I have met several people from England in my travels abroad. I like to be able to discuss the differences in our countries without putting each other down. I would say that if you wish to see a slow train trip (stopping to let the freight trains go by, etc.) then travel the Trans-Siberian. However it was also one of the most interesting trips I ever took.
The US rail system is optimized for bulk cargo that is not especially time sensitive. And the US ships about twice the percentage of its freight by rail as Europe. Passengers are mostly an annoyance.
Passenger travel is heavily subsidized, losing money on every ticket sold. In Texas the Eagle from San Antonio to Dallas isn't any faster than a Greyhound.
@@floydlooney6837 Does it polute the air less? (I don't know if US-Rail is electrified - doesn't look like it however, so the trains (diesel-trains!) might even be worse! Then again: The US gives a rats ass about the environment and that sucks! You guys go everywhere by car - other modes of transportation (walking, using a bike etc.) are usually not even given a thought!...and in larger cities? Subways or trams)
@@dreamingflurry2729 the US rail outside of major cities probably isn't electrified because conversion cost aside, it would be a nightmare to have a fully electrified network in the more remote areas to both maintain and supply with power.
@J Calhoun You have forgotten to mention temperature and humidity levels. DreamingFlurry can bicycle through Arizona at temperatures of over 50 ° C or through Louisiana at a humidity level of around 78 %. I will instead take the car using the AC and be fine when i visit the US.
@J Calhoun just mention the entire rocky mountain range and the ascent to get through those 10,000ft+ mountain passes not even factoring in ice, snow, wind or rain
Montana's population density is more representative of Antarctica's than the rest of the US. Exaggeration maybe, but you get the point. Montana doesn't have enough people to make it worth investing in infrastructure.
Turns out I was right. Montana with a population density of 7 people per square mile is much closer to 0 than it is to the national average of 92.6 people per square mile.
They're working diligently here in Texas to link Dallas and Houston by high-speed rail. And it would actually work except for one small problem: you still need a car on either end to get to/from your actual destinations in those cities. Think of it this way: imagine an area the same size as Northern Ireland, but with four times as many people, and only one train station for them. ... That's Dallas/Forth Worth or Houston.
I've thought about that issue as my wife and I live in Dallas and like to take occasional trips to Galveston on the other side of Houston. We'd love to take the train (in the future) to Houston, but we'd still need a way to get to, and around, Galveston.
the line should still be built but there needs to be improvement in the urban environment at each end. hopefully opening it with catalyse these things.
Most people who travel long distance on Amtrak are sightseers. It's a great way to see the US and you don't want it passing by at high speeds and just getting a short glimpse.
thats what Local stations for HS rail are for. I went to Japan in 86' and I had a All Japan Rail Pass, I stayed in a Different CITY each night and got to see the Local Area and eat there too. eating was an Adventure in of its self, as each Station had HOT Bento dealers at every stop. some food Items were ONLY available at that particular station.
But if you're driving you can stop anywhere you want along the way, or take a detour to someplace you want to see. With Amtrak that kind of thing would be a lot more difficult to arrange.
WRONG most people on Amtrak are the coach riders, and they are unemployed females that go 800 miles or under. The seats on long distance trains flip and flip and flip again. As the trains make stops.
@@Westerner78 ...that's not been my experience when riding the train. I only ride them long distance though. It's nice not to have to drive, if you have the time. Just need a sleeping car. Without one it sucks.
When i lived in Japan, people were always shocked when i said that there aren't any trains or buses where i live in the states and that if you didn't have a car, you couldn't go anywhere. Trying to explain the size of the US and how rural some areas were was impossible.
I agree. I've been to places in the US, that I have said to myself dang this is isolated. Also,you can take all of the UK and place it in Texas and still have plenty of room.
Another factor is often the lack of good ways of getting around cities without a car. The advantage of taking the interstate instead of a train to get another city is that you'll have your car with you in order to get around at your destination. Any advantage you might gain by taking the train gets largely wiped out if you have to rent a car or rely on expensive taxis once you get there.
1. Size and the issues it brings. 1a. You have to buy the land. 1b. You have to get an environmental impact report which is a mass cost for those areas you plan to build in. 1c. Price of track over distance. 1d. Multiple governments (city, county, state, federal) you have to deal with in the distance. 2. Time and need. 2a. How fast does the person need to travel. 2b. What is the demand for that travel which will set the price. 2c. Population and business. 3. Red tape 3a. How much the government subsidizes. 3b. Competing transportation lobbies (cars, planes). 3c. Cost to tax payer. 3d. Safety and other red tape.
Can't you kind of take the land because you are providing a public service with it (note: I am German and that is what happens here! If a street or a side-walk is built then the land is taken from the people who previously owned it (they are getting a bit of money, but significantly less than what the land would be worth on the open market!))
@@dreamingflurry2729 No, they can't just take the land, they have to purchase it at market price. It is called property rights, unless you have a thoroughfare.
It's complex. The US had developed a fast train service in the 1930s, superior to almost anything else in the world, with many routes running at 90 or 100 mph. But after WWII, the federal government developed massive subsidized programs to build roads and airports. Then the government essentially outlawed fast trains in 1948. Labor costs grew fast with government protection. Local governments began heavy taxation of rail property to cover the cost of building roads and airports. Given all this, rail companies began cutting service as fast as they could and government regulators would allow. True, Amtrak operates at a loss and requires a subsidy -- as does everything else! Airports are not built or operated on spec -- government does that. Government builds roads, and if you think gas taxes judge ever covered that cost, you are overlooking the infrastructure that supports highways and interstates: Federal subsidies don't apply to the street where you live, and without local roads, what good is I-95? User fees and tolls cover only a small part of the costs of other modes, but Amtrak (and commuter lines) are "subsidized" at taxpayers' expense. Another thing overlooked about trains is that politicians and anti-rail groups speak as if they were like airlines in how they operate: A train from New York to Boston, say, can make up to twelve intermediate stops in those 231 miles. On a long run, like the Southwest Chief from Chicago to Los Angeles, makes 31stops in 2,265 miles. People don't just go from one end point to the other: there are dozens or hundreds of possible combinations of trips, which are not possible by air. And if you think the bus is an alternative, Greyhound is also suffering, and the newer bus companies are more like airlines: They make few if any intermediate stops. Freight railroads dislike hosting Amtrak because their infrastructure is no longer designed for both types of trains. It once WAS, but when the private companies had to bear the whole cost with no relief (as their competitors had), they were happy to be rid of it and the excess capacity. The railroads don't want to build extra track for Amtrak (even though it could improve freight operation as well) without being compensated for the expense. The point is, we need a balance transportation system. Even at a local level, few cities have done much to extend public transportation to airports. Chicsgo is one of the few that have: New York has never seriously entertained extending the subway to Kennedy or LaGuardia. All over the US you see missed opportunities for bettering our transportation, other than widening freeways that kill cities, and building larger and larger airports.
@M Detlef Yes, thousands and thousands of Jets now parking, airlines bailed out 50 billion just in March with more cut backs, lay offs and bailouts coming for a now bankrupt and hopeless industry. No private rooms, no outside air........sick people all around you! Have a nice flight!
A case study for govt failure and US infrastructure decay are adding a critical new Hudson River tunnel (+ repair of existing) for NJ Transit and Amtrak. Passenger use only. They share NY and NJ share conflicting turf. There are only 2 tracks on N E main line going west out under the Hudson River and then under cliff of the NJ Palisades, from Penn Station opened in 1910 to original NY Penn Station. Now approx 450 trains a day at max 24 trains and hour.. Dangerous and no one from either NJ nor NY state government plus Feds could or would fund nor build it. I am not sure rehab plans for existing tunnels moved from studies to implementation.
years ago we used to have quite good passenger rail service, but in the 50's and 60's planes buses and cars largely took over and passinger rail suffered low ridership - there used to be trains going everywhere but ever since Amtrak and the govt. took over passenger rail service routes and stops have disappeared until theres almost nothing left. I loved riding on trains in the 60's when I was a kid (im 60) and ive always loved trains even as a hobby
Well, Nokia tried that years ago. You know their old slogan was "Connecting People". Note to future generations, California refuses to be united with advanced technology.
But that argument works equally well for passenger traffic, moreso with electrified trains. When you factor in all the friction built into airline travel, rail is also faster over distances under 500 miles or so.
@@Markle2k No, because there is no "time constraint" on most freight traffic. The longer a person is on a train, the less cost effective it is -- people need to sleep, wash, etc. And that is ignoring that people are in a hurry. So, if it takes a week for a freight train to go from NY to LA, it doesn't matter; whereas people aren't typically going to be willing to take a weeks journey to get across the country. While passenger rail makes sense in areas, the problem is that once you are off the East Coast, cities are far apart. In my above post I talked about Denver to San Francisco -- a stretch of roughly 1200 miles over mountainous terrain -- with stretches of 500 miles between cities of any size. Building high speed rail would be extremely expensive and likely not be any cheaper than flying; and flying would remain much faster over those distances.
@@geoffdearth7360 I'm not sure that is completely fair. I think it is more that Americans had it chosen for them -- as in the 50s the government chose to quit subsidizing the rail system and, instead, started subsidizing the US highway system. If they had not changed to pay for the road system, or even if they just paid for both, we might see something completely different in the US today. I suspect we'd see more passenger trains in the US today.
@@davidnielson9139 The thing is that it doesn't take weeks for freight services to move cargo from say Long Beach, CA to Nebraska or to Texas. It takes a day at most, and another day to get to New York. The US not only has a big freight network it has a pretty efficient one. Cargo can get from a ship in New Orleans to a warehouse in Memphis in the same day using the railroad. In other parts of the world the situation is flipped. Europe prioritizes passenger movement, so it's very good at that while freight service in Europe is not nearly as good as it is in the US. Plus the trains are tiny in comparison.
@@jordanhicks5131 I hope so airlines get so much government funding they can afford to give tickets away. Fares don't even cover the cost of fuel in some cases and they use alot of that!
At least there's a line that connects the two; a friend of mine lives in Seattle and often takes her kids to visit family where we grew up in MN. I live in CO, an hour out of Denver; there's no line that connects them. Even though I'm 12 hours by highway, for me the train is three days, running from Denver to Chicago, layover, then to Minneapolis. I just make the drive these days
@@jordanhicks5131 doubt it, there would be a lay over in Chicago of hours. Most train riders don't go where the trains go. Like most drivers on I-80 don't go to California. Plus they use FRESH AIR. Planes are a great place for Covid
simple answer: the country is too flipping big and we designed everything for cars and buses and planes. As soon as the model T came out we got hooked on cars. Trains are still great for freight and for straight line travel between major cities but the US never had that many passenger train lines as it was still being settled during the trains big growth period in Europe in the 1800s. By the time we really needed passenger trains we developed cheap cars and they were favored by the public.
for anything less than 450 miles, HSR can be competitive. We are Building it in Texas texascentral.com should break ground next year. 200- 250 miles is the sweet-spot
@@mpetersen6 I think if we had nation wide high speed rail and a lot of people taking it, the TSA would be expanded to secure it. Imagine a train going over 100mph over something like the West Branch Feather River Bridge and a bomb going off in a front car. 100+mph Derailment at 450ft in the air over water. It would make a tempting terrorist target.
You make it sound like there's something wrong with that. It's just not worth it out here. NYC to LA is by far the most popular air route, how are you going to "replace" that with rail? Especially given that supersonic over land is coming back; Lockheed and NASA have jointly developed a fuselage shape that lets you break the sound barrier with a barely audible sonic boom. At least one company, Exosonic, is working on a plane that would go Mach 1.7 over land. That's NYC to LA in like 3 hours.
@@neutrino78x I meant it more so in the context of passenger train travel quality dipping than as trains are greater than all types of transport (to me they're the best, but that's not valid here). America was known to have the best luxury passenger rail services that were the fastest in the world. When cars and planes came along, that obviously went away and America was left with Amtrak, which, as much as I like it, sucks. Railroads should of shifted focus from long-distance cross country travel to mid-range intercity travel, which is actually needed to combat the "To short to fly, to long to drive" problem. Idk if that alone would of solved passenger rail dying out, but it would definitely helped kick start intercity HSR in America.
If it helps you understand better the POV I'm coming from, a great era of railroading where they were at their peak (and personally my favorite era) was brought to an end by modernization, which is inevitable like Thanos, but is a part of railroad history that is bittersweet for me, more so than the transition from steam to diesels as I love steam locomotives. Though I'm not saying it is bad to improve ourselves as a society, but railfanning today does not have the same charm as it used to...
@@mr.bl0ckm4nn there might be a bit of revival in order as soon as they start coming out with battery and H2 power in the locomotive itself. There's a train in Germany, Cordia iLint I believe it's called, that's powered by H2 fuel cells in the locomotive. The advantage of that kind of thing is that you have zero emission train without having to do anything to the track; all track would be zero emission for that vehicle. And I think they should be a lot cheaper and easier to operate so that might bring back a private rail company or two. 🙂 At the distances involved in USA, Canada and Australia though, a train is never going to be as fast as an airplane, and that's what passengers want. We just need to get airplane emissions down as much as we can, should be able to get to zero emission for short runs up to 800 miles. 🙂
That is so true we were traveling on Amtrak between New Orleans and Memphis in the middle of the night and our train came to a stop and within a few minutes a freight train passes us by evidently we had pulled on another track over so the freight train could pass us it was frightening and exciting at the same time but we were less priority than the freight train. Trains are more just for fun for most of United States.
Amazing that a person not native to this land mirrors my thoughts on the viability of high speed rail in the U.S. I get tired of some people whining that such and such a country has it...why don't we have good passenger train service! I want to shake them and say "idiot!...their whole country isn't any bigger that the metro area you live in! And further more......you've got rail in your city!
I mean even if there a speed rail it would be just too much money compared to planes it’s simple as that and when you get there you have to think of costs for cabs/rentals too many things people don’t think about when rambling about wishes/wants instead of the needs.
If you take everything east of the Mississippi River, the population distribution looks something like China's. Theirs is a rail system that works for our purposes. And the train tickets are cheaper than the plane tickets by about 30% off. Combined with subway/public transit more superior than third world countries, it's actually quite easy to get around. Most importantly, this all takes us off of the oil craze. We stop having to give a shit about the Middle East (or at least Saudi Arabia). Plus you don't know how much you suffer on long flights until you've stretched your legs on HSR, plugged in your charger with no worries, and surfed the internet free of charge at 4G/5G speeds. No air sickness, no turbulence, and you can even take a smoke with the intermittent stops. For business people who need to rest on their transit, this also makes it much easier to survive without business/first class.
Go onto Amtrak website and take a look at how much money it costs to go from say San Francisco to Chicago by train. And look at the time it takes. You will be amazed at how expensive it is. I've done this. High Speed Rail makes no sense because our cities are so far apart and our population density is so low relative to UK, most of Europe and Japan. If you want to go from Wahington DC to New York or Boston, then taking the Train makes sense. But for most of the rest of the country, it doesn't.
Jaron H-M. Amtrak primarily exists for that train. DC politicians want that train and NYC lawfirms and lobbyists want that train. The rest of the trains is to get the other states to agree to pay for Amtrak. Amtrak loses money on almost every rural route and the routes in Cali. Amtrak got created because the Chessie (C&O/B&O), Penn and NYC dropped passenger service in the 60s and DC panicked.
"Above the rail", yes. But when you add in the cost of maintaining the catenary and railbeds that make the service possible, not so much. Reports are that overall, there's about 30+ billion of deferreed maintenance stacked up in the NEC alone: www.railwayage.com/passenger/intercity/at-amtrak-its-no-longer-1950-an-analysis/ Long-distance trains are actually cheaper to operate (the freight railroad pays for track maintenance and the property taxes upon the land they occupy--that last bit is something that few mention), but service frequencies (improvement of which can drive additional revenue) are also constrained _by_ the freight railroads--frequently efforts to add additional trains are stymied by a freight railroad saying "Nope--we need that space (slot) for our own traffic." And I say this as someone who _prefers_ train travel over aviation--I just did a NYC-Toronto trip (11 hrs) a few weeks ago, and in fact am about to book a NYC-Atlanta trip (17 hrs) that I've been taking annually for the past decade.
S Tho Wouldn’t it be a good idea then to dismantle Amtrak and sell the NEC to an entity like SNCF or JR then? From what I have heard it is usually the rural politicians who scream the worst when Amtrak threatens to cut routes.
@@starventure. Agreed. Rural districts don't get much from high speed express rail except the noise or danger for grade runs. Stops don't happen there. Rural, smaller cities and suburban people would have to fight backward against traffic (hours) and parking problems to use a train that runs past their village at 180mph toward Chicago. Quicker to just drive to Chicago from Terrahoot. There are only 10 cities in the US over a million residents, and 5 of them are clustered. It is for the great and beautiful citizens of Metropolis to wizz past the peasants of the countryside, but a bit harder to get the rural folk to happily pay for it.
@@starventure. The more rural states get usually a stop at the capitol city and biggest city Like Federal congressmen that want DC trains no matter what . When the political city isn't served the state typically says Nahh. However states resist funding additional routes to cities that are rivals of the biggest or capitol city in their state.
I wouldn't want to be in either location myself. Personally I wouldn't want to live or even visit another democrat run state again. But that is one of the things I like about America. It was designed with the intent of every state having it's own laws with a small federal government mainly to protect the boarders and settle state vs state disputes.
You hit the nail on the head - it's more about deciding to invest than anything. There are a bunch of externalities outside the basic function of simply moving people around the country that make it pay off in the end. China's boom in high speed rail building is a perfect example of planning ahead for their population growth. Their longest high speed line is heavily subsidized but the shorter lines make up for it. Here is a good video about it: ua-cam.com/video/0JDoll8OEFE/v-deo.html
Don't forget that the US has very distributed population centers. High cost infrastructure just doesn't make a lot of sense compared to the old world where cities are closely located. Also, as mentioned, freight is the focus of US rail infrastructure.
Subsidies are another way of saying, "This is worthless and is a waste of money. Let's force someone else to pay for something I want." If no one wants to pay for it, that is probably because it's just not that necessary.
OBTW, Amtrak trains do get priority over freight when the schedules are drawn up. Problems occur when an Amtrak train falls behind schedule and out of its assigned "slot". It then must wait for the next open "slot" in the track's schedule. This is why you will see passenger trains on a siding, waiting for a freight to go by.
