
Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes - jseliger
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/04/rail-transportation-carbon-emissions-green-new-deal/586240/
======
bronco21016
I’ve visited Europe many times and I do like how the region is so easily
accessible without a car, largely because of trains, but there are many more
factors outside of just having trains. European cities are far more walkable
and accessible without a car. For decades the US has just not been built up in
this way so just dropping trains in doesn’t suddenly make them preferred and
thus viable. The reason people drive small/medium city to small/medium city is
because once arriving in that city they now need transportation while there.
Currently the most convenient and cost effective way to do that is to simply
bring the car you already own for moving around in your home small/medium
city. If the US is going to move to an environmentally friendly passenger rail
system it is going to take a MASSIVE cultural and shift in mindset to reshape
cities across the country. Many of which are broke. I’m not saying it’s
impossible or an unworthy goal. I simply think it is an extremely unlikely
goal until mindsets shift and realize things need to be done differently.

~~~
chungleong
I normally live in Europe. At the moment I'm in Baltimore. The city's downtown
area (around the inner harbor) is perfectly walkable. Nearby DC is also
perfectly walkable, while driving is a nightmare. These two cities should be
well connected by rail but they're not. People would drive to a parking lot
beside a metro station and get into the city that way.

Two cities can only be linked effectively by rail when there aren't stops
between them. That's impossible in America, where suburban areas are the
political battlegrounds while cities are single-party fiefdoms.

~~~
jcranmer
Washington-Baltimore is actually a very good connection by rail--you'll have a
train at least once an hour--except that the station for Baltimore is in the
wrong location. Baltimore Penn Station is located far to the north of the
city, well outside the Inner Harbor that's going to be the center of tourism
and visitors.

What happened is that, historically, Baltimore-Washington was mainly served by
the B&O, whose Baltimore station would have been right next to Inner Harbor
(Camden Yards is essentially built on old railroad property). When passenger
service was consolidated into Amtrak, the Northeast Corridor instead chose to
use Pennsylvania Railroad trackage instead of B&O from DC to NYC, and the
freight trackage in the corridor consolidated onto the B&O tracks instead. The
resulting residual commuter rail line has the standard commuter rail/freight
rail politics going on that limits the number of trains that can transit the
route.

~~~
masklinn
> Washington-Baltimore is actually a very good connection by rail--you'll have
> a train at least once an hour

That's really not a lot, especially between major cities.

~~~
fyfy18
For comparison, in the UK there are around 8 trains per hour during peak times
between London and Cambridge (around twice the distance of DC-Baltimore). I'd
imagine there are cities that have even more per hour in central Europe.

~~~
mikekchar
Although according to Google Washington DC has 700,000 people and Baltimore
600,000. Probably a more realistic comparison would be Bristol and
Southampton/Portsmouth where there is realistically 1 train an hour
(technically 2, but the second one has a change and runs 8 minutes after the
first one).

Comparing trains from London is not really fair because virtually every train
in the south ends up in London eventually. Somewhat tragically, I once tried
to take a train from Watford to visit Hatfield House, some 14 miles away. I
think it took me 3 hours getting in and out of London :-)

~~~
ovi256
>Washington DC has 700,000 people and Baltimore 600,000

You really have to look at the metro population.

~~~
mikekchar
London has a population of over 8 million and 14 million for the metro
population. I was trying to pick something that had even close to a similar
population density of of Washington Baltimore in the UK. Comparing to London
is like comparing to NYC.

------
temp-dude-87844
Most of the US freight rail system isn't electrified because the capital
expenditures of doing so would be very large, and its return on investment in
terms of direct monetary savings wouldn't materialize for many, many years.
Since externalities aren't priced in, diesel-electric locomotives haul most
trains in the US.

More passenger rail isn't really being built in the US, because the capital
expenditures of doing so would be very large, and its return on investment in
terms of direct monetary savings wouldn't materialize for many, many years.
Since externalities aren't priced in, the responsibility for transportation is
largely distributed to individuals, who make daily use of road vehicles on
roads that the governments fund, and travel long-distance by commercial
airlines that make use of airports that governments support.

~~~
jcranmer
> Most of the US freight rail system isn't electrified because the capital
> expenditures of doing so would be very large, and its return on investment
> in terms of direct monetary savings wouldn't materialize for many, many
> years.

There's a decent amount of mainline freight rail that was electrified 100
years ago but has since been ripped out. It turns out that electrification has
a lot of operational constraints that make it a less-clearly-good proposition.

One obvious constraint is loading gauge issues--you need about another 2 feet
of clearance for the wires. And if one bridge or tunnel along your entire
route isn't high enough, you can't move along the double-stacked containers.
You also need a lot of infrastructure for the tractive power substations, and
if you don't have enough of them, you literally can't run more trains if the
traffic demands it (and too many means infrastructure costs you're not
benefiting from). The operational inflexibilities of electric locomotives in
partially-electrified systems should have course be obvious.

That said, there are substantial benefits to having electric motors driving
your wheels... which is why virtually all diesel locomotives are actually
diesel-electric locomotives: electric locomotives that use a diesel generator
onboard rather than hooking up to electrical catenary or third rail.

~~~
Gibbon1
Thing that solves those issues are battery powered locomotives. This idea
generally invites disbelief but when you run the numbers it works because the
power to weight requirements drop as vehicles get larger.

The result you can use overhead lines where safe, cheap and convenient and
avoid them where they are not, like rail switching yards.

[https://www.railjournal.com/regions/north-america/bnsf-
and-g...](https://www.railjournal.com/regions/north-america/bnsf-and-ge-to-
trial-battery-electric-locomotive-in-california/)

~~~
Robotbeat
It's crazy to me that people still scoff at the idea of batteries being a
serious power source for things, but you're right, they do, even though there
are 100MWh batteries deployed already with 1GWh batteries being approved and
nearing deployment.

~~~
stickfigure
The experimental locomotive discussed in that link has 2400kwh of battery
(probably significantly less in practice; you don't want full discharges). The
diesel-electric locomotives they'll be working with generate about 3,000kw for
as many hours as they have fuel in the tank.

Maybe (hopefully) batteries will get better, but I wouldn't go dumping my
money into electric locomotive startups just yet.

