[peterwoerner]

I think the goal with the vacuum is to get to even higher speed rail which can compete with airplanes for speed and convenience. The thought being, rail has to be clearly better than flying for it work.

That said vacuum comes with many technical issues.

[timerol]

The Northeast Corridor is wildly profitable for Amtrak (based on operating costs), despite being significantly worse than flying, and often slower than driving. (It's faster than rush-hour driving, but that's about it.)

Making fast-enough rail that connects useful places, and upgrading the speed of existing rail that meets the same criteria, is a much better strategy IMO than trying to do "better than flying" rail based on unproven technology. Moonshots have their place, but America should try to catch up to the rest of the world in rail transport instead of pretending we're on the bleeding edge of innovation.

[dragontamer]

> The Northeast Corridor is wildly profitable for Amtrak (based on operating costs), despite being significantly worse than flying, and often slower than driving. (It's faster than rush-hour driving, but that's about it.)

Worse than flying?

I can take the train from Wash. DC to New York City Penn Station, visit my friends who live in the city by walking alone, and then come back home in time for dinner. (Broadway, Time Square, and Wall Street are all walking-distance from Penn Station)

The closest airport to NYC center is LaGuardia Airport, off of the island. Then you have to spend money on an Uber (or take the train!) into the city anyway. (Cheapest to Uber to the Purple line, then take the purple line into the city).

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The Train's competition is a Bus. There are PLENTY of cheap busses that travel the route.

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Even if you're off of Manhattan in say... Brooklyn. I'd rather be at Penn Station than LaGuardia Airport. Penn Station has a direct subway line to Brooklyn. Its non-obvious how I'd get from LaGuardia to Brooklyn unless my friends spend time to pick me up (or I take an expensive Uber)

[bigbubba]

The trains are also more comfortable than [coach] plane seats by a long mile, and you don't have to deal with TSA either. Showing up at the station the minute the train rolls out is/was very feasible, unlike with flying. When I lived in Philly I used Amtrak every chance I got, whether I was going north to NY, south to DC, or west to Harrisburg. It was great. Very comfortable and low stress. And I could generally get tickets on short notice for a price affordable to a student.

[dragontamer]

When I was a student, all I could afford was the $10 or $20 bus, which was uncomfortable as all heck.

Now that I'm an adult with some money, I'm willing to pay $80 on the train ticket. I agree with you, way more leg room, much less stress.

There's a train that departs every hour in the day (and every 2-hours during midnight hours). I don't even need to plan anything. Just walk up to the train station and go. If you do that with airplanes, your costs double or more.

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Once you account for the ~1 hour in airport security, you're basically at the same speed as a train anyway. Then the significantly inferior location of LaGuardia vs Penn Station comes into play (you really can get to far more locations from Penn Station than LaGuardia).

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> The trains are also more comfortable than [coach] plane seats by a long mile

I did take the higher-end Acela Express once, just to see what its about. The prices are way higher, but you get an entire table for you (and your family).

Its very expensive, but if I were ever going to take children to NYC, I'd probably consider it.

I found a review for the Acela, it matches my experience: https://thepointsguy.com/reviews/acela-business-class/

When I took the Acela Express, families were out playing board games during the train ride. Train-level comfort is far superior to plane comfort.

I'd say Coach Train seats are comparable to Airplane first-class. And first-class Train seats are... well.. you can see the Acela review for yourself.

[bigbubba]

Another factor to consider is that when trading an hour in line for TSA for an hour on the train, you can relax, take a nap or read a book, while in line for the TSA you have to stay awake and alert. The same applies for time spent in the airport terminal, I'm always afraid to doze off there, lest I miss my flight. And as you mention, missing a train is generally not a huge deal; I missed a few over the years and was always able to get onto the next train an hour of so later. This flexibility alone gives huge peace of mind.

At the time I think I was paying about $40 or so between Philly and Harrisburg, one or two times a month. Not as cheap as a bus, but well worth it I think.

[dragontamer]

Cell phones also work for most of the ride.

If you enter a tunnel or something, your cell phone shuts off (but there are rumors of cell phone companies beginning to deploy towers inside of tunnels!! So maybe even the "tunnel problem" will be fixed soon). But in today's age where the cell phone is your connection to the world in general, its a pretty nifty advantage.

[derg]

yep. trains are also more relaxing in ways that busses/planes can ever be for me. it feels like the one time my brain can truly shut up for a bit and i can just enjoy existing.

something about the smoothness of the rails (speaking from a similar position in the nec) as the world speeds by is incredibly calming to me.

