Comments by "MacAdvisor" (@MacAdvisor) on "TRAIN vs. PLANE - Which is FASTER? Seattle to Portland" video.

Yes, let's imagine the cost of purchasing the right-of-way all the way from downtown Seattle to downtown Portland. We can't use the existing rails, they belong to the freight company and the HSR train needs specialized tracks to handle the stresses of the speed. So, maybe $500 billion? Then another $100 billion to build it. Thus, we now have $5,000 ticket instead of a $60 ticket. Yay! That's progress. The sad fact is the time for building HSR has passed. For long distances, jets are simply vastly faster. For shorter trips, such as this one, autonomous vehicles will do the job far more conveniently. In the 20 years or so building a HSR would take, the vast majority of cars will drive themselves. I love trains myself. I take the Capitol Corridor train frequently and used to commute to work on it. It is great, but building a replacement HSR version is simply not feasible.
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@SeattleSummers122 Union Pacific has a market cap of about $135 billion. We'd spend around $1.4 trillion to buy out all the rail companies. Nationalizing them, which is not close to politically possible, would be cost prohibitive and not build one single mile of new track. HSR only works economically if we do all kinds of wild, politically impossible things. This is why I say its time is over here.
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@ice3753 Yes, they have absolutely marvelous systems, but they have the legacy infrastructure. HSR is like copper wire telephone lines. One can do many marvelous things with the connection to the house if it already exists, but in places where phone lines are being installed, laying all the wire is way too expensive and installing a cell phone system is far, far cheaper. We missed the boat. Sad, yes, but a fact. HSR rail is simply not cost effective given the land acquisition and infrastructure costs.
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@liamz.6245 HSR may well be the fastest option, but fastest isn't the sole criterion. The SST was the fastest plane, but it wasn't economical. There just weren't enough people willing to pay the greater cost to go that fast. Same here. HSR simply costs too much now. I strongly supported the HSR project here in my home state of California, but it now runs from Bakersfield to Modesto, rather than SF to LA and is triple the original estimates. The line will never be completed to reach SF or LA, let alone San Diego and Sacramento. We Californians are throwing money at it and we can't get it done. Now try this between two different states!
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@moartrainz4242 I don't think G-d cares. He is everywhere at all times, so thus, doesn't need to travel.
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@bubbledoubletrouble The government of Shanghai already owns the right of way. The right of way is the single most expensive item and is what makes most HSR prohibitively expensive.
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@yaash4123 I don't believe they are "suddenly" going to be a thing. I think they will benefit from competition and iteration like most engineering. Five years ago, the cars were terrible, today they work in controlled environments, in ten years, we will take them for granted like smart phones.
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@TohaBgood2 The land being purchased so far is in some of the cheapest places to buy land in California and it is already way over budget. The average home price in Bakersfield is $384,077 while the average home price in Santa Clara is $1,728,670. In San Francisco, it is $1,633,651 and for LA the price is $1,004,807. The average lot size in Bakersfield is a little less than half an acre, about 21,070 square feet, while in San Francisco, it is 2,713 square feet. So, CAHSR is now buying 8 times the land for a quarter of the price. Government doesn't own the tracks between Seattle and Portland. It would be improving the tracks belonging to someone else, who may very well not want them "improved." The tracks are for freight traffic and engineered for such, not faster, lighter passenger trains. Even getting to higher speed rail is impractical. Seattle land is TWICE the national average. How does the government buy all this land for a new system or acquire the tracks from the existing railroad that needs them for a vital shipping route? How?
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@TohaBgood2 So, we are going to build a new track from Seattle to Portland avoiding urban areas? Have you looked at a map how far the urban and suburban areas of Seattle and Portland extend from their downtown?!? One almost to Olympia from Seattle before leaving behind expensive urban and suburban homes and assuming the tracks avoid intervening towns, which greatly limits the utility, one starts up again around Vancouver. Also, that assumes the intervening farm land is cheap, which is hardly the case. All of this to create a workaround I5 that is a very good alternative for autonomous cars.