~~~
masklinn
The point they were making is that the train would go on batteries for the
bits of the route which can't be electrified (e.g. too low tunnels), the track
would otherwise be normally electrified, the battery would only be necessary
to cross between electrified sections of the track.

Similar to the battery-equipped dual-mode trolleybuses increasingly getting
developed / deployed[0] allowing both point-charging at stops and more
independence from overhead line (so trolleys can more easily be rerouted, or
can serve increasingly longer sections without overhead lines).

[0] they've existed since the 30s but mostly electric / ICE

~~~
Gibbon1
That is basically my entire argument, hybrid battery units remove a bunch of
pain points with electrification. Like having over-head lines in you switching
yard, lines through tunnels, on curves, bridges and grade crossings.

I think someone else brought up that with electrification you could also put
traction motors in rail cars like is done often with commuter rail systems.
And there is actually no need for the battery to be part of the locomotive
either. Think old steam trains with a coal car.

------
jackcosgrove
The main reason US cities rely on automobiles is because the "job watershed"
of a private automobile exceeds the job watershed of train systems everywhere
in the US, even New York City. The job watershed is the number of jobs within
commuting distance, whatever your tolerance for a commute is, given a
transportation modality. In some cities the automobile job watershed is 100x
larger than the transit job watershed. Transit systems, especially train
systems, in most US cities are hub and spoke systems, centered around
terminals in places like midtown Manhattan and the Chicago Loop. If you
superimpose that hub and spoke model on top of an employment "contour map"
that seeks a level (due to the desire to minimize rents), you'll see that
there's a fundamental mismatch between what employers and residents want and
the transit network. Rather than a unipolar peak at the transit hub, both
employers and residents want to minimize rents which drives sprawl and
transportation webs, as opposed to hub and spoke models.

Transit has a future with ride sharing and bus rapid transit since those modes
use a cheap, flexible network as opposed to an expensive, rigid rail network.
Unfortunately, if you wish rail to become more important, its use is actually
declining and has been for decades.

~~~
bobthepanda
The reason of automobile dominance is more that unlike other countries, we
went all in on highways and just actively dismantled existing rail
infrastructure. And then to salt the wounds, our parking requirements are so
high that in many suburbs I've been in, the ten minute walk from the front
door of Walmart to the bus stop is ridiculous.

Rail does better when congestion is high and density is high, but in most of
America high density or even medium density is either illegal to build or
requires so much parking because of zoning that it does not pencil out
financially.

The quickest thing America could do to encourage dense construction is to stop
the requirement of parking with new construction. Developers do not need to be
told a minimum to build, they will build what the market will bear because if
they underpark their buildings no one will rent units or office space.

~~~
yellowapple
"Developers do not need to be told a minimum to build, they will build what
the market will bear because if they underpark their buildings no one will
rent units or office space."

The problem with this boils down to

1) That ain't exactly true; in sufficiently-dense cities people will still
rent spaces in underparked buildings

2) If you underestimate the demand for parking, it's _way_ more difficult to
add parking after-the-fact

I do agree that parking _lots_ are absurd wastes of space, though. They're
cheaper than parking garages, sure, but they suck on pretty much every other
metric. Parking garages are much more space-efficient, and if every building
was built atop a parking garage (even just one or two levels), that'd cut down
significantly on both the need for parking lots and the need for street
parking.

~~~
bobthepanda
1 and 2 are fine, because if enough people need parking spaces then someone
might develop their lot with a parking garage that there is market demand for.

Structured parking is extremely expensive; 19K per spot for an aboveground
structure [1]. I've heard 30K per spot for underground parking. And parking
garages are generally terrible for the streetscape and building, and are
difficult to convert to other uses if say, autonomous cars get rid of the need
for it later on.

If you're building parking based on demand for free parking you'll never build
enough unless you want buildings too far apart to walk to the bus stop or
their house, which just drives the need for parking up. Pricing parking is a
very effective way of managing spaces so that some proportion of them is
always free; in my current city, Seattle, new buildings cannot hand parking to
residents or workers free with the unit or job, since many people are car-free
and all bundling does is socialize the cost of parking. As a result even with
no parking requirements many garages are overbuilt (out of town developers not
used to developing for local conditions) and the well located ones do a brisk
trade in monthly passes and day parking while the residents are out parking
their cars at their job.