[rockostrich]

> Broadway, Times Square, and Wall Street are all walking-distance from Penn Station

Wall Street is a 3+ mile walk from Penn Station. Sure, it's walkable just like everything in NYC is walkable, but I don't know why you wouldn't just pick another landmark in NYC like Central Park or Grand Central Terminal. Or just say that all are less than a 20 minutes subway ride away.

Also, saying there's a direct subway line to Brooklyn from Manhattan isn't saying much. Brooklyn is huge and to go anywhere besides downtown likely requires a transfer. I'm not arguing that flying is better between DC and NYC, but your arguments are making it seem like it's trivial to get anywhere from Penn Station and impossible to get anywhere from Laguardia.

[Zach_the_Lizard]

This. I live in Queens and it's not hard to get to Penn Station, but it's also not hard for me to get to LaGuardia, either.

I can get to LaGuardia in a little less time than it takes to get to Penn Station, especially if I don't go during peak rush hour. I have TSA Pre-check, so I typically don't have to deal with 1 hour+ security lines.

When I head to DC, I take the train simply because it's more comfortable, the trip is typically more consistent, and I don't have to worry about bringing "bad" items like a normal sized tube of toothpaste.

When I visit the DC suburbs and exurbs, as I have family and friends there, flying and particularly driving tend to ultimately come out ahead in terms of convenience and time.

Worth noting that more people live in Queens than Manhattan or Fairfax County, Virginia than DC.

Manhattan is definitely the center of the NY metro area, and virtually all business is conducted there, but that is much less true for DC. The DC suburbs actually have a ton of jobs.

It's an imperfect analogy, but the DC area is perhaps closer to the Bay Area in terms of having multiple employment centers. Maybe more extreme.

[dragontamer]

LaGuardia is in Queens. Of course its convenient for people who live there!

Hmm, I guess a lot of this comes down to where you're going, where you're coming from, and what you're planning to do.

My friends live in Brooklyn and Manhattan. They pay high rent prices by they sold their cars (100% car free). So if I visit NYC, I have to figure out transportation on my own to meet them at whatever location. (Broadway, or various talk-shows like Colbert etc. etc.), which are typically on Manhattan proper.

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I'll say this: from the perspective of Wash DC -> NYC, I have the choice of either Planes or Trains. The Trains run along-side the Airports (in fact, there are more Train stops). Trains seem like the more convenient option.

From your perspective: NYC -> Wash DC, I think the airport makes more sense. There's less to do in Wash DC than NYC. Union Station is cool and all, but most of what to do in the area is in the suburbs, which inevitably means you need a car. If you're getting a car, might as well land at an airport.

The Wash DC -> NYC trip however is accomplished without ever renting a car, and just staying on the subway lines to get wherever you need.

[JPKab]

America lacks the population density, even in the northeastern corridor (which I have ridden by the way, DC to Boston) to make the investment make sense. By the way, the price was too high, and it kept having to slow down near every city.

Tokyo to Osaka, for instance, is a relatively short distance (300 miles), and both cities are larger than any city in the US, with Nagoya at the half-way point. The quantity of humans that can serve is an order of magnitude higher than in the same distance in the USA, even on the eastern seaboard.

It just doesn't work for us. The dramatically reduced costs of infrastructure for constructing mounted tubes on pylons, with each section being a fungible, mass produced item, makes rail obsolete. Understood that a lot of the tech is "unproven", but it's too promising to let curmudgeons focus on the stupid, expensive fool's errand of high-speed rail in the US because they are too unimaginative to see what's available to us in the future.

[soyiuz]

> The dramatically reduced costs of infrastructure for constructing mounted tubes on pylons, with each section being a fungible, mass produced item, makes rail obsolete.

This makes no sense. The "mounted tubes on pylons" contain rails inside and therefore are MORE not less expensive than just "rails mounted on pylons," which we already have. A more complex rail does not make simple rail obsolete. Nor does it beat it on fungibility, cost, or mass production. Where are you getting these "dramatically reduced costs"?

[djrogers]

> and both cities are larger than any city in the US,

While Tokyo is more populous (I assume that's what you mean by 'larger', if not Houston and LA have a few words for you) than any city here in the US, Osaka is not - however New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago are far more spread out than could ever be possible in Japan.

[rsynnott]

> I think the goal with the vacuum is to get to even higher speed rail which can compete with airplanes for speed and convenience.

But... they already do, at least for short flights. LA to SF is about 600km, or a little under two hours by a 'normal' (ICE or similar) high speed system (1.5 hours by maglev). It's about 1 hour 20 minutes by plane, so by the time you check in, get through security, get on and off, get to and from the airport, the train definitely wins.

Something like this might theoretically compete with long distance flight, I suppose.