US Passenger rail network - vs the size of Germany

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US Passenger rail network - vs the size of Germany - Just as a mater of scale....

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Minok		#1 Posted : 21 June 2019 00:26:22(UTC) Retweet
Joined: 15/10/2006(UTC) Posts: 2,311 Location: Washington, Pacific Northwest		The US has very little passenger rail inter-connectivity in terms of cities to cities, as can be found from the various passenger rail network maps. To bring home the point on how different the rest of the US is, vs the northeast's blessed Washington DC -> Boston corridor, I'd assembled an SVG map from two other SVG graphics, scaling Germany for size based on some linear Google Maps measurements. This is the result. SVG graphic: High_Speed_Railroad_Map_of_the_United_States_2013 - w Germany Overlay.svg (251kb) downloaded 21 time(s).
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mike c		#2 Posted : 21 June 2019 01:29:07(UTC) Retweet
Joined: 28/11/2007(UTC) Posts: 7,892 Location: Montreal, QC		True, but if you consider USA vs the European rail network, it is a little more comparable. It would seem natural to see the development of a better passenger network, including high speed trains on the Washington-Philadelphia-New York-Boston corridor. I could see a natural connection to that route from places like Pittsburgh, Montreal and Toronto/Buffalo/Niagara. I could see a similar network in the Chicago area, connecting cities like Milwaukee, Detroit, St. Louis, Omaha, Kansas City and even Cleveland and Buffalo (link to the east coast). I could see a Texas based network with connections to St Louis and New Orleans. I could see a network connecting Atlanta, Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa and Miami with links to New Orleans. I could see a California based network with connections north to Oregon and Washington and perhaps all the way to Canada (BC). The east-west connections between the West Coast and the Chicago network would continue to be served by the existing network, partially as tourist oriented travel. In Canada, the Quebec City Windsor network would connect to the New York and Chicago networks. The BC network would connect to the California network Regards Mike C


