Riding on one of these was far better than an airliner.
I've got a better idea.
Develop cars and highways that can safely handle 150 - 200 MPH travel.
Socialistic snuff. I can just imagine these guys sitting around in a well-decked out library wearing smoking jackets.
I once went from Center City Philadelphia to Cameden NJ and back, stopping only for a liter of gin, durring the halftime of an Eagles game, but admittedly I blew several red lights and had EZ Pass. Still, it's a feat that is spoken of in reverent tones by those at the bar at the time.
Owl_Eagle(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
Four hours? I usually get from Indy to Chicago in 3 hours.
I doubt it. Why would it be any different than planes?
You drive to the airport, at least 90 minutes before departure time.
You get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected, and all that.
The plane leaves and arrives on time.
Then what? You gotta rent a car or get a taxi or find a bus.
The miles from Indy to Chicago are a small portion of the time spent.
Lots of people say this ... in theory. I say it, too -- I'd love to ride the bus or train to work. In practice, however, the inconvenience of train or bus travel very often outweighs any advantages in time. Sure, it's 50 minutes from Indy to Chicago -- once you're actually on the train. But it's probably closer to 4 hours when you count the time you spend in the stations at either end.
For me, for example, I'd have to drive half-way to work just to catch the bus that takes me the rest of the way, and I have to surrender my ability to work late or leave early, or head to a different office during the day.
Riding on one of these was far better than an airliner.
It's not going to work.
1: How will the accounting be to determine the payback? Will motorists just turn over the money they would have spent on gasoline/diesel over to the government? Or will the government own and operate the rail system?
2: If the government operates the system, then there will be extreme pressure from local politicians to put stops in their hometowns, thereby negating the time savings. The rail workers will then use their union muscle to featherbed the jobs, causing massive inefficiencies and creating a need for operating subsidies from tax funds.
3: Where will the space for rental car operations be at downtown passenger terminals? Downtown retail space is at a big premium and will drive up the cost of rentals, thereby negating part of the 'cost savings' over driving.
4: If rail transportation is so much more efficient, then why is an ever increasing of long-distance freight hauling being carried by trucks? It seems that just market forces alone would keep virtually all long distance freight operations going by rail.
5: Most intercity travel is by air. Rail just cannot compete with the cost and time of flying. Amtrack is competitive and profitable only in the Boston-Baltimore gigaplex area. A Chicago to Indianapolis high speed rail system cannot compete with Southwest Airlines.
They consistently fail to factor in human behavior and, speicifcally, American preferences. Indy to Chicago in 50 mins is great but what about Indy to the four stops someone is going to make in Chicago: shopping on Michigan Ave; have lunch with Aunt Betsy in Northbrook; stop by NWestern and see how your alma mater looks; and finally go visit a friend on the way back south.
Americans want to drive their cars. Mass transport makes sense going very long distances or moving great numbers of people in small areas (ie Manhattan)
What is it that you can't understand about this Willie? Or is your pro-union, pro-train bias so great that you just don't care to consider it?
I laid out a decent plan for how to use trains in one of your threads one time, and you ignored it. If you could quickly load/unload small cars on trains, then they could be useful for commuting medium distances. Quickly meaning load/unload in less than 20 seconds. No need to leave the car, just plug it into the train for power and stay in it. No need to mingle with smelly boom-boxers in the rail commune, just stay in your own car and surf the net while you travel.
You didn't like my idea. Maybe you just hate cars too much even when they ride on trains.
It will take hours to load and unload the traincars.
Willie Green what can I say? You are consistant.
If your goal is to go from the train station in Indy to the train station in Chicago at the time the train is departing this works well.
However, the less than an hour doesn't include time getting to the train station, time spent waiting in lines. It doesn't include arranging transportation from the train station in Chicago to the person's final destination.
It doesn't take into effect the need to travel in accordance with the train schedule.
It doesn't take into account that the train stations themselve them become major bottlenecks and that it can take a lot of time getting into and out of the train stations.
People use highways and automobiles because they are flexible. Trains are not flexible.
Trains can help reduce traffic on the interstate highways by giving people for whom trains are a good solution that option, however the government nearly always overestimates the number of people for whom such transportation is a reasonable choice, and trains are only cost effective if they are heavily utilized.
If they are not heavily utilized, the schedules have to become less frequent to save costs and they become less and less useful and less cost effective.
Fine, so long as the costs for the road are exclusively pulled from tractor trailer registrations and road tax stamps on their vehicles.
But then if we're going to do this, why not go back to just shipping on rails?
A LOT of things are possible. That doesn't make them desirable, practical, or even economically feasable.