DFW High-Speed Dispute: Airport vs. Downtown

[George Harris]

When the Burlington/RI ran trains between Houston and Dallas on a four hour timing up into the 1960's they did it on jointed rail with only block signals, hand thrown switches for the sidings and written train orders. You would think that now 50 years later with space age technology they could easily do better just with conventional trains.

It was even wilder than that. Reading a 1947 or thereabouts accident report, they were running with a speed limit of 90 mph on an unsignaled line controlled only by timetable and train orders on track of 90 lb/yd jointed rail, and of course many road crossing having only a crossbuck sign. A railroad management proposing such today would be lucky to avoid jail time. To be able to run that fast now would require welded rail, full signals with ATS or ATC, flashers and gates at road crossings. In other words, a complete rebuild of the track that is there now, even if it is in welded rail, it certainly does not meet FRA standards for 90 mph operation, and 90 mph will not give you a highway competitive end to end time.

 

[rrdude]

It's true that Southwest and Continental are a little busy right now, but that by no means should be interpreted as any sort of surrender. These groups are even stronger now as their size and scope of influence has grown tremendously compared to what it was during the last failed push for expanded passenger rail.

Know what I'd like to see on one of these HSR projects? A company like Southwest bid on running it, (subcontracting of course to a real rail-transit company) or even Virgin-America. It would totally shift the public's mind set on HSR, and to a lesser extent, pax rail traffic in general.

Think outside the box SWA, (you usually do btw, kudos!) do something GRAND, unexpected, different. *SLAPS HEAD* Dang, I caught myself dreamin' again..............

 

[jis]

It's true that Southwest and Continental are a little busy right now, but that by no means should be interpreted as any sort of surrender. These groups are even stronger now as their size and scope of influence has grown tremendously compared to what it was during the last failed push for expanded passenger rail.

Still doesn't mean that Southwest WILL oppose it either. Plus so what if they do? HSR is being talked about more than ever before in this country. SW has a big presence in California now too, when they didn't in the 90's. Have you seen any indication that they oppose that? I haven't. Why would they not oppose California HSR and would oppose Texas HSR?

And Continental is really now part of United. They have many other money making markets they can be concentrating on. Not a couple of regional flights between IAH and DAL or College Station.

Actually as far as United (including Continental) goes, I don't think they are hugely enamored of running the regional flights. They are feeder routes and they don;t necessarily make any money for United. But they do feed traffic into routes that do make money. United's biggest money making routes are the Internationals. I doubt that they would be too worried if some other mode were to feed the same traffic. This is very different from SWA's situation back then when the Texas routes were its bread and butter. As one might have noticed even they have grown and spread their wings a bit since then.

 

[Anderson]

It's true that Southwest and Continental are a little busy right now, but that by no means should be interpreted as any sort of surrender. These groups are even stronger now as their size and scope of influence has grown tremendously compared to what it was during the last failed push for expanded passenger rail.

Still doesn't mean that Southwest WILL oppose it either. Plus so what if they do? HSR is being talked about more than ever before in this country. SW has a big presence in California now too, when they didn't in the 90's. Have you seen any indication that they oppose that? I haven't. Why would they not oppose California HSR and would oppose Texas HSR?

And Continental is really now part of United. They have many other money making markets they can be concentrating on. Not a couple of regional flights between IAH and DAL or College Station.

Actually as far as United (including Continental) goes, I don't think they are hugely enamored of running the regional flights. They are feeder routes and they don;t necessarily make any money for United. But they do feed traffic into routes that do make money. United's biggest money making routes are the Internationals. I doubt that they would be too worried if some other mode were to feed the same traffic. This is very different from SWA's situation back then when the Texas routes were its bread and butter. As one might have noticed even they have grown and spread their wings a bit since then.

I'm wondering...do those regional flights make money? I know there are some routes (international ones in particular) that show a profit, but do the regional flights manage to break even, or do the airlines eat losses there to "fund" the main routes?

Edit: To explain the question, there are a couple of markets that it would seem to make sense just to kill off air service in and run trains out of. Des Moines is probably the worst offender in this regard (as it is, getting to Chicago is faster if you fly DSM-MKE and then get on the Hiawatha at Milwaukee than to take a plane the whole way). Even at $100 for a one-way coach seat, you'd be looking at about 1/3 of the cost per passenger for a train link from Des Moines to O'Hare...and Des Moines-KCY or Des Moines-MSP would seem to offer similar advantages (in the case of Des Moines-KCY...as far as I can tell, that route doesn't even exist for the airlines anymore).

