Originally Posted by
Rayeli
Pretty much every single one of those points are wrong. It’s definitely not cheaper, definitely not more efficient (moving up to 500 people at once instead of 76 per hour on an E175), safety is debatable, but flying is definitely not faster in the grand scheme of things (going from downtown to downtown and of the distance of the NE corridor except maybe BOS-DCA). When you factor in traveling to/from the airport, going early for security, etc.
For example in France, Paris to Lyon is roughly the same distance as Boston to Philadelphia. Air France blocks the flight as 1 hr 5 min ($128). The train (from downtown to downtown) is 1 hr 57 min ($52). Which would you take?
Again, this is in a corridor where there’s a dedicated high speed train line pretty much the whole way and the train can hit its top speed (186 mph) for the majority of the trip.
Of course it is cheaper. You have to take into account the capital cost.
The CHEAPEST section of the California high speed rail - the part built mostly over agricultural land 163 miles between Bakersfield and Merced - is now well north of $13.5 billion. That’s $83 million per mile. A high speed rail corridor in the Northeast, or in any of the more highly populated areas of the country, would cost far more per mile. US LIGHT RAIL costs between $15 million and $100 million per mile.
Of course it’s safer. We kill about 300 people a year at railroad crossings in the US. AMTRAK passenger trains, because of their higher speeds, kill a disproportionate share of those.
And of course it’s more efficient. Efficiency is ultimately a function of the mass you accelerate and decelerate. You are moving 76 people using 40 tons of aircraft versus 500 people with 540 tons, the weight of one Amtrak locomotive and six cars.
Now I’ll concede the time issue with security, but it will take only one mass murder on a passenger train to equalize that.