Why American trains suck

>>994678
>Stupid millenials that don't know anything about the real history or operations of railroading in America.
>Supporting commie pinko shit where the state owns the rail.
I have never seen Amtrak NOT being given priority over everything.

>>994680
this

USA railway problem is not called Amtrak and the future is not "giving more money to Amtrak so it can build its own lines". USA railway problem is called screwed nationalization. You see, those many European countries that have so many amazing state-owned railways actually own them because at one point in their history they basically nationalized private owned railway companies. In USA nothing like that really happened because America ain't no bloody commies, right.

>>994685
>In USA nothing like that really happened
Well it did during WWI.

US railroads were actually nationalized, but then returned after the war, because we ain't fucking commies.

>>994680
>Stupid millenials that don't know anything about the real history or operations of railroading in America.
>Supporting commie pinko shit where the state owns the rail.

Did your dick get slightly swollen while writing that?

>>994701
>status: buttblasted

>>994678
>fewer freight trains congesting the tracks
up until then it was pretty ok, but this is not taking at all into account the economic consequence of fewer freight being moved by trains in Europe. The one good thing about the american railways is how efficient they are for carrying freight, and Europe is trying hard to somehow catch up with rail freight.

>>994705
He uses 38% as the amount of freight moved by rail, but it's really more like 50% when you go by ton-miles.

>>994705
To be fair, the failure of European rail freight has little to do with passenger trains blocking the tracks and everyting to do with state monopolies and protectionism resulting them to outprice themselves off from the market, plus generally smaller networks and distances traveled per operator and worse state border interoperability amongst operators so a lot of cross continent traffic was needlessly moved to tires.

>>994708

Imagine you wanted to move something by rail say from Finland to Spain. Like 20 carloads of some specialty paper.

First off the train needs to go north, and there is bogie and locomotive change in Tornio, becuse Finland is five foot gauge.
>This train needs to be a diesel, because there is no electrification between Lulea and Tornio.
>With luck, the train will then on get a multisystem electric locomotive at some point, and it wont need to change locomotives in Denmark, because Denmark is 25 kV plus DB and SJ have good interoperability contract.
>On border to France there is another locomotive change, because it's again 25 kV in north, 3 kV in south and no electric mainline to Spanish border. There may be multiple locomotive changes.
>In Spanish border there is another bogie exchange because Iberian gauge.

You may see why this wont happen around here. There aren't even rolling stock that is certified for that sort of double bogie exchange thing. It's just faster and cheaper to pack everything into 20 or so trucks.

>>994713
And that's why Europe sucks.

You've had a standardized coupler in the US since 1893. Fucking euroshits are still using link and pin couplers! God damn!

>>994719
>link and pin
Buffer and chain, but anyway. Interoperability is till pretty much state to state basis, which is a large limiting factor.

On a good day a train can be moved from England to France or from France to Spain, but not really from England to Spain.

going through the comments on reddit and so many cagers are talking about how great it will be to have self driving cars instead of any form of mass transit that way we can just have billions and billions of cars circling around nonstop at hundreds and hundreds of miles per hour through all our cities and highways

>>994685
>>994680
>muh commies

>>994705
I don't know if this is true for the rest of Europe but in the UK, the road haulage companies lobbied the government in the 50's & 60's to close down a lot of the lines in the country. Worst part was that instead of mothballing the lines, they were dug up & turned into roads; ironically now carrying mainly goods to exactly the same routes as the rails did.

long distance high speed rail in the US isn't as important as improving commuter rail

>>994678
have fun paying 40%-50% of your paycheck to the state yuropoor. only plebs actually ride trains anyways

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why are amerifags so against the idea of mass public transportation?

don;t they know that the reason it's so looked down upon is because of people like Henry Ford who undermined public transportation?

>>994678
The US moves 38% of cargo via rail compared to 8% in Europe. That actually seems like a more efficient way of doing things. Since we know trains are more efficient than cars and trucks.

As for improving passenger rail in the US CAHSR and other projects will eventually bridge the gap, eventually.