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Still doesn't mean that Southwest WILL oppose it either. Plus so what if they do? HSR is being talked about more than ever before in this country. SW has a big presence in California now too, when they didn't in the 90's. Have you seen any indication that they oppose that? I haven't. Why would they not oppose California HSR and would oppose Texas HSR?

I think it would be hard to find two large and populous states that were any more removed from each other than Texas and California are. One is a huge proponent of modern and efficient passenger rail and the other is the world's largest market for perpetually empty pickup trucks. Southwest also has much deeper roots and much more pull in a state like Texas than they do in a state like California. In the end we may never hear that "airline 'X' has directly attacked HSR project 'Y'" as those decisions will be made at the lobbying group level and will be directed and paid for by several airlines acting together under appropriate cover. It won't matter if any one airline is too busy to keep up with each and every development, the lobbying group will be able to research and prioritized those efforts on their own. Some efforts require getting the public involved, but in this case all the airline lobbying groups have to do is ensure enough anti-rail politicians have sufficient funding to be competitive and many of their potential HSR problems will be delayed at least another decade or two.

Actually as far as United (including Continental) goes, I don't think they are hugely enamored of running the regional flights. They are feeder routes and they don;t necessarily make any money for United.

I don't think UA's view of the earning potential for regional flights is going to be the primary decision making point for the airline lobbying groups that will actually be fighting this war. Instead I think we need to look at the bigger picture. In places like Europe and Japan short haul flying has been successfully challenged by HSR for decades. Multiple flag carriers have had to merge or fold. Others have had scale back short haul operations and focus on long-haul intercontinental flights as the primary source of revenue. In the case of more recent converts like Taiwan, domestic flights have been decimated by modern HSR. Even Amtrak's half-speed HSR has managed to successfully challenge the North Eastern air shuttles in the world's largest domestic airline market. If HSR takes off nationwide then domestic flights stand to suffer substantial losses in key markets over time. This is not something that several of the largest airlines on Earth are going to just sit back and watch happen. They and other industry groups that stand to lose profits and revenue are the very folks who have been giving the anti-rail politicians their marching orders when they suddenly started challenging resurgent HSR projects as a primary platform position in the last year or so.

 

[Anderson]

Dax: As bad as it sounds, the answer is probably to fight for a few of these links at the state level. An arrangement like VA has with Amtrak

The more this goes through my mind, the more I'm wondering about restoring MSP-Des Moines service alongside Des Moines-Chicago service. Des Moines isn't going to be a hub anytime soon, but you could piggyback it on limited MSP and/or KCY operations. Who owns that particular Rock Island route (MSP-KCY)?

 

[GlobalistPotato]

I don't think UA's view of the earning potential for regional flights is going to be the primary decision making point for the airline lobbying groups that will actually be fighting this war. Instead I think we need to look at the bigger picture. In places like Europe and Japan short haul flying has been successfully challenged by HSR for decades. Multiple flag carriers have had to merge or fold. Others have had scale back short haul operations and focus on long-haul intercontinental flights as the primary source of revenue. In the case of more recent converts like Taiwan, domestic flights have been decimated by modern HSR. Even Amtrak's half-speed HSR has managed to successfully challenge the North Eastern air shuttles in the world's largest domestic airline market. If HSR takes off nationwide then domestic flights stand to suffer substantial losses in key markets over time. This is not something that several of the largest airlines on Earth are going to just sit back and watch happen. They and other industry groups that stand to lose profits and revenue are the very folks who have been giving the anti-rail politicians their marching orders when they suddenly started challenging resurgent HSR projects as a primary platform position in the last year or so.

While I can definitely see that being the case (HSR taking over air markets) for the short-haul markets, anyone knows that medium and long distance flights will still be competitive and viable against even true-HSR. Keep in mind the old "the US is so big" argument. Although HSR would probably have most of the market share between Dallas and Houston, most travelers who are going from Texas to California, or Texas to New York, or Texas to Chicago, or any other inter-megaregional market, will prefer to take a plane. Especially with the old case of NY-LA. Even among the strong advocates of HSR, they relise that the flying will be the prefered option unless there's a change in technology or the markets.

