Why do trains suck in the U.S.? (9 min. Video)

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Hasn't SNCF been sort of divided up not multiple operating companies?
Yes. The 3 companies are:

- SNCF, acting as a "holding", and including SNCF Immobilier (real estate)

- SNCF Réseau, formerly Réseau Ferré de France, in charge of almost all the rail network in France

- SNCF Mobilités, which includes SNCF Voyageurs (passenger trains in France), Keolis, SNCF Logistics (freight operations, mainly Geodis, not only by rail but also by trucks), Gares & Connexions (the entity in charge of the train stations), etc.
 
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Someone once said trains don't have to beat planes, they have to beat cars. I would guess they also would have to beat buses. But if they are the fastest land transportation option they should be fine.
That depends...if you're traveling between biggish cities, a car may be faster but it's also more stressful; and expensive to park when you get there. I could probably get from DC to Philly or NYC faster by driving than by taking the regular (non-Acela) NEC, but the train still wins. Heck, I take Amtrak to Pittsburgh (7.5 hours) instead of driving in 5.

It's nice, though, if the Amtrak is faster than Greyhound or Megabus. Which it isn't always.
 
So basically, SNCF is equivalent to Amtrak plus Metro North plus LIRR plus NJT plus SEPTA plus MARC Plus Tri-Rail plus Sun Rail plus Tri Rail plus Metra plus Denver RTD plus Coaster plus Metrolink plus Caltrain plus Sounder plus any other commuter lines I left out.
SNCF *operates* the equivalent of these train services (but SNCF is much more than that, they even have a subsidiary operating intercity bus in competition with its own train services now...)

There is currently no legal competition for SNCF in regional services, which is why they operate all of them (this is however about to change), which why their figure can't be compared to Amtrak's one.
 
Someone once said trains don't have to beat planes, they have to beat cars. I would guess they also would have to beat buses. But if they are the fastest land transportation option they should be fine.
I could probably get from DC to Philly or NYC faster by driving than by taking the regular (non-Acela) NEC, but the train still wins.
I'm not so sure. Baltimore to New York is at least 4 hours by car (unless you're driving in the middle of the night and disregard speed limits), and the regional from BAL-NYP is something like 2:40. OK, so it takes me about 15 minutes to get to BAL from home, and I would get to the station at least 10 minutes before train time , maybe 20 minutes if I don't have a ticket. You're right about the hassle of traffic and parking, though.

Of course, a suburb to suburb ride might be ma bit faster by car.
 
I'm not so sure. Baltimore to New York is at least 4 hours by car (unless you're driving in the middle of the night and disregard speed limits), and the regional from BAL-NYP is something like 2:40. OK, so it takes me about 15 minutes to get to BAL from home, and I would get to the station at least 10 minutes before train time , maybe 20 minutes if I don't have a ticket. You're right about the hassle of traffic and parking, though.

Of course, a suburb to suburb ride might be ma bit faster by car.
but riding Amtrak BAL-NYP isn't free... :) On a weekday, it's about $100 each way, no? (not sure about BAL... I'm basing it on WAS-NYP) More $ on the Acela, of course.

When I was a student, I used to be able to fly DCA-LGA or LGA-BOS for just $29 each way on either of the air shuttles. Ah... the good old days.
 
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but gas is dirt cheap, compared to France and Germany. that's why most people in the US drive between cities.
The price of fuel is just one factor. The governments of Euro countries make car ownership VERY expensive from purchase, daily use and taxes. Many places require a permit to drive in cities alone......can you see having to purchase a permit every time you wanted to drive in DC or NYC?? This is above tolls and taxes.....all this along with rail subsidies make rail more attractive.
Here are some more factors:

Country History: European countries suffered severe damage in two world wars, particularly the second. For years before that, there were big differences in class with the lower classes unable to afford private cars or horses resulting in more use of transit. The wars destroyed track and infrastructure resulting in a population impoverished and with little working transport allowing the countries to rebuild state run rail from ground zero both with new money and a clean slate as well as a population wanting or needing to travel in a world full of new track going everywhere and old roads as well as few airlines with no competition.

