It’s not necessary to take Acela for the train to be faster than driving between NYC & DC. I could get a Regional for $150 for this weekend, and be in DC in 4 hours. As low as $100 RT, if I planned ahead.
The Acela is $300 and takes 2hrs 45 min.
All the delays you complain about are either already there for train travel or will be as soon as one terrorist even tries to blow up a passenger train. In the old days of the Eastern Shuttle, you could walk on the plane without checking in or buying a ticket. If the plane was full, they rolled out another one.
If anything high speed rail is worse from a security point of view. Every foot of high speed rail is a terrorist target.
The last time I looked, general revenue isn’t used to support our air travel system. The people who use the system pay for it in ticket taxes, fuel taxes, landing fees and $8 airport hotdogs.
For that matter, I think the Federal Highway system is payed for by federal fuel taxes.
Haven’t read this whole thread yet, but I did want to address this point:
It’s true, earthquake zones present a major challenge, but when you compare Japan’s fault zones with a map of the Sinkansen network, you can see that most tracks avoid the major fault lines. Whereas, the proposed L.A.-S.F. high speed rail line will need to bisect the San Andreas Fault twice – a major engineering challenge, to say the least!
True, but at least you can’t fly high-speed trains into skyscrapers. (Just sayin’.)
I was responding to GiantRat’s post that was citing the cost and travel time between Boston and Washington.
I don’t know why, but the critics in these threads only seem to look at the end points for a rail line and then dismiss it as impractical. I keep pointing out that a train connects all the cities in between, too.
Yes. If terrorist just want to kill a bunch of people, there are plenty of places where they could do that. There’s nothing special about transportation, except that airplanes can be flown and crashed where they’ll do the most damage.
Which is precisely why air travel will always require higher levels of security & maintenance than train travel. Even accidental incidents, like the Eschede High Speed Train Disaster, are confined to specific, localized areas – compare that with any air crash into a residential neighborhood, terrorism or no terrorism.
You get a lot more luxury on the Acela though, which is nice.
The reasons are mostly psychological and irration. Sort of like the reasons people who are afraid to fly. Although it is true that aircraft are less forgiving than other forms of transportation. A problem at 30,000 feet is a much bigger problem than one that takes place on a train that can simply stop on its rails.
It’s not just about the risk for the people travelling on the train or plane - obviously it is possible to have a rail accident killing everybody, or most of the people, on board, and the same is possible for air transport as well. But I suppose fuzzypickles was referring to not to the risk for the people on board, but to the risk to other people - and it that respect, a plane is much more of a threat than a plane and therefore a more attractive target for terrorists. As has been said by others, it’s really difficult to steer a hijacked train right into a skyscraper.
That is totally true, but coach on a train is far more comfortable than coach on a plane. Even the crappiest trains on the NE corridor have at least one outlet per two seats (newer cars have two per 2 seats), much more leg room and seat width, let you pack all the snacks you like, and don’t limit your carryon.
And let’s not forget the glory that is the Quiet Car. No cells phones or children under 12 allowed, and the conductor WILL kick out offenders. A thing of beauty.
I meant people who are from Köln and Düsseldorf. Flying in doesn’t count at all.
Aside from the special relationship that Kölner and Düsseldorfer have with each other, and being serious again, that distance is a prime example of train, not car, for me. In addition to regional trains (S-Bahn) which you can find in every part of Germany, you have IC and ICEs stopping at both places, because they are on the main trunk for the whole Rhine region. So every 10 mins. you can get on a train. And unless you landed with 3 suitcases or are handicapped, travelling that distance by car will probably take longer because you will stand in the traffic jam while the trains rush by at 200+ km/h in about 25 min.s. And you won’t find a parking space in the city itself (only the outskirts) while a bus or tram will deliver you effortlessly close to your destination.
The usual rule for public transport in cities, or in the case of NRW, between cities is: unless you are transporting a lot of stuff, or wild groups of small children, are handicapped or out late at night, don’t take a car because of traffic jam, one-way streets and lack of parking space.
Getting from a city into the countryside with lack of transport calls for a car again.