Of course many of us on AU would still prefer to take the train on long distances, but most people will still fly. :giggle:

So maybe the airlines that focus on medium and long distance flights should be told that their business is safe even in the event of true-HSR.

Hey, maybe the airlines could redeploy their assests out of contested markets and serve the areas that are too small to be included in an HSR system, like Des Moines! :lol:

Dax: As bad as it sounds, the answer is probably to fight for a few of these links at the state level. An arrangement like VA has with Amtrak

The more this goes through my mind, the more I'm wondering about restoring MSP-Des Moines service alongside Des Moines-Chicago service. Des Moines isn't going to be a hub anytime soon, but you could piggyback it on limited MSP and/or KCY operations. Who owns that particular Rock Island route (MSP-KCY)?

I actually looked at a LD route for Amtrak that would run parallel to I-35 between SAS or Laredo and MSP or Duluth. I'd call it the "I-35er", or "NAFTA trader". The closest thing to that would be Rock Island's Twin Star Rocket. It made the run in about 25 hours, at an average speed of 56 mph. Here's the old schdules.

http://www.streamlinerschedules.com/concourse/track9/twinstar194508.html

 

[Devil's Advocate]

While I can definitely see that being the case (HSR taking over air markets) for the short-haul markets, anyone knows that medium and long distance flights will still be competitive and viable against even true-HSR. Keep in mind the old "the US is so big" argument.

It's possible that US is also big enough and rich enough (if sufficient cutbacks were made elsewhere) to allow for the creation of overnight HSR routes that could conceivably challenge even medium haul flights. The only markets that are truly safe from any potential interference are those that can't be reached by rail at all. These sorts of developments will not be quick or easy. And they may not mean as much to more traditional fortress-hub airlines with a large international presence, but for a domestically focused entities like Southwest, medium-length flights still form the backbone of their network. They have the motivation, the ability, and the will to fight passenger rail and they don't even need to spend all that much or risk seeing their name in the paper to do so. What I'm mainly getting at is that they are not going to remain on the sidelines forever and some of the anti-rail sentiment we're already seeing is likely funded and directed by those to stand to lose some of the revenue down the road.

 

[Anderson]

While I can definitely see that being the case (HSR taking over air markets) for the short-haul markets, anyone knows that medium and long distance flights will still be competitive and viable against even true-HSR. Keep in mind the old "the US is so big" argument.

It's possible that US is also big enough and rich enough (if sufficient cutbacks were made elsewhere) to allow for the creation of overnight HSR routes that could conceivably challenge even medium haul flights. The only markets that are truly safe from any potential interference are those that can't be reached by rail at all. These sorts of developments will not be quick or easy. And they may not mean as much to more traditional fortress-hub airlines with a large international presence, but for a domestically focused entities like Southwest, medium-length flights still form the backbone of their network. They have the motivation, the ability, and the will to fight passenger rail and they don't even need to spend all that much or risk seeing their name in the paper to do so. What I'm mainly getting at is that they are not going to remain on the sidelines forever and some of the anti-rail sentiment we're already seeing is likely funded and directed by those to stand to lose some of the revenue down the road.

I think there are some routes that are more or less safe from HSR competition...the average speeds needed to run NYC-LA overnight are just mind-bogglingly unrealistic (300 MPH average...just not a viable speed, period). That said, an average speed of 80-100 MPH (close to what a lot of "true" HSR caps out at because of stops, dwell time, buffer time, curves you can't take at 200 MPH, etc.) puts most major markets east of the Mississippi back in range (with some exceptions, of course...Boston-New Orleans isn't happening, for example).

The big thing would be to start pitching rail service to those places where the airlines are charging way too much (Des Moines comes to mind, as usual; I've heard Roanoke, VA is another nasty offender). Considering the lean of many of the city councils in major cities, and considering the cost associated with attracting new airlines in some cases (I know a lot went into wooing a low cost airline to Newport News/Williamsburg International), a bit of the "stick" may be in order (i.e. "Get your fares down or we cut a deal with Amtrak.") instead of just the carrot. It's one of the few cases where I think there's clear room to get the local business community onside without too much difficulty: They're getting screwed by this as well since they often don't have the resources to do the secured-seat deals that a major company can do, so they're having to charge off thousands of dollars in excess flight costs (and yes, "thousands of dollars" only requires 4-5 flights per year in a lot of cases, if that). The timings wouldn't necessarily be great, but pointing out the fact that even a 110 MPH connection would be faster to get to Chicago (for Des Moines) at 40% of the cost of a round trip airfare (assuming $200 round trip vs. $500-600 for a lot of airfares...and of course, that gets egregiously bad on short notice). Roanoke is another case where I think you could massacre the airlines on cost (Roanoke-Washington runs no less than $550/trip, and having made that drive once or twice...it can be a bear). Roanoke-Hampton Roads is even worse ($800 is the cheapest I could find...even flexing dates a bit only gets you down to about $700 before taxes, and often involves awkward flight routing through New York or Atlanta that I think you could beat the timing of via train).