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@xxTheminemanxx Yes, we went down different paths. Frankly, despite the charm of trains, I think we ultimately made the right choice. Auto, particularly autonomous ones, provide a flexibility and comfort unmatched by any other form of transportation. Unless one stays at the Hotel Queen Elizabeth in Montreal, a train ride typical ends with a car ride. If I take the Capitol Corridor train to SF, the trip ends on a bus from Emeryville to SF. I drive to the Sacramento train station to depart. The main fault with cars, having to drive them, is going away.
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@roboko6618 The Venice-Simplon-Orient-Express has a $5,000 ticket and tickets that cost even more. Second, as I have noted before, the Europeans and the rest of the world have a legacy passenger rail service to build on. We really don't. They own the right-of-ways, we do not. Our rail system is set up for freight transport.
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@Kevbot6000 I didn't in any way suggest it was representative. You wrote flatly there wasn't any train with such a ticket price. That was wrong. There is such a train. This is exactly the problem I have with people who advocate for HSR in the US, you don't think things through. You wave you magic metaphor and everything works out. Except, of course, it doesn't. HSR isn't economic feasible here.
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@Kevbot6000 Another straw man argument. I never suggested HSR had to be profitable. Over all, airlines aren't. Public services, however, should be cost effective. Vaccines don't have to make money, but they should be cheaper and save more lives than without them (and they are WILDLY cost effective, aside from public sanitation, they are the single most effective medical expenditure we can make). Autonomous vehicles on I5 between Seattle and Portland will carry EIGHT times the number of people for FAR less money. I love trains. I'd rather take a train than drive or fly. I often DO take a train rather than drive or fly. However, I don't confuse my person preferences with good public policy.
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@mondoman712 Except, of course, the owner of those tracks doesn't want them with tilting tracks because they use them for freight. The only way really good passenger rail works is to own the tracks and that is impossibly expensive. Again we get the wave the magic wand to make it work line of expanded passenger rail.
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@mondoman712 The Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution forbids the government just taking it. The government is required to pay fair market value and the right-of-way are worth billions. While tilting freight trains do exist, they are not common and cost real money. They also impose real restriction on the way freight must be loaded. The US companies don't want to go the extra expense for something that doesn't benefit them. Again, HSR isn't going to happen in the US. Get used to it. There are just too many real-world impracticalities.
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@loljewlol Exaggerated construction costs? How much do you think acquiring right-of-way from Seattle to Portland is going to cost?!? The HSR in California was going to be $9 billion when we voters approved it. The latest estimate is $105 billion. Do you think Seattle to Portland is going to magically be way cheaper?
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@davecooper3238 Trying reading the comments. We can't do it here because the expense of acquiring the right-of-ways is too expensive. The right-of-ways in Europe and Asia were acquired decades ago and not always with compensation. The time for trains has past in the US. We will use autonomous vehicles for shorter trips and jets for longer ones.
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@davecooper3238 No, that isn't what I wrote. I wrote we can't acquire right-of-way cost effectively here in the US. The right-of-ways in Europe and Asia were acquired decades ago at reasonable cost or without any cost. That isn't possible in the US. The land costs through major metro areas are wildly expensive.
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@davecooper3238 With very rare exceptions, the high-speed rail lines are built parallel to ordinary lines in Europe and Asia. If you look at photos of the HSR tracks, you can see the older tracks a few meters away. There are times when the HSR tracks are elevated along the right-of-ways to prevent them from crossing over streets or farm areas. The high speed of the trains make them dangerous at ground level along certain routes. HOWEVER, the HSR tracks are still running in the pre-established right-of-way. The British tracks were nationalized in 1948 when they were in the worst shape and greatly in need of repair, thus cheap to buy. French rail lines were national ten years previously in 1938. Japans were about the earliest in 1908. Most of these happened when the private companies were on the verge of collapse and needed funding. Had the US acted in 1970 when Penn Central filed bankruptcy, we would have HSR today. Instead, we split off the unprofitable passenger lines and let the profitable freight business AND THE tracks stay with the private companies. We'd have been even better picking up all the major railroads in 1893 during that financial panic. Nevertheless, your thesis that HSR trains in Asia and Europe travel mainly on completely new right-of-ways is erroneous. There are a few, but not many. There are new tracks, but not new right-of-ways.