[1] - [http://denver.streetsblog.org/wp-
content/uploads/sites/14/20...](http://denver.streetsblog.org/wp-
content/uploads/sites/14/2017/10/2017-Cost-Article.pdf)

~~~
yellowapple
> someone might develop their lot with a parking garage that there is market
> demand for.

My point is that if there's market demand for it, it's usually because
something's already built there and it's too late to build a parking garage
without tearing stuff down. The exception is if you started with a parking
lot.

> parking garages are generally terrible for the streetscape and building

Eh. A lot of SF buildings seem to have no trouble building shops in front of
them and more shops / offices / residences on top of them. The garage I park
at almost every day has a small grocer / convenience store in front of it and
(what I assume to be) offices on top of it, and it's got three levels of
parking.

> and are difficult to convert to other uses if say, autonomous cars get rid
> of the need for it later on

That seems far-fetched. Yes, it might reduce demand somewhat, but it's
wasteful to not park (gas costs money, and batteries don't last forever), and
electric cars might actually drive demand for parking _up_ if the parking
spaces include charging capabilities (and in the future I'm envisioning, that
could very well be literally every parking space).

> If you're building parking based on demand for free parking

That's not what I'm advocating. Charging for parking is totally reasonable,
especially given the expenses involved as you've pointed out.

Of course, quite a few businesses do take on the cost of parking garages
themselves, whether by offering access for free or by validating customers'
parking passes after-the-fact. They do this because they believe it'll attract
customers (and it certainly attracts me).

~~~
bobthepanda
Which is fine. There's no need to _require_ building parking garages. There's
certainly no need to require such a ridiculous amount of parking that store
lots don't even fill up on Black Friday, which many jursidictions do. [1]

Many places outside the US, and some inside, do not mandate parking for
developments. In fact, Manhattan has an absolute parking cap.

[1]
[https://www.strongtowns.org/blackfridayparking](https://www.strongtowns.org/blackfridayparking)

~~~
yellowapple
I guess it depends on area. I've lived in considerably more underparked places
than overparked - places where except for anti-peak (valley?) times, parking
availability is perpetually at or near zero. This would include most of the
Bay Area.

Note that "underparked" includes "inadequate parking _near the target
structure_ "; underparking can still happen even when sprawling parking lots
go unfilled if it's an absurdly long walk from far away parking spaces to,
say, the Wal-Mart surrounded by said sprawling parking lot. Given a parking
lot and a parking garage with equal numbers of parking spaces, you'll likely
find that the parking garage will be much more fully-utilized, since folks
don't have to walk as far to an elevator.

(Not to mention the rather severe methodology issues in that particular
article; the instructions for that bit of activism don't include controls for
time of day, most glaringly.)

------
melling
No mention of China. They built 16,000 miles of high-speed rail in 15 years.
They’ll be at 24,000 miles by 2025.

The low/medium speed maglevs also seem interesting:

[https://gbtimes.com/china-tests-new-generation-of-maglev-
tra...](https://gbtimes.com/china-tests-new-generation-of-maglev-train)

A 70-100 mph maglev would be useful in a few large cities.

~~~
gruez
I think it's relevant to mention [1] and [2]. A lot of things can get done if
you aren't constrained by economic and political considerations.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19549466](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19549466)

[2]
[https://www.ft.com/content/ca28f58a-955d-11e8-b747-fb1e803ee...](https://www.ft.com/content/ca28f58a-955d-11e8-b747-fb1e803ee64e)

~~~
bsanr
For what it's worth, the Interstate Highway System and connecting roadways
also receive special financial and political consideration, often and
infamously to the detriment of working class/politically-disadvantaged middle
class (and often minority) communities.

~~~
gruez
At the time, the alternative to the interstate were local roads which took
2-3x longer[1] (and probably at least 2x more expensive factoring in time,
gas, and lodging), or commercial aviation which was crazy expensive[2]. What's
the alternative to HSR? Planes which are in the same ballpark in terms of
speeed and cost.

[1] [https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/how-did-people-
drive...](https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/how-did-people-drive-across-
the-country-before-highways)

[2] [https://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-
airports/history-o...](https://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-
airports/history-of-flight-costs)

~~~
melling
Japan’s first high-speed rail went operational in 1964. I imagine if the US
soon followed in half a dozen cities, rail would be looked upon quite
differently today.

------
mabbo
My wife and I took a trip to the middle of nowhere in Wales last fall. Train
to Cardiff from London, then from Cardiff to our little cottage in the
Pembrokeshire coast, I drove for 2+ hours in a rental car, learning to drive
on the left.

The day after we arrived, we learned we could have caught a train to
Fishguard, a tiny village nearby, and then the local bus would have gotten us
within a ten minute walk from our rental house. It probably would have even
been faster and cheaper than the car we rented. It sure would have been less
stressful for me.

It's not just that the cities are more walkable. It's a whole culture that
says cars should not be required to live a full life.

~~~
pjc50
Yes and no; as a Brit I would probably have chosen a car for that trip,
because local buses are infrequent and unreliable. Trips other than via London
are often easier by car.

The UK never really had the space to develop US-style suburban sprawl, even in
its designed car-centric new towns like Milton Keynes.

~~~
ghaff
Yeah. People I know in the UK outside of London generally own cars. And my
personal recent experience with doing long distance walks in England over the
past few years is that, while it's mostly been possible to get to the
beginning and end of routes with public transit (because the routes are chosen
with that in mind), busses can start to get scarce and, in practice, I've
ended up taking taxis at times. I've also had to take a taxi when I've needed
to skip a day walking for some reason--or gotten a ride from an inn owner.

The UK is certainly better than the US in general for having transport options
but you get outside of cities and it starts getting a lot harder to
efficiently travel around without a car.

------
bartimus
What I found interesting is that in the US the government had a huge role with
developing the rail network while in the UK it was entirely done by the
private sector.

I'm from the Netherlands where the rail network started out as a state owned
company. It then got privatized by splitting ownership horizontally. Meaning
one company owns the rail network while other companies provide train services
on top of that network. This in contrast to Japan where ownership is split
vertically. Multiple companies owning sections of the network including the
train services. It amazes me that the Japanese model is able to achieve their
famous punctuality. To see multiple privately owned companies working together
in perfect harmony. In the Netherlands the railway system still needs state
funding every year. I don't see how we could ever transition to the Japanese
model. Which is a shame.

I think the optimal solution needn't and shouldn't be government designed.

To see countries like Norway where the state is subsidizing electric cars.
Then meanwhile it's the state owned company Equinor still extracting huge
amounts of oil for export. That oil might not get burned in Norway. But it's
going to be burnt somewhere regardless how clean the energy in Norway is.
Achieving clean transportation in one country doesn't mean we're solving the
CO2 problem if the states are still allowing oil to be extracted and exported
to other countries.

The problem is perhaps best solved by achieving renewable energy sources.
Either through electricity or producing renewable (combustible) fuel sources.