 

[George Harris]

The more this goes through my mind, the more I'm wondering about restoring MSP-Des Moines service alongside Des Moines-Chicago service. Des Moines isn't going to be a hub anytime soon, but you could piggyback it on limited MSP and/or KCY operations. Who owns that particular Rock Island route (MSP-KCY)?

Union Pacific

 

[saxman]

It's true that Southwest and Continental are a little busy right now, but that by no means should be interpreted as any sort of surrender. These groups are even stronger now as their size and scope of influence has grown tremendously compared to what it was during the last failed push for expanded passenger rail.

Still doesn't mean that Southwest WILL oppose it either. Plus so what if they do? HSR is being talked about more than ever before in this country. SW has a big presence in California now too, when they didn't in the 90's. Have you seen any indication that they oppose that? I haven't. Why would they not oppose California HSR and would oppose Texas HSR?

And Continental is really now part of United. They have many other money making markets they can be concentrating on. Not a couple of regional flights between IAH and DAL or College Station.

Actually as far as United (including Continental) goes, I don't think they are hugely enamored of running the regional flights. They are feeder routes and they don;t necessarily make any money for United. But they do feed traffic into routes that do make money. United's biggest money making routes are the Internationals. I doubt that they would be too worried if some other mode were to feed the same traffic. This is very different from SWA's situation back then when the Texas routes were its bread and butter. As one might have noticed even they have grown and spread their wings a bit since then.

Don't get me wrong. Trust me when I say I want those regional flights to be around! I tend to depend on them right now.

I'm wondering...do those regional flights make money? I know there are some routes (international ones in particular) that show a profit, but do the regional flights manage to break even, or do the airlines eat losses there to "fund" the main routes?

Yes and no. Many regional flights DO make money. Of course things get complicated when you consider when most regional flight connect to other flights, but there are still several routes the mainly serve O&D passengers. One expample is that Delta recently built up direct flights from Raleigh-Durham. Using mostly 50 seat jets, they started flights to St. Louis, Orlando, Tampa, Columbus, Indy, and Hartford; all non-Delta hubs. Other short flights I can think of include Detroit to Saginaw and Detroit to Kalamazoo. Delta has 7 flights a day between these really short city pairs; a driving (or train time) of just 2 hours or so.

With that said though, many smaller regional jets are going to go away, especially the older 50 seaters. The cost of operating a 50 seater vs. a 65 or 70 seater is almost a wash.

 

[Anderson]

Hmm...I'm surprised that short-haul regional flights are workable as anything but feeders. I know I don't want to drive to Dulles or BWI to hop an international flight, but there are dental surgeries I would prefer to flying up to Washington. Then again, it may be that a lot of these are running as inter-carrier feeders...and it's also quite possible that a lot of what's going on here is more codesharing than actual flight proliferation.

 

[trainviews]

I have no idea where you could build a HSR station in Houston. The place is pretty congested. A lower speed that would use an existing right of way could be built from downtown to downtown. The TXDOT grant application mentions running trains like this at 150mph. It also gives a strong implication the the while they will study three routes the most likely is the BNSF route which goes through nowhere between the cities.

Two week ago I sent a message to TXDOT asking some questions about the HSR plan but haven't gotten an answe back.

That actually is no contradiction. If you look at the majority of high speed rail routes across the world, most of them will follow an old (and slow) ROW the first few miles from a downtown station out of the city, then leave the existing railway speeding up on its' own dedicated alignment. Same thing arriving on the other end.

That said at least in the northern end there are solid arguments for a station at an airport as large as DFW. I'm not that familiar with the map, but ideal would be to go to the airport and then let the trains continue (on the conventional tracks) from there into at least Dallas downtown.