Looked into traveling by rail to a town about 500 miles away....found out that it would cost just as much as flying, AND I’d have to ask old people to stay up late at night, and drive 30 miles to come and get me at the train station. If I flew, I could choose from 3-4 arrivals per day. Rather than ONE, and the airport was 10 miles closer to my hosts than the train station. If I drove, it would take 7 hours of JUST driving (not factoring food/bathroom stops) but then, I wouldn’t have to inconvenience my hosts, AND I would have the freedom to go wherever I want! However, I would have to pay for gas, as well. (I chose plan “B”-flying...best combination of little cost/little time)
Many people in other countries observe that Americans are always rushing around. Which is true and not necessarily a wrong or bad choice. A car gets it done and when driving, stops are made at ones convenience.
7 hours of driving = 3-4 hours by train i think. And well by plane.. plus airport waiting time here in sweden it would take the same. To spain (4h flight) will take days in a train but there is a lot to see
I routinely drove from New Orleans to Chicago and Indianapolis... it's simply more convenient for me to drive as the cost of a plane ticket was often what the price of gas would have been and I don't have to rent a car while away, hassle with taxis/rides to and from airport, deal with deadlines. If there's a problem with traffic, I can go around as opposed to having my flight canceled and my plans thrown into chaos. Just more simple for me to drive.
My folks live about 900 miles away (rural Colorado to rural Minnesota). To fly, I need to drive an hour and a half to the airport, spend two hours at the airport, fly two hours, and then drive an hour and a half to their house, or about seven hours total; flights average about a hundred bucks, plus 50 to 100 for airport parking. If I drive, it takes about 12 hours straight through (plus maybe one or two hours for breaks and gas) and costs about a hundred bucks, BUT I can detour whenever I want, depart and arrive whenever I want, carry whatever baggage or cargo I want, and have a vehicle when I get there. I can leave from work Wednesday, and be home for Thanksgiving with a few hours to spare, for less money, and drive back home on Sunday. Via train, that's a three day trip that will cost more to make and force me to get a hotel for the layover in Chicago.
Most people will except there is alot in between and those small towns have NO more air service most people on I - 80 are not going to California they are going to someplace in between just like the trains.
@@thienphucn1 We have no investment in high speed in fact speeds have dropped. The long distance trains are popular because they go to places with NO air services and they are very comfortable.A after talk about high speed rail for 50 years and just gettting fare increases and cuts to control demand for the one tran a day services.
HSR is only competitive for trips of less than 450 miles with the sweet-spot being 200-250 miles London- Paris, Tokyo- Osaka. NYC -DC, Dallas Houston, Portland- Seattle-Vancouver(?), Atlanta-Charlotte
@Jenny Shull And the train conductor said "Driver 8. Take a break. You've been on this shift too long" By the way HS2 has just been given the go ahead in the UK. A real white elephant. ua-cam.com/video/wuFId1RYSZE/v-deo.html
One note about the number of "cars" per person in America... I once noted a few years ago that our number was below a couple of other countries and I was suspicious of that, so I did a little digging. Turns out that number does NOT include SUV's, vans, and light trucks (up to 1 ton). SUV's, vans, and light trucks now account for something like 1/3 of all vehicles sold in America. So if you add those back into the mix, Americans own MORE than one vehicle per person.
Another thing to consider, property rights are very robust in the United States in comparison to Europe. It would be very difficult to string a right of way over any distance to build a substantial route for high speed rail.
max Payne yeah, those government projects just fly up. I’m assuming you are speaking from your personal experiences with eminent domain, appropriation, and zoning? And not some talking point you heard from someone?
Eh, we've done it before... interstates and all. Doesn't mean it's an easy or short process, but if the government really wanted to flex its muscle, they could.
MST3Killa Agreed, there is a process in existence to do it in the US. I hate to pull the conversation in a more politically charged direction, but it is relevant. Much of the southern boarder is privately owned land, and I believe they are having difficultly in acquiring the land to build the boarder wall. One of the reasons being that land owners have the right to request a jury trials, and most of the litigation is tied up in court for years. Most politicians want to be re-elected, and taking land from the citizens with the use of eminent domain would likely be unpopular. So there is also a reputational risk. Additionally, there was another good point about level crossings brought up earlier. There is no constructible path in existence in the US that would involve no road crossings. There would have to be intergovernmental work performed between local, state, and federal levels, as roads are owned by different levels of government. This would add more complexity to the situation.
When discussing the times it takes to travel on a plane there is also all of the extra time of waiting in lines to get through security, waiting at the gate, waiting on baggage at the other end and the concept that you have to arrive early to allow for any delays in any of the above steps. Train travel may be much slower but the comfort of big seats and being able to walk around the train is a real benefit. No real baggage limits or extra fees for extra bags. Plus NO TSA security at least right now in the US. Travel by train is so much more relaxing.
I live in the northeast and use Amtrak regularly, so my observations are based on that. Rail travel is great... if you're traveling alone with a small bag and maybe a laptop. You get a comfortable seat, and more leg room than on a plane, and you don't have to worry about physically managing the vehicle so you can work or read or whatever. But I only ride the faster Acela if my employer is paying, because it costs a a lot. If I'm paying for my own trip, I get the cheapest fare I can. And if none of the cheap tickets are available, I take a bus. Price is why high speed rail in the US is perceived as an upper middle class, business travel luxury. It's not transportation for the masses. Now imagine two people, or a family of four, someone traveling with camping gear, skis, kayaks, and all the other paraphernalia people take on vacation. Driving is usually cheaper if you've got more than one person, and nobody's going to lug a lot of gear on the train. I once had to move a drum set from DC to Philly. That's an easy train ride even on a slow train, but not if you're bringing a drum set. So I drove. But there are a lot of business travelers on the west coast too, so why no high speed rail there? They've started building, but it turns out to be really hard to acquire the land for tracks in the big cities where you want the trains to go. Property is expensive, and there's always someone who doesn't want to sell. The land acquisition problem alone is enough to slow down or cancel projects.
The west coast doesn't actually have that huge a problem with land acquisition, I live on the west coast and the biggest reason is... The track from LA-SF goes through several mountain ranges Los Padres, Santa Lucia, San Diablo. San Diablo has a regular height in the 4000s of feet and is literally what SF is on. Santa Lucia has a peak of about 6000 feet (and that peak is directly on the most direct route possible). Los Padres doesn't even need an explanation really. Now you want to know what's an even larger problem? They're all federally protected. The most direct route legally allowed is through the valley, and guess what? We have rails that already do that and would only need to be converted to allow for high speed rail, which then causes the issue of the mountains still. The west coast is a coast of mountains.
Thank you for an interesting video. Personally, I loved England when I visited it 2 years ago but the one disappointment was the trains. Buying a ticket was surprisingly difficult as the dumb machines malfunctioned and took my credit card but didn't properly print my ticket so I had to argue with staff to avoid being doubled charged, which eventually worked but took a lot of time. In general train employees were much less friendly and helpful than bus/coach employees. Figuring out routes was harder than I initially expected and sometimes you have to switch rail cars during a long trip so you have to pay attention closely to where you are going and not fall asleep on board. Trains are also the one form of travel where you often have to face opposite of the direction you are moving in, which can be really disorienting. Some people get seasick or airsick but I got trainsick doing this. On top of that there wasn't as much privacy and during one trip I got stuck face to face with a couple arguing in a foreign language. I guess I'm just the anti-Sheldon Cooper and will take only buses and cars on my next trip to Europe.
suntanman99 Next time try this: raileurope.co.uk (formerly called loco2). You can download the app to your smartphone and both plan your route and buy tickets on the fly and pay with PayPal if you want. The app then generates a QR code that can be scanned in place of a ticket. I’ve used it on two trips to the U.K. and it worked great.
Perhaps you should look into why Eisenhower introduced the American Highway system. It had a defensive purpose and was designed to overcome vulnerability of European cities. If a city is mainly connected to the outside world by rail, it makes it easier for an invading force, or a hostile domestic force to cut off that city, and starve it out. However, with our highway system, an car culture, it is much more difficult. Not impossible, but more difficult.
I think it is largely because the population centers are so far apart. England is small compared to the USA where the second biggest city touches the Pacific Ocean and the largest touches the Atlantic. It is not feasible to stretch high speed rails over such a distance when an airplane does faster speeds far far cheaper. It’s the same reason Canada doesn’t have high speed rail, everything is just too far apart to be worth it. An argument can be made for a few places to put in a high speed rail (primarily DC to New York) but it would be a single rail unsupported by any other infrastructure. It still wouldn’t make sense to branch off that with more because that is the only place with a high enough volume of traffic to be sustainable. As it is with regular rail transport, the DC to New York trip is one of the only long distance routes that is profitable. When dealing with such a massive area of land, airplanes are just better. Three times faster, with far lower barrier to entry costs, and can fly over mountains instead of having to go though them! That just my opinion though, I’m sure there are a lot more reasons high speed rail is not prevalent in the US Edit:I did write this before the video ended, and you did touch almost all these points, so it seems we are in agreement! Great video, very entertaining. Also if there are in 93,000 miles of tracks in the US, that means they stretch one one thousandth of the way to the sun which is 93 million miles away!
It's a straw man argument... No one is talking about high speed rail between LA and New York... but there are dozens and dozens of city pairs much closer together... There are at least 20 cities with a population of 500,000 or more 400 miles or less from Chicago... At least 10 within 400 miles of Dallas and another 20 within 400 miles of Atlanta and on and on.. Airplanes though are not in effect 3 times faster, and for flights of less than two hours are effectively slower... The flight time is only a small part of the total travel time... In most cities you have a minimum of 30 minutes to get from the city center to the airport, flights board 30 minutes before departure and generally close 10 minutes prior to departure... even cutting it close you need to add 20 minutes to get through security and to the terminal and then at least 30 minutes to get from the arrival airport to the city center, so at a minimum your 3x as fast plane takes 3 hours in total. Trains typically arrive in the city center and while most high speed rail has security it typically takes less than 10 minutes... you can also board 500 people on a 10 car train in a fraction of time it takes to board 150 people on a plane. The London Paris route is a prime example... Air traffic on that route peaked at about 4 million passengers the year before Eurostar opened currently the air traffic between London and Paris is a little over a million while the Eurostar carries in excess of 10 million. The other issue not considered is airport and air space capacity... In California the airports are reaching serious capacity constraints... and expansion is difficult and expensive.. As population increases and travel demand increases there just aren't enough departure slots... High speed rail can handle huge volumes of passengers. The Tokyo Osaka route carries in excess of 175 million passengers a year... That's like a 747 taking off every 15 minutes 24 hours a day.. Air travel will still have it's place... but there are literally 100's of routes that would be better served by high speed rail.
Something perhaps not so widely known was that part of the reason for the US Highway system was so stretches of it could serve as emergency airstrips during wartime. It's why in some areas the freeway/highway is so straight and wide. Of course it was never needed for wartime...but there have been occasions where aircraft have utilized it anyway.
No it wasn't... it was all because Eisenhower drove a truck in the early 1900's on a coast-to-coast in a military convoy and realized how screwed up we'd be if it didn't change. He was some of the autobahn post WWII and hatched the plan... and there are relatively few places on the interstate were any size of military transport could safely land for long - it's not built for the lbs/sqft requirements at all... Choppers, sure and a few light planes, maybe - no transports...
@@lylestavast7652 it's great for ground equipment though. I'm a truck driver and pass military convoys probably around once a month all over the country. All on interstates.
Mate.Welcome to America.....We will NEVER have the railway system you have. I work for the railroad here in Tennessee. Amtrak is going down. No more dining services and the late trains are horrible. I was amazed by the trains in the UK. All on time. You have the North East Corridor up North but no where else. I traveled all over the UK last summer. Even took the train to Paris!!
Tim Daugherty ...No more dining car?? ☹️ I haven’t traveled via Amtrak for over 15 years, but my wife and I used to do NYC to Cleveland often, going whole hog with a sleeper cabin and dinning. It felt old timey and charming. It was pleasant speaking to other travelers in the dining car. Sad.
When did Amtrak get rid of the dining cars? I've taken the Southwest Chief several times to Chicago and they always had a dining car. --In fact, that's one of the most fun parts of the trip. Amtrak doesn't have extensive service through Tennessee, except for the famous "City of New Orleans" route from Chicago to New Orleans. ua-cam.com/video/TvMS_ykiLiQ/v-deo.html
Why did they get rid of dining service??? I took trains from New Orleans to Boston 15 years ago and the dining service was the only thing that made the trip enjoyable without upgrading to a cabin.
You need four things that you need for any public transportation to work. 1) A viable route that will at least come close to breaking even. 2) Political will to finance and allow the system to be built built. 3) The knowledge to build the route. 4)The ability to finance, operate, maintain, and replace equipment as needed due to aging.
One other thing you missed was topography. You talked about a high speed line from Chicago to LA taking 8 to 10 hours -- in truth it would likely be 50% more time, say 12-15 hours, or even more. The problem is largely the Rocky Mountains (though the Sierra Nevada could also get in the way, particular to SF).
I'm uncertain. There are notable sections of high-speed rail through the Alps (in Switzerland, Italy, France and Austria). Granted it's not all fully interconnected yet (still under construction/being upgraded) and obviously crossing the Rockies and Sierra Nevadas involves much greater distance than across the Alps. So for sure it would be (probably) prohibitively expensive. But I think that feeds more into the general discussion of cost and distance tradeoffs that was already made, than to simply say "you can't get high speed through the mountains so it would add a whole bunch of time." If the hypothetical will were there, it could be done. Either way, though, your general point is absolutely correct that it is one more hindering factor.
And then you have the Appalachian Mountains along the east coast. There is a reason that a lot of the US population is packed into the coasts and said mountain ranges play a big part in that.
@@SeanNicholsEh The difference is, they've been able to build tunnels in Switzerland. While expensive, they can connect cities that are less than 30 minutes apart -- in fact a major issue in Switzerland is that the cities are too close together to allow the train to get up to full speed. So building a 30 Km tunnel, while expensive, is offset by the number of passengers that travel to cities on either side of the tunnel. In the US, you have Denver on the Eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains, and then you have Salt Lake City roughly 500 miles away. There are no cities between Salt Lake and Denver yet you'd need several large tunnels to connect high speed rail between the two cities. This makes building those high speed lines impractical -- particularly when you consider that you can fly between the cities already, in 90 minutes, for prices that are likely as cheap, or cheaper, than what a high speed rail ticket would cost. Then, after Salt Lake (if you extend the line to San Francisco) you again have no cities until about Reno, another 500 miles -- so again a few tunnels to get through the rest of the Rockies -- though not as bad as Salt Lake to Denver. Then after Reno, you again have to go through the Sierra Nevada range to get to Sacramento and San Francisco. The costs quickly add up, needing to build high speed rail over 1,000 miles of mountainous areas while connecting very few cities in that stretch, that would provide extra trains and passengers to help pay for the costs of those lines. Additionally, over those distances, it is faster and likely as cheap to fly between the cities -- meaning even less rail passengers, even if the lines were built.
@@SeanNicholsEh I agree with David's response to yours. The freedom given by having a car or a work truck plus the fact that if you need to traverse long distances, it's easier to just take a plane over. Have to remember too, the US doesn't consist of office workers, we have quite a few people that need to take the work truck/vehicle to be able to do their jobs, in some cases stopping at various places. A passenger train just cannot accommodate that flexibility.
Being in Chicago you may not be aware that a high speed rail is very close to being built in Texas. The Texas Central Railway would connect Dallas to Houston (two very large cities), travel 200mph, and take 90 minutes, which is faster than flying. Although there are detractors, I for one can’t wait to ride this! www.chron.com/neighborhood/spring/news/article/Houston-Dallas-high-speed-rail-construction-may-13620560.php
This is exactly how high speed rail should be built. In smaller sections between places that will produces enough profit to pay for itself. We don't need massive tax increases, just let Population Density and Demand do it's thing. Looks like it would be fun to ride too.
Two years later and the Dallas/Houston HSR is still basically an unfunded proposal. California HSR is on the verge of bankruptcy and when it goes down it will take down all the other proposed HSR proposals, including Dallas/Houston.
@@richardrose2606 "Two years later and the Dallas/Houston HSR is still basically an unfunded proposal." I think Amtrak has been working with them, I think it's a waste of money....if the company is failing, let them fail. They should have just gone down the median of the highway. "California HSR is on the verge of bankruptcy " Argh that project is so stupid. I'm a lifelong centrist Democrat here in California and I proudly voted "no". The good news is that the Governor has some sense and said there shall be no more construction beyond Merced to Bakersfield (nowhere to nowhere) because the stupid project wasted all their money. The funny thing about them is that all the new track they have built is currently underwater! In the natural world there was a huge lake there, but man drained it for farms. We had a series of huge storms last year and it restored the lake, so the track is underwater. lmao.
Some other considerations is that if a new railroad is going to be built, first there would have to have a designated route. As possibilities are considered, there has to be public forums in every community where locals can express their support or lack there of on a railroad in or around their community. if there is any private property involved, eminent domain becomes an issue and property owners who disagree can tie the process up in the courts for years, not to mention the possible affect on property values near the route.. If government funds are going to be used, there would be congressional hearings on every subject imaginable, and every congressman who has a district along that route is going to demand a stop in their district as a price for their vote. Congressman in districts not along the route are going to insist that industries in their districts are picked as contractors for the project. Next there has to be an environmental impact statement to make sure there are no possible endangered species that won't be accidentally eradicated. These are just a few things that make a national high speed rain difficult, if not impossible in the US.
add this do the "density" issue - where it is needed are the most densly populates (IE the Northeast) where you would have to travel through more pople's backyards, and come on, here in NJ we invented NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard)
What's really funny about the environmental aspect is that the ecomentalists completely ignore studies from both British government-funded researchers, and EU-funded researchers, that found that high speed rail systems used there use far more fuel per passenger than an average mid-size crossover. The "green new deal" dipshits in the US want to do away with airplanes, but switch to national high-speed rail systems which would require more fossil fuel. And that's just to run them. Building them would be an unfuckingbelievably fuel consuming job.
Ironically the same liberal minded people that want trains to just "appear" would be fighting against every mile of track being laid via regulations, hearings, environmental impact, endangered wildlife and in the field protests. Remember it was the liberal wing of politics that wanted the national highway system to help fight poverty. It was a New Deal proposal in the 30s. The auto workers unions wanted it. The Teamsters wanted it. How quickly people forget and just listen to 29 year olds tell us of the 30s and 60s.
RailRide. True. GND was just a spiritual non-binding resolution anyway. It could not ever amount to law this year or next, as the Senate wouldn't pass it, and if somehow they did the President would veto it. This year (probably next) the House is just going to pass non law bills to get headlines and some fame for various wannabe presidents to chat about. Even at that most of her own party only voted "present" which is a defacto no. This stuff for the next two years is only oiling the sausage factory machinery. Nobody's masking bratwurst yet. Similar in 2010-2012, then things started again.
I love riding the train. Even the slow rails. I take my oldest to a children's hospital in Milwaukee by train. It's expensive, but getting a cabin on a train is the way to travel with children.