~~~
apexalpha
You are now comparing a star-form rail network in the Netherlands that runs in
a country of 300km by 400km to a fish-grate network that runs in Japan.

Also, the famous punctuality comes from the Japanese High Speed train network,
a network purpose built for a single model of train. There are no
intersections, road crossings or freight or slow trains on that network.

Obviously any Dutch train would also fare well on a purpose built track.

But our tracks are shared with trains from the NS (Dutch Rail) as well as
trains from the German (Arriva) and French (Veolia) operators, the German
(ICE), French (TGV) and British (EuroStar) High Speed trains, thousands of
tons of freight from DB Cargo and several other regional players.

You're just comparing Apples and Oranges when you compare our open, star
shaped rail grid to the Japanese purposebuilt Shinkansen

~~~
bartimus
I'm not just comparing the Shinkansen. I'm comparing the whole Japanese
network in its entirety. It isn't just a fish-grate network. It expands deep
into the rural areas where it's highly integrated. Indeed they have multiple
forms of trains and railways optimized for each purpose.

If you take the train in Japan you might pass through numerous operators and
types of railways. It's why it's so complicated to buy a ticket there.

I'm comparing rail networks with rail networks and different forms of
ownership. Why wouldn't I be allowed to make that comparison?

~~~
apexalpha
You are allowed to compare it but just make sure to compare the right numbers.
The stereotype 'apology for 20 seconds delay' and stuff are all from high
speed trains. Not from regular tracks.

>In the Netherlands the railway system still needs state funding every year. I
don't see how we could ever transition to the Japanese model. Which is a
shame.

Other than that you seem to see the Japanese system as some end goal that we
should all try to achieve: but the Dutch system is already in the top 3 of
punctuality as it is today.

It does require some subsidies, but then so do roads or the military. It's
just because it's not there to make a profit but to be an enabler of economic
growth.

~~~
bartimus
It's also a cultural thing in Japan to be honorable with the service you
provide. If a critical connection in Japan gets delayed it can have huge
impact. Thanks to the vertical split of ownership you can always blame a
specific operator for some outage. In Holland we often see a blame game where
the operator blames the network owner. The network owner pretty much has a
monopoly here.

> the Dutch system is already in the top 3 of punctuality

I've oftentimes tried to find such numbers but have never been successful.
There's some efforts that attempt to compare European countries (I think
Holland is not 3rd here). But not worldwide comparisons. The problem is also
that countries have different ideas on what constitutes a train being "on
time".

Meanwhile in Europe 76% of all freight transport is still happening on the
road. In Holland 72% of all private person-kilometers are happening on the
road. Switzerland has an amazing rail network which is state owned (although
it started out from privately owned companies). But also in Switzerland 75% of
all person-kilometers are on the road.

Let's say we'd want to get those trucks off the road and onto our wonderful
railway network. I think it wouldn't even be possible. Could we run all those
freight trains on the same railways as the passenger trains? We'd probably
need separate specialized lines. Then we need to quadruple its capacity to
accommodate for all the road kilometers.

How much would that cost? Perhaps it's cheaper to subsidize electric vehicles.

I'm not particularly against trains. Fine if it's viable. But I don't see how
it will become the answer to the global warming problem. Also because of the
other arguments mentioned in this thread (The hub and spokes model being
inefficient).

------
Const-me
Roads are obviously worse but I’m not sure about airplanes.

They’re measuring energy per passenger/km but I think ignoring the cost of
building the infrastructure (the “get data” link is down). For roads and
railways infrastructure investments are huge, both initial construction and
then maintenance. Not only in dollars, in CO2 as well.

~~~
Jedi72
Also trains can derail, which takes the whole line out of action.

~~~
hannasanarion
Planes operate at the whim of the weather. High winds are way more common than
train derailments, and they take out a hub, not a line.

~~~
bdamm
Trains aren't hurricane proof either so we can take those right off the table.
Of the rest, it takes very exceptional storms to blockade an airport for more
than a few minutes. Delays that occur because of snow and fog are not because
the commercial airliners can't fly in those conditions, but because the ground
infrastructure can't clear the snow quickly enough, or because the reduction
in visibility means increasing separation requirements on approach to landing
and therefore reduces overall throughput. In places where it snows a lot there
exists sufficient infrastructure to handle it (Chicago, Denver, Moscow). Even
thunderstorms are not typically a big problem for commercial airliners and
their airports; the controllers declare holds while the storm passes directly
overhead and they're back in business in under an hour. And hubs that
systematically are hammered by storms aren't hubs for much longer, a luxury
that any railroad executive would kill for.

This is particularly impressive if you compare average airliner delays to
average Amtrak delays.

Modern airliners are remarkably good at handling typical bad weather.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
> This is particularly impressive if you compare average airliner delays to
> average Amtrak delays.

> Modern airliners are remarkably good at handling typical bad weather.

Why are you comparing modern airliners to archaic rail systems? Amtrak is far
from the shining example of modern rail.