 

[trainviews]

However, this whole airport vs. downtown can easily be solved if the line stopped in DT Dallas and continued on the TRE ROW to make a stop at the airport and onto DT Ft. Worth. I'm no track engineer, but is there anything that stops a 200 mph trainset traveling on conventional rail? As Henry states, I don't think so. Acela does this all along the NEC.

- and it's done in London, Paris, Bruxelles, Amsterdam, Barcelona....

It's actually one of the beauties of HSR that it is basically the same technology as the good old train, just with better engines and, when speeding up, better and less curvy tracks with no grade crossings. So there'e nothing to prevent it going on existing tracks (if electric, catenarys have to be installed) as long as it keeps the speed limit of the track.

This is probably why Maglev or other new technologies have never taken off, even if it is faster and even more energy efficient than rail - you would have to build a new system end to end all the way into the dense city cores, at huge expenses and political problems.

 

[trainviews]

Actually as far as United (including Continental) goes, I don't think they are hugely enamored of running the regional flights. They are feeder routes and they don;t necessarily make any money for United.

I don't think UA's view of the earning potential for regional flights is going to be the primary decision making point for the airline lobbying groups that will actually be fighting this war. Instead I think we need to look at the bigger picture. In places like Europe and Japan short haul flying has been successfully challenged by HSR for decades. Multiple flag carriers have had to merge or fold. Others have had scale back short haul operations and focus on long-haul intercontinental flights as the primary source of revenue. In the case of more recent converts like Taiwan, domestic flights have been decimated by modern HSR. Even Amtrak's half-speed HSR has managed to successfully challenge the North Eastern air shuttles in the world's largest domestic airline market. If HSR takes off nationwide then domestic flights stand to suffer substantial losses in key markets over time. This is not something that several of the largest airlines on Earth are going to just sit back and watch happen. They and other industry groups that stand to lose profits and revenue are the very folks who have been giving the anti-rail politicians their marching orders when they suddenly started challenging resurgent HSR projects as a primary platform position in the last year or so.

You have to look at the diversity of the domestic american airline market. Yes, rail can very well kill off shorter routes like Houston-Dallas or Chicago-St. Louis, but for like Dallas-New York - forget it, even with the best of train connections. America is simply too big - actually even Europe is. You don't have any detectable share of the market going by train London-Madrid even though there now is HSR all the way. Speaking in terms of transport, the days of cross-continental train travel are over!

Generally the experience in Europe is that train runs under 3 hours gobbles up the market (this is about what you have NYP-WAS today, and you would have BOS-WAS with true HSR), and runs up to about twice that long have significant ridership.

The interesting part though is that enhanced rail lines, HSR or otherwise, with good connections to major airports, have actually ended up strengthening the major hubs (and their airlines) by expanding their caption area greatly and is probably boosting air traffic over all - just on longer routes. Amsterdam/Schipol is a clear example, the row over whether the coming British high speed rail line to the north should connect to Heathrow, another.

And don't tell me that Southwest and other american airlines can't see that pattern either. If they were sensible their lobbying would be about getting the line to connect directly to DFW, and they would probably get an even larger share of the passengers flying out of Houston to do it via DFW, than they have today with their feeder route...

 

[jis]

Don't get me wrong. Trust me when I say I want those regional flights to be around! I tend to depend on them right now.

Hey, I am not suggesting that your job disappear. All that I saying is that the traditional regional flights are not the huge profit centers for the airlines. Then again many traditional mainline corridors have essentially been converted to regional corridors too, and naturally what was marginal as a main line corridor in those cases are doing better as regional corridors. There are many regional routes that make a lot of economic sense for the airlines as part of the overall system. Heck - even corridors like Newark St. louis or Newark - Minneapolis as far as Continental is concerned, appear to be Regional corridors, routes that traditionally were main line routes.

Continental has also applied the same principle on international routes using 757s to rightsize certain underperforming routes and then opening up a plethora of new routes to secondary cities and being able to run them quite profitably. Apparently the flexibility to charge somewhat higher fares to get you much closer to actually where you want to go is something that they have accidentally stumbled upon, and now everyone is trying to copy the MO.

I'm wondering...do those regional flights make money? I know there are some routes (international ones in particular) that show a profit, but do the regional flights manage to break even, or do the airlines eat losses there to "fund" the main routes?

