Dane here. While I love trains, they are a) more expensive than flying in almost every long distance scenarios, and b) take much longer. We are trialling sleeping trains but reception is mixed and capacity limited. People don’t like to waste an extra 2-4 days of their vacation on travel. Especially if they’re paying more for that privilege. I should note that this isn’t an issue of imbalanced subsidies. They EU subsidises air travel (in many ways) to the tune of around €30–40 billion annually depending on what you include and what you consider to be a “subsidy.” Using similar criteria, rail is subsidised to the tune of €40–75 billion per year. So rail gets a lot more investment despite it serving 16% fewer travel miles per year in the EU than air travel.
The thing is, if even we can’t make it cheaper and faster despite our relatively high population densities and high rail subsidies, I fear the case is much harder still in the U.S. My personal position is that trains are excellent commuter alternatives, and should be liberally built and subsidised in all dense cities. For longer travel, there is no substitute for airoplanes.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The cost of dedicated passenger rail lines is staggering, and the US has a LOT of ground to cover.
Fleur_@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
Yeah no country has ever built a high speed passenger rail network interconnecting cities spread throughout an area comparable to the usa. And it’s absurd to think that it could be done in under 20 years and receive massive popular support and have universally recognised benefits. Guys the cost is too high for the biggest economy on earth and the distance is so far that they could never build a railway across it especially not more than 100 years ago.
(Well to be fair the Chinese did also build the railways across the US so maybe they do have something America doesn’t)
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Slave labor.
Soleos@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This comment really needs a /sarcasm tag
elucubra@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
The ideal is a mix, planes for the long haul, trains for short haul.
Allero@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
As someone from Russia, we have even larger territory, and going by rail is almost twice as cheap as by plane.
High speed rail from Saint Petersburg to Moscow will cost you ~$45, going by plane will set you back ~$75 on the cheapest flight with hand luggage only.
Same story with long distance trips - I plan on going for a 1000km trip in July, and train ticket costed me the same $45, while cheapest plane tickets go around $100. It’s also a night train with beds and all, so I have one night accommodation for free while on my way. Depart - have a nice sleep - be on your destination.
doylio@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Something like 30% of the US lives in the strip between Washington DC and Boston. It’s absolutely achievable for the richest country on Earth to provide high speed rail in that section.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
There’s already a lot of passenger rail options in that part of the country. I’ve used it, and it works great.
This post is specifically about using it in place of airlines, which is used for longer-distance travel.