------
jackcosgrove
Rail requires significant investment to overcome the last mile problem,
meaning the problem that often you need to walk the last mile from the station
to your destination. Some may scoff at this but it is a major deterrent.
Combine this with ride sharing apps and rail transit use has actually declined
in the US in the past several years.

~~~
reidacdc
The last-mile problem is also a significant issue for freight rail. US rail
companies have been abandoning low-traffic and branch lines for years, because
the revenue from the sparse traffic doesn't cover the infrastructure
maintenance costs.

Being an efficient user of energy is not the same thing as being an efficient
end-to-end mover of goods.

The best freight rail money is in "unit trains", long trains with a single
type of cargo with a single destination -- the canonical example is coal
trains from Wyoming heading for power stations in the midwest, which makes
good use of continent-spanning "trunk" infrastructure and avoids the "first
mile" collection expense and the "last mile" disbursement expense. Trains are
_very_ good at that sort of thing.

------
maccard
My biggest issue is train costs. I live in Edinburgh, and I can fly to London
in 6 weeks for £19, or I can get the train for £160. The overall travel time
is roughly the same, but at 6 times the price it can be very hard to justify.
Especially when you have to travel with more than one person.

~~~
cr1895
Why is it so absurdly expensive in the UK? Privatization?

Looks like that trip takes almost 4.5 hours. For comparison, a train trip from
Groningen to Vlissingen in the Netherlands (about as far as you can go) takes
a similar time but costs only 26.50 euros each way, whenever you get a ticket.
It's only about 16 euros if you've got one of the discount subscriptions.

~~~
qwsxyh
Prices have steadily climbed since BR was privatised, and that puts people off
of using rail meaning the prices have to go higher to get the money back.

~~~
ksrm
Don't know what gave you that idea. Passenger numbers are higher than ever.

------
Symmetry
The figures given in on the site are taken from actual usage and so include
the fact that buses tend to stop and go more than trains, are less likely to
be full, etc. That's a useful view but it's good to look at the physics based
maximum efficiency when full view too. I really, really recommend Sustainable
Energy Without the Hot Air[1] for getting a good sense of the numbers right
now the chart on vehicle efficiencies[2]

[1][https://www.withouthotair.com/](https://www.withouthotair.com/)

[2][https://www.withouthotair.com/c20/page_128.shtml](https://www.withouthotair.com/c20/page_128.shtml)

------
manigandham
This is rather obvious and has always been a major advantage of rail. The
problem is the capital costs and real estate requirements of building the rail
lines, especially when locations are far apart and there's already existing
infrastructure that needs attention.

~~~
shereadsthenews
When you think of an American state with a growing population you can take the
existing infrastructure as a given and plan for rail for your new capacity.
Unless you are willing to say we're just not going to add transportation
capacity for our new citizens, you face a choice of road, rail, or air. Rail
is often a good choice.

As for "far apart" this seems irrelevant. Ohio has a greater population
density than does Spain, but Columbus, Ohio's principal city, hasn't had a
passenger train in 42 years while Cordoba, with half the population, enjoys
ten trains per hour service including a high-speed train to Sevilla, Madrid,
and Malaga. Anybody could build a Columbus-Dayton-Indianapolis high-speed rail
line but we lack the will to do it.

~~~
philwelch
I'm curious how long Europe's famous rail infrastructure will continue to be
cost-effective in the era of Ryanair.

~~~
shereadsthenews
Very. Spain’s high-speed service killed the Barcelona-Madrid air route, which
had been the world’s busiest.

~~~
sonar_un
Fun anecdote here. Just last month my wife and I were in Barcelona and we
needed to go to Madrid. She had her company buy a plane ticket and I took the
train. We left at the exact same time and I took 100% public transportation
and she had a car service on both ends and a plane ticket.

I made it to our destination across the town from the Madrid central 45
minutes before she did.

------
esoterae
I find interesting that all these analyses of transportation modes generally
fail to take into account the bootstrap and maintenance cost of the
infrastructure. Roads are absolutely awful in terms of carbon cost, why isn't
there more that takes this into account?

~~~
hydrox24
> fail to take into account the bootstrap and maintenance cost of the
> infrastructure.

Is the bootstrap cost different from the startup cost? Are they just
synonymous?

~~~
sooheon
Maybe if you're talking about a specific type of start up cost where toll
revenues from initial infra pays for later construction. Probably just loose
usage.

------
beatgammit
I think one of the biggest issues that prevent making things better for
passengers isn't necessarily the cost of building the infrastructure, but the
acceptability of the status quo. The benefit to going with rail isn't dramatic
enough to inspire urgency.

I really think it would be useful to completely eliminate most vehicles from
city centers. Only mass transit would be allowed, and walking/cycling would be
prioritized over that. People would go to one of the parking lots (which would
also be train stations) outside the city and take mass transit to go to some
common hub of the city. Since driving directly to your destination is no
longer an option, catching a train closer to your house and improving mass
transit automatically becomes important, and lower pollution and traffic
within cities will improve many aspects of city living. Also, since roads
would be much smaller, buildings can be built more densely, which improves
walkability and livability of cities.

However, people are currently addicted to cars, so the conversation will
likely never happen.

------
esotericn
As others have stated, the layout of a city presents enormous issues WRT
public transport rollout.

If you take a train into a major metropolitan city like London you're sorted.
You have a plethora of transport options available. For an area of at least
five miles around the mainline station you come in to, buses are very
frequent, a subway probably exists, other trains will exist, taxis/Uber will
be easy, and so on.