Yes and no. Many regional flights DO make money. Of course things get complicated when you consider when most regional flight connect to other flights, but there are still several routes the mainly serve O&D passengers. One expample is that Delta recently built up direct flights from Raleigh-Durham. Using mostly 50 seat jets, they started flights to St. Louis, Orlando, Tampa, Columbus, Indy, and Hartford; all non-Delta hubs. Other short flights I can think of include Detroit to Saginaw and Detroit to Kalamazoo. Delta has 7 flights a day between these really short city pairs; a driving (or train time) of just 2 hours or so.

With that said though, many smaller regional jets are going to go away, especially the older 50 seaters. The cost of operating a 50 seater vs. a 65 or 70 seater is almost a wash.

You are absolutely correct. The regional battleground will be based on around 100 seaters.

As far as making money goes, while there are variations from route to route, and some routes are marginally profitable and others not, this is also true of main line, not just the regionals. Airline ops have been struggling to match equipment gauge on a route with demand to try to maximize the number of routes that become profitable. A route by route analysis though suffers from the same pitfalls that an equivalent analysis at Amtrak suffers from, which is, how do you allocate costs and revenues to each segment fairly.

On the whole barring a few exceptions, the US airlines that have both domestic and international service tend to find that the international routes are the source of most of their profits, because they have huge flexibility in charging huge fares for the front end of the plane on international routes, whereas on domestic routes more than half the front of the plane is typically occupied by complementary upgrades.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

You have to look at the diversity of the domestic american airline market. Yes, rail can very well kill off shorter routes like Houston-Dallas or Chicago-St. Louis, but for like Dallas-New York - forget it, even with the best of train connections.

I don't think a route that long will kill off all airline traffic. But, I don't see why overnight trips cannot be won over. Many of us already fly into a city on a mid-range flight and then spend a night in a hotel before we do much of anything else. An overnight journey would on a train should be able to compete with that sort of experience. If America is simply too big for long distance passenger rail to be workable then how do you explain Russia?

You don't have any detectable share of the market going by train London-Madrid even though there now is HSR all the way. Speaking in terms of transport, the days of cross-continental train travel are over!

How long has London-Madrid been bookable as a single-ticket HSR ride?

The interesting part though is that enhanced rail lines, HSR or otherwise, with good connections to major airports, have actually ended up strengthening the major hubs (and their airlines) by expanding their caption area greatly and is probably boosting air traffic over all - just on longer routes. Amsterdam/Schipol is a clear example, the row over whether the coming British high speed rail line to the north should connect to Heathrow, another.

I'm not sure I follow you on this. In the case of Amsterdam much of their volume is not due to O&D but to their enormous level of connecting traffic, most of whom presumably never reach or even consider any of their ground transportation options. As for Heathrow, it's primarily an example of bad design and poor management combined into the industrialized world's most expensive and dysfunctional airport. Adding new HSR links to Heathrow won't do anything to strengthen an airport that has been running into air-side capacity restrictions for many years now. Without Heathrow's bugled design and extremely inefficient operational restrictions there would probably be no A380 and many fewer 747's.

And don't tell me that Southwest and other american airlines can't see that pattern either. If they were sensible their lobbying would be about getting the line to connect directly to DFW, and they would probably get an even larger share of the passengers flying out of Houston to do it via DFW, than they have today with their feeder route.

Why on earth would Southwest want to promote any new infrastructure for DFW? That makes absolutely no sense to me.

 

[jis]

You have to look at the diversity of the domestic american airline market. Yes, rail can very well kill off shorter routes like Houston-Dallas or Chicago-St. Louis, but for like Dallas-New York - forget it, even with the best of train connections.

I don't think a route that long will kill off all airline traffic. But, I don't see why overnight trips cannot be won over. Many of us already fly into a city on a mid-range flight and then spend a night in a hotel before we do much of anything else. An overnight journey would on a train should be able to compete with that sort of experience. If America is simply too big for long distance passenger rail to be workable then how do you explain Russia?

How often have you tried to take a domestic flight in Russia? So you explain Russia the same way you explain India - relative costs and perceived convenience/inconvenience

Personally, when I have an important meeting the following day I will always prefer a 2/3 hour evening flight or train ride followed by a night in a hotel rather than getting tossed around in a moving bedroom. But that's just me, and I am actually a railfan and also an air-fan BTW. So at least for me, an overnight train journey will fail to compete, provided reasonable evening air service is available between the points that I need to travel between.