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Minok		#3 Posted : 21 June 2019 01:55:32(UTC) Retweet
Joined: 15/10/2006(UTC) Posts: 2,311 Location: Washington, Pacific Northwest		Yeah, but consider the passenger train connectivity that exists inside of Germany... and then see that there is practically no passenger train connectivity between most cities in the US other than those on the routes shown. It would be like taking the German IC rail lines, and shutting down all other passenger service. ;-) Imagine being in Germany in Hamburg, and you can board the train, and it stops only in München.
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TEEWolf		#4 Posted : 21 June 2019 02:02:37(UTC) Retweet
Joined: 01/06/2016(UTC) Posts: 2,465		Originally Posted by: Minok The US has very little passenger rail inter-connectivity in terms of cities to cities, as can be found from the various passenger rail network maps. To bring home the point on how different the rest of the US is, vs the northeast's blessed Washington DC -> Boston corridor, I'd assembled an SVG map from two other SVG graphics, scaling Germany for size based on some linear Google Maps measurements. This is the result. Perhaps another information to think about. Germany has a population density of 231 people per squarekilometer (km²), the USA has one of 33 people/km². In Germany the complete net of all railway tracks is owned by the German Goverment through the DB AG. How many track miles (or kilometer - km) are owned by an USA goverment? How many privately owned railway companies do own railroad tracks? Different countries, different sizes and very different markets. Not yet considered the mobility of the people themselves.
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TEEWolf		#5 Posted : 21 June 2019 02:53:35(UTC) Retweet
Joined: 01/06/2016(UTC) Posts: 2,465		Originally Posted by: Minok ... Imagine being in Germany in Hamburg, and you can board the train, and it stops only in München. Well, less between HH (= Hamburg) and M (= München). This is the only route in Germany a business man (and me too while I was on business) will take a plane instead a train. The distance is too long (about 800 km) and not served by through running high speed trains. ICE yes, but sometimes they are only running by about 80 km/h an hour. But we had and have such trains in Germany, which do not stop at every major station, as the regular ICE trains do. Such trains are called "Sprinter". As far as I know Sprinters are running between Munich and Berlin nowadays, after the complete line is now opened and served by high speed trains. The distance is about 600 km and the trains need from the centre of the city to the other centre of the city almost the same time as you need by plane from centre to centre (not only flying time off- and on-block). In prior years I personally took such Sprinters between Munich and Frankfurt/Main. This train started in Munich, had one other stop in Munich and its next and last stop was Frankfurt. It was an ICE, passed Augsburg, Ulm, Stuttgart, Mannheim through their stations with no stops. The time advantage was by about 40 minutes faster as a regular ICE stopping at all these stations. While using these trains, once I read in a DB paper, which was on board of these trains, every stop at a station extend the travel time by about 6 to 8 minutes. These are needed to slow down the high speed train to the stop and accelerate it back again after the stop. Furthermore a boarding time of 2 minutes in the station itself were calculated. The major travel time saving was in Stuttgart. The train had not to enter the central station, which still is a railhead station. It just passed by through Stuttgart on other tracks and saved thereby 20 minutes travel time.
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tiono		#6 Posted : 21 June 2019 07:46:00(UTC) Retweet
Joined: 09/02/2010(UTC) Posts: 234		I guess TEEWolf correctly pointed out at population density as the main reason behind the lag of rail network in USA as compared to western europe. The longer distances between cities in USA will make air as primary mode of transport. Thus the rail will mostly serve freight instead of passenger. Even in freight sector, the rail in USA is competing against road transport (truck) where its infrastructure cost less (it is cheaper to build road than rail network, and the difference will be significant on longer distance lower city density area). Only high-speed rail will be able to compete against air transport, however, the HSR infrastructure is expensive, thus will be profitable only on high density route. Another example of this situation is Australia where the population density is just 3.1 people per square km. The rail network centered at the cities with high population as depicted by the map below:
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PJMärklin		#7 Posted : 21 June 2019 09:45:16(UTC) Retweet
Joined: 04/12/2013(UTC) Posts: 2,210 Location: Hobart, Australia		Originally Posted by: tiono I guess TEEWolf correctly pointed out at population density as the main reason behind the lag of rail network in USA as compared to western europe. The longer distances between cities in USA will make air as primary mode of transport. Thus the rail will mostly serve freight instead of passenger. Even in freight sector, the rail in USA is competing against road transport (truck) where its infrastructure cost less (it is cheaper to build road than rail network, and the difference will be significant on longer distance lower city density area). Only high-speed rail will be able to compete against air transport, however, the HSR infrastructure is expensive, thus will be profitable only on high density route. Another example of this situation is Australia where the population density is just 3.1 people per square km. The rail network centered at the cities with high population as depicted by the map below: Hello Tio, Whilst you did not leave Tasmania off the map of Australia (as some dastardly folk do ), you did unfortunately leave off the rail line between Hobart and Launceston. Regards, PJ


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tiono		#8 Posted : 21 June 2019 12:58:40(UTC) Retweet
Joined: 09/02/2010(UTC) Posts: 234		Originally Posted by: PJMärklin Hello Tio, Whilst you did not leave Tasmania off the map of Australia (as some dastardly folk do ), you did unfortunately leave off the rail line between Hobart and Launceston. Regards, PJ The map was taken from wiki here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Australia Tasmania do have rail network operated by TasRail, but I thought they operate freight only (apart from some heritage train excursion)?
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TEEWolf		#9 Posted : 21 June 2019 16:58:37(UTC) Retweet
Joined: 01/06/2016(UTC) Posts: 2,465		Originally Posted by: PJMärklin Originally Posted by: tiono I guess TEEWolf correctly pointed out at population density as the main reason behind the lag of rail network in USA as compared to western europe. The longer distances between cities in USA will make air as primary mode of transport. Thus the rail will mostly serve freight instead of passenger. Even in freight sector, the rail in USA is competing against road transport (truck) where its infrastructure cost less (it is cheaper to build road than rail network, and the difference will be significant on longer distance lower city density area). Only high-speed rail will be able to compete against air transport, however, the HSR infrastructure is expensive, thus will be profitable only on high density route. Another example of this situation is Australia where the population density is just 3.1 people per square km. The rail network centered at the cities with high population as depicted by the map below: Hello Tio, Whilst you did not leave Tasmania off the map of Australia (as some dastardly folk do ), you did unfortunately leave off the rail line between Hobart and Launceston. Regards, PJ Hello PJ, it looks like you live in Hobart. Can you not show us the railway in Tasmania? Even it is far away, it is of interest. Regards TEEWolf
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jonquinn		#10 Posted : 25 July 2019 21:58:49(UTC) Retweet
Joined: 15/02/2004(UTC) Posts: 1,591 Location: Pennsylvania		It wasn’t always this way. Used to be extensive rail passenger service in the USA. Since replaced by airlines. It will likely not go back even with technology like high speed (mag-lev) rail. Why? Because the old rail corridors and economically depressed areas (slums) would end up being displaced to make way for new track/lines. There are too many advocates of continued poverty to allow that to happen. Too much gnashing of teeth and pulling out hair because a bunch of dilapidated crack houses would have to be torn down to make a new right of way. So what if it brings in jobs and new wealth? These poverty pimps got to be able to get there grant monies for doing nothing of value.