Contrast that with taking a train to a random Northern town in the UK. You can
get there, sure. Now what? You're miles walk from anything, it's all a big
car-like suburban layout unless the specific thing you're visiting happens to
be in the old town.

I generally tend to drive when visiting family for that reason alone, because
otherwise it takes four or five times longer (not an exaggeration at all) to
get anywhere once you're there. A 10-15 minute drive could be a 50 minute bus
journey.

------
8bitsrule
Sounds good, but it's hard to see into the details. In the US,cars & light
trucks constitute about 18% of energy use. But what percentage of that use is
for _travel_ that could move over to rail? (I'd wager that driving around town
is the biggest chunk.)

Further: should all US cars go renewable electric, that seems preferable to
diesel-electric rail emissions. The railroads got hit hard back when autos
came along a century ago, something similar might happen here.

The article pointed at this 'Transportation Energy Data Book' (PDF)
available), which is largely petroleum-oriented.
[https://cta.ornl.gov/data/download37.shtml](https://cta.ornl.gov/data/download37.shtml).
Throws a lot of data out, but no big picture in there. It DID note that US
rail freight uses about 1.1% of petroleum, which _might_ be impressive?

~~~
drtillberg
Development follows transportation, and since the main method of travel in the
U.S. has been rubber tires and individual vehicles for the last 80 years,
naturally a train can't service a whole suburb or exurb efficiently.

Trains have trouble in the U.S. because the technology allows--even requires--
central planning and authority on an active, everyday basis. If the
transportation department goes on strike, we in cars keep driving. Not so for
trains. Also it's not a fair fight to have a public decentralized asphalt road
system compete with a highly regulated centralized private rail system. It's
not a pure technology vs. technology battle-- the political aspects dominate.

------
Guereric
Article reminded me of this YT video from Wendover Productions:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9poImReDFeY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9poImReDFeY).
It covers many of the same topics with specific numbers used for comparisons
in fares and fuel usage.

------
hutzlibu
Trains might be more efficient in terms of energy, but sadly they are much
more expensive (here in germany), than going by car. (except for some special
fares)

And the car goes anywhere, anytime and the train does not. So no wonder, also
here, for most people the car is the choice number one.

~~~
jhrmnn
Does anyone know a study that would look into all the implicit subsidies?
Externalities in terms of environmental impact, building of roads/rails from
general taxes, direct subsidies. Maybe cars wouldn’t be as cheap if all these
things would be taken into account.

~~~
hutzlibu
Well ... trains are not free from subsidies either. They are heavily
subsidies, but I don't know whether in the end more or less than cars.

(btw. carowners pay also a lot of extra taxes, on gas, the car itself, etc.)

------
sureaboutthis
Just as important is the ease of using trains but, in some cases, this just
doesn't happen.

I would often travel from St. Louis to Chicago for business and would think
nothing of taking the train but I quickly realized how unreliable it was. A
cold day froze the tracks making my five-hour ride a twelve hour one. When
commercial traffic refused to let us pass through a couple of times, waiting
for a pass through was the straw that broke that back and no longer think once
about taking the train when my car gets me there just as fast at a more
convenient time.

------
contingencies
Not that they don't make mistakes, but trains are another thing China got
right and get very little credit for internationally. 25 year plan, baby. In
the words of Bezos: _Still day 1_. Ha!

------
xupybd
Why are they so expensive then?

Here in New Zealand, I can drive most places cheaper than I can take a train.
That's one person per vehicle vs a train car full of people. I just can't
figure that one out.

~~~
phire
Kiwirail is mandated to make a profit.

The cost of a train ticket will include the proportional cost of maintaining
the rail network, the deprecation cost of the train and the passenger cars,
staff to run it, along with a tidy profit.

You are most likely comparing it to the cost of petrol, which is not the full
costs of driving a car.

Everyone always forgets to take into account the deprecation on your car,
running costs, fixed costs (WoF, rego). For tax purposes, IRD estimates the
true costs per km (including fuel) to be 76c.

Using that 76c per km rate, your car trip is suddenly costing way more than
the train ticket.

Additionally, there is construction and the maintenance cost of the road
network itself. That's all paid for by the government out of your rego and
income taxes. Kiwirail is required to include that in their ticket costs, but
it's hidden from drivers.

~~~
xupybd
Thanks, that actually clears it up very well.

------
xvilka
Today US, I believe, is at point of no return. I highly doubt we will see any
considerable train system modernization, comparable to the Asian nations, EU,
or, maybe, even Africa.