As for trains vs. planes, I mentioned Munich-Hamburg for a reason, because in this case, 6 hrs. with ICE vs 1 hr. plus hassle* with plane is obvious benefit. All shorter distances: Munich-Frankfurt, Munich-Stuttgart, Stuttgart-Frankfurt, Frankfurt-Düsseldorf, are all connected in 2 hrs. by ICE, which is very close to flight+hassle* time, so taking the train is a better choice.
- Hassle in this case: travelling to the airport from the city, which is between 30 and 45 min., checking in at the airport: 20-30 min., security: 20 min.
This is not complicated. In Japan, you can travel on normal public transport once the Shinkansen gets you roughly where you’re going. Public transport in the US is a joke.
I don’t know how much time and tediousness airport security calls for in the US. It’s true that we don’t have untrained TSA people. But then, Europeans are used to security check-ins long before 9/11 because of hijackings. The idea of just walking onto a plane sounds … strange to us.
Still, the last times I flew, the official recommendation was to be there 30 min. before leaving for domestic flights, because no passport or custom, and 60 min. for international flights. The problem is that there is a lot of wasted time, even with electronic check-in, where you should be there early in case there’s a long line at security, and you either stand for 30 min. in line, or there is no line and you wait 30 min. after security. Then you get called up to the gate and wait another 20 min. All the while you can only read a book or newspaper. In an ICE, you show up 10 min before the train leaves (tickets bought throught the Internet and printed out), get on the train, sit down at a table and plug your laptop in to get working. No turning it off during take-off, either. And you can choose between cell phone cars (with enhanced reception) and quiet cars (where you should refrain from phoning) - a bonus for both people who are bothered by people phoning everywhere, and people who can’t miss a phone call because they are so important. 
In my opinion, the biggest problem the Bahn is facing is the cheap prices from airlines. Like I said, if I can fly for one third of the cost from UK to Munich than the train ride Munich-London cost me, then the security abuse needs to be very serious to consider trains for me. I’m certainly enviromental conscious, but I don’t have a budget for that large gaps.
Politics could help with that by cutting the subsidy on Kerosene. They also introduced a new fee for flights, in order to curb all those people flying around the globe for a cheap vacation, because it costs less to spend 1 week on the Canaries or Jamaica then 1 weekend in the Schwarzwald or Meck-Pom. (though they are nice regions, too). It’s insane, but a lot of people don’t have the choice to pay 400 Euros more - it’s either a cheap holiday or no holiday.
The other aspect is a political decision of the Bahn itself: they want to compete with planes in terms of time spent, so they spend milions upgrading the old tracks, and buying faster ICE trains. But to get the money, they cut the basic grid in the countryside, which is not only a sizeable part of their customer base - the daily commuters from one region to the city - but also against their duty of providing basic transport possibility for those people who can’t afford cars or don’t want them.
I think politic failed there again, by not mandating before the first change-over what minimum service the Bahn should provide.
The last problem is the incomprehensible ticket structure. Like I said, even Pro Bahn (a customer group) criticizes them, and the impression on the general public is that nobody understands how it works, or how to get a cheap ticket. Yes, the software for plane tickets is complicated, because it’s optimized towards making sure the plane is full, so prices vary wildly, and yes, plane companies play the “hidden fees added on later” game nastily, too. But there, the public has the impression that jumping through those hoops at least gives you an obvious saving in form of a cheap ticket, while the Bahn website just tells you that all cheap tickets are sold out again.
Huh? Not at all. I don’t know when the Eastern shuttle was flying, but in the last 30+ years in Europe, there was always security at the airport. And though I’m not a Spaniard paging Nava, who were the ones actually hit by bombs in their train stations, they didn’t to my knowledge start with the intrusive security theater that’s done at the airports.
When I take a train, I still walk up and can buy the ticket there and get on. No checking at all.
The only check I had was the Eurostar to London - there was a passport control, of course, because I was leaving Belgium/EU Schengen for the UK/Not-Schengen - where they x-rayed my luggage, because somebody could blow up the Eurostar. You know, if a bomb could damage the chunnel, then I suddenly feel far less safer, because obviously it wasn’t built safely enough.
