[lukan]

"because jets are still competitive"

Yes, because airports and everything around is heavily subsidized and there is no tax on jet fuel.

"There is no ground friction"

And that argument is not so strong considering that air friction grows quadratic with speed.

And considering side effects like climate change - contrails combined with lots of other chemicals in the jet fuel are really not helping, their effect is worse than just the CO2 released which is also already huge.

So high speed trains are superior in almost every way - once a rail network is build. That is the advantage of planes - they just require start and landing strip.

[SR2Z]

I cannot fathom why you think airport subsidies matter here. Airports are way, way cheaper than HSR.

Yeah drag grows quadratically with speed but reduces with altitude. At 40k ft a modern jet delivers up to 150 pmpg.

Yes the carbon emissions argument is a good one, and I personally prefer taking trains when they're available. I think that people are not appreciative enough of how efficient air travel is.

[Forgeties79]

I just don’t understand how anybody can take a domestic flight and go “yeah, that sounds way better than a train.“ Even the worst train experience is better than a midtier plane experience. Plus unless you’re traveling particularly far, once you factor in all the nonsense of getting to an airport, through security, then out of the airport when you arrive, train is often the faster method.