Utah has surprisingly good public transportation for a Western/Rural state. We have a quite nice light rail system that is for one thing a lot cheaper than High Speed Rail but we also have a decent bus system. I wish we had a lot more busses in the U.S. thpugh it seems a nice compromise between public transportation and cars. Both busses and cars use the same road infrastructure.
That population density is a big one. Even if my state implemented it, I'd be at least an hour away from reaching the nearest station. At that point, I'll just drive or fly. I also grew up traveling cross country by car, so it's very much part of my heritage. Road trips are deeply embedded in our cultural psyche. Hell, Roger Miller wrote an entire song about it. King of the Road is an American classic (although, admittedly, the vagabond the song embodies does travel by train a lot). The Proclaimers made a pretty kickass cover of it too, for anybody that likes them.
Even in Europe things arent quite as great as people say. I once took the Eurostar from London to Paris, but then had an emergency visit in Germany near Cologne. I could take high speed to Germany, but there was no way to get from Germany to London in any sort of decent time. I ended up having to be driven to an airport for a hour, flying to a small airport near London and taking a train into the city and a cab to catch up to my party.
Greetings from Idaho! One thing that you didn’t mention, but which is important, is geography. The Rocky Mountains are not exactly a small obstacle. And whether the rail goes through the mountains, between peaks, or around the Rockies, it’s going to skyrocket the cost. That and the western United States is mostly just vast expanses of wilderness, mountains, valleys, rivers, etc. some of which are tied up in federal land and national parks. The whole strategic planning of even just normal rail, would be a nightmare, before even getting to the talk of costs involved.
To answer your question, just overlay the interstate highway network over the rail lines map and you will see far more of the population is served better by car.
In Chicago, there's lots of rail infrastructure, but that's mostly industrial. Very few intercity connections because, as you said, interstate highways, but also airports.
That’s not to say certain high population states like Texas, California, Florida or New York wouldn’t be well-served by high-speed rail between large cities within the state!
Stinky Lebinowitz Uhhh, what is your point exactly? I’m well aware of California high-speed rail, and I’m well aware that technicalities prevented it from getting off the ground. Doesn’t mean it’s a bad concept though... It’s actually a very good idea. I’m not sure why anyone would choose congested California freeways over a seat on a bullet train in theory. They just need to keep at it and figure out a workable way to do it.
Wish we had high speed rails. I took a train from Richmond to NYC...felt it would've been faster to just drive. Living in Japan really made me wish we had high speed rails...
I spent a few weeks in Europe several years ago, bought a Eurorail pass because I didn't want to risk driving, it included access to individual city subways, so it was very convenient, you could take the train to the city and then the subway would drop you off very near the hotel. It was nice to sit back and enjoy the beautiful views, and an overnight ride let us spend an extra day sightseeing instead of wasting it on travel. But, it's a hassle, too, it's like catching a flight, you have to make sure and be there on time, there are unforseen delays, etc. In the US, gas is cheap, cars are cheap, there are large interstate highways with lots of reststops, restaurants and hotels along the way. We are too used to the freedom and flexibility we get with our cars, being able to just jump in and go whenever and wherever we want. Even the "road trip" itself is an event, I've been cross-country several times, and the drive itself is a big part of the fun. And even if you took a train somewhere, unless it's a really big city, you're still going to need a car when you get there. We're just too spread out, too mountainous in many areas, too thinly populated across vast regions, and too ingrained in driving ourselves to ever have anything close to a comprehensive rail system. There's no money in it, for those reasons and with cheap gas and even cheap flights so readily available. It's a great way to see Europe, but if you're planning to visit the US, bring your driving gloves.
Some parts of the lower 48 are like that. For example, Oregon's Harney County is larger in area than New Hampshire and only has 0.7 people per square mile.
*Excellent video Laurence!* I am a long time rail fan who always tells people as to why we don't have high speed rail in the US. And you brought up every point that I always bring up. You certainly did your research. Chicago and Milwaukee are only about 100 miles apart. And I live directly in between them both. So I watch trains go by on the Canadian Pacific/Amtrak Hiawatha route. And it's actualy one of the very few rail lines of the US, that is actualy being looked at for high speed rail. And this is all thanks to this corridor being almost entirely all city in between them both. It's a huge population center. And that's why it makes sense. Also you live sooo freaking close to the "Union Illinois Railroad Museum". You should really check it out. It's absolutely huge with all sorts of trains. It has steam locomotives, electric interurbans, electric trains, street cars and more! It's considered the largest railroad museum in North America. And it's only a 1 hour car ride from downtown Chicago! www.irm.org/ See the railway museum here. One last fun fact: Chicago is the railroad hub of North America.
As a wannabe railroader and railfan, I can tell you that the main reason we don't have high-speed rail. People don't want it. We were a railroad culture until the early 1900's, but then came cars and trucks. Both allow the door to door service that trains can't. There literally were hundreds of both large and small railroad companies in the US and Canada at one time, but most were either abandoned or merged into larger and larger systems so that there are only 7 MAJOR railroads today. In the northern tier of the US, (the states you mentioned as using more cars) it is not economically feasible to have more than a few passenger trains a day because there is no one to ride them. There are just NOT that many people out there. Since freight trains make money, and passenger trains don't, that is the reason you were stopping and starting so much. Train dispatchers dont want to delay the money makers for a passenger train that can't even pay its bills. Sad, but true. BTW, almost ALL of the tracks used by AMTRAK are owned by freight railroads, and Amtrak pays rent to them, with the exception of the North East Corridor, which they own outright. In that instance, the freight roads pay Amtrak to run trains on their lines.
Why was rail ridership at record highs before the Trump virus? Powerful lobbies pay the kick backs to stop rail investment of any kind. Ridership would double if you just added a train or didn't avoid major cities like Phoenix and Des Moines. The mergers were to get rid of them, you can thank President Reagan for that. A pro business republican.
For those of us who have never and do not ever want to fly, we just don't go anywhere, unless it's by car. Car travel takes forever and is exhausting. Once, I wanted to go to L.A. From Chicago to L.A., it would have been something like three days by train one way. Still better than driving, BUT I would need at least two weeks off from work because nearly one week is taken up by the travel alone. Bag it.
you hit it on the head . the main reason passenger train service died , was the monopoly they had , and like oil companies , the ability to price gouge their customers.
and out here in the way out nowhere. those 1200kph trains would have tracks crossing over 100s of 1000s of little tiny communities and farm roads and county roads that the death tolls from collisions would be insane.
@@EllieMae99 ya that's the problem. the train wouldn't stop. and cars and farm vehicles would have to. it would be a mess. it's already one with just 60mph freight trains.
@@mordeys Proper high speed rail tracks never cross roads at grade, they always have an under- or overpass. If they can't build one they cut the road in half and you have to drive around.
Cities are too far apart and when you get there , you usually need a car to get around anyway . Missouri once priced out the cost of HSH from St. Louis to Kansas city. It would be cheaper to give every rider free business class tickets on an airline for 20 years.
Hey cut the Missouri BS. The four trains a day don't even stop at the 6 Flags amusement park they pass 4 times a day! They sit in Kansas City too instead of going on to Topeka a short distance away! Kansas City has PAID parking! MO is a failure when it comes to rail. They are controlled by the highway lobby. You also need a car if you take the bus, or fly! With the build out of rail in KC and Saint Louis needing a car is less and less every year.
For any trip less than 450 miles, HSR is competitive with the sweet-spot being around 200-250 miles. Teh US will never have a national system but a collection of regional ones.
If you need a car after getting off the HSR you can do what you do with an airline; carry a car in your carry-on luggage. Since new airports are frequently well outside the city I assume you pack a full size sedan rather than the small coupe you can use with a train station in the middle of town.
That is true, but the coin has another side. How about the lack of freedom we have stuck in congested traffic on a freeway, the 5 and even sometimes 10 minutes it takes to pass through an intersection, gridlock in dense metro surface streets, the difficulties of finding parking as well as the cost of it, road rage, traffic accidents, the incredible cost of vehicles, driving the same route over and over because we have to, . . . . I often think about reading a book, watching a movie, having long conversations with family and eating with two hands, all possible when traveling by rail. I have family in Phoenix and live in a rural area of the Sierra Nevada in California and would love to take a train rather than a car, how many hundreds of times have I driven all the possible routes between the two locations?
Let's see if you're still saying that the next time your flight gets canceled during a snowstorm. Next time you're stranded in an airport for two days, I guarantee you'll be singing a different tune.
If you draw a line from Duluth-Twin CIties-Souix Falls-Lincoln-Wichita-Oklahoma City-Ft. Worth-San Antonio-Corpus Christi and all points east of there, you have decent density. There's a few corridors in the west where the density makes sense - the West Coast corridor, Tucson-Phoenix-LA, Wasatch Front, LA-Las Vegas.
What a great presentation! You are spot on. If we had high speed trains, I'd be inclined to travel more. I refuse to go by plane because the last time I flew it was an awful experience. So now I either drive or stay at home - mostly stay at home.
Also note that with cars you can choose where to drive on any of the many roads, and with the right cars you can even go off road. Americans have always been less focused on public transport for a few reasons, and the geography makes it difficult too. The biggest reason is probably not even just car culture but freedom and individualism culture. I can go wherever I want in my car, I can only go where teh menu of locations allows in a train.
Fearghus Keitz cars are great for vacations and other recreational purposes. not as much when you go back and forth frequently. that’s where it’s more convenient to take a train; when it’s about going from point a to b and not about the trip in between.
" Americans have always been less focused on public transport" That's not true. We used to have some of the best trains in the world, and they went nearly everywhere! However, we fell victim to subsidizing the auto industry, which systematically dismantled our public transit network. It has nothing to do with "freedom" - that is a farce.
funplussmart I would disagree, having been to nyc and plenty of the east coast, and living in a small city now, I’d say that cars are far better for getting to a specific place, and they provide more versatility and freedom of movement. You can also use them to carry cargo far more easily than you could with transit. If you’re in a rural town you’ll need a car not only because of the lack of public transportation but because of the utility cars provide.
@@feartheghus They take up a zillion times more space than transit, which causes traffic to get worse. I don't consider sitting in a highway on rush hour traffic "freedom or versatility" of movement. If anything, it's a form of hell on earth.
Just don't forget to deal with the bs of airport security and being crammed like sardines in a can. Also unless you happen to live near a major airport, don't forget the hours you may have to spend getting to the airport.
Cheng Liu Takes me 20 minutes to airport, drive to hangar, pull out and pre-flight, close hangar doors, gone in 15-20 minutes. No security, no flightplan, plane stays full of fuel. Land in 3 hrs, pee, rehydrate, refuel and go again. Easy-peasy.
The main reason is time and money. It takes two hours to drive from Indianapolis to Chicago at a price of about 15 dollars of gas. On top of that, there's the freedom to stop where you want, eat what you want, sightsee, and you don't need to rent a car or use public transportation when arrived at your destination. Additionally, America is so large that flying is the only logical option for large distance round trips. Technically, trains would be more common everywhere, trains that could ferry cars, go super fast, and be as cheap as the cost of gas, if the government didn't monopolize the rail and power industries. Government intervention has kept innovation in both industries almost fifty years behind automobiles.
When I visited my friend in Syracuse, I took the Greyhound to Albany to meet up with a distant relative. The bus station was also the train station and I was astonished to see how few trains ran between Syracuse and New York City. I live in a small town 40 miles from London, and we have trains every ten minutes and even the commuter trains do over 70mph. My American friend loves our rail network.
My biggest peeve. U.S. has way to little public transit outside of major cities, even major cities are just a ghost of service in 1960 when I was 18. In 1960 I could go from where I live in Arizona small town to a small town in Ohio. I am 78 now and have to look to the future when I am (for safety sake) not driving.
There are Senior Transportation companies, usually through the local Council on Aging, or whoever manages Meals on Wheels. I'd suggest learning how it works in your area.
It's interesting that most of the pro-HSR comments come down to "I like trains," and most of the anti-HSR comments come down to "In the US, they make no economic sense."
I've noticed that the pro-HSR comments seem to be about how well the trains work where they've been tried and they aren't as miserable as flying, which can, with creative editing, be boiled down to "I like trains". Mostly by ignoring how well HSR works wherever it's tried. Anti-HSR comments seem to be all about how much they don't like trains and think trains should be the only transportation system to operate without anything that even the most creative libertarian activist can pretend is a subsidy, which can be boiled down to "In the US they make no economic sense."
Interesting video. I love traveling by rail, and I've crossed the US several times by train. I think our trains could be a bit faster--and it would be nice to eliminate the need to sit on a siding waiting for freight trains to pass--but I'm not upset that we don't have high speed rail. In North America (and I'm including Canada's passenger rail), you don't take long distance trains for speed. You take them for a relaxing journey, to see the beautiful landscape, to chat with all type of people. If you want to "get there fast," you fly or you drive. I'm not referring to shorter routes and commuter routes, where speed is important. But covering the vast distances of the US, I like the slower pace. Not the delays, but I don't need to zoom across the country at more than 300 miles per hour. I'm sure others feel differently
Dublin to Kiev is about the same distance as Boston to Dallas. You can go all the way across Europe through several countries and still not go as far as getting across the US.
@@longwave8156 OK, I stand corrected. Google Maps was being "helpful" by reporting km in Europe and miles in the USA. Boston to L.A. is a bit farther than Lisbon to Moscow.
I love taking the Amtrak but there are issues once you get to where you're going. Many places don't have good public transportation systems in place and the ones who do, it's often risky to use it. In St. Louis, I could take public transit to work everyday but it would take me over 2.5 hours to get to work 12 miles from home verses the 25 minutes it takes me to drive and I'm not likely to get robbed at gunpoint in my car on the interstate. I looked at how to get to Disneyland from St. Louis by train. It would take me 3 day and about $700 to ride in a coach seat ($1200+ if I wanted sleeping accommodations) with 1 train exchange in California one way and then have to either walk or rely on public transit the whole time I'm there. I could fly first class and rent a luxury car for the price of a one-way ticket on the Amtrak and be at my hotel room in under 8 hours.
"I looked at how to get to Disneyland from St. Louis by train." Yeah that's way too far. It's not reasonable to expect a train to be as fast as flying for that distance. Just fly, for that. That's what Europeans don't understand, the vast size of this country. They may talk shit, but they don't have HSR runs that long, either, lol. That's 1821 miles, even if you were going 200 mph (the TGV actually averages 173 over the whole system, says wikipedia), it would STILL be 9 hours. Versus 4 hours to fly it. 🙂 btw the public transit is great in California. Although I would suggest flying into Santa Ana aka John Wayne, it's much closer than LAX....I admit it's not direct flight, but it's quicker than HSR would be. Public transit is great in California. But pretty much all public transit is going to be slower than driving, if there's no traffic. Another option is find a hotel that has a free shuttle from SNA and then get a cab to Disneyland. 🙂
Nice video. Nice editing Laurence. I live in Iowa (one of your unvisited states). Perhaps you should go on a fishing trip with my brother and tell the differences between UK outdoorsmen and US. From a non outdoorsmen perspective
The hyperloop concept is fine if you like being a bullet in a barrel. The only place it's been feasible is in utopian science fiction novels which have no taxing authority.
There was supposed to be a speed line between Madison and Milwaukee but it got scrapped in 2010. I wonder if it would worked or would have gone belly up.
I thought hyperloop was just a not-serious concept thing they were discussing, saying immediately it wouldn't currently be feasible. This is the first I'm hearing it was ever being implemented
DOUG HEINS In other countries, HSR is more affordable than people in the US realize. My stepson has lived in Japan for almost 20 years. Not only are their trains faster and more prolific; they are clean and they run on time. And they are less costly than air travel.
@@PalemoonTwilight In other countries they subsidize hsr with huge amounts of money. Do you really want the government to spend 500 billion a year of taxpayers money for something only a handful of people will use on a weekly basis? You should also look at the size difference of the USA and Japan and population density.
Japan is a tiny country though we're not a tiny country. I don't think it's fair to apply the same standards to Tiny countries to huge ones. It's going to take a lot more resources to do a high-speed rail in a huge country
DOUG HEINS True. But why should that stop the US from using rail. We have allowed our rail infrastructure to become dilapidated because big oil and GM wanted it that way.
It was also looked at by private rail companies in the 1950's but it ran up against what was thencost prohibitive safety regs and robber baron era regulations on adding and removing stops.
My sister in law just got stuck in Chicago in that snowstorm over the weekend as her flight was cancelled. The alternative was 🚆 to Sacramento which would take 2 days or drive it in 30 hours.
I would use trains, if it didn't cost so much in the US! Why take a train, when you can pay about the same price, and fly in a fraction of the time? I do love trains though. I haven't been to Europe yet, but riding European trains is on my bucket list!
Cross country on a train is impractical to say the least. However I took the train from Albany to NYC and it was clearly the better way to go, around the same price once tolls + gas + parking are considered and you don't have to deal with the awful NYC traffic
I just priced the trains from DC to NYC. The regular train costs $50 and takes 3 hours and 30 minutes. The high speed train, Acela, costs at least $100 more, and takes 3 hours and 3 minutes. 🤔 This is just one way. I haven’t gotten around to pricing a round trip. How exactly is the Acela high speed?
I like this video, because unlike other things I've seen on this subject in the past, it actually delves in to a number of good reasons why this is the case, instead of just determining that we're a bunch of backwards idiots in the US. A few points I wanted to add to. On the subject of the car culture, I think that is correct to a certain extent. Expanding on that, one point that isn't often brought up is the age of the major cities in relation to how long cars have been viable methods of transportation for the masses. The majority, if not all of the major cities scattered across the UK and even the whole of Europe are old, and were around long before cars were ever a thing. This means that those cities, especially in the downtown/city center areas, were long established and built before cars were around, and the need to make roads to accommodate them. This means many of these cities had to come up with other methods to get growing populations around, since only so much could be done in the way of making roads large enough to handle increasing traffic. This means people have less need to own cars in the first place, which translates out into needing other methods to travel between cities and such. Contrast that with the US where, outside of the Northeast and a few other cities like Chicago; most cities didn't really start to grow to the point of needing to handle methods of moving large amounts of people around until after cars were a thing, so many cities just grew and were built with cars in mind from the get go. The population density factor is a huge one. Looking at the UK map of high speed rail, it appeared to me that the longest distance, or at least one of the longest distances, you could travel by high speed rail was from London to Glasgow. According to Google Maps, that's about 412 miles by car. Compare that to where I live. The closest "major city" to me (and in this case, I'm defining a "major city" as one that's large enough to support at least one major professional sports team) is Kansas City, and that's also the only "major city" that is at or closer than that 412 miles. Distances are quite large for the most part between major cities. Going back to the car culture thing again, there is also just the general question of available public transportation. Like I stated above, many cities in the UK and Europe have fairly robust public transportation to begin with, getting around the city itself without a car is relatively easy. Again using where I live as an example, while I don't live in a city anywhere near approaching the big cities in the US, it's still fairly good size, and definitely somewhere you would have a tough time getting around all the time without some form of motorized transportation. Public transportation is available in the form of buses, and while it's decent and certainly usable, and some people do rely on it for their getting around, in general it just isn't good enough for most people to rely on for getting where they need to go all the time. While taxis, Uber, Lyft, etc... are available as well, for the most part it is just better to own a vehicle. Once you own a vehicle, most shorter trips where you might find high speed rail useful are just easier to drive, rather than have to be at the whim of other people's schedules. Topography is also a big factor. In general, building high speed rail all across the US would be in the trillions of dollars, like stated in the video. Maintaining said high speed rail would be at least in the billions, if not trillions, as well. Topography is another big problem that either would put up a roadblock or greatly increase costs. The imagined Chicago to San Francisco connection would almost certainly have to cross through a significant portion of the Rocky Mountains, at least for the most direct route. Being able to maintain high speed through areas like that would require a lot of tunnels, which means skyrocketing costs. Sorry for the long comment, this is a subject I've seen brought up many times, so I've had quite a few thoughts about it.