~~~
dejawu
I bless the trains down in Africa

~~~
selimthegrim
Ah a 30 day NUMTOT refugee

------
dsfyu404ed
>When journey times are less than four hours, people usually prefer to travel
by train instead of alternative options, such as air or road.

I'm sure the airport security theater plays no small part in this. Would you
rather sit on a train for four hours or spend two hours at an airport, get
treated like cattle, get told you can't bring X Y or Z past security, get felt
up by a stranger, and in a cramped tube for an hour? I'll take the train every
time.

------
eleitl
A pedelec (human-electric hybrid) on dirt roads is considerably more energy
efficient (Wh/km/passenger) than trains even before factoring in the embedded
energy of the vast infrastructure rail needs.

------
sunstone
This article is irritating in that it doesn't give a balanced and useful view
of the transportation trade offs. Very likely the author is aware of them but
chooses to sweep under the carpet what doesn't suit his narrative.

A few observations to balance things out. First, rail is not the cheapest way
to move freight, ships are by far, but rail is a distant second.

Rail obviously requires a lot of upkeep on the tracks, in addition to fuel and
maintenance, whereas ships and planes have very little cost to maintain the
fluids they travel in.

Electric transport on highways will quickly become very much cheaper than it
is now because electric motors are much more efficient than fuel motors, solar
and wind electricity costs are dropping precipitously, maintenance of electric
motors is much less than fuel motors. Yes the roads still have to be
maintained and heavier trucks mean much more maintenance.

Clearly, optimal transportation and shipping requires a hierarchy of trade
offs that depend primarily upon scale. Two large cities that are 200 miles
apart (eg New York and Boston) can support the overhead of a passenger rail
connection. On the other hand San Francisco and New York, while large are too
far apart, while another pair of cities might be 200 miles apart but the city
populations are too small to support the rain infrastructure.

At the other end of the scale, an individual might take their bicycle on a 2
mile trip to the post office but would take their car on a 2 mile trip for the
week's groceries.

Between these two extremes is a hierarchy of trade offs and there is no "one
size fits all". Not even close. Rail is not the solution to all our transport
problems. Neither are cars or bicycles. Each has its niche. If ships had legs
then they might come close but unfortunately they don't, not to mention they
are kind of slow.

So it's complicated but some trends might be usefully be predicted. Short haul
flights will likely become cheaper as these planes become electrified and both
energy and maintenance costs drop significantly. Trucking will become
electrified and will compete even more effectively against trains and planes
unless there is a labor shortage. Trains will continue to do what they are
good at, long haul of heavy commodities and passenger service on intense
routes. Electric cars will have lower fuel and maintenance costs so automobile
miles will increase.

Perhaps the sum total of all this will mean that medium and smaller sized
cities will become more competitive vis a vis their larger cousins over the
next 50 years.

------
alexis_fr
...When studying the carbon cycle of trains, they never study the
externalities properly. Ground footprint of tracks, maintenance, high-speed, I
do grow tired of improper studies.

------
anarchop
Deisel freight trains are huge poluters with regard to particulate matter
(PM). This actually causes cancer as opposed to CO2. Reducing PM without
impacting fuel efficiency significantly is possible but requires investment.
[https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/-/media/epa/corporate-
site/resour...](https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/-/media/epa/corporate-
site/resources/air/diesel-locomotive-emissions-upgrade-
kit.pdf?la=en&hash=5CD9A9D2FE1E77371F10BE7D356DAA8290DBB1B9)

Same goes for diesel trucks / busses. This type of change throughout the world
would really improve people’s lives immediately.

~~~
wongarsu
However PM is a fairly localized pollution that doesn't spread far. I don't
think diesel trains that drive through the middle of nowhere are that bad.
Near population centers it would be preferable to switch to electric
locomotives.

~~~
johnwalkr
There's a handful of hybrid trains in Japan that are electric in urban areas
and use a diesel generator in rural parts of the route.

A quick search didn't reveal any running North America but considering diesel
locomotives have mostly used diesel generators and electric motors since the
70s, it's not a stretch to think about implementation there.

------
Kaiyou
Trains solve a different problem. They are no good at transporting more stuff
than you can carry. Also, they do an excellent job spreading infections.

------
natch
For now, yes.

Electric vehicles backed by sustainable power, when we reach that distant but
ever-nearing goal, will be pretty good. Not as fast as flying but maybe we’ll
get practical commercial passenger electric aircraft at some point.

On the delivery of goods side of things, the Tesla Semi should also be a game
changer. Efficient and door to door.

For trains, I’d love to see how much could be done with, say, a dedicated
power (battery) car per pure electric locomotive. I’m not claiming this would
be a win; it might be too heavy. But it would be interesting to know.

~~~
baroffoos
Electric cars are still not good enough because they weigh so much more per
passenger than electric trains

~~~
natch
Good point. Wish we had more electric trains in the US. And you still need a
solution for the last few miles after arriving at the train station.

~~~
baroffoos
I think electric scooters are a valid solution to last mile problems. You can
even bring your own on the train to have one on both sides.

------
mirekrusin
How does it compare to electric cars?

------
mettamage
Bicycles are quite the pollutant

------
mortdeus
Since were on the subject of proposing insane and impractical solutions to
global warming ive been contemplating ways we could somehow still use up all
the oil and yet not contribute to global warming.

One crazy idea is that we build a space elevator out of carbon nanotubes, and
then make a core component of it act as a pump to suck up oil and water from
sea level all the way up into the outer regions of our atmosphere and then we
run the steam powered electrical generators up there and send the electricity
back down the elevator.

Now this might sound crazy but lets seriously consider what we have to gain by
this.

1\. Physics are totally on our side in space. In a steam powered generator,
the steam turns one side of the turbine and then must escape out to ensure too
much back pressure doesnt build up and grind things to a halt. Along with this
steam we also expel out the greenhouse gases generated from burning the fuel
with it.

The thing is once we expel the steam and CO2 it goes out in a mixture and we
cant really do a whole lot to sustainably trap it, store it until it cools
off, and just reuse it, and all the while figure out some way to separate out
the greenhouse gases and try to do something with it so we dont have to just
release it into the air.

The thing is, burning oil to produce steam in space solves a lot of problems
like this for us due to the physical properties how things work in the vacuum
of space vs where there is no atmospheric pressure.

1\. If you expel a mixture of steam and C02 into the cold vacuum space the
water vapor will rapidly turn into liquid and then solid while the greenhouse
gases remain gaseous. This leads to easier methods of filtration and water
recycling.

The C02 is forced out into space and the water stays to be sent back down.

2\. Wait, sent back down?

Yes because to make the pump work up without too much energy being required to
suck it up against the power of Earth's gravitational pull (think of this like
trying to suck a think milkshake through a straw a mile long) its best to
utilize the downward pull of gravity to aide us in the process. Thus creating
a vacuum.