>>994905
The US won't even exist by 2029, let alone CAHSR. They should just apologize for lying to the voters ($8 billion bond has somehow now turned into a $100 billion estimated project cost) and use those funds to expand and improve already exist any routes (like BART and other metros/ local commuter routes throughout the state).

>>994904

Because mass transportation is a pain in the ass. Cars are cheap, available and more convenient unless you live in a cesspool like NY or LA.

It's just a lot easier to jump in a car and drive 5 minutes instead of waiting around hours for a bus/train.

If I have to travel from state to state or province to province I'd rather drive than take a train. You miss all the scenery, hikes, etc when you're stuck on a train.


I'm perfectly fine driving or biking around and enjoying the cheap goods and fuel that the rails bring in.

From the layout of American cities it sounds like they would really benefit from light rail and urban rail. I live in Melbourne, Australia and we have both. It makes getting around the city without a car a lot less of a hassle and it definitely curbs traffic because it means there are less cars on the road.

I don't know if intercity rail is actually worth it most of the time, it doesn't seem worth building a train from Melbourne to Sydney. I think planes are the best for that kind of thing unless you're building a maglev super duper fast train.

If the US cities had bike lanes, trams, trains and started upper the density of their cities the closer you get to the centre of the city they would become a lot more livable.

>>994924
Public transport only sucks if it's poorly planned. Nothing like getting out, walking into a subway station and walking straight into a train even though you didn't even bother checking when the next one is coming before leaving, riding on the train for 10 minutes and being in your destination 15 minutes after leaving your home. Compared to driving where you're stuck in traffic first for 20 minutes, spend 10 minutes searching for a parking space and then walk 10 minutes to your destination because no parking was available closer to your destination.

>miss scenery on the train
Nigga you get much more scenery on train than while riding. And not only you get more scenery but you can also spend all your time looking at that scenery instead of focusing on driving.

>>994756
found the commie

>>994924
>NY or LA
Clearly you've never been to both
>>994904
Because we're brainwashed from an early age about "the stranger danger" and from adulthood on about Condition White and having a weapon under your shirt at all times to protect against that unprovoked attack that's totally going to happen any day now so you can finally Tango Down a Tango with your Winchester Black talon +P+ hot loads

>>994928
/n/oob here

Can't you use the same rais for freight and transport?

>>994942
>Implying local municipalities have the appetite or desire to build and maintain their own ROW.
Shit's expensive, yo'.

>>994928
You need subways, australia's public transpo is garbage my friend. Sydneys and every other cities are horrific, terrible coverage with trains. I mean sydney and melbourne are really just a collection of towns not big cities with proper neighbourhoods like the east coast of north america. The fact that you guys kept your tram system is really your only saving grace desu.

>>994944
It's not the worst but at least it is there. It gets a lot of usage too, I honestly wouldn't mind subways. Our busses are pretty decent. I lived in Adelaide for a while and the public transport there was a joke.

I cycle everywhere though so I probably catch public transportation maybe once every three months or so, either way it's hard to argue that cities with public transport seem to have better streets for cycling, more vibrant cultures and less suburb sprawl.

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>>994941

>>994942
I mean you can but it complicates travel when you have multiple trains at multiple different speeds which happens when you mix freight and passenger. Some parts of the NEC have not two but FOUR different speeds of trains: very slow-freight, slow-local NJT, moderate speed-Amtrak, almost fast-Amtrak Acela Express.

>>994785
>they were dug up & turned into roads
Worse than that. Buildings. Houses. Businesses. Undoing that act of vandalism is now effectively impossible.

>>994924
>NY or LA
Or DC or Philly or Chicago or Boston or SF...

Hmm. Maybe public transit makes a bunch of real sense after all? Though not necessarily in Billings, Montana.

>>994924
Those cities became cesspools because of the car. And immigration

>>995748
Yep, it's a national tragedy. Corbyn etc want to re nationalise the rails, but arguably the problem goes back to these stupid decisions made in the 60's. Whether nationalised or not, we're not gonna fix the rails without addressing what fucked them up in the first place.