Another factor is the hard freeze and frost heave in the spring that makes keeping rail strait and level for high speeds very difficult. West coast would be easy though.
I’ve been in the rail field since graduating university. Historically the railroad companies provided both freight and passenger service. Passenger patronage started to fall after WWII. This was due to the interstate highway system and air travel. Eventually the railroads started loosing money and eventually filed bankruptcy. The biggest bankruptcy was Penn Central. As a result, the government formed Amtrak. It was supposed to be a stopgap. Many long distance is so vast that rail is impractical. Rail travel seems to be making a revival on new regional routes. Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, Washington is obvious. New service has been extended Washington-Richmond, and Boston-Portland, ME. Chicago has many popular regional runs to Detroit, Milwaukee, and St. Louis. I do appreciate the depth of service in the UK. It seems like some of the 1960s cuts are being undone.
You omitted the minor fact that almost 100% of passenger rail was subsidized by the US Postal Service. Once the ZIP code system was instituted, passenger rail died. A piece of mail now takes 3 days to travel from New York to LA. (It also takes 3 days to travel from Manhattan to Brooklyn, but...)
The ridership is higher when you have trains which these places do. There are massive gaps in the system and corridors across the country the have NO rail service like Phoenix to Tucson or Detroit to Toledo. The private railroads did go broke . THE YEAR WAS 1967! When the last MAIL WAS TAKEN OFF THE NATIONAL RAIL SYSTEM. Explain to me why the booming Chicago to Milwaukee corridor avoids all the major cities between them. Evanston, Waukegan, Kenosha, Racine? It that what Mc Donald's or Walmart would do? Avoid major cities? And under 1000 miles conventional overnight rail is just as fast as flying mail. It goes by truck today just like General Motors wanted it. Not much flys.
@@Neville60001 In the 1800's, you could drop off a letter at the post office in the morning, and it would be delivered that afternoon, across town. (This was before the Telephone.) In cities, mail delivery was twice a day. If you were wealthy, you could communicate via telegraph, and the message travel could be within minutes. People could have their company name as their telegraph/cable address, and their own telegrapher. The system now depends on central sorting, in massive sorting centers, served by interstate trucks, using the Interstate highway system, or aircraft, with the sorting center within a couple of miles of the airport, if not on the property. You used to pay a premium postage for air mail, with a red and blue pattern on the edge of the envelope.
Answering before I even watch the vid (I know, I am a renegade) We have tried to get high speed rail in California for years. Shot down as a waste.... Now I will go watch the vid.
As for competition against airline, given the atrocious state of domestic airlines, high speed rail can compete on price and comfort. Your viewers have to go on an actual high speed rail in china, japan or even Europe (which is slightly inferior) to understand how much more spacious and comfortable these trains are. Amtrak cabins and seat is like cattle pens in comparison. Also, if you factor in the time for going through custom and checks and all the waiting time in the lobby of airport, high speed rail is not not that much slower unless the distance is truly huge.
They can compete in comfort, but that comfort comes at a high price. I don’t think they can compete in price(considering how expensive it is just to build the infrastructure for it, not including price of operation and maintenance), and they definitely can’t compete in speed as planes are just overall faster.
@@blackhole9961 Trains are not expensive. They have removed planes in distances below 1000km.Evidence: we go to work everyday on 300km/h electric trains, fare for 500km is $50 if not monthly ticket which is much cheaper.
As someone who has been a rail enthusiast and read up a good portion of American rail history, some of this is true but there is more. Things that killed American High Speed Rail. 1 - Cars, historically they caused declines in both passenger and freight traffic on rail. 2 - Private competition. There was a time when passenger rail was run by the same private companies that run freight and there were more of these companies. In short, there were very cutthroat and even illegal activities that went on years ago in order for one company to gain advantages over others. 3 - Bankruptcies. A number of private rail companies lost money mostly due to the previous 2 reasons forcing mergers. The worst was when a number of NorthEast rail companies all got hit with losses in the same time period then 2 of those companies that should not have been allowed to merge did so and within 2 years THAT merged company declared bankruptcy. This company, the Penn Central, was in such poor shape they made videos to get Congress to do something to help, you can find such videos online including things like track so bad trains were rocking side to side almost tipping over. 4 - The NorthEast bankruptcies caused to government to get involved and it took them 6 years to get a plan in action. This plan involved creating 2 government companies, one called Amtrak for Passenger and the other Conrail for freight that over time took over the operation of several NorthEast railroads. Conrail lasted for a couple of decades, improved the NorthEast freight rail and went back to being a private company that was later divided up into 2 other freight companies. But Passenger rail never went back to private service, instead the government wound up taking over all American rail passenger service nationwide. Various things have kept Amtrak from doing High Speed rail since including land that cannot be built on such as Native reservations, not updating equipment, etc. 5 - Due to all the private companies both losing money and getting out of passenger service, a number of rail lines disappeared. There used to be many more rail lines than you see today, some of those former lines were passenger only or carried little freight. As private companies became freight only, they had no need for them and the government only focused on connecting major cities, not running trains on more local lines so they were abandoned. You can still find things left around from them in various locations, some have been converted into park trail. Do a search for Rail Trails in different states, they are out there.
In the early 2000's I took an Amtrak from San Diego to LA boarded a different train and went all the way to Pensacola, FL. This took three days so I had a small room that had two sets that turned into 2 small beds. I really enjoyed the experience. Sadly this route is not available due to so much of the railroads getting torn up by Hurricane Katrina.
Isn't Los Angeles in California? Second why should the higher electricity costs and taxes be stuck to the people in the Valley that wont get any use of it instead of the people in like Palo Alto that will?
You hit the main points. Europe is much more densely populated then the United States. The distances between population centers is much higher. And we like our automobiles. Cars are flexible and trains are not. One other thing is expense. It would not be multi billions, it would be trillions to make a national rail network. California is throwing money away on a high speed rail system that is back from going nowhere to nowhere. Even if the system was built and went from LA to San Francisco, it would still be slower then flying from LA to San Francisco. I will say though, that the few times I traveled in European trains, they seemed empty. I liked the Eurostar and the other trains were good. It is not just the United States. I compared options when I went to Australia, (Not exactly a densely populated country) and flying from Sydney to Cairns was the only real option.
George Steele A national high-speed rail system in the US wouldn’t be feasible... But at the state level it starts to make a lot more sense. Some high population states would do really well with bullet trains connecting their larger cities!
Actually, a high speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco could make a lot of sense -- though the big issue is the cost of getting it built. While it is technically slower than flying, that doesn't include the extra time that flying typically takes. I think a high speed rail line along the West Coast, from about San Diego up to Seattle, could make a lot of sense. You have enough cities along the coast , over that 1,000 miles, that it could be feasible. And, time wise it would still be comparable to air travel -- maybe not quite as fast, though once you factor in things like time spent in security at airports, the travel to an airport (as opposed to train stations that can be near city centers), it actually is close to the same amount of time to reach your destination. A high speed line from San Diego to Seattle could be as quick as 5 or 6 hours , depending on stops between the two cities. This isn't much off of 3 hours flying, particularly when you have to travel to the airport, arrive two hours before your flight is scheduled to depart, and then take transportation into the city. Of course, that falls apart when you look to build something nationwide -- particularly when you consider how few cities there are in the Western US, other than those on/near the Pacific Coast.
David Nielson You’re exactly right. A state like California is very comparable to a European country in terms of both size and population density making it perfect for high speed rail.
The only place it would make sense is the North East Corridor. Beyond that part, high speed rail is extremely expensive and slower than air travel. It is also more cumbersome. One can choose to drive to a certain place in a car. A bus company can alter its route. An airline can add or drop service. Trains cannot.
There's no point in a country as spread out as America. Planes are faster and you only have to build physical infrastructure at the takeoff and landing points. The only place where it would arguably work is the Northeast but you'd have to buy up and demolish so many properties along the route it wouldn't even be worth it.
Not to mention the enormous cost of building and maintaining a HSR system, also you cant have any RR crossings, collisions with trucks and cars at crossing at HSR speeds would be a catastrophe.
Planes are expensive. Europe is huge & benefits very well from their high speed trains. If you've never traveled them & seen first hand how much they help then you should have no say in this debate.
@@mermaid1717 Train infrastructure is even more expensive. A brand new airliner on average can pay for itself in 10 years and air based infrastructure is quicker and cheaper to set up and operate than any rail system.
I took the train from Sacramento CA to Reno NV and it took over six hours, after being almost two hours late. This trip by car can take between 1.5 to 2 hours by car (depending on potty breaks). It's a scenic trip but after two hours of looking at snow and trees the view get boring.
the us rail system was pretty much established in the 1800's before bureaucracy became a big deal and really hasn't changed much. in the early days it was used for passenger service more than freight but with the invention of the automobile and the airplane the passenger service was replaced with freight service and that has continued to the present day. like most old industries in america the labor unions dictate what will and what will not happen and the unions are not interested in high-speed rail so that's the way it is. as it is now there are not enough tracks to carry passengers and freight and nobody wants to pay for more tracks, that's also the way it is. amtrak exists mostly as a showcase of american transportation because it would be embarrassing for a country like the usa to have zero passenger train service except for a few small regional commuter routes. amtrak does try, but it is crippled by politics and doesn't have a very strong budget, it's always been threatened with having it's funding cut so the entire amtrak system has become a compromise.
We are really large and you are still going to need a car when you get to the end of the ride. Planes are faster if you need to get across the country fast.
@Poopy1234 I live in a good size city that is the physical size of Detroit with less than 300k residents. We have no commuter train or even an Amtrak train and we are very spread out. Our bus transit system is only so so in getting you were you need to go. In addition, I live in the Deep South. So not having a car is really not an option if you want to be mobile and not die of heat exhaustion. I applaud those who can live that way but it is not an option where I live.
Planes are not faster than trains and cannot exceed 850km/h while we will get 1200km/.h trains in a few years.Right now we have only 430km/h all electric.And planes will crash in conditions where the same trains have no problems-including heavy snowstorms,monsoon and moderate earthquake.This is why planes are inferior than trains.Trains are fully electric,planes destroy ozone layer and oil supply is limited.DIesel trains cause lung cancer and thus are abolished now.
ike eisenhower's interstate system. you can't leave behind a 40,000 mile strong road system connecting literally the entire country, from oahu to maine.
As of right now, high speed rail is exclusive. You should not forget that there is some high speed rail outside of the northeast corridor. Michigan, there’s the Wolverine line, speeds up to 110 mph, Pennsylvania, Keystone Corridor, up to 125 mph, New York, Empire Corridor, 110 mph. And also do not forget that we’re just now starting to build high speed lines around the United States.
Born American, grew up in Europe, came to the US for a few years, and back and forth since.
The subject of trains comes up a lot for me so I've put some thought into it.
This video is the most accurate set of factors I've seen to date on the logistics of trains in the US. Thank you for making it!
I'm not sure if anyone believes me, but I'm using my real name on this profile, and my father, before he died this year, was the previous CEO of Amtrak. He was Joe Boardman. He always told me that the real solution for our country wasn't the top speed of the train, it was minimizing the number of stops, and maximizing the average speed of the train. Your video has been completely accurate, as far as my understanding of his perspective goes. Thank you for the upload. I'm a regular viewer.
Philip Boardman I’m so sorry for your loss. Your father Joe was an amazing advocate for passenger trains in this country, and most if not all Amtrak riders wish he was still with us!
I just know I refused to use them because the trains would go down every time there was a thunderstorm in florida because they wouldn't relocate the computers.
Philip Boardman I totally agree. Some cities offer express trains and they skip many stops. It cuts down the time In half.
@@clairekennedy8767 I'm in the UK, and used to commute regularly to a large nearby city (Manchester, not London, for all that it matters). There are broadly two sorts of train I could catch, to do that - the ones that stopped at every little station on the way, and the ones that only stopped at the major stations/hubs (express trains). Given a choice, I chose the express trains as they got there so much quicker (the express trains were also largely of a different rail franchise with train stock that was more comfortable, but that wasn't the main reason). Interestingly, they closed a lot of those smaller railway stations and minor branch tracks in the UK in the 1960's - thanks to the now infamous Doctor Beeching (google him), and it's only recently that those smaller stations and tracks have started being reopened.
As a citizen of the Great Plains, I would’ve _killed_ for a train between two cities I had to make a 4 hour round trip 3 times a week while going to school. I would still love more trains.
In Wyoming we do own more then 1. you have your gas efficient car, your gas guzzling 4x4 for winter or towing things. Ranchers have multiple vehicles for ranch work and going to town to haul supplies.
I live in one of the rural states. As much as I would love high speed rail. I'd settle for better Amtrack coverage or even just better local bus service.
At least in the rural areas, people prefer cars mostly because the public transit doesn't work well. Between bad coverage (like Amtrack), bad schedules (like one bus per hour on local routes), and other problems (like missing your connection because the bus is running late) taking public transit becomes very risky when you need to get somewhere. When it can take over twice as long to reach your destination on public transit and they still might not get you there, suddenly maintaining a car looks more reasonable.
Why is public transit so bad out here? 1. Low population densities make setting up a good system very difficult. 2. The voters want lower taxes more than public transit. 3. It's very common (at least where I've lived) for people not to trust the government to do things right. The logic being something like, "If they can't build a road correctly, why should I trust them to run a transit system".
Auto industry also lobbies against public transportation. As do others that benefit from it.
@@spacecaptain9188 wrong. Auto industry benefits from it as well. Who do you think makes the equipment
Exactly.
Amtrak runs through my rural city but doesn't stop :(
It's anoying AF because it would be really useful
@@adamorick2872 True, though on the other hand one car is only used by a few people, whereas one bus is used by many people, so fewer buses are needed to serve the same amount of people. I'm not entirely sure, but I'd suspect that auto makers make more money from selling cars to households than selling buses to transit companies
I found your explanation refreshing: You gave the facts of the situation without bashing America. I have never been to England, but I have met several people from England in my travels abroad. I like to be able to discuss the differences in our countries without putting each other down. I would say that if you wish to see a slow train trip (stopping to let the freight trains go by, etc.) then travel the Trans-Siberian. However it was also one of the most interesting trips I ever took.
The US rail system is optimized for bulk cargo that is not especially time sensitive. And the US ships about twice the percentage of its freight by rail as Europe. Passengers are mostly an annoyance.
Passenger travel is heavily subsidized, losing money on every ticket sold. In Texas the Eagle from San Antonio to Dallas isn't any faster than a Greyhound.
@@floydlooney6837 Does it polute the air less? (I don't know if US-Rail is electrified - doesn't look like it however, so the trains (diesel-trains!) might even be worse! Then again: The US gives a rats ass about the environment and that sucks! You guys go everywhere by car - other modes of transportation (walking, using a bike etc.) are usually not even given a thought!...and in larger cities? Subways or trams)
@@dreamingflurry2729 the US rail outside of major cities probably isn't electrified because conversion cost aside, it would be a nightmare to have a fully electrified network in the more remote areas to both maintain and supply with power.
@J Calhoun
You have forgotten to mention temperature and humidity levels.
DreamingFlurry can bicycle through Arizona at temperatures of over 50 ° C or through Louisiana at a humidity level of around 78 %.
I will instead take the car using the AC and be fine when i visit the US.
@J Calhoun just mention the entire rocky mountain range and the ascent to get through those 10,000ft+ mountain passes not even factoring in ice, snow, wind or rain
I live in Montana. In order to get on Amtrak we have to drive over five hours just to get to a station.
Montana's population density is more representative of Antarctica's than the rest of the US.
Exaggeration maybe, but you get the point. Montana doesn't have enough people to make it worth investing in infrastructure.
Turns out I was right. Montana with a population density of 7 people per square mile is much closer to 0 than it is to the national average of 92.6 people per square mile.
Nobody even wants Amtrak, even when it is nearby! It is just as much a waste of money as the post office.
David Lafleche The Post Office is actually very important.
@@iMadrid11 Yeah, life just wouldn't be the same without my mailbox being stuffed with useless flyers full of coupons for products I never buy.
They're working diligently here in Texas to link Dallas and Houston by high-speed rail. And it would actually work except for one small problem: you still need a car on either end to get to/from your actual destinations in those cities. Think of it this way: imagine an area the same size as Northern Ireland, but with four times as many people, and only one train station for them. ... That's Dallas/Forth Worth or Houston.
Could you not get a taxi
I've thought about that issue as my wife and I live in Dallas and like to take occasional trips to Galveston on the other side of Houston. We'd love to take the train (in the future) to Houston, but we'd still need a way to get to, and around, Galveston.
the line should still be built but there needs to be improvement in the urban environment at each end. hopefully opening it with catalyse these things.
@@richiesquest3283 It would be cost prohibitive.
Most people who travel long distance on Amtrak are sightseers.
It's a great way to see the US and you don't want it passing by at high speeds and just getting a short glimpse.
thats what Local stations for HS rail are for.
I went to Japan in 86' and I had a All Japan Rail Pass, I stayed in a Different CITY each night and got to see the Local Area and eat there too. eating was an Adventure in of its self, as each Station had HOT Bento dealers at every stop. some food Items were ONLY available at that particular station.
I've done it from charleston wv to just a bit out of Chicago but it was cheaper by train than by plane tho the time difference was well noticed
But if you're driving you can stop anywhere you want along the way, or take a detour to someplace you want to see. With Amtrak that kind of thing would be a lot more difficult to arrange.
