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PUT THE TRAINS IN THE BAG (mander.xyz)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] 9 points 1 year ago* (10 children)

The biggest concern with that setup is how inefficient it is to reach the Pacific Northwest region, LA is a serious bottleneck on top of being a common endpoint in and of itself. A line that goes straight to either Seattle or Portland from the Northeast simplifies things a lot.

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  • [–] 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    The problem is that population distribution means that almost nobody is going to be getting on or off the train between Minneapolis and Seattle. The population of North Dakota is 800k, South Dakota is 925k, Nebraska is 2 million, Montana is 1.1 million, Wyoming is 590k, Idaho is 2 million. That's nearly a whole quadrant of the country with less population than the Houston metro area. If we're building trains, let's build trains in Houston and serve the same number of people with like a tiny percentage of track that it would take to serve the upper plains states.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago* (1 child)

    exactly. even under communism/socialism, a business must still operate at least somewhat meaningfully. it can't just be "trains for the sake of trains". there has to be a meaningful number of people served per km of rail. that's why it makes sense near the coastlines.

    also, short reminder that even if a rail goes at 200 mph, it would still take around 15 hours to travel the 3000 miles from east to west coast. almost nobody is willing to sit in a train for 15 hours straight. at that distance, most people prefer an airplane. it's significantly faster.

    i did some quick maths and calculated that at least in europe, for distances greater than ~800 km (~600 miles), an airplane is mostly faster than a train, at least in western europe.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    And it's weird, because the map has some faint grey lines where you'd think there'd be routes.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    I think those are lines with standard passenger train service on them, though I can't remember the reasoning for that. Might have been the states there refused to cooperate with the company or it could just be a terrain issue with the rail grade being too steep or winding for high-speed rail.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    By memory this was a group of enthusiasts realistic dream for a high speed rail network. Basically a possible but lofty goal to lobby for.

    The grey lines would be standard speed rail service topping out at 87MPH (some match current Amtrak services, and I'm going to assume without verifying that the others match existing rail infrastructure because the Venn diagram between foamers and river counters has quite a large overlap)

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    LA is a bottleneck if you assume every single line and dot is perfectly equal. If we’re already imaging a well built system then that green line would have a higher frequency of train to accommodate what you’re talking about and it’s station(s) would be large enough to handle the fact that it would absolutely be a major hub.

    Efficiency is not always about perfection for every single trip. Cars(in a car-centric hellhole, at least) will take you from your driveway to your destination parking lot but they are vastly inferior to the overall efficiency of a metro that you walk five minutes to and is then five minutes from your destination. This is highspeed rail, there’s not much extra time being taken if you don’t go direct direct, it’ll be fine.

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