Why Trains are so Expensive

>>1061800

passenger or freight? Because it doesn't make sense to fly 100,000 tons of aviation fuel from a dock to the airport

>>1061809

video talks about passenger

>>1061800
okay, the dude takes amurica and the uk, two countries that go fucked over by the privatisation of railroads, while only mentionning Paris-Lyon 'cause he knows if he delves into it further his whole argument would crumble. and yet he brushes all of the successful railway systems by saying "b-but they're government subsidized"

shit video.

>>1061815


yeah video is short and doesn't delve on the topic much, but popular videos like these frame the conversation for us, the transport weebs.

I really wish we had a better (simpler) way to get our point across.

>>1061817

In my opinion if he was to go to the point of listing costs and profits he should really include the cost of flying people as well for the comparison and not just

>HURRR TRAINS ARE EXPENSIVE BECAUSE THEY COST MORE
>SEE THEY HAVE TO PAY FOR STAFF
>THEY HAVE TO PAY FOR ELECTRICITY
>DURRRRR

And stating that a pilot only gets paid for the hour they fly is ridiculous. I know a guy who works for air canada that lives in the Caribbean and once a month they fly him a couple thousand miles to toronto, stick him in a plane for 15 hours (not including any work outside the actual flight time) leave him shanghai to recover for a day hour two then another 15 hour flight back, send him another couple thousand miles home and repeat next month or the one after.

So, for a total of 30 hours of actual flight time in a month the man gets paid more as much as a doctor and is shuttled back to paradise where he spends 4-6 weeks waiting on his next flight.

>>1061821
>tfw legacy carrier unions are cancer

>>1061800

all transportation is "so expensive"--the difference is that trains are owned/operated by a single entity so its easy to parse costs, whereas roads and airports are financed by hundreds of arcane public/private mechanisms that are impossible to untangle. people balk at a few billion for HSR then spend the same sum for new runways.

>>1061800
This freaking channel again

>>1061821
He does cover the cost of flying in depth here. He knows full well that there's more to the cost of flying that just on board staff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Oe8T3AvydU

>>1061800
Are they?, here traveling by train almost cost the same as traveling by bus.

>>1061800
Can't watch the vid right now, but saying trains are expensive is actually quite relative. Yes, long distance trains with all kinds of amenities like restaurant cars, showers and lots of attendants are expensive, as is HSR because its construction costs gorillions and uses lots of electricity. But running regular regional/interregional trains is actually ridiculously cheap:

>tracks were most likely built 100+ years ago so construction costs are more than paid off
>energy consumption is quite low as long as speed is no more than 180-200km/h
>can cover many intermediate stations without the significant loss of time and consumption of energy of HSR
>needs very few workers, trains may not even have a conductor or only have a conductor on part of the trip and a few conductors cover several trains
>can use rather long trains improving economy of scale

From what >>1061815 says I think the video makes exactly that mistake, it considers the services which are most expensive to operate, or focuses on some dumbass privatization that's just a ripoff.

>>1061800
>Why American Trains are so Expensive
>Why Poorly-run Trains are so Expensive
>Why ExpensiveTrains are so Expensive

>more profitable (or rather less costlier, no profit desu) between multiple smaller towns and villages
It's called a corridor deus, in high or low demand density, a linear continuous entity v a discrete network of nodes via air. Point-to-point isn't exactly how rail is profitable v air, short (optimal) enough anything is profitable. What's between the two cities matters.

>>1061817
>frame the conversation
Worry about misleading more.

>>1061815
Shit simplification and conceptualization/modelling.

>>1062387
What it focused on is bad, especially considering Amtrak long distance.

ah the good ol' "high speed rail is expensive" like no shit idiot.

But normal rail is cheap as chips, we run trains into the ground because there is no more saving to be made there.

Hell look back in time to steam operations where Victorian engines survived well into when diesels where taking over, rail economics are fucking weird and not quiet so simple if you consider staff training, existing logistics, and investment costs.