WRONG most people on Amtrak are the coach riders, and they are unemployed females that go 800 miles or under. The seats on long distance trains flip and flip and flip again. As the trains make stops.
@@Westerner78 ...that's not been my experience when riding the train. I only ride them long distance though. It's nice not to have to drive, if you have the time. Just need a sleeping car. Without one it sucks.
When i lived in Japan, people were always shocked when i said that there aren't any trains or buses where i live in the states and that if you didn't have a car, you couldn't go anywhere. Trying to explain the size of the US and how rural some areas were was impossible.
The US is far behind. The auto industry are being threatened.
Everything goes on in large cities and city sized factories called fabs which can't exist without infrastructure. There is no need for anything rural.
I agree. I've been to places in the US, that I have said to myself dang this is isolated. Also,you can take all of the UK and place it in Texas and still have plenty of room.
Except for farms and ranches specifically human ranches, factory farms have become taboo haven't they?
This comment string is for aa bb
Another factor is often the lack of good ways of getting around cities without a car. The advantage of taking the interstate instead of a train to get another city is that you'll have your car with you in order to get around at your destination. Any advantage you might gain by taking the train gets largely wiped out if you have to rent a car or rely on expensive taxis once you get there.
1. Size and the issues it brings.
1a. You have to buy the land.
1b. You have to get an environmental impact report which is a mass cost for those areas you plan to build in.
1c. Price of track over distance.
1d. Multiple governments (city, county, state, federal) you have to deal with in the distance.
2. Time and need.
2a. How fast does the person need to travel.
2b. What is the demand for that travel which will set the price.
2c. Population and business.
3. Red tape
3a. How much the government subsidizes.
3b. Competing transportation lobbies (cars, planes).
3c. Cost to tax payer.
3d. Safety and other red tape.
Can't you kind of take the land because you are providing a public service with it (note: I am German and that is what happens here! If a street or a side-walk is built then the land is taken from the people who previously owned it (they are getting a bit of money, but significantly less than what the land would be worth on the open market!))
You forgot to add the NIMBYs blocking everything, even if it is a benefit.
@@dreamingflurry2729 No, they can't just take the land, they have to purchase it at market price. It is called property rights, unless you have a thoroughfare.
so how is a HSR cost more than, or be less stupid than a 2000 mile concrete wall that achieves sweet FA.
@@danjo1967 "An HSR", not "A HSR".
.
It's complex. The US had developed a fast train service in the 1930s, superior to almost anything else in the world, with many routes running at 90 or 100 mph. But after WWII, the federal government developed massive subsidized programs to build roads and airports. Then the government essentially outlawed fast trains in 1948. Labor costs grew fast with government protection. Local governments began heavy taxation of rail property to cover the cost of building roads and airports. Given all this, rail companies began cutting service as fast as they could and government regulators would allow.
True, Amtrak operates at a loss and requires a subsidy -- as does everything else! Airports are not built or operated on spec -- government does that. Government builds roads, and if you think gas taxes judge ever covered that cost, you are overlooking the infrastructure that supports highways and interstates: Federal subsidies don't apply to the street where you live, and without local roads, what good is I-95? User fees and tolls cover only a small part of the costs of other modes, but Amtrak (and commuter lines) are "subsidized" at taxpayers' expense.
Another thing overlooked about trains is that politicians and anti-rail groups speak as if they were like airlines in how they operate: A train from New York to Boston, say, can make up to twelve intermediate stops in those 231 miles. On a long run, like the Southwest Chief from Chicago to Los Angeles, makes 31stops in 2,265 miles. People don't just go from one end point to the other: there are dozens or hundreds of possible combinations of trips, which are not possible by air. And if you think the bus is an alternative, Greyhound is also suffering, and the newer bus companies are more like airlines: They make few if any intermediate stops.
Freight railroads dislike hosting Amtrak because their infrastructure is no longer designed for both types of trains. It once WAS, but when the private companies had to bear the whole cost with no relief (as their competitors had), they were happy to be rid of it and the excess capacity. The railroads don't want to build extra track for Amtrak (even though it could improve freight operation as well) without being compensated for the expense.
The point is, we need a balance transportation system. Even at a local level, few cities have done much to extend public transportation to airports. Chicsgo is one of the few that have: New York has never seriously entertained extending the subway to Kennedy or LaGuardia. All over the US you see missed opportunities for bettering our transportation, other than widening freeways that kill cities, and building larger and larger airports.
Louisiana wanted subways but had a problem with deciding between the Coast Guard and the ICC to regulate it. Nobody regulates submarines it seems.
@M Detlef Yes, thousands and thousands of Jets now parking, airlines bailed out 50 billion just in March with more cut backs, lay offs and bailouts coming for a now bankrupt and hopeless industry. No private rooms, no outside air........sick people all around you! Have a nice flight!
A case study for govt failure and US infrastructure decay are adding a critical new Hudson River tunnel (+ repair of existing) for NJ Transit and Amtrak. Passenger use only. They share NY and NJ share conflicting turf. There are only 2 tracks on N E main line going west out under the Hudson River and then under cliff of the NJ Palisades, from Penn Station opened in 1910 to original NY Penn Station. Now approx 450 trains a day at max 24 trains and hour.. Dangerous and no one from either NJ nor NY state government plus Feds could or would fund nor build it. I am not sure rehab plans for existing tunnels moved from studies to implementation.
years ago we used to have quite good passenger rail service, but in the 50's and 60's planes buses and cars largely took over and passinger rail suffered low ridership - there used to be trains going everywhere but ever since Amtrak and the govt. took over passenger rail service routes and stops have disappeared until theres almost nothing left. I loved riding on trains in the 60's when I was a kid (im 60) and ive always loved trains even as a hobby
"Connect Los Angeles to California" accurate portrayal of the differences in the way those areas work...
Well, Nokia tried that years ago. You know their old slogan was "Connecting People". Note to future generations, California refuses to be united with advanced technology.
Any time people say that will never happen or it will not work are proven wrong. People want change but when change happens they get scared.
I think rail in North America does what it should do on a large continent - pull heavy freight - for which rail is very energy efficient.
But that argument works equally well for passenger traffic, moreso with electrified trains. When you factor in all the friction built into airline travel, rail is also faster over distances under 500 miles or so.
@@Markle2k No, because there is no "time constraint" on most freight traffic. The longer a person is on a train, the less cost effective it is -- people need to sleep, wash, etc. And that is ignoring that people are in a hurry. So, if it takes a week for a freight train to go from NY to LA, it doesn't matter; whereas people aren't typically going to be willing to take a weeks journey to get across the country.
While passenger rail makes sense in areas, the problem is that once you are off the East Coast, cities are far apart. In my above post I talked about Denver to San Francisco -- a stretch of roughly 1200 miles over mountainous terrain -- with stretches of 500 miles between cities of any size. Building high speed rail would be extremely expensive and likely not be any cheaper than flying; and flying would remain much faster over those distances.
People have already chosen the transportation alternatives that make sense.
@@geoffdearth7360 I'm not sure that is completely fair. I think it is more that Americans had it chosen for them -- as in the 50s the government chose to quit subsidizing the rail system and, instead, started subsidizing the US highway system. If they had not changed to pay for the road system, or even if they just paid for both, we might see something completely different in the US today. I suspect we'd see more passenger trains in the US today.
@@davidnielson9139 The thing is that it doesn't take weeks for freight services to move cargo from say Long Beach, CA to Nebraska or to Texas. It takes a day at most, and another day to get to New York. The US not only has a big freight network it has a pretty efficient one. Cargo can get from a ship in New Orleans to a warehouse in Memphis in the same day using the railroad. In other parts of the world the situation is flipped. Europe prioritizes passenger movement, so it's very good at that while freight service in Europe is not nearly as good as it is in the US. Plus the trains are tiny in comparison.
I once took a train from Washington to Minnesota, 3 days later we got to Minnesota. Then we had to rent a car once we got there.
For the cost of that train ticket you could have bought a plane ticket and been there in 3 hours.
@@jordanhicks5131 not this time. This was cheaper option. Plain tickets were crazy expensive when we did this.
@@jordanhicks5131 I hope so airlines get so much government funding they can afford to give tickets away. Fares don't even cover the cost of fuel in some cases and they use alot of that!
At least there's a line that connects the two; a friend of mine lives in Seattle and often takes her kids to visit family where we grew up in MN. I live in CO, an hour out of Denver; there's no line that connects them. Even though I'm 12 hours by highway, for me the train is three days, running from Denver to Chicago, layover, then to Minneapolis. I just make the drive these days
@@jordanhicks5131 doubt it, there would be a lay over in Chicago of hours. Most train riders don't go where the trains go. Like most drivers on I-80 don't go to California. Plus they use FRESH AIR. Planes are a great place for Covid
simple answer: the country is too flipping big and we designed everything for cars and buses and planes. As soon as the model T came out we got hooked on cars. Trains are still great for freight and for straight line travel between major cities but the US never had that many passenger train lines as it was still being settled during the trains big growth period in Europe in the 1800s. By the time we really needed passenger trains we developed cheap cars and they were favored by the public.
for anything less than 450 miles, HSR can be competitive. We are Building it in Texas texascentral.com should break ground next year. 200- 250 miles is the sweet-spot
Why take a 200 mph train when you can take a 600mph plane? Either way you need a rental car at the end.
Very true
@@jamesnewman5426
The train is faster overall with all the BS with TSA
@@mpetersen6 I think if we had nation wide high speed rail and a lot of people taking it, the TSA would be expanded to secure it. Imagine a train going over 100mph over something like the West Branch Feather River Bridge and a bomb going off in a front car. 100+mph Derailment at 450ft in the air over water. It would make a tempting terrorist target.
As a railfan, I can say he knows what he's talking about. America used to be #1 in rail service until cars and planes took that from them.
You mean until the greedy OIL Business took over..........
You make it sound like there's something wrong with that. It's just not worth it out here. NYC to LA is by far the most popular air route, how are you going to "replace" that with rail? Especially given that supersonic over land is coming back; Lockheed and NASA have jointly developed a fuselage shape that lets you break the sound barrier with a barely audible sonic boom. At least one company, Exosonic, is working on a plane that would go Mach 1.7 over land. That's NYC to LA in like 3 hours.
@@neutrino78x I meant it more so in the context of passenger train travel quality dipping than as trains are greater than all types of transport (to me they're the best, but that's not valid here). America was known to have the best luxury passenger rail services that were the fastest in the world. When cars and planes came along, that obviously went away and America was left with Amtrak, which, as much as I like it, sucks. Railroads should of shifted focus from long-distance cross country travel to mid-range intercity travel, which is actually needed to combat the "To short to fly, to long to drive" problem. Idk if that alone would of solved passenger rail dying out, but it would definitely helped kick start intercity HSR in America.
If it helps you understand better the POV I'm coming from, a great era of railroading where they were at their peak (and personally my favorite era) was brought to an end by modernization, which is inevitable like Thanos, but is a part of railroad history that is bittersweet for me, more so than the transition from steam to diesels as I love steam locomotives. Though I'm not saying it is bad to improve ourselves as a society, but railfanning today does not have the same charm as it used to...
@@mr.bl0ckm4nn there might be a bit of revival in order as soon as they start coming out with battery and H2 power in the locomotive itself. There's a train in Germany, Cordia iLint I believe it's called, that's powered by H2 fuel cells in the locomotive. The advantage of that kind of thing is that you have zero emission train without having to do anything to the track; all track would be zero emission for that vehicle. And I think they should be a lot cheaper and easier to operate so that might bring back a private rail company or two. 🙂
At the distances involved in USA, Canada and Australia though, a train is never going to be as fast as an airplane, and that's what passengers want. We just need to get airplane emissions down as much as we can, should be able to get to zero emission for short runs up to 800 miles. 🙂
That is so true we were traveling on Amtrak between New Orleans and Memphis in the middle of the night and our train came to a stop and within a few minutes a freight train passes us by evidently we had pulled on another track over so the freight train could pass us it was frightening and exciting at the same time but we were less priority than the freight train. Trains are more just for fun for most of United States.
Amazing that a person not native to this land mirrors my thoughts on the viability of high speed rail in the U.S. I get tired of some people whining that such and such a country has it...why don't we have good passenger train service! I want to shake them and say "idiot!...their whole country isn't any bigger that the metro area you live in! And further more......you've got rail in your city!
I mean even if there a speed rail it would be just too much money compared to planes it’s simple as that and when you get there you have to think of costs for cabs/rentals too many things people don’t think about when rambling about wishes/wants instead of the needs.
If you take everything east of the Mississippi River, the population distribution looks something like China's. Theirs is a rail system that works for our purposes. And the train tickets are cheaper than the plane tickets by about 30% off. Combined with subway/public transit more superior than third world countries, it's actually quite easy to get around.
Most importantly, this all takes us off of the oil craze. We stop having to give a shit about the Middle East (or at least Saudi Arabia). Plus you don't know how much you suffer on long flights until you've stretched your legs on HSR, plugged in your charger with no worries, and surfed the internet free of charge at 4G/5G speeds. No air sickness, no turbulence, and you can even take a smoke with the intermittent stops. For business people who need to rest on their transit, this also makes it much easier to survive without business/first class.
The modern United States was created by our railroad transportation network. This was intentionally supplanted by Interstate Highway system.
Your fucking idiot look at China dumbass
Go onto Amtrak website and take a look at how much money it costs to go from say San Francisco to Chicago by train. And look at the time it takes. You will be amazed at how expensive it is. I've done this. High Speed Rail makes no sense because our cities are so far apart and our population density is so low relative to UK, most of Europe and Japan. If you want to go from Wahington DC to New York or Boston, then taking the Train makes sense. But for most of the rest of the country, it doesn't.
FYI - Amtrak owns the DC to NYC segment which is part of the reason for Accela. Accela is also one of the few Amtrak routes that makes a profit.
Jaron H-M. Amtrak primarily exists for that train. DC politicians want that train and NYC lawfirms and lobbyists want that train. The rest of the trains is to get the other states to agree to pay for Amtrak. Amtrak loses money on almost every rural route and the routes in Cali.
Amtrak got created because the Chessie (C&O/B&O), Penn and NYC dropped passenger service in the 60s and DC panicked.
"Above the rail", yes. But when you add in the cost of maintaining the catenary and railbeds that make the service possible, not so much. Reports are that overall, there's about 30+ billion of deferreed maintenance stacked up in the NEC alone:
www.railwayage.com/passenger/intercity/at-amtrak-its-no-longer-1950-an-analysis/
Long-distance trains are actually cheaper to operate (the freight railroad pays for track maintenance and the property taxes upon the land they occupy--that last bit is something that few mention), but service frequencies (improvement of which can drive additional revenue) are also constrained _by_ the freight railroads--frequently efforts to add additional trains are stymied by a freight railroad saying "Nope--we need that space (slot) for our own traffic."
And I say this as someone who _prefers_ train travel over aviation--I just did a NYC-Toronto trip (11 hrs) a few weeks ago, and in fact am about to book a NYC-Atlanta trip (17 hrs) that I've been taking annually for the past decade.
S Tho Wouldn’t it be a good idea then to dismantle Amtrak and sell the NEC to an entity like SNCF or JR then? From what I have heard it is usually the rural politicians who scream the worst when Amtrak threatens to cut routes.
@@starventure. Agreed. Rural districts don't get much from high speed express rail except the noise or danger for grade runs. Stops don't happen there. Rural, smaller cities and suburban people would have to fight backward against traffic (hours) and parking problems to use a train that runs past their village at 180mph toward Chicago. Quicker to just drive to Chicago from Terrahoot. There are only 10 cities in the US over a million residents, and 5 of them are clustered.
It is for the great and beautiful citizens of Metropolis to wizz past the peasants of the countryside, but a bit harder to get the rural folk to happily pay for it.
@@starventure. The more rural states get usually a stop at the capitol city and biggest city Like Federal congressmen that want DC trains no matter what . When the political city isn't served the state typically says Nahh. However states resist funding additional routes to cities that are rivals of the biggest or capitol city in their state.
Finally, someone from across the pond is getting it.
Owning a car > Riding public transport on a train in a straight line.
@Joe Deckwar how about getting that we don't have to be a clone of you?
@Joe Deckwar who says we want to be? I'd rather be a decent person than a judgemental ass.
"It would have connected LA to California" sounds like a challange
Bellicose Pariah lol. I thought the same
I wouldn't want to be in either location myself. Personally I wouldn't want to live or even visit another democrat run state again. But that is one of the things I like about America. It was designed with the intent of every state having it's own laws with a small federal government mainly to protect the boarders and settle state vs state disputes.
They need to connect Dallas to Texas and Toronto to Ontario & Canada.
@@vagabondwastrel2361 I didn't see your comment until after I posted mine. Otherwise I would just given you the thumbs up. Yours was perfectly stated.
They also need to connect Chicago to Illinois. Or just cut Chicago out and make it it's own state. Cause... Yeah, it's nuts
Rail subsidies for Amtrak: $1.4 billion
EU rail subsidies (2005): 73 billion Euros
China rail subsidies: $128 billion
And here I am trying to get a couple quarters for the damn parking meter.
You hit the nail on the head - it's more about deciding to invest than anything. There are a bunch of externalities outside the basic function of simply moving people around the country that make it pay off in the end. China's boom in high speed rail building is a perfect example of planning ahead for their population growth. Their longest high speed line is heavily subsidized but the shorter lines make up for it. Here is a good video about it:
ua-cam.com/video/0JDoll8OEFE/v-deo.html
Don't forget that the US has very distributed population centers. High cost infrastructure just doesn't make a lot of sense compared to the old world where cities are closely located. Also, as mentioned, freight is the focus of US rail infrastructure.
Subsidies are another way of saying, "This is worthless and is a waste of money. Let's force someone else to pay for something I want."
If no one wants to pay for it, that is probably because it's just not that necessary.
CRAZY TALK! It's all free! Power to the People! Resist!
OBTW, Amtrak trains do get priority over freight when the schedules are drawn up. Problems occur when an Amtrak train falls behind schedule and out of its assigned "slot". It then must wait for the next open "slot" in the track's schedule. This is why you will see passenger trains on a siding, waiting for a freight to go by.
Looked into traveling by rail to a town about 500 miles away....found out that it would cost just as much as flying, AND I’d have to ask old people to stay up late at night, and drive 30 miles to come and get me at the train station.
If I flew, I could choose from 3-4 arrivals per day. Rather than ONE, and the airport was 10 miles closer to my hosts than the train station.
If I drove, it would take 7 hours of JUST driving (not factoring food/bathroom stops) but then, I wouldn’t have to inconvenience my hosts, AND I would have the freedom to go wherever I want! However, I would have to pay for gas, as well.