Individual History: People continue ways of doing things like they always have. By the time Europe developed decent highways and sold cheap cars, people got used to the cheap rail and lack of need to drive themselves. Like so many New Yorkers in years past, few had drivers' licenses with fewer buying cars so they got used transit. Cheapie airlines and competition even between state owned monopoly airlines is a relatively new phenomena as is the idea of driving oneself everywhere. It is only in the last 20-30 years that the middle class has considered rail to be passe and driving one's own car as being "cool" and it will take years (we started in the '30s) for them to change because of the built-in rail infrastructure and mind-set.

In the early years of WWII, the U.S. was the only fully mechanized war machine (trucks). Even the vaunted German tanks were accompanied by an army often traveling using horses pulling artillery and supplies. Roads were poor when compared to rail so people used rail to get around whereas Americans traveling between cities even in the '20s and '30s got used to a fast-improving exurban road system but a rail system not as quickly modernized.
Well more myths than factors...

Especially the war rebuild one. While the railroad network was badly damaged in several countries after the war, it was very quickly rebuilt. In a country like France everything was basically up and running again by 1947. The only way you do that is to just rebuild what was already there. No new alignments, no new tunnelling, no new centralized terminals. With few exceptions the 19th century network was simply put back in.

Secondly the move to the suburbs and private car ownership might have come a few decades later than in the US, but was in Western Europe definately going full on by 1960. That is more than 50 years ago. And even though many European city cores never got as hollowed out as most American cities, most living middle class europeans today spent their childhood in the suburbs with the family car being the main means of transport. It has no bearing on train usage today.

In my opinion the single most important factor has been that the railroad ownership in nearly all European countries lie with the state and that the states have seen public transport as a core service they had to provide. The two are somewhat linked both politically and practically. In many countries the network was merely kept alive, partly out of political inertia and partly out of a political ethos that the state had to provide transportation to those who were too poor, old, young or something else to own and drive a car. This includes both transit and intercity travel. But for decades little investment was made, especially in the intercity trains - those went to new highways and many countries today have highway networks that easily rival the US one (there goes one more myth).

This started to change in the 1980's on top of the first oil crisis and also growing congestion around the big cities. In Europe France was first with their push for high speed rail, but it didn't come by itself. It was a conscious political choice. Most other countries have followed suit, investing in new railroad infrastructure at least on some level. And if you build it they come.

So in short:

- States owning the network and seeing it as an obligation

- a consistent will to fund and invest in railroads

- good local transit serving as feeder networks

- city cores that have stayed attractive, even if most people actually live in the suburbs (this one is changing in the US too, and might help change the discussion)

These are the main differences. Most of them are down to politics and not to history or som magical cultural factor. If there's a cultural difference, it is a difference in political culture...

And as for the population density argument. It's very true in Wyoming... Incidentially Sweden has about the same population density as the US - and a brilliant intercity train network.
 
Plenty of people are afraid of flying. And maybe the 500 mile trip isn't competitive with flying but if the 500 mile trip has a number of popular 200-300 mile trips for which the train is competitive with the plane and car it is worthwhile.
I fly quite a bit.... probably 8 TPAC flights, 4 TATL flights and 12 domestic roundtrips per year.

Unfortunately, I am scared on every single flight. I don't freak out or anything. I just keep my mind busy on my Macbook or iPad or book or whatever.(a couple of strong drink help as well :) ) I don't think I am afraid of the giant aluminum tube doing 450 knots at 37000 feet. No. I'm afraid of the part where it crashes into a mountain or terrain or large bodies of water. Yes, I know I have a better chance getting bitten by an alligator walking in my sister-in-law's backyard near Naples, Florida. :)
what about being semi-crammed into a stainless steel tube (Amfleet), with decent legroom, breathable air, and a nice sturdy bridge to keep you crashing into a lake?
 
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what about being semi-crammed into a stainless steel tube (Amfleet), with decent legroom, breathable air, and a nice sturdy bridge to keep you crashing into a lake?
IMHO, flying from DCA directly into LGA is the only way to avoid the stench of Newark. Driving on the NJ Tpke, there's this weird smell starts from 5 to 10 minutes just south of EWR airport. Same thing when riding Amtrak trains(NER and Acela).... the smell starts when the trains come near Newark. It's a foul smell that's half chemical and half organic matters.... Does anybody know why that smell is always there and where does it come from?
 