3\. When we run out of oil we can send up nuclear fuel next and just shoot the
spent highly radioactive fuel that's no longer useful to us into space too.

4\. The electricity generated can be used to power the electromagnetic
elevator up and down.

5\. We'll need a space elevator to make solar sails work anyways. We might as
well utilize it to generate energy in every we can.

6\. If any of this manages to blow up on us the explosion happens hella far
away from us.

7\. Surface level renewable power sources like wind, hydroelectric, and solar
are all things we can utilize effectively assuming we build it in the most
optimal place. (my best guess is somewhere in the ocean just south of Alaska)

------
mamon
Once again, Americans are "discovering" things other civilized countries knew
and implemented for a long time :)

~~~
fastball
I don't think anyone is "discovering" this.

The US has prioritized other modes of transport because the US had priorities
beyond "how clean it is".

~~~
perfmode
Such as?

~~~
chrisseaton
Individual independence and convenience were a goal in American culture the
middle of the 20th century, until the externalities of that were understand.

There's some famous interview - can't remember with who - about how at the
time getting a car gave incredible freedom nobody had experienced before. It
was a big part of how people saw the American dream in the last century,
before the impact was understood.

~~~
thatfrenchguy
And now, having a car is seen as impending your freedom, funnily enough.

~~~
seattle_spring
I sure don't see it that way. Let me know when we invent something that can
affordably and reliably take me to the base of mountains for hikes (real
hikes, not shitty crowded garbage like Lake 22 or Mount Tam).

~~~
ceejayoz
> Let me know when we invent something that can affordably and reliably take
> me to the base of mountains for hikes (real hikes, not shitty crowded
> garbage like Lake 22 or Mount Tam).

If you visit Switzerland, you'll find this is an _extremely_ solved problem.

~~~
stevejb
[http://www.travelersdigest.com/7381-how-big-is-
switzerland-i...](http://www.travelersdigest.com/7381-how-big-is-switzerland-
in-comparison-to-the-united-states-uk-germany-china-japan/)

Getting to a particular mountain is solved. This isn't a comparison of some
tourist experience in a country the size of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area.
Its about the freedom to explore our great national parks, etc.

~~~
ceejayoz
> Its about the freedom to explore our great national parks, etc.

No one's getting _rid_ of that freedom. Cars are still legal and commonly used
in Switzerland.

The point is that effective public transportation networks can _reduce_ the
need for cars (and the resulting pollution, congestion, noise, etc.),
particularly in populated areas. Instead of a family needing to own two cars
because reaching the grocery store and kids' school requires a drive, a family
might need just one, or even be able to just rent one for a weekend of
camping.

One of the best things about the Swiss system is the close integration between
different modes of transport, even across different operators. Bus schedules
are set up so they drop you off right before the train comes, and they leave
just after it drops off its passengers, so you're not sitting around for an
hour awaiting a connection.

------
dustindiamond
Under Siege 2.

------
ams6110
Cycling is cleaner than any of them. So what?

~~~
haimez
Not practical in the same space. What train or flight plans will you be
canceling in favor of cycling?

~~~
ams6110
None. That's the point. Just because something is cleaner does not make it
practical. Passenger rail isn't happening in the USA. It would take huge
investment, and flying would always win on route flexibility. Once you build a
rail line you're pretty committed to it. Flight routes can be changed on
demand. Just get over it. We'll never see widespread intercity rail in the
USA.

~~~
throwawayjava
_> Once you build a rail line you're pretty committed to it_

...sure. But also, once you build a 5+ million person metro area you're pretty
committed to it...

~~~
azeotropic
The U.S. has 9 such metro areas.

NYC, LA, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Washington DC, Miami, Philadelphia, and
Atlanta.

You could profitably run high-speed rail between NYC and DC, hitting
Philadelphia on the way. Amtrak does run a sort of high speed service on this
route.

There's a study underway for a privately funded high-speed rail connecting
Dallas and Houston.

Miami to Atlanta is at the edge of what might make sense.

Sizable metro areas can decline, Detroit is now 1/3 the size that it was at
its peak in the 1960s. The railway station was abandoned.

[https://ebow.org/artwork/470141-The-Great-
Hall.html](https://ebow.org/artwork/470141-The-Great-Hall.html)

------
mutt2016
Trains are a messy, loud and dangerous way of moving stuff. But yes, it's fuel
efficient. But so fucking dangerous and primitive in so many ways.

Rail needs a lot of technology, and then it will be amazing. I don't think
it's thsy far off.

~~~
saagarjha
> Trains are a messy, loud and dangerous way of moving stuff.

How so?

~~~
msla
> How so?

You've obviously never lived next to a railroad.

Trains can't stop. I mean, they can eventually stop, but when it comes down to
it, the train is not stopping.

Trains are relatively clean compared to trucks, but they still burn crap and
spew ash and smoke.

Trains are loud. That's... I really can't say it any other way. Trains. Are.
Loud.

~~~
cr1895
>Trains are relatively clean compared to trucks, but they still burn crap and
spew ash and smoke.

Electric trains exist, so it's pretty obvious that your rail exposure isn't as
universal as you think it is.

For example, all the NS trains in the Netherlands are electric and powered
sustainably.

[https://www.ns.nl/en/about-
ns/sustainability/energy/sustaina...](https://www.ns.nl/en/about-
ns/sustainability/energy/sustainable-energy.html)

~~~
msla
> Electric trains exist

Not universally, so it's pretty obvious your rail experience isn't as
universal as you think it is.