(I chose plan “B”-flying...best combination of little cost/little time)
Carol Gage flying is always the best option in my opinion
Many people in other countries observe that Americans are always rushing around. Which is true and not necessarily a wrong or bad choice. A car gets it done and when driving, stops are made at ones convenience.
7 hours of driving = 3-4 hours by train i think. And well by plane.. plus airport waiting time here in sweden it would take the same. To spain (4h flight) will take days in a train but there is a lot to see
I routinely drove from New Orleans to Chicago and Indianapolis... it's simply more convenient for me to drive as the cost of a plane ticket was often what the price of gas would have been and I don't have to rent a car while away, hassle with taxis/rides to and from airport, deal with deadlines. If there's a problem with traffic, I can go around as opposed to having my flight canceled and my plans thrown into chaos. Just more simple for me to drive.
My folks live about 900 miles away (rural Colorado to rural Minnesota). To fly, I need to drive an hour and a half to the airport, spend two hours at the airport, fly two hours, and then drive an hour and a half to their house, or about seven hours total; flights average about a hundred bucks, plus 50 to 100 for airport parking. If I drive, it takes about 12 hours straight through (plus maybe one or two hours for breaks and gas) and costs about a hundred bucks, BUT I can detour whenever I want, depart and arrive whenever I want, carry whatever baggage or cargo I want, and have a vehicle when I get there.
I can leave from work Wednesday, and be home for Thanksgiving with a few hours to spare, for less money, and drive back home on Sunday. Via train, that's a three day trip that will cost more to make and force me to get a hotel for the layover in Chicago.
The issue is even worse in Canada. If it's not close enough to go by car, you must fly.
You can fly?
well.... if you had more than 2 roads it would help too.
3000 miles from NYC and LA. I'll take the plane.
Most people will except there is alot in between and those small towns have NO more air service most people on I - 80 are not going to California they are going to someplace in between just like the trains.
Flying would be much better for long distance, but over medium and shorter trips, high speed train is superior
@@thienphucn1 We have no investment in high speed in fact speeds have dropped. The long distance trains are popular because they go to places with NO air services and they are very comfortable.A after talk about high speed rail for 50 years and just gettting fare increases and cuts to control demand for the one tran a day services.
HSR is only competitive for trips of less than 450 miles with the sweet-spot being 200-250 miles London- Paris, Tokyo- Osaka. NYC -DC, Dallas Houston, Portland- Seattle-Vancouver(?), Atlanta-Charlotte
@Jenny Shull And the train conductor said "Driver 8. Take a break. You've been on this shift too long" By the way HS2 has just been given the go ahead in the UK. A real white elephant. ua-cam.com/video/wuFId1RYSZE/v-deo.html
One note about the number of "cars" per person in America... I once noted a few years ago that our number was below a couple of other countries and I was suspicious of that, so I did a little digging. Turns out that number does NOT include SUV's, vans, and light trucks (up to 1 ton). SUV's, vans, and light trucks now account for something like 1/3 of all vehicles sold in America. So if you add those back into the mix, Americans own MORE than one vehicle per person.
Another thing to consider, property rights are very robust in the United States in comparison to Europe. It would be very difficult to string a right of way over any distance to build a substantial route for high speed rail.
Don't forget all the level crossings - in Europe, Japan, China, the high speed rail links are on dedicated tracks, with NO level crossings.
No they have no problem building pipe lines and power lines. You don't own your property the government does just don't pay your property tax.
max Payne yeah, those government projects just fly up. I’m assuming you are speaking from your personal experiences with eminent domain, appropriation, and zoning? And not some talking point you heard from someone?
Eh, we've done it before... interstates and all. Doesn't mean it's an easy or short process, but if the government really wanted to flex its muscle, they could.
MST3Killa Agreed, there is a process in existence to do it in the US.
I hate to pull the conversation in a more politically charged direction, but it is relevant. Much of the southern boarder is privately owned land, and I believe they are having difficultly in acquiring the land to build the boarder wall. One of the reasons being that land owners have the right to request a jury trials, and most of the litigation is tied up in court for years.
Most politicians want to be re-elected, and taking land from the citizens with the use of eminent domain would likely be unpopular. So there is also a reputational risk.
Additionally, there was another good point about level crossings brought up earlier. There is no constructible path in existence in the US that would involve no road crossings. There would have to be intergovernmental work performed between local, state, and federal levels, as roads are owned by different levels of government. This would add more complexity to the situation.
When discussing the times it takes to travel on a plane there is also all of the extra time of waiting in lines to get through security, waiting at the gate, waiting on baggage at the other end and the concept that you have to arrive early to allow for any delays in any of the above steps. Train travel may be much slower but the comfort of big seats and being able to walk around the train is a real benefit. No real baggage limits or extra fees for extra bags. Plus NO TSA security at least right now in the US. Travel by train is so much more relaxing.
I live in the northeast and use Amtrak regularly, so my observations are based on that. Rail travel is great... if you're traveling alone with a small bag and maybe a laptop. You get a comfortable seat, and more leg room than on a plane, and you don't have to worry about physically managing the vehicle so you can work or read or whatever. But I only ride the faster Acela if my employer is paying, because it costs a a lot. If I'm paying for my own trip, I get the cheapest fare I can. And if none of the cheap tickets are available, I take a bus. Price is why high speed rail in the US is perceived as an upper middle class, business travel luxury. It's not transportation for the masses.
Now imagine two people, or a family of four, someone traveling with camping gear, skis, kayaks, and all the other paraphernalia people take on vacation. Driving is usually cheaper if you've got more than one person, and nobody's going to lug a lot of gear on the train. I once had to move a drum set from DC to Philly. That's an easy train ride even on a slow train, but not if you're bringing a drum set. So I drove.
But there are a lot of business travelers on the west coast too, so why no high speed rail there? They've started building, but it turns out to be really hard to acquire the land for tracks in the big cities where you want the trains to go. Property is expensive, and there's always someone who doesn't want to sell. The land acquisition problem alone is enough to slow down or cancel projects.
in the case of property acquisition, isn't that literally what the eminent domain clause is for?
The west coast doesn't actually have that huge a problem with land acquisition, I live on the west coast and the biggest reason is...
The track from LA-SF goes through several mountain ranges
Los Padres, Santa Lucia, San Diablo. San Diablo has a regular height in the 4000s of feet and is literally what SF is on. Santa Lucia has a peak of about 6000 feet (and that peak is directly on the most direct route possible). Los Padres doesn't even need an explanation really.
Now you want to know what's an even larger problem? They're all federally protected.
The most direct route legally allowed is through the valley, and guess what? We have rails that already do that and would only need to be converted to allow for high speed rail, which then causes the issue of the mountains still.
The west coast is a coast of mountains.
Thank you for an interesting video. Personally, I loved England when I visited it 2 years ago but the one disappointment was the trains. Buying a ticket was surprisingly difficult as the dumb machines malfunctioned and took my credit card but didn't properly print my ticket so I had to argue with staff to avoid being doubled charged, which eventually worked but took a lot of time. In general train employees were much less friendly and helpful than bus/coach employees. Figuring out routes was harder than I initially expected and sometimes you have to switch rail cars during a long trip so you have to pay attention closely to where you are going and not fall asleep on board. Trains are also the one form of travel where you often have to face opposite of the direction you are moving in, which can be really disorienting. Some people get seasick or airsick but I got trainsick doing this. On top of that there wasn't as much privacy and during one trip I got stuck face to face with a couple arguing in a foreign language. I guess I'm just the anti-Sheldon Cooper and will take only buses and cars on my next trip to Europe.
suntanman99 Next time try this: raileurope.co.uk (formerly called loco2). You can download the app to your smartphone and both plan your route and buy tickets on the fly and pay with PayPal if you want. The app then generates a QR code that can be scanned in place of a ticket. I’ve used it on two trips to the U.K. and it worked great.
Your the first person i have heard of getting train sick .
@@richiesquest3283 That happened to me too, at night.
Perhaps you should look into why Eisenhower introduced the American Highway system. It had a defensive purpose and was designed to overcome vulnerability of European cities. If a city is mainly connected to the outside world by rail, it makes it easier for an invading force, or a hostile domestic force to cut off that city, and starve it out. However, with our highway system, an car culture, it is much more difficult. Not impossible, but more difficult.
I think it is largely because the population centers are so far apart. England is small compared to the USA where the second biggest city touches the Pacific Ocean and the largest touches the Atlantic. It is not feasible to stretch high speed rails over such a distance when an airplane does faster speeds far far cheaper. It’s the same reason Canada doesn’t have high speed rail, everything is just too far apart to be worth it.
An argument can be made for a few places to put in a high speed rail (primarily DC to New York) but it would be a single rail unsupported by any other infrastructure. It still wouldn’t make sense to branch off that with more because that is the only place with a high enough volume of traffic to be sustainable. As it is with regular rail transport, the DC to New York trip is one of the only long distance routes that is profitable.
When dealing with such a massive area of land, airplanes are just better. Three times faster, with far lower barrier to entry costs, and can fly over mountains instead of having to go though them!
That just my opinion though, I’m sure there are a lot more reasons high speed rail is not prevalent in the US
Edit:I did write this before the video ended, and you did touch almost all these points, so it seems we are in agreement! Great video, very entertaining. Also if there are in 93,000 miles of tracks in the US, that means they stretch one one thousandth of the way to the sun which is 93 million miles away!
Germany is about the same size as Montana, and France is smaller than Texas, just to give a more physical picture for population density.
Thank God someone has given real thought to this issue.
Compare flying with trains, in terms of environmental impact.
Is none. Stop living in fantasy land. Oh right, its your religion.... Good luck on that @@ChrisPage68
It's a straw man argument... No one is talking about high speed rail between LA and New York... but there are dozens and dozens of city pairs much closer together... There are at least 20 cities with a population of 500,000 or more 400 miles or less from Chicago... At least 10 within 400 miles of Dallas and another 20 within 400 miles of Atlanta and on and on..
Airplanes though are not in effect 3 times faster, and for flights of less than two hours are effectively slower... The flight time is only a small part of the total travel time... In most cities you have a minimum of 30 minutes to get from the city center to the airport, flights board 30 minutes before departure and generally close 10 minutes prior to departure... even cutting it close you need to add 20 minutes to get through security and to the terminal and then at least 30 minutes to get from the arrival airport to the city center, so at a minimum your 3x as fast plane takes 3 hours in total. Trains typically arrive in the city center and while most high speed rail has security it typically takes less than 10 minutes... you can also board 500 people on a 10 car train in a fraction of time it takes to board 150 people on a plane.
The London Paris route is a prime example... Air traffic on that route peaked at about 4 million passengers the year before Eurostar opened currently the air traffic between London and Paris is a little over a million while the Eurostar carries in excess of 10 million.
The other issue not considered is airport and air space capacity... In California the airports are reaching serious capacity constraints... and expansion is difficult and expensive.. As population increases and travel demand increases there just aren't enough departure slots... High speed rail can handle huge volumes of passengers. The Tokyo Osaka route carries in excess of 175 million passengers a year... That's like a 747 taking off every 15 minutes 24 hours a day..
Air travel will still have it's place... but there are literally 100's of routes that would be better served by high speed rail.
Something perhaps not so widely known was that part of the reason for the US Highway system was so stretches of it could serve as emergency airstrips during wartime. It's why in some areas the freeway/highway is so straight and wide. Of course it was never needed for wartime...but there have been occasions where aircraft have utilized it anyway.
Wow! I never knew. Thank you for sharing that.
I think that aspect is only coincidental
@@christianschwalbach7561 After doing a bit of digging around I may have mixed it up with something else I had heard. So it may have been an error.
No it wasn't... it was all because Eisenhower drove a truck in the early 1900's on a coast-to-coast in a military convoy and realized how screwed up we'd be if it didn't change. He was some of the autobahn post WWII and hatched the plan... and there are relatively few places on the interstate were any size of military transport could safely land for long - it's not built for the lbs/sqft requirements at all... Choppers, sure and a few light planes, maybe - no transports...
@@lylestavast7652 it's great for ground equipment though. I'm a truck driver and pass military convoys probably around once a month all over the country. All on interstates.
Mate.Welcome to America.....We will NEVER have the railway system you have. I work for the railroad here in Tennessee. Amtrak is going down. No more dining services and the late trains are horrible. I was amazed by the trains in the UK. All on time.
You have the North East Corridor up North but no where else. I traveled all over the UK last summer. Even took the train to Paris!!
Tim Daugherty ...No more dining car?? ☹️ I haven’t traveled via Amtrak for over 15 years, but my wife and I used to do NYC to Cleveland often, going whole hog with a sleeper cabin and dinning. It felt old timey and charming. It was pleasant speaking to other travelers in the dining car. Sad.
They got rid of they dining service? That sucks, people are often on Amtrak trains for 8 hours or better. As much as tickets cost, I would want food.
When did Amtrak get rid of the dining cars? I've taken the Southwest Chief several times to Chicago and they always had a dining car. --In fact, that's one of the most fun parts of the trip.
Amtrak doesn't have extensive service through Tennessee, except for the famous "City of New Orleans" route from Chicago to New Orleans.
ua-cam.com/video/TvMS_ykiLiQ/v-deo.html
Trains are for cargo, not for people. Planes and buses and cars are for people.
Why did they get rid of dining service??? I took trains from New Orleans to Boston 15 years ago and the dining service was the only thing that made the trip enjoyable without upgrading to a cabin.
You should look at historic train rides, some have restaurants on and cover beautiful lands. Slow but scenic.
You need four things that you need for any public transportation to work.
1) A viable route that will at least come close to breaking even.
2) Political will to finance and allow the system to be built built.
3) The knowledge to build the route.
4)The ability to finance, operate, maintain, and replace equipment as needed due to aging.
One other thing you missed was topography. You talked about a high speed line from Chicago to LA taking 8 to 10 hours -- in truth it would likely be 50% more time, say 12-15 hours, or even more. The problem is largely the Rocky Mountains (though the Sierra Nevada could also get in the way, particular to SF).
I'm uncertain. There are notable sections of high-speed rail through the Alps (in Switzerland, Italy, France and Austria). Granted it's not all fully interconnected yet (still under construction/being upgraded) and obviously crossing the Rockies and Sierra Nevadas involves much greater distance than across the Alps. So for sure it would be (probably) prohibitively expensive. But I think that feeds more into the general discussion of cost and distance tradeoffs that was already made, than to simply say "you can't get high speed through the mountains so it would add a whole bunch of time." If the hypothetical will were there, it could be done.
Either way, though, your general point is absolutely correct that it is one more hindering factor.
And then you have the Appalachian Mountains along the east coast. There is a reason that a lot of the US population is packed into the coasts and said mountain ranges play a big part in that.
Yeah, no way you can do that in 8 hours. It would take 24+ hours non-stop in a car. Trains might go faster, but still...
@@SeanNicholsEh The difference is, they've been able to build tunnels in Switzerland. While expensive, they can connect cities that are less than 30 minutes apart -- in fact a major issue in Switzerland is that the cities are too close together to allow the train to get up to full speed. So building a 30 Km tunnel, while expensive, is offset by the number of passengers that travel to cities on either side of the tunnel.
In the US, you have Denver on the Eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains, and then you have Salt Lake City roughly 500 miles away. There are no cities between Salt Lake and Denver yet you'd need several large tunnels to connect high speed rail between the two cities. This makes building those high speed lines impractical -- particularly when you consider that you can fly between the cities already, in 90 minutes, for prices that are likely as cheap, or cheaper, than what a high speed rail ticket would cost.
Then, after Salt Lake (if you extend the line to San Francisco) you again have no cities until about Reno, another 500 miles -- so again a few tunnels to get through the rest of the Rockies -- though not as bad as Salt Lake to Denver. Then after Reno, you again have to go through the Sierra Nevada range to get to Sacramento and San Francisco.
The costs quickly add up, needing to build high speed rail over 1,000 miles of mountainous areas while connecting very few cities in that stretch, that would provide extra trains and passengers to help pay for the costs of those lines. Additionally, over those distances, it is faster and likely as cheap to fly between the cities -- meaning even less rail passengers, even if the lines were built.
@@SeanNicholsEh I agree with David's response to yours. The freedom given by having a car or a work truck plus the fact that if you need to traverse long distances, it's easier to just take a plane over. Have to remember too, the US doesn't consist of office workers, we have quite a few people that need to take the work truck/vehicle to be able to do their jobs, in some cases stopping at various places. A passenger train just cannot accommodate that flexibility.
Being in Chicago you may not be aware that a high speed rail is very close to being built in Texas. The Texas Central Railway would connect Dallas to Houston (two very large cities), travel 200mph, and take 90 minutes, which is faster than flying. Although there are detractors, I for one can’t wait to ride this! www.chron.com/neighborhood/spring/news/article/Houston-Dallas-high-speed-rail-construction-may-13620560.php
This is exactly how high speed rail should be built. In smaller sections between places that will produces enough profit to pay for itself.
We don't need massive tax increases, just let Population Density and Demand do it's thing.
Looks like it would be fun to ride too.
Two years later and the Dallas/Houston HSR is still basically an unfunded proposal. California HSR is on the verge of bankruptcy and when it goes down it will take down all the other proposed HSR proposals, including Dallas/Houston.
@@richardrose2606
"Two years later and the Dallas/Houston HSR is still basically an unfunded proposal."
I think Amtrak has been working with them, I think it's a waste of money....if the company is failing, let them fail. They should have just gone down the median of the highway.
"California HSR is on the verge of bankruptcy "
Argh that project is so stupid. I'm a lifelong centrist Democrat here in California and I proudly voted "no". The good news is that the Governor has some sense and said there shall be no more construction beyond Merced to Bakersfield (nowhere to nowhere) because the stupid project wasted all their money.
The funny thing about them is that all the new track they have built is currently underwater! In the natural world there was a huge lake there, but man drained it for farms. We had a series of huge storms last year and it restored the lake, so the track is underwater. lmao.
Some other considerations is that if a new railroad is going to be built, first there would have to have a designated route. As possibilities are considered, there has to be public forums in every community where locals can express their support or lack there of on a railroad in or around their community. if there is any private property involved, eminent domain becomes an issue and property owners who disagree can tie the process up in the courts for years, not to mention the possible affect on property values near the route..
If government funds are going to be used, there would be congressional hearings on every subject imaginable, and every congressman who has a district along that route is going to demand a stop in their district as a price for their vote. Congressman in districts not along the route are going to insist that industries in their districts are picked as contractors for the project.
Next there has to be an environmental impact statement to make sure there are no possible endangered species that won't be accidentally eradicated.
