[arcticbull]

LA to SF isn't a 1 hour flight. LA to SF is: you start at downtown SF, 45 minutes later you arrive an hour early at SFO for your 1 hour 30 minute block-time flight to LA where you then take a 45 minute taxi ride to your final destination.

That's a total of 3.75 hours end to end, assuming no fog hits you at SFO, as it does on the regular. That's within spitting distance of a rail link that allow you to jump off anywhere along the way. It's by no means 2-3X slower if you take into account the entire process, with no TSA, starting at your origin and ending at your actual destination.

For instance Ottawa to Montreal is a "17 minute flight" that takes an hour of block time, and an hour on either end, for a total of 3h, or you could take the 1h 30m train ride along standard-speed rail for $20 USD. Trains can easily be faster taking into account externalities, and much more pleasant.

They usually do in fact have free wifi, better comfort, and a $20 price point -- specifically because as you point out, they're competing against air travel.

Hundred of billions is again a weird, defeatist argument. California has failed because infrastructure in America is not about building infrastructure, it's about graft, and if infrastructure gets built along the way, that's fine too. That's the saddest part, honestly.

Honestly, this is kind of the textbook example of defeatism.

[CaptainZapp]

For instance Ottawa to Montreal is a "17 minute flight" that takes an hour of block time, and an hour on either end, for a total of 3h, or you could take the 1h 30m train ride along standard-speed rail for $20 USD.

The even better comparison, while not in America, is the route from Tokyo to Osaka. The distance (506km) is almost the same as from LA to San Francisco.

The Shinkansen takes between 135 and 153 minutes. Granted, you have to get from Shin Osaka to the city center; an additional 4 minute train ride or you take the subway.

Let's not even get into the comparison of the travel experience between gliding in a quiet, serene manner on spacious seat past Fuji San with the experience you get in a middle seat with a 29" seat pitch in economy class of a domestic flight in the US.

Also, if you invest a few hundred yen into a bento at Tokyo station let's not even think about the comparison of the culinary delights awaiting you for the trip.

[manigandham]

That's why I said "with the same last-mile effort and total trip time as a train".

Planes cruise at 500mph. Trains at 200mph will take 2.5x longer at best, assuming there aren't any stops along the way, and you still need last-mile transport to get to your destination. Trains are not going to be faster than planes at this distance, and that differential only gets worse as distance increases.

Meanwhile economic realities aren't "defeatist". There are much better things to spend $100B on than a slower alternative for a few people to travel between 2 specific cities. Trains may be the answer in the future, but there's a lot more that needs to change first.

[arcticbull]

Train stations tend to be located right downtown whereas airports, for various reasons, far outside. You can't exclude that delta.

SFO is in San Mateo, the next county over -- almost 15 miles away. Oakland airport is closer to 20 miles away. A minimum of 30 minutes by car, 40 minutes by Bart from downtown SF. On the other hand, the high-speed rail link would pick up at the Salesforce Transit Center (Embarcadero Station) at the corner Howard and Fremont, stopping at San Jose Diridon station.

Yes plaines are fast in the air, that's not a surprise. However, they're epically slow when parked at the gate while you clear security, epically slow as they taxi, dead stopped as they wait to take off due to ATC hold and weather issues, and similarly dead stopped when they're waiting for the previous plane to clear the gate at the destination airport, while you wait in line to get off, and while you wait for your bags, and while you wait for your taxi.

C'mon now. "Plane go fast" is just a small part of the story, and I'm an AA EXP.

Again, I think the infrastructure costs in the US tend to be massively overinflated due to graft instead of actual cost.

[manigandham]

This conversation has gone off a tangent. The comparison isn't about trains being more comfortable than planes (that's obvious). It's about planes vs trains as a transportation option.

It's not viable to build a long-distance rail line given the same total time (even if more comfortable since people want cheap and fast), especially not at the cost of $100B+.

If you want to call it inflated prices because of graft then fine, but that means you need to solve that first. Which goes back to my original point that there are many other obstacles that need to be overcome before high-speed rail makes sense here.

[arcticbull]

You haven’t provided any data to show it doesn’t make sense to build a 300 mile long train link between SF and LA other than your gut telling you (wrongly) that travel time would be 2-3X longer when plenty of other examples all over the world show otherwise.

[manigandham]

It doesn't make sense because of the money. I don't know why everyone keeps ignoring that.

And like I said before, California is actually trying to do this and completely failed: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/15/18224717/c...

[arcticbull]

It doesn't make sense because they did a dreadful job of controlling costs. China pays between $17M and $21M per kilometer to build high-speed rail in challenging terrain, and even Europe only pays $25-39M per kilometer. [1]

California on the other hand was going to spend $100B for 840km (phase 1, beyond the central corridor on both sides) or $119M per kilometer. That's obviously 7X China's cost and 5X Europe's cost. Yes, that Europe, the one with the onerous regulations.

It's hard to point at California's staggeringly inefficient attempt as a reason why rail is bad.

A better starting point would be Via Rail's corporate plan 2017-2021 [2].

[1] http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/sectors/why-china-ca...

[2] https://www.viarail.ca/sites/all/files/media/pdfs/About_VIA/...

[LargoLasskhyfv]

Emperor Bezos from Elysium will instruct Count Musk from Mars to finally reinvigorate the barren wastelands of old Earth by laying hyperloops of chinese provenance across. The mutated apes will scream with joy.

(editypo)