Haven't read it all but I'm sure it all boils down to "I don't like trains" ;-)
Well, I do. For many other reasons.
But I understand we are part of so distant cultures.
Amities
Long-legged Philippe who will always remember riding wonderful albeit very slow
trains in India in the early 80s and nevertheless enjoys riding TGVs (HST)
nowadays.
Le 22 avr. 2015 à 19:00, Ken Norton <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx> a écrit :
>>> No need, when we have 500mph airplanes.
>> What's the average speed to the destination Ag?
>
> Depends on distance. Usually, anything under 300 miles is a wash with
> driving it.
>
> The current Amtrak system is actually pretty reasonable, except it bypasses
> many of the key locations along the way. In Iowa, the podunk town of
> Creston is on the Amtrak route, but Des Moines is not. Burlington is
> connected, but the Quad Cities is not. Cedar Rapids? Iowa City? Ames?
> Nope. But towns of 6000 people are. But that's what happens when you lease
> capacity on a freight/bulk rail system. Throughout most routes, Amtrak only
> runs one train a day in each direction. In the high-density corridors they
> run more, but most of them are not running at convenient times.
>
> Omaha, Nebraska is a good example of this. The westbound train to Denver
> comes through somewhere around 11 pm, and the eastbound is around 5 am. In
> McCook, it's not uncommon for both east and wesbound trains to arrive at
> the same time. In the middle of the night.
>
> Talk about delays! Train service in the USA is horrible, when it comes to
> delays. The California Zepher is a disaster in this regard--particularily
> in the summer. You get heat restrictions in the mountains where the trains
> can only travel about 10mph on the tracks because they've lost their
> tension and the rails wave around like they were installed by a bunch of
> drunks. Eastbound, out of Denver, is usually two hours delayed most days.
> If they had any mechanical issues between California and Denver, it's more
> like four hours delay.
>
> To build a dedicated inter-city passenger rail system in the USA is cost
> prohibitive. Not only would the taxpayer be on the hook for a hundred
> million dollars a mile to build it, but the ongoing costs of
> maintenance/repair is 10% a year. So, just between a couple of major 200
> mile cities, we could build a new dedicated high-speed rail system for 20
> billion dollars, which costs another 2 billion just to keep every year. The
> operating cost of the trains themselves are variable based on passenger
> counts, but just to cover the maintenance/repair costs, with no attempt to
> even pay back a single bond, is $5.5 million a day. For argument sake, we
> have 10,000 passengers a day going across that segment. We would have to
> charge $550 a ticket JUST to cover maintenance/repair/upkeep on that line.
> Figure that the operation of the train itself need another $100 to cover
> the basics of fuel, staff, we're up to $650 a ticket. Let's say that the
> entire project was funded with 20 year zero interest bonds. Add another
> $275 to each ticket.
>
> One nice thing about air-travel is that even though airports are expensive
> to build, the typical passenger counts are high-enough keep the
> per-passenger allotment down to the $50 per ticket range. Other
> than funding the FAA, there are no tangible costs associated with drawing
> airways on a map. The best part of this is that it is REAL customer demand,
> which is variable and fickle, is covered by private enterprise with various
> airlines competing for the passengers out of any particular location. Fuel
> costs are higher than with High Speed Rail, and so are general operational
> costs. But you don't have a massive infrasctructure build which is nothing
> more than welfare for the users of it. While the costs associated with
> air-travel are largely scaleable with demand, the costs associated with
> passenger rail are fixed and always based on mathematical assumptions which
> are never true.
>
> The TSA "argument" is a short-sighted argument. It is only a matter of time
> before rail service is equally as hampered as airline travel is today.
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Ken Norton
> ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
> http://www.zone-10.com
> --
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