These are just a few things that make a national high speed rain difficult, if not impossible in the US.
add this do the "density" issue - where it is needed are the most densly populates (IE the Northeast) where you would have to travel through more pople's backyards, and come on, here in NJ we invented NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard)
What's really funny about the environmental aspect is that the ecomentalists completely ignore studies from both British government-funded researchers, and EU-funded researchers, that found that high speed rail systems used there use far more fuel per passenger than an average mid-size crossover. The "green new deal" dipshits in the US want to do away with airplanes, but switch to national high-speed rail systems which would require more fossil fuel. And that's just to run them. Building them would be an unfuckingbelievably fuel consuming job.
Ironically the same liberal minded people that want trains to just "appear" would be fighting against every mile of track being laid via regulations, hearings, environmental impact, endangered wildlife and in the field protests.
Remember it was the liberal wing of politics that wanted the national highway system to help fight poverty. It was a New Deal proposal in the 30s. The auto workers unions wanted it. The Teamsters wanted it.
How quickly people forget and just listen to 29 year olds tell us of the 30s and 60s.
@@STho205 And this time around, labor unions are _against_ the GND.
RailRide. True. GND was just a spiritual non-binding resolution anyway. It could not ever amount to law this year or next, as the Senate wouldn't pass it, and if somehow they did the President would veto it. This year (probably next) the House is just going to pass non law bills to get headlines and some fame for various wannabe presidents to chat about. Even at that most of her own party only voted "present" which is a defacto no.
This stuff for the next two years is only oiling the sausage factory machinery. Nobody's masking bratwurst yet. Similar in 2010-2012, then things started again.
I love riding the train. Even the slow rails. I take my oldest to a children's hospital in Milwaukee by train. It's expensive, but getting a cabin on a train is the way to travel with children.
Utah has surprisingly good public transportation for a Western/Rural state. We have a quite nice light rail system that is for one thing a lot cheaper than High Speed Rail but we also have a decent bus system. I wish we had a lot more busses in the U.S. thpugh it seems a nice compromise between public transportation and cars. Both busses and cars use the same road infrastructure.
That population density is a big one. Even if my state implemented it, I'd be at least an hour away from reaching the nearest station. At that point, I'll just drive or fly. I also grew up traveling cross country by car, so it's very much part of my heritage. Road trips are deeply embedded in our cultural psyche. Hell, Roger Miller wrote an entire song about it. King of the Road is an American classic (although, admittedly, the vagabond the song embodies does travel by train a lot). The Proclaimers made a pretty kickass cover of it too, for anybody that likes them.
You pretty much hit it spot on. Great vid.
Car culture and a culture of independence.
I love your videos but for the love of god...please stop with the incredibly annoying background music! OMG.
That independence may end up being a strength that turned into our demise.
@@jwb52z9 nah
Jwb52z
Well the US is the only country not in a recession or worse so I think our independence and car culture is working marvelously.
Jwb52z That independence has done us well for 242 years and going on. We'll keep it.
Even in Europe things arent quite as great as people say. I once took the Eurostar from London to Paris, but then had an emergency visit in Germany near Cologne. I could take high speed to Germany, but there was no way to get from Germany to London in any sort of decent time. I ended up having to be driven to an airport for a hour, flying to a small airport near London and taking a train into the city and a cab to catch up to my party.
Greetings from Idaho!
One thing that you didn’t mention, but which is important, is geography. The Rocky Mountains are not exactly a small obstacle. And whether the rail goes through the mountains, between peaks, or around the Rockies, it’s going to skyrocket the cost. That and the western United States is mostly just vast expanses of wilderness, mountains, valleys, rivers, etc. some of which are tied up in federal land and national parks. The whole strategic planning of even just normal rail, would be a nightmare, before even getting to the talk of costs involved.
To answer your question, just overlay the interstate highway network over the rail lines map and you will see far more of the population is served better by car.
In Chicago, there's lots of rail infrastructure, but that's mostly industrial. Very few intercity connections because, as you said, interstate highways, but also airports.
That’s not to say certain high population states like Texas, California, Florida or New York wouldn’t be well-served by high-speed rail between large cities within the state!
@@coyotelong4349 Google "High Speed Rail California" for exactly what you are proposing.
Stinky Lebinowitz
Uhhh, what is your point exactly? I’m well aware of California high-speed rail, and I’m well aware that technicalities prevented it from getting off the ground. Doesn’t mean it’s a bad concept though... It’s actually a very good idea.
I’m not sure why anyone would choose congested California freeways over a seat on a bullet train in theory. They just need to keep at it and figure out a workable way to do it.
I live in Texas the Interstate is one block from my house. The passenger train station is about 300 miles away.
Wish we had high speed rails. I took a train from Richmond to NYC...felt it would've been faster to just drive.
Living in Japan really made me wish we had high speed rails...
And Japan isn't even a developed country anymore.
@@aabb-zz9uw What do you mean it's not a developed country anymore. What exactly changed it from being a first-world developed country?
I love how he used both the English and American pronunciations of "kilometer" within 10 seconds of each other without even apparently noticing. :P
I spent a few weeks in Europe several years ago, bought a Eurorail pass because I didn't want to risk driving, it included access to individual city subways, so it was very convenient, you could take the train to the city and then the subway would drop you off very near the hotel. It was nice to sit back and enjoy the beautiful views, and an overnight ride let us spend an extra day sightseeing instead of wasting it on travel. But, it's a hassle, too, it's like catching a flight, you have to make sure and be there on time, there are unforseen delays, etc. In the US, gas is cheap, cars are cheap, there are large interstate highways with lots of reststops, restaurants and hotels along the way. We are too used to the freedom and flexibility we get with our cars, being able to just jump in and go whenever and wherever we want. Even the "road trip" itself is an event, I've been cross-country several times, and the drive itself is a big part of the fun. And even if you took a train somewhere, unless it's a really big city, you're still going to need a car when you get there. We're just too spread out, too mountainous in many areas, too thinly populated across vast regions, and too ingrained in driving ourselves to ever have anything close to a comprehensive rail system. There's no money in it, for those reasons and with cheap gas and even cheap flights so readily available. It's a great way to see Europe, but if you're planning to visit the US, bring your driving gloves.
that one thing I relized when my wife and I went visited england is, you don't need to rent a car. the train goes everywhere.
Because England is tiny.
Population density of Alaska...1.1 person per square mile.
Some parts of the lower 48 are like that. For example, Oregon's Harney County is larger in area than New Hampshire and only has 0.7 people per square mile.
How many bears per square mile?
@@picklerix6162 Five. They fight over who gets to eat the dude in their section.
PickleRix lol
*Excellent video Laurence!* I am a long time rail fan who always tells people as to why we don't have high speed rail in the US. And you brought up every point that I always bring up. You certainly did your research. Chicago and Milwaukee are only about 100 miles apart. And I live directly in between them both. So I watch trains go by on the Canadian Pacific/Amtrak Hiawatha route. And it's actualy one of the very few rail lines of the US, that is actualy being looked at for high speed rail. And this is all thanks to this corridor being almost entirely all city in between them both. It's a huge population center. And that's why it makes sense.
Also you live sooo freaking close to the "Union Illinois Railroad Museum". You should really check it out. It's absolutely huge with all sorts of trains. It has steam locomotives, electric interurbans, electric trains, street cars and more! It's considered the largest railroad museum in North America. And it's only a 1 hour car ride from downtown Chicago!
www.irm.org/ See the railway museum here.
One last fun fact: Chicago is the railroad hub of North America.
As a wannabe railroader and railfan, I can tell you that the main reason we don't have high-speed rail. People don't want it. We were a railroad culture until the early 1900's, but then came cars and trucks. Both allow the door to door service that trains can't. There literally were hundreds of both large and small railroad companies in the US and Canada at one time, but most were either abandoned or merged into larger and larger systems so that there are only 7 MAJOR railroads today.
In the northern tier of the US, (the states you mentioned as using more cars) it is not economically feasible to have more than a few passenger trains a day because there is no one to ride them. There are just NOT that many people out there. Since freight trains make money, and passenger trains don't, that is the reason you were stopping and starting so much. Train dispatchers dont want to delay the money makers for a passenger train that can't even pay its bills. Sad, but true.
BTW, almost ALL of the tracks used by AMTRAK are owned by freight railroads, and Amtrak pays rent to them, with the exception of the North East Corridor, which they own outright. In that instance, the freight roads pay Amtrak to run trains on their lines.
Why was rail ridership at record highs before the Trump virus? Powerful lobbies pay the kick backs to stop rail investment of any kind. Ridership would double if you just added a train or didn't avoid major cities like Phoenix and Des Moines. The mergers were to get rid of them, you can thank President Reagan for that. A pro business republican.
For those of us who have never and do not ever want to fly, we just don't go anywhere, unless it's by car. Car travel takes forever and is exhausting.
Once, I wanted to go to L.A. From Chicago to L.A., it would have been something like three days by train one way. Still better than driving, BUT I would need at least two weeks off from work because nearly one week is taken up by the travel alone. Bag it.
I once rode from LA to Detroit in a car, almost non-stop. It took 3 days. One of the passengers made the return trip by train, and it took 3 days.
We love freedom here. A rail means dependence on where they say we can go
you hit it on the head . the main reason passenger train service died , was the monopoly they had , and like oil companies , the ability to price gouge their customers.
Midwest people suck bad !
I to Bash Americans !
and out here in the way out nowhere. those 1200kph trains would have tracks crossing over 100s of 1000s of little tiny communities and farm roads and county roads that the death tolls from collisions would be insane.
I fought it would cross over very many roads, it’s not high speed if it needs to stop for cars
@@EllieMae99 ya that's the problem. the train wouldn't stop. and cars and farm vehicles would have to. it would be a mess. it's already one with just 60mph freight trains.
@@mordeys Proper high speed rail tracks never cross roads at grade, they always have an under- or overpass. If they can't build one they cut the road in half and you have to drive around.
@@EllieMae99 fought? I'll swap you a t and an h for your f.
Cities are too far apart and when you get there , you usually need a car to get around anyway .
Missouri once priced out the cost of HSH from St. Louis to Kansas city.
It would be cheaper to give every rider free business class tickets on an airline for 20 years.
Hey cut the Missouri BS. The four trains a day don't even stop at the 6 Flags amusement park they pass 4 times a day! They sit in Kansas City too instead of going on to Topeka a short distance away! Kansas City has PAID parking! MO is a failure when it comes to rail. They are controlled by the highway lobby. You also need a car if you take the bus, or fly! With the build out of rail in KC and Saint Louis needing a car is less and less every year.
For any trip less than 450 miles, HSR is competitive with the sweet-spot being around 200-250 miles. Teh US will never have a national system but a collection of regional ones.
If you need a car after getting off the HSR you can do what you do with an airline; carry a car in your carry-on luggage.
Since new airports are frequently well outside the city I assume you pack a full size sedan rather than the small coupe you can use with a train station in the middle of town.
The freedom of the car and, to borrow from Supertramp, being able to take the long way home, or, like Frost said, take the road less traveled.
That is true, but the coin has another side. How about the lack of freedom we have stuck in congested traffic on a freeway, the 5 and even sometimes 10 minutes it takes to pass through an intersection, gridlock in dense metro surface streets, the difficulties of finding parking as well as the cost of it, road rage, traffic accidents, the incredible cost of vehicles, driving the same route over and over because we have to, . . . . I often think about reading a book, watching a movie, having long conversations with family and eating with two hands, all possible when traveling by rail. I have family in Phoenix and live in a rural area of the Sierra Nevada in California and would love to take a train rather than a car, how many hundreds of times have I driven all the possible routes between the two locations?
Let's see if you're still saying that the next time your flight gets canceled during a snowstorm.
Next time you're stranded in an airport for two days, I guarantee you'll be singing a different tune.
Remember Dinah Shore? See the USA in your Chevrolet... ua-cam.com/video/jQ5tKh0aBDc/v-deo.html
Hint: you could have high speed rail AND cars... Your loss. ;)
@@moladiver6817 As we all know, Germany and Japan stopped making cars as soon as they finished their high speed networks. XD
If you draw a line from Duluth-Twin CIties-Souix Falls-Lincoln-Wichita-Oklahoma City-Ft. Worth-San Antonio-Corpus Christi and all points east of there, you have decent density. There's a few corridors in the west where the density makes sense - the West Coast corridor, Tucson-Phoenix-LA, Wasatch Front, LA-Las Vegas.
What a great presentation! You are spot on. If we had high speed trains, I'd be inclined to travel more. I refuse to go by plane because the last time I flew it was an awful experience. So now I either drive or stay at home - mostly stay at home.
Also note that with cars you can choose where to drive on any of the many roads, and with the right cars you can even go off road. Americans have always been less focused on public transport for a few reasons, and the geography makes it difficult too. The biggest reason is probably not even just car culture but freedom and individualism culture. I can go wherever I want in my car, I can only go where teh menu of locations allows in a train.
Fearghus Keitz cars are great for vacations and other recreational purposes. not as much when you go back and forth frequently. that’s where it’s more convenient to take a train; when it’s about going from point a to b and not about the trip in between.
" Americans have always been less focused on public transport"
That's not true. We used to have some of the best trains in the world, and they went nearly everywhere! However, we fell victim to subsidizing the auto industry, which systematically dismantled our public transit network. It has nothing to do with "freedom" - that is a farce.
Yeah I don't like going places I know I can't just leave whenever I want on my own schedule.
funplussmart I would disagree, having been to nyc and plenty of the east coast, and living in a small city now, I’d say that cars are far better for getting to a specific place, and they provide more versatility and freedom of movement. You can also use them to carry cargo far more easily than you could with transit. If you’re in a rural town you’ll need a car not only because of the lack of public transportation but because of the utility cars provide.
@@feartheghus They take up a zillion times more space than transit, which causes traffic to get worse. I don't consider sitting in a highway on rush hour traffic "freedom or versatility" of movement. If anything, it's a form of hell on earth.
One mile of RR track will carry you one mile. One mile of runway will carry you anywhere.
The Photographic Auditor actually two miles of runway.
John P Depends on the size plane you're using. Sometimes, 1000' would suffice.
Just don't forget to deal with the bs of airport security and being crammed like sardines in a can. Also unless you happen to live near a major airport, don't forget the hours you may have to spend getting to the airport.
Cheng Liu Takes me 20 minutes to airport, drive to hangar, pull out and pre-flight, close hangar doors, gone in 15-20 minutes. No security, no flightplan, plane stays full of fuel. Land in 3 hrs, pee, rehydrate, refuel and go again. Easy-peasy.
@@thephotographicauditor6715: You are obviously very wealthy then. No average person would ever be able to do that.
The main reason is time and money. It takes two hours to drive from Indianapolis to Chicago at a price of about 15 dollars of gas. On top of that, there's the freedom to stop where you want, eat what you want, sightsee, and you don't need to rent a car or use public transportation when arrived at your destination. Additionally, America is so large that flying is the only logical option for large distance round trips.
Technically, trains would be more common everywhere, trains that could ferry cars, go super fast, and be as cheap as the cost of gas, if the government didn't monopolize the rail and power industries. Government intervention has kept innovation in both industries almost fifty years behind automobiles.
When I visited my friend in Syracuse, I took the Greyhound to Albany to meet up with a distant relative. The bus station was also the train station and I was astonished to see how few trains ran between Syracuse and New York City. I live in a small town 40 miles from London, and we have trains every ten minutes and even the commuter trains do over 70mph. My American friend loves our rail network.
My biggest peeve. U.S. has way to little public transit outside of major cities, even major cities are just a ghost of service in 1960 when I was 18. In 1960 I could go from where I live in Arizona small town to a small town in Ohio. I am 78 now and have to look to the future when I am (for safety sake) not driving.
There are Senior Transportation companies, usually through the local Council on Aging, or whoever manages Meals on Wheels. I'd suggest learning how it works in your area.
It's interesting that most of the pro-HSR comments come down to "I like trains," and most of the anti-HSR comments come down to "In the US, they make no economic sense."
_What could it mean???_
Festus Omega that some people like trains? I honestly have no clue what you are getting at
I've noticed that the pro-HSR comments seem to be about how well the trains work where they've been tried and they aren't as miserable as flying, which can, with creative editing, be boiled down to "I like trains". Mostly by ignoring how well HSR works wherever it's tried.
Anti-HSR comments seem to be all about how much they don't like trains and think trains should be the only transportation system to operate without anything that even the most creative libertarian activist can pretend is a subsidy, which can be boiled down to "In the US they make no economic sense."
Meanwhile, most of the economics are just because noone cared about high speeds 50 years ago when particular curves were made too tight.
Interesting video. I love traveling by rail, and I've crossed the US several times by train. I think our trains could be a bit faster--and it would be nice to eliminate the need to sit on a siding waiting for freight trains to pass--but I'm not upset that we don't have high speed rail. In North America (and I'm including Canada's passenger rail), you don't take long distance trains for speed. You take them for a relaxing journey, to see the beautiful landscape, to chat with all type of people. If you want to "get there fast," you fly or you drive. I'm not referring to shorter routes and commuter routes, where speed is important. But covering the vast distances of the US, I like the slower pace. Not the delays, but I don't need to zoom across the country at more than 300 miles per hour. I'm sure others feel differently
Really? Most seats flip as the trains goes town to town. Because small towns have NO air or bus
Dublin to Kiev is about the same distance as Boston to Dallas. You can go all the way across Europe through several countries and still not go as far as getting across the US.
I think it's Boston to L.A. that's the same distance as Dublin to Kiev.
@@DRNewcomb Then you think incorrectly. Boston to Dallas is a little under 1800 mi and Dublin to Kiev is a little over 1800 mi by road.
@@longwave8156 OK, I stand corrected. Google Maps was being "helpful" by reporting km in Europe and miles in the USA. Boston to L.A. is a bit farther than Lisbon to Moscow.
@@DRNewcomb Yeah, I found their "helpfulness" a bit annoying. It would be nice if they just used the default preference of the account.
Russia has a lot of train lines with those scales of length, though.
I love taking the Amtrak but there are issues once you get to where you're going. Many places don't have good public transportation systems in place and the ones who do, it's often risky to use it. In St. Louis, I could take public transit to work everyday but it would take me over 2.5 hours to get to work 12 miles from home verses the 25 minutes it takes me to drive and I'm not likely to get robbed at gunpoint in my car on the interstate. I looked at how to get to Disneyland from St. Louis by train. It would take me 3 day and about $700 to ride in a coach seat ($1200+ if I wanted sleeping accommodations) with 1 train exchange in California one way and then have to either walk or rely on public transit the whole time I'm there. I could fly first class and rent a luxury car for the price of a one-way ticket on the Amtrak and be at my hotel room in under 8 hours.
"I looked at how to get to Disneyland from St. Louis by train."
Yeah that's way too far. It's not reasonable to expect a train to be as fast as flying for that distance. Just fly, for that.