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Vanvlak		#11 Posted : 26 July 2019 09:37:17(UTC) Retweet
Joined: 01/06/2019(UTC) Posts: 58 Location: Naxxar		Malta: population density 1562 per square km, longest axis of the island 45 km; railways = 0 (they closed down the one line in 1930)... Sadly, we have a trillion cars and are losing countryside and trees to more and more roads - the path to sheer unsustainability and poor quality of life. Small wonder I turned to model trains...
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kimballthurlow		#12 Posted : 29 July 2019 11:27:31(UTC) Retweet
Joined: 18/03/2007(UTC) Posts: 6,668 Location: Brisbane, Australia		The economics of intense rail passenger traffic and connectivity are on the positive side for most of Europe, India and the like. But certainly not for USA, Australia and the like, where only the major cities and close in towns have any intensity. On a slightly aside subject, the freight traffic between Sydney and Melbourne is 20-million tonnes of palletised and containerised freight per year. 99% is carried by highway trucks. These of course travel on roads paid for and maintained by the taxpayer. The other 1 per cent of this freight between Melbourne and Sydney is hauled by trains. Trains are actually capable of hauling 50%, but government charges (for the rail network lines access) work against the railway operators being able to compete with road. Note that there are no canals or navigable rivers in Australia for transport of goods between these cities. The coastal sea-lane would be OK I guess, but not sure what part it plays. Kimball
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RayF		#13 Posted : 29 July 2019 16:29:30(UTC) Retweet
Joined: 14/03/2005(UTC) Posts: 15,839 Location: Gibraltar, Europe		Originally Posted by: Vanvlak Malta: population density 1562 per square km, longest axis of the island 45 km; railways = 0 (they closed down the one line in 1930)... Sadly, we have a trillion cars and are losing countryside and trees to more and more roads - the path to sheer unsustainability and poor quality of life. Small wonder I turned to model trains... I thought I'd add my stats for interest, although it's a little off topic, so I ask your forgiveness for this. The population density of Gibraltar is 4,328/km2, which is about three times that of Malta! We also had a railway network which mainly revolved around the Naval base and harbour facilities, with branches to various quarries. The network peaked in the 1930s and then declined until the last lines within the dockyard were abandoned in the seventies. The possibility has been looked at in recent years to re-establish some of these lines as a tourist attraction, but the disruption to road traffic makes it impractical. A wagon was discovered recently abandoned in a tunnel and it was restored as a heritage project. This is how it looks now:
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sjbartels		#14 Posted : 29 July 2019 16:48:31(UTC) Retweet
Joined: 11/08/2015(UTC) Posts: 1,091		Originally Posted by: kimballthurlow The economics of intense rail passenger traffic and connectivity are on the positive side for most of Europe, India and the like. But certainly not for USA, Australia and the like, where only the major cities and close in towns have any intensity. On a slightly aside subject, the freight traffic between Sydney and Melbourne is 20-million tonnes of palletised and containerised freight per year. 99% is carried by highway trucks. These of course travel on roads paid for and maintained by the taxpayer. The other 1 per cent of this freight between Melbourne and Sydney is hauled by trains. Trains are actually capable of hauling 50%, but government charges (for the rail network lines access) work against the railway operators being able to compete with road. Note that there are no canals or navigable rivers in Australia for transport of goods between these cities. The coastal sea-lane would be OK I guess, but not sure what part it plays. Kimball Don't forget with Australia, and I'll use Sydney-Melbourne as the best example of this, aside from one single line, the networks are completely incompatible to one another, ie broad gauge in Victoria and standard gauge in New South Wales. With one line, going both ways, and adding passenger traffic to that, makes rail transport even more difficult.
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