I’ve been meaning to talk about trains, as its not only an important topic to me, but also to lots of other people. The President has been talking a lot about trains and high-speed rails, but its Robb’s and Sean’s recent posts about the NC high-speed rail scheme is what’s getting me going.
Now I live near a commuter rail station, and I did that on purpose. The big reason for this is my wife has epilepsy and cannot drive, so public transportation nearby gives her a LOT of independence, also since the train goes into Boston, and Boston is HELLL to drive in, its very convenient for that.
So I like the train, and I’m glad to have it. That being said, trains are bullshit 18th Century technology, and any attempts to run them in modern times is a total financial disaster.
First trains are totally inconvenient. Unless both your starting point and your destination are near train stations overall you’re going to take a LOT longer to get from point-A to point-B than if you just drive your car. My old job location was near the subway, so I used to take the train to work, still it took 45 mins to drive to work, and it took an hour and a half to take the train. While it was amusing to play with my phone and read magazines, while not worrying about traffic, it really wasn’t worth that extra time.
Second even if your start and destination are on a rail line you had better want to go when the rest of everybody else wants to go. I remember one day I woke up feeling lame. I decided to board the train in hope that starting my day and drinking a ton of tea would clear me up. Nope I was getting sick, so I decided to make it a half-day. It took me over 3 hours to get home because the trains don’t run often in the middle of the day. That really sucked.
And of course that would be a lot easier if you knew when the trains would actually show up. You really can’t know, tho…trains will rarely run on time, meaning you’ll miss trains, or wait for trains constantly.
People talk about the efficiency of trains. They’re totally right, trains are far more efficient than cars…if the train is completely full. There are a few rush-hour trains that are packed, but most trains are empty. Also the financial independence of the rail line often depends on the trains being packed…they won’t be.
So while there are a few occasions when I enjoy taking the train, overall its a colossal bad idea, and a REALLY expensive bad idea.
I’m not convinced that they are that bad of an idea, in certain instances.
Here in Austin we have a terrible train system and an awesome public rental car system for around town, but if I wanted to go to Dallas or Houston for the day I would really appreciate it if I could take a high speed train and then pick up a Go car at the train station to get wherever I need to go.
Long distance day trips don’t really make sense for driving the way I see it, but it’s going to be somewhat regional dependent as well I guess.
What are you talking about? Trains are a great idea when heavily subsidized for heavily populated socialist leaning areas!
Passenger trains make sense in areas with dense populations centers that are relatively close together, say Germany or France. They also make sense in large cities such as New York where driving, parking, and housing a car is expensive and inconvenient. But to go from Seattle to Chicago, or Miami to Boston? Not a chance.
For freight and bulk shipping? They’re the bees knees. Problem is, you can’t plan passenger trains the way you do coal cars or car carriers.
In the U.S., passenger trains are a trophy project because they’re labor intensive to build, run, and maintain, and politicians love bringing home that federal bacon. If they’re run like businesses, they fail.
DaddyBear took what I was going to say.
They are still competitive for freight and bulk hauling.
They’d be more competitive if long haul truckers didn’t get a significant portion of their “track” paid for by car drivers.
Good point on public roads! Especially since the majority of road users drive private cars, but seriously do you thing 100 honda civics does as much damage to the road bed as one loaded semi?
Pingback: 3 Boxes of BS » Blog Archive » But Just Remember that We are Paranoid…