That's what Europeans don't understand, the vast size of this country. They may talk shit, but they don't have HSR runs that long, either, lol. That's 1821 miles, even if you were going 200 mph (the TGV actually averages 173 over the whole system, says wikipedia), it would STILL be 9 hours. Versus 4 hours to fly it. 🙂
btw the public transit is great in California. Although I would suggest flying into Santa Ana aka John Wayne, it's much closer than LAX....I admit it's not direct flight, but it's quicker than HSR would be. Public transit is great in California. But pretty much all public transit is going to be slower than driving, if there's no traffic. Another option is find a hotel that has a free shuttle from SNA and then get a cab to Disneyland. 🙂
Nice video. Nice editing Laurence. I live in Iowa (one of your unvisited states). Perhaps you should go on a fishing trip with my brother and tell the differences between UK outdoorsmen and US. From a non outdoorsmen perspective
8:28 the time is off quite a bit because of SECURITY - air travel used to be awesome prior to 9-11, now add up to 200% of the actual air time.
While it was faster, in my recent experience, security only added about 30 minutes.
I'm in Wisconsin and I never heard about the hyperloop's cancellation until this.
The hyperloop concept is fine if you like being a bullet in a barrel. The only place it's been feasible is in utopian science fiction novels which have no taxing authority.
There was supposed to be a speed line between Madison and Milwaukee but it got scrapped in 2010. I wonder if it would worked or would have gone belly up.
I thought hyperloop was just a not-serious concept thing they were discussing, saying immediately it wouldn't currently be feasible. This is the first I'm hearing it was ever being implemented
Korea already has 1200km/h scaled prototype
Oh, how I wish we did have high speed rail, and a rail pass priced in the affordable range. Not everyone can fly, for various reasons.
DOUG HEINS In other countries, HSR is more affordable than people in the US realize. My stepson has lived in Japan for almost 20 years. Not only are their trains faster and more prolific; they are clean and they run on time. And they are less costly than air travel.
@@PalemoonTwilight In other countries they subsidize hsr with huge amounts of money. Do you really want the government to spend 500 billion a year of taxpayers money for something only a handful of people will use on a weekly basis? You should also look at the size difference of the USA and Japan and population density.
Japan is a tiny country though we're not a tiny country. I don't think it's fair to apply the same standards to Tiny countries to huge ones. It's going to take a lot more resources to do a high-speed rail in a huge country
DOUG HEINS I could afford to fly but my seat would be empty because I have a physical condition that puts me at higher risk when at high altitudes.
DOUG HEINS True. But why should that stop the US from using rail. We have allowed our rail infrastructure to become dilapidated because big oil and GM wanted it that way.
It was also looked at by private rail companies in the 1950's but it ran up against what was thencost prohibitive safety regs and robber baron era regulations on adding and removing stops.
My sister in law just got stuck in Chicago in that snowstorm over the weekend as her flight was cancelled. The alternative was 🚆 to Sacramento which would take 2 days or drive it in 30 hours.
I would use trains, if it didn't cost so much in the US! Why take a train, when you can pay about the same price, and fly in a fraction of the time? I do love trains though. I haven't been to Europe yet, but riding European trains is on my bucket list!
Cross country on a train is impractical to say the least. However I took the train from Albany to NYC and it was clearly the better way to go, around the same price once tolls + gas + parking are considered and you don't have to deal with the awful NYC traffic
I just priced the trains from DC to NYC. The regular train costs $50 and takes 3 hours and 30 minutes. The high speed train, Acela, costs at least $100 more, and takes 3 hours and 3 minutes. 🤔 This is just one way. I haven’t gotten around to pricing a round trip. How exactly is the Acela high speed?
@@angelaselby5374 the acela non stop drops it to 2 and half hours,
I’m surprised it only took 4 hours. Trains to Chicago from Indy share the same tracks with freight trains and they have priority
Tim Ramey I don’t get why the can’t build parallel tracks.
I like this video, because unlike other things I've seen on this subject in the past, it actually delves in to a number of good reasons why this is the case, instead of just determining that we're a bunch of backwards idiots in the US.
A few points I wanted to add to. On the subject of the car culture, I think that is correct to a certain extent. Expanding on that, one point that isn't often brought up is the age of the major cities in relation to how long cars have been viable methods of transportation for the masses. The majority, if not all of the major cities scattered across the UK and even the whole of Europe are old, and were around long before cars were ever a thing. This means that those cities, especially in the downtown/city center areas, were long established and built before cars were around, and the need to make roads to accommodate them. This means many of these cities had to come up with other methods to get growing populations around, since only so much could be done in the way of making roads large enough to handle increasing traffic. This means people have less need to own cars in the first place, which translates out into needing other methods to travel between cities and such. Contrast that with the US where, outside of the Northeast and a few other cities like Chicago; most cities didn't really start to grow to the point of needing to handle methods of moving large amounts of people around until after cars were a thing, so many cities just grew and were built with cars in mind from the get go.
The population density factor is a huge one. Looking at the UK map of high speed rail, it appeared to me that the longest distance, or at least one of the longest distances, you could travel by high speed rail was from London to Glasgow. According to Google Maps, that's about 412 miles by car. Compare that to where I live. The closest "major city" to me (and in this case, I'm defining a "major city" as one that's large enough to support at least one major professional sports team) is Kansas City, and that's also the only "major city" that is at or closer than that 412 miles. Distances are quite large for the most part between major cities.
Going back to the car culture thing again, there is also just the general question of available public transportation. Like I stated above, many cities in the UK and Europe have fairly robust public transportation to begin with, getting around the city itself without a car is relatively easy. Again using where I live as an example, while I don't live in a city anywhere near approaching the big cities in the US, it's still fairly good size, and definitely somewhere you would have a tough time getting around all the time without some form of motorized transportation. Public transportation is available in the form of buses, and while it's decent and certainly usable, and some people do rely on it for their getting around, in general it just isn't good enough for most people to rely on for getting where they need to go all the time. While taxis, Uber, Lyft, etc... are available as well, for the most part it is just better to own a vehicle. Once you own a vehicle, most shorter trips where you might find high speed rail useful are just easier to drive, rather than have to be at the whim of other people's schedules.
Topography is also a big factor. In general, building high speed rail all across the US would be in the trillions of dollars, like stated in the video. Maintaining said high speed rail would be at least in the billions, if not trillions, as well. Topography is another big problem that either would put up a roadblock or greatly increase costs. The imagined Chicago to San Francisco connection would almost certainly have to cross through a significant portion of the Rocky Mountains, at least for the most direct route. Being able to maintain high speed through areas like that would require a lot of tunnels, which means skyrocketing costs.
Sorry for the long comment, this is a subject I've seen brought up many times, so I've had quite a few thoughts about it.
Another factor is the hard freeze and frost heave in the spring that makes keeping rail strait and level for high speeds very difficult. West coast would be easy though.
I’ve been in the rail field since graduating university. Historically the railroad companies provided both freight and passenger service. Passenger patronage started to fall after WWII. This was due to the interstate highway system and air travel. Eventually the railroads started loosing money and eventually filed bankruptcy. The biggest bankruptcy was Penn Central.
As a result, the government formed Amtrak. It was supposed to be a stopgap. Many long distance is so vast that rail is impractical.
Rail travel seems to be making a revival on new regional routes. Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, Washington is obvious. New service has been extended Washington-Richmond, and Boston-Portland, ME. Chicago has many popular regional runs to Detroit, Milwaukee, and St. Louis.
I do appreciate the depth of service in the UK. It seems like some of the 1960s cuts are being undone.
You omitted the minor fact that almost 100% of passenger rail was subsidized by the US Postal Service. Once the ZIP code system was instituted, passenger rail died. A piece of mail now takes 3 days to travel from New York to LA. (It also takes 3 days to travel from Manhattan to Brooklyn, but...)
The ridership is higher when you have trains which these places do. There are massive gaps in the system and corridors across the country the have NO rail service like Phoenix to Tucson or Detroit to Toledo. The private railroads did go broke . THE YEAR WAS 1967! When the last MAIL WAS TAKEN OFF THE NATIONAL RAIL SYSTEM. Explain to me why the booming Chicago to Milwaukee corridor avoids all the major cities between them. Evanston, Waukegan, Kenosha, Racine? It that what Mc Donald's or Walmart would do? Avoid major cities? And under 1000 miles conventional overnight rail is just as fast as flying mail. It goes by truck today just like General Motors wanted it. Not much flys.
@@Jonascord, that last one should be about _two_ days, max.
@@Neville60001 In the 1800's, you could drop off a letter at the post office in the morning, and it would be delivered that afternoon, across town. (This was before the Telephone.) In cities, mail delivery was twice a day.
If you were wealthy, you could communicate via telegraph, and the message travel could be within minutes. People could have their company name as their telegraph/cable address, and their own telegrapher.
The system now depends on central sorting, in massive sorting centers, served by interstate trucks, using the Interstate highway system, or aircraft, with the sorting center within a couple of miles of the airport, if not on the property.
You used to pay a premium postage for air mail, with a red and blue pattern on the edge of the envelope.
Answering before I even watch the vid (I know, I am a renegade) We have tried to get high speed rail in California for years. Shot down as a waste.... Now I will go watch the vid.
Still building the North End. No Fed help either! Getting rid of 119 miles of dangerous level crossing with cars is NO waste.
As for competition against airline, given the atrocious state of domestic airlines, high speed rail can compete on price and comfort. Your viewers have to go on an actual high speed rail in china, japan or even Europe (which is slightly inferior) to understand how much more spacious and comfortable these trains are. Amtrak cabins and seat is like cattle pens in comparison.
Also, if you factor in the time for going through custom and checks and all the waiting time in the lobby of airport, high speed rail is not not that much slower unless the distance is truly huge.
They can compete in comfort, but that comfort comes at a high price. I don’t think they can compete in price(considering how expensive it is just to build the infrastructure for it, not including price of operation and maintenance), and they definitely can’t compete in speed as planes are just overall faster.
@@blackhole9961 Trains are not expensive. They have removed planes in distances below 1000km.Evidence: we go to work everyday on 300km/h electric trains, fare for 500km is $50 if not monthly ticket which is much cheaper.
High speed rail is best served along I-5 and I-95 beyond that we get to live with the interstates built 60 years ago.
As someone who has been a rail enthusiast and read up a good portion of American rail history, some of this is true but there is more.
Things that killed American High Speed Rail.
1 - Cars, historically they caused declines in both passenger and freight traffic on rail.
2 - Private competition. There was a time when passenger rail was run by the same private companies that run freight and there were more of these companies. In short, there were very cutthroat and even illegal activities that went on years ago in order for one company to gain advantages over others.
3 - Bankruptcies. A number of private rail companies lost money mostly due to the previous 2 reasons forcing mergers. The worst was when a number of NorthEast rail companies all got hit with losses in the same time period then 2 of those companies that should not have been allowed to merge did so and within 2 years THAT merged company declared bankruptcy. This company, the Penn Central, was in such poor shape they made videos to get Congress to do something to help, you can find such videos online including things like track so bad trains were rocking side to side almost tipping over.
4 - The NorthEast bankruptcies caused to government to get involved and it took them 6 years to get a plan in action. This plan involved creating 2 government companies, one called Amtrak for Passenger and the other Conrail for freight that over time took over the operation of several NorthEast railroads. Conrail lasted for a couple of decades, improved the NorthEast freight rail and went back to being a private company that was later divided up into 2 other freight companies.
But Passenger rail never went back to private service, instead the government wound up taking over all American rail passenger service nationwide. Various things have kept Amtrak from doing High Speed rail since including land that cannot be built on such as Native reservations, not updating equipment, etc.
5 - Due to all the private companies both losing money and getting out of passenger service, a number of rail lines disappeared. There used to be many more rail lines than you see today, some of those former lines were passenger only or carried little freight. As private companies became freight only, they had no need for them and the government only focused on connecting major cities, not running trains on more local lines so they were abandoned. You can still find things left around from them in various locations, some have been converted into park trail. Do a search for Rail Trails in different states, they are out there.
In the early 2000's I took an Amtrak from San Diego to LA boarded a different train and went all the way to Pensacola, FL. This took three days so I had a small room that had two sets that turned into 2 small beds. I really enjoyed the experience. Sadly this route is not available due to so much of the railroads getting torn up by Hurricane Katrina.
The hyper-loop. It would connect Los Angeles to California. Nifty!
Isn't Los Angeles in California? Second why should the higher electricity costs and taxes be stuck to the people in the Valley that wont get any use of it instead of the people in like Palo Alto that will?
You heard that too, eh?
It will never happen and plus LA is in Cali dude...
he meant LA to San Fransisco
😂
You hit the main points. Europe is much more densely populated then the United States. The distances between population centers is much higher. And we like our automobiles. Cars are flexible and trains are not. One other thing is expense. It would not be multi billions, it would be trillions to make a national rail network. California is throwing money away on a high speed rail system that is back from going nowhere to nowhere. Even if the system was built and went from LA to San Francisco, it would still be slower then flying from LA to San Francisco. I will say though, that the few times I traveled in European trains, they seemed empty. I liked the Eurostar and the other trains were good. It is not just the United States. I compared options when I went to Australia, (Not exactly a densely populated country) and flying from Sydney to Cairns was the only real option.
George Steele
A national high-speed rail system in the US wouldn’t be feasible... But at the state level it starts to make a lot more sense. Some high population states would do really well with bullet trains connecting their larger cities!
Actually, a high speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco could make a lot of sense -- though the big issue is the cost of getting it built. While it is technically slower than flying, that doesn't include the extra time that flying typically takes.
I think a high speed rail line along the West Coast, from about San Diego up to Seattle, could make a lot of sense. You have enough cities along the coast , over that 1,000 miles, that it could be feasible. And, time wise it would still be comparable to air travel -- maybe not quite as fast, though once you factor in things like time spent in security at airports, the travel to an airport (as opposed to train stations that can be near city centers), it actually is close to the same amount of time to reach your destination. A high speed line from San Diego to Seattle could be as quick as 5 or 6 hours , depending on stops between the two cities. This isn't much off of 3 hours flying, particularly when you have to travel to the airport, arrive two hours before your flight is scheduled to depart, and then take transportation into the city.
Of course, that falls apart when you look to build something nationwide -- particularly when you consider how few cities there are in the Western US, other than those on/near the Pacific Coast.
David Nielson
You’re exactly right. A state like California is very comparable to a European country in terms of both size and population density making it perfect for high speed rail.
The only place it would make sense is the North East Corridor. Beyond that part, high speed rail is extremely expensive and slower than air travel. It is also more cumbersome. One can choose to drive to a certain place in a car. A bus company can alter its route. An airline can add or drop service. Trains cannot.
You are talking trillions of dollars to build a system slower than air travel that few will use.
There's no point in a country as spread out as America. Planes are faster and you only have to build physical infrastructure at the takeoff and landing points. The only place where it would arguably work is the Northeast but you'd have to buy up and demolish so many properties along the route it wouldn't even be worth it.
Not to mention the enormous cost of building and maintaining a HSR system, also you cant have any RR crossings, collisions with trucks and cars at crossing at HSR speeds would be a catastrophe.
It already exists in the northeast. It is the rail sharing with freight that causes issues.
Planes are expensive. Europe is huge & benefits very well from their high speed trains. If you've never traveled them & seen first hand how much they help then you should have no say in this debate.
Australia is considering one and it's the same size as the mainland US with 1/10 of the population
@@mermaid1717 Train infrastructure is even more expensive. A brand new airliner on average can pay for itself in 10 years and air based infrastructure is quicker and cheaper to set up and operate than any rail system.
I took the train from Sacramento CA to Reno NV and it took over six hours, after being almost two hours late. This trip by car can take between 1.5 to 2 hours by car (depending on potty breaks). It's a scenic trip but after two hours of looking at snow and trees the view get boring.
the us rail system was pretty much established in the 1800's before bureaucracy became a big deal and really hasn't changed much. in the early days it was used for passenger service more than freight but with the invention of the automobile and the airplane the passenger service was replaced with freight service and that has continued to the present day. like most old industries in america the labor unions dictate what will and what will not happen and the unions are not interested in high-speed rail so that's the way it is. as it is now there are not enough tracks to carry passengers and freight and nobody wants to pay for more tracks, that's also the way it is. amtrak exists mostly as a showcase of american transportation because it would be embarrassing for a country like the usa to have zero passenger train service except for a few small regional commuter routes. amtrak does try, but it is crippled by politics and doesn't have a very strong budget, it's always been threatened with having it's funding cut so the entire amtrak system has become a compromise.
We are really large and you are still going to need a car when you get to the end of the ride. Planes are faster if you need to get across the country fast.
Most ridership on I-90 or rail is NOT across the country. Most air service even with government bailouts has been cut. Big cuts coming in Oct.
@Poopy1234 you’ve never been to Dallas then.
@Poopy1234 I live in a good size city that is the physical size of Detroit with less than 300k residents. We have no commuter train or even an Amtrak train and we are very spread out. Our bus transit system is only so so in getting you were you need to go. In addition, I live in the Deep South. So not having a car is really not an option if you want to be mobile and not die of heat exhaustion. I applaud those who can live that way but it is not an option where I live.
@Poopy1234 I agree. If I lived in a town where I could use it I would.
Planes are not faster than trains and cannot exceed 850km/h while we will get 1200km/.h trains in a few years.Right now we have only 430km/h all electric.And planes will crash in conditions where the same trains have no problems-including heavy snowstorms,monsoon and moderate earthquake.This is why planes are inferior than trains.Trains are fully electric,planes destroy ozone layer and oil supply is limited.DIesel trains cause lung cancer and thus are abolished now.
Why Doesn't America Do High-Speed Rail? I ask that question every time I have to ride uncomfortably packed in a plane.
@@Ancient_Yuletide_Carol You would not be packed into a high speed train.
if you went from plane to high speed rail you'd find yourself sitting next to the very same people you wanted to avoid.
TedBronson1918 ...and for a longer period of time. Winner winner chicken dinner...
ike eisenhower's interstate system. you can't leave behind a 40,000 mile strong road system connecting literally the entire country, from oahu to maine.
@@starventure No! This past Thanksgiving, some airports recommended people arrive *3* hours early.
We must show this to The American Rail Club
As of right now, high speed rail is exclusive. You should not forget that there is some high speed rail outside of the northeast corridor. Michigan, there’s the Wolverine line, speeds up to 110 mph, Pennsylvania, Keystone Corridor, up to 125 mph, New York, Empire Corridor, 110 mph. And also do not forget that we’re just now starting to build high speed lines around the United States.
Here in Sweden, train is often more expensive if you are 2 people or more in the car. Moreover, the train has a joke of timekeeping.