OTOH, on a leisure trip I would be more likely to take the train.

 

[Anderson]

Russia is an odd case in that, as strange as it may sound, there simply isn't the volume there to make "good" air service in a lot of areas worthwhile (both in terms of plane quality and in terms of service regularity). By contrast, there are rail lines that've always had service in a lot of those areas. Mind you, a lot of the routes out in rural Russia would be old-style multi-stop airline flights (look in the rail guides from the 50s...you've got flights that go from city to city with four stops on the same plane)...so displacing trains with planes never really happened because it never made (and really still doesn't make) sense, much like you don't have any displacement in parts of Canada along those routes.

As to timing...I think air travel has become sufficiently obnoxious and trouble-prone that you can probably nudge the time people are willing to take on a train upwards a bit over that three-hour barrier. Not too much, but the fact that Amtrak is up close to 50% of the rail-air market BOS-NYP should say something. In that particular case, I think we're going to be looking at capacity constraints on some of the commuter rail-dominated lines holding market share down more than demand. On the other hand, BOS-WAS is its own kettle of fish...and there, I'm dubious about dropping $100 billion on a new alignment to shave trip time down further.

Finally, a nit to pick: Southwest is not going to want to a link to DFW, as they operate out of Love Field. If anything, a direct Dallas link will face tooth-and-nail resistance from Southwest.

 

[GlobalistPotato]

Finally, a nit to pick: Southwest is not going to want to a link to DFW, as they operate out of Love Field. If anything, a direct Dallas link will face tooth-and-nail resistance from Southwest.

So, what, have the HSR line go from Dallas Union Station via the Green Line's alignment to serve Love Field, then take the Orange Line's alignment to serve DFW?

Sure, except that isn't a high speed alignment, even if you build new tracks.

For Love Field, the best option for HSR-to-Plane would be extending an automatic people mover to the Green Line's station, followed by a direct train ride to Union Station?

And for DFW, extend Skylink to the Centerport TRE station, then have every other HSR train between FTW and DAL stop there to serve passengers?

 

[Anderson]

Finally, a nit to pick: Southwest is not going to want to a link to DFW, as they operate out of Love Field. If anything, a direct Dallas link will face tooth-and-nail resistance from Southwest.

So, what, have the HSR line go from Dallas Union Station via the Green Line's alignment to serve Love Field, then take the Orange Line's alignment to serve DFW?

Sure, except that isn't a high speed alignment, even if you build new tracks.

For Love Field, the best option for HSR-to-Plane would be extending an automatic people mover to the Green Line's station, followed by a direct train ride to Union Station?

And for DFW, extend Skylink to the Centerport TRE station, then have every other HSR train between FTW and DAL stop there to serve passengers?

Well, you're not going to have much of a high speed alignment within the city itself almost no matter what: Getting a train up to anything over about 100 MPH on that alignment would be a waste of fuel. Running a non-stop express at up to 79-89 MPH through town (whether the governing cap ends up being the FRA speed limit or Class 5 trackage, and depending on what's available to work with) makes a lot more sense; get it up to HSR standards out of town, but the sort of corridor you'd have to cut in town would become prohibitive. Not that it can't be a part of the HSR line...just that you're looking at more of a NWK-NYP type setup (or at most something on par with Alexandria-Manasass) where your acceleration distance becomes a significant part of your trip distance (particularly once you go over 100 MPH).

 

[George Harris]

From what I have heard of the internal airline service in Russia, they are toward the bottom of the heap in safety, world wide, That is to get on a plane there has got to be some real desperation to get there fast to the point of risking your life to do it.

 

[saxman]

There is a survey going on the Dallas Business Journal's website asking whether or not people would take high speed rail between Dallas and Houston.

As of now there are over 600 votes, and 74% have voted yes. It's probably not scientific but at least gives you the idea that if quality rail transportation is available, people WILL ride it.

http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/poll/index.html?poll_id=53191&ana=e_du_pub

 

[Anderson]

Good point...of course, I'm also wondering if people are thinking "150 MPH Acela", "220 Next-Gen", or something else. Still...it's a shame we can't set things up to gut the internal airline markets in Texas like we've done with them in parts of the NEC.