Just some Transportation Observations

When I was working for one international company, we booked a train trip from Shanghai to Hangzhou. It was not the fastest train (G). It was a slightly slower train (D). Pleasant ride. No clicky-clack and roomy seats, You were not shoehorned into an area or seat. You could recline the seat. Distance was ~125 miles. Ninety-minute ride. We did go back to Beijing by plane to avoid a 4-hour trip by rail.

The trip back and forth was an ~$40. Back to the United States. Shouldn’t the US have a similar model?

Kaleberg discusses trains in Joel’s post “About Trains.”

“In contrast, the US has wretched passenger service compared to Europe (and China). The best is Amtrak’s northeast corridor and the Michigan east-west corridor, both where the passenger railroad owns the tracks. Heavy freight trains and even modestly high-speed rail require different tracking strategies.

That Providence & Worcester line may have something to do with maintaining the railroad’s legal rights with regards to the right of way. There’s a lot of arcane railroad law out there.” He is correct.

The U.S. has the most railroad tracks of any country, but we’re not known for our passenger trains. A look at America’s rail system and the trouble with passenger trains. Or Why?

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Why the U.S. struggles with passenger service despite having the most rail lines, NPR:

The U.S. has the most railroad tracks of any country, but we’re not known for our passenger trains. A look at America’s rail system and the trouble with passenger trains. So, what is the issue or issues?

ZAREMBSKI: Let’s start off with the fact that the United States has the best freight railroad in the world.

WONG: The U.S. has more railroad tracks than any other country, but those tracks are almost exclusively used to transport goods, not people.

ZAREMBSKI: The United States has chosen to put its emphasis on freight transportation. Europe has put its emphasis on passenger transportation.

WONG: One reason for that choice comes down to density. Europe, by comparison, is packed in with lots of cities not too far apart. The U.S. is vast and spread out. A coast-to-coast train ride would just take forever.

ZAREMBSKI: You’re still talking about a day and a half to two days.

WONG: Versus, you know, six hours on a flight.

BISAHA: Yeah. So you could have a multi-day train ride between LA and New York, or you could have freight trains.

ZAREMBSKI: Freight railroads are extremely profitable.

WONG: These railroads are also owned by publicly traded companies, and it makes sense these businesses would pick the more profitable option.

BISAHA: But, you know, couldn’t they just share the railroads, passenger and freight trains, kumbaya, taking turns?

ZAREMBSKI: The answer is yes, we can, but there’s an inherent conflict. You can’t run as many freight trains as you can, which means railroads suddenly are losing money.

BISAHA: You were telling me, though, that these freight trains are so profitable. And yeah, they might lose some money if a passenger train is sharing the tracks. But is it really that much money that they’re losing when they’re making so much money, like you’re saying?

ZAREMBSKI: What the railroads would say is it’s our duty to our stockholders to maximize our profit. What you’re saying is that there’s a societal benefit by you allowing to route the passenger trains, and it has some value. And how do you reconcile that?

BISAHA: OK, whole different option. Why not just build new railroads? And while we’re at it, let’s make them high-speed rails, too.

WONG: California has been trying to do that for nearly 20 years to connect San Francisco and LA, but it’s been bogged down with political issues like where the train should and shouldn’t cut through and stop.

ZAREMBSKI: One of the problems with California high-speed rail is that it’s turned out to be much more expensive than anybody expected it to be.

BISAHA: Where does that leave us?

ZAREMBSKI: The corridor approach.

WONG: The corridor approach. A train corridor is a simple stretch of railroad connecting a few large metros, ideally, not too far from each other.

ZAREMBSKI: We actually have a very successful passenger rail system in the Northeast Corridor.

WONG: And the private company Brightline is building a corridor between Las Vegas and Southern California. The company already launched a South Florida line back in 2018.

BISAHA: It’s just not exactly profitable, at least not yet. But Allan says passenger trains are almost never profitable, not even in Europe. Those trains are supported by taxpayer dollars.

WONG: So if the U.S. really does want a big passenger train network, it has to be willing to pay for it.

BISAHA: Stephan Bisaha.

WONG: Wailin Wong, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “CRAZY TRAIN”)

OZZY OSBOURNE: (Singing) I’m going off the rails on a crazy train.

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In the end, you are talking politics and getting the right people to work together. Would passenger trains be profitable? Probably yes, the costs of future six lane highways and pollution are not factored into this. I rode the trains in China. You can get to just about anywhere without fighting traffic or high costs. Once in the city, you could walk, ride the bus, or take a subway. Some of the infrastructure is there in the US. M uch of it is not or there is a need to rebuild.