Hasn't SNCF been sort of divided up not multiple operating companies?
Yes. The 3 companies are:

- SNCF, acting as a "holding", and including SNCF Immobilier (real estate)

- SNCF Réseau, formerly Réseau Ferré de France, in charge of almost all the rail network in France

- SNCF Mobilités, which includes SNCF Voyageurs (passenger trains in France), Keolis, SNCF Logistics (freight operations, mainly Geodis, not only by rail but also by trucks), Gares & Connexions (the entity in charge of the train stations), etc.
Exactly. That is what I thought I had read in a French Rail magazine...

And the accounts are very clearly separated among the various subsidiaries of SNCF Mobilites. They are not allowed to cross-subsidize. Even within SNCF Voyageurs the TGV side of things is not allowed to cross subsidize the TER side. The TER operations have to find individual subsidies from the Department governments of the Departments that they serve to cover the shortfall in revenues vs. cost of operation, and equipment purchases also have to be funded through the Departments for those.

This incidentally is mostly similar to the situation in the US (with the state owned, funded and operated agencies vs. Amtrak LD (the NEC is already treated specially as a separate super region), except where Amtrak operations that are essentially local service serving primarily a single state. Instead of spelling the funding mechanism out in terms of administrative units like states or state conglomerates, in the US we came up with the 750 mile kludge. Also on the NEC there is no clear separation between Infrastructure and Operations yet.

All this if I understood the French correctly.
 
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"Many places require a permit to drive in cities alone......can you see having to purchase a permit every time you wanted to drive in DC or NYC?? And Slasher-fun replied:

Many? Actually, exactly five:

- Durham, a small city in the UK (48,000 inhab.)

- London, UK (22 km² / 8.5 sq mi)

- Stockholm, Sweden (34 km² / 13 sq mi)

- Valetta, capital of Malta, but still only 6,500 inhab. (0.8 km² / 0.3 sq mi)

- Milan, Italy (8.2 km² / 3.2 sq mi)"

I don't know if I'm perhaps misinterpreting this, but I live in Stockholm and I do not require a permit to drive in Stockholm. However, I pay congestion tax. In Sweden there is a system of congestion taxes in Stockholm and Gothenburg. The tax applies to vehicles registered in Sweden and outside Sweden. The payment system is completely automatic. When you drive past a control point, this is registered and a payment slip is sent to the owner of the vehicle. At night you pay nothing and during the day there are different amounts at different times.
 
It would be an interesting exercise to come up with a list of city pairs outside of the WAS-NYP northeast corridor in which a train journey has the potential to be more convenient and possibly shorter time overall than flying. Baltimore/Washington to Charleston/Savannah is one to start with. It would also be interesting to see which of these corridors could go into service quickly with minimal track upgrades, etc. But then, I'm a bit of an incrementalist when it comes to making changes.
It's a *very long list*. Obvious ones: Maine, both Vermont corridors, everything within Massachusetts, the whole Empire Corridor, NYC-Scranton-Binghamton-Cortland-Syracuse, Philaelphia-Harrisburg-State College-Pittsburgh, Allentown/Bethelehem to Philly and to NYC, and I haven't gotten out of the Northeast yet.

To generalize: any city pair within New England, New York, or Pennsylvania.

Also, any city pair within California.

Basically any city pair where the cities are close enough that a lot of people drive rather than flying. For all of these trains can be quicker than flying.
 
I came across the video last week on you tube. I found that the video was definitely interesting and it appeared to come from a non-train fan but just someone who is trying to tackle major issues and questions in today's America and world.

That said the title suggested a distinct negativity and a dislike for Amtrak. The title in my opinion was definitely too strong and unnecessary. Using the word suck could have been replaced by a more accurate title of "Why is passenger train service in America inadequate and years behind the rest of the world in speed and service".

Even though Americas intercity and long distance trains are slower then in the rest of the world and in many cases the service is too infrequent. Amtraks long distance trains are still a nice ,relaxing way to travel and see the country. So despite it being an interesting video it and it's title was far too negative.
 
I haven't responded here because, as expected, others have been doing a pretty good job of addressing the subject.

This was also addressed on the Kalmbach Publishing Company site. Their magazine, Model Railroader, has a Community Forum where an item entitled "Bad (Passenger) Trains Explained" was posted August 20, 2016, in the "Prototype Information for the Modeler" section. I responded, using the "ACY" moniker I normally use on the Kalmbach forums. Rather than repeat myself, I will refer interested people to that site for my comments, in case you're interested.

Tom
 
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