In France, the TGV has dedicated lines surrounded by fence. In Germany, the ICE runs on normal tracks, and though occasionally sheep get in the way, it’s overall safe.
This whole discussion is pointless if we don’t know why high speed trains on dedicated lines in other countries are slower or not as reliable. Or if that is even a fact, or just a perception by someone who is currently in love with the Japanese bullet trains.
My guess would that it’s because Japan has been doing it for so much longer. Their lines opened in 1964. TGV didn’t start until 1981. Big head start, they’re probably a generation ahead.
Really? That’s (from an American perspective) such a short distance. To compare: we’re used to multiday road trips, whereby the travel constitutes an actual part of the vacation.
If I were going only to Cologne (as a tourist, without a requirement to drive to work everyday), I may have considered learning about the trains beforehand. See, you’re local. You already know how to use the trains, where they go, how to get the tickets, their schedules, and so on. Kind of like how I used to know how the trains worked between Hanau, Frankfurt, and Wiesbaden back in the day.
I guess I arrived at the right time of day, as traffic was moving. As for parking, the Maritim had plenty. I think in my two weeks there, I only encountered real stau on the way to Duisburg one morning during rush hour. I remember it because it completely surprised me, because I’d been thinking that traffic worked brilliantly in the region. I always hated the traffic between Frankfurt and Hanau, which seems to always suck (who the hell puts a traffic circle on a major friggin’ freeway?).
Eastern Shuttle goes back to 1961. Airport security really only started in the late 60’s / early 70’s when there was a very large number of hijackings.
We’re not talking fighter planes here. The TGV is just as advanced as the Shinkansen; it’s not like the French were starting from scratch.
French trains are less reliable because the French are less reliable. If there’s an inherent advantage to the Shinkansen, it’s that building the lines in 1964 means they had a generation less of construction to bulldoze or build around or whatever.
[QUOTE=Balthisar]
Really? That’s (from an American perspective) such a short distance. To compare: we’re used to multiday road trips, whereby the travel constitutes an actual part of the vacation.
[/QUOTE]
Remember, the population density of Western Europe is orders of magnitude greater than that of the US. Kolner and Dusseldorf may not be that far apart, but you’ll spend a lot more time sitting in traffic driving between them than you would going from Toledo to Birmingham.
To get back to the OPs question: the costs for a high-speed rail vs. a normal rail that runs slower but connects Podunk to the big city, is not only the service itself, but two big factors:
tracks and Trains. This may sound like Duh, but it’s not. When the Bahn decided to change from normal to high-speed trains, they had to choose between buying an existing line of high-speed trains from another country - the TGV from France or the Pendolino from the Swiss/ Italians - or develop and build a new one. Because the Bahn was at that time still the Bundesbahn (Federal train), it was decided that it was strategically better to be independet from other countries, and also to develop high-tech knowledge in our country and help our companies. So Siemens and others started developing the ICE.
Developing from the Start up costs a lot of money for research, though, and that is reflected in the price for the finished product. Esp. because its basically a one-customer market - selling ICEs to the US is a secondary afterthought.
The second factor, tracks, is closely related to the first one. Because the ICE was developed as rigid system - as opposed to the Pendolino, which swings, and can therefore travel quickly in the bendy tracks of the Swiss and Italian Alps - it requires straight tracks. So millions of DM were spent to blast tunnels through all our old mountains (not the Alps, but the mid-sized older mountains lying around mid-Germany), and additionally millions were spent to build new, straighter tracks. The last one I remember was several years back, when with a big party they announced that after spending so-and-so many millions and some years time, they now had knocked down travelling time between Munich and Nuremburg by 15 min. Wow.
The French, as I said, decided to let the TGV run on dedicated rails, and fence them all in (I don’t know if because of the ETA or sheep), and that surely costs some money, too.
The Mid-US, and the coast lines, would have an advantage in that area being mostly flat already. And building from the ground anew is cheaper in a way than upgrading an existing system in use.