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@davecooper3238 Given I am a gay man, no, I do not have a wife, but my longest relationship was with a wonderful man who worked for VIA Rail. I have also travelled extensively and try to do so by train. I like trains. I have commuted by train. I watch DownieLive because of trains. All you need to do is look at the photos of HSR and you will see the track next to older lines. Do they diverge at times? Yes, but not often and typically not by much. I am not going to bother discussing this further. Neither of us will persuade the other and I can't find any reliable data online either way to provide. From my own experience, rail lines travel through well-establish and long standing corridors with the HSR lines added along side. On many of my trips I've looked over at the banked HSR tracks from my local train and vice versa. If you can find the budgets for these new HSR lines being contemplated, you can see how little money is allocated toward acquiring right-of-ways in Europe and Asia. I will simply say there will not be a LSR or even faster speed rail between Seattle and Portland in the lifetime of your children, if ever. Should we each last 100 years, I will be the one to post, "I told you so." That is about as far as this discussion can go for now.
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@davecooper3238 I didn't write you physically couldn't do HSR on totally new alinements. I wrote you didn't because of the huge expense. You used existing corridors for the new tracks, tracks that met the needs of HSR. I have very specifically wrote new infrastructure was built to accommodate the needs of HSR. What you don't do and you just wrote the same thing, is acquire entirely new right-of-ways. You piggy back on existing ones. Your examples support exactly what I wrote. We in the US don't have those existing right-of-ways and would have to acquire them now at a unsupportable expense. THAT is why HSR is doable in Europe and not here in the US.
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@davecooper3238 Other than the US, I have ridden trains more in the UK than any other country in the world. I love the UK. I love the people, the food (yes, I love British cooking), and the country side. I don't drink coffee, even, but tea (Constant Comment is my favorite) and I have Brown Betty under a tea cozy on my desk. Most of the HSR rail tracks I've observed in the UK travel along already established corridors. Some have replaced the tracks entirely, some have not. Given how well established British trains are, I wouldn't be surprised if there are now entirely new and previously unestablished right-of-ways being created as you have likely used up reasonable existing paths. However, they would be the exception not the rule. However, GB is only some 700 miles long and my state of California is 760. No part of GB is more than 75 miles from the sea (or the Channel). We have cities longer than 75 miles. California is only one of fifty states and not even the largest geographically. There are some 10,000 miles of rail track in the UK and it provides for extensive coverage (at the systems height in 1914, there were 20,000 miles, so there may well be right-of-ways without tracks available for expansion all over the place). That would allow for two sets of tracks from Juneau, Alaska, to Miami, Florida, but not much else. The distances in the US are much more suitable to private cars and planes than in the UK (private cars are common there, too, but the majority of your cities were really built with them in mind as are many American cities). The UK nationalized the railway system in 1948 and took over all rail right-of-ways through an act of Parliament in 1947 after having taken physical control in 1939 as a war measure. The best the US managed was to take over passenger service without the right-of-ways in 1970 after the system had mostly fallen apart. What I am trying to make clear is your extraordinary and wonderful system is due in large part to decisive actions taken early and created circumstances that are not reproducible here. Not at all. We couldn't pass a nationalize the military bill through our Congress even though the Federal government already owns the military because the word, "nationalize" is in it. You DID nationalize the railroads (though it was a Labour government). Suggesting the US could use GB as a model is like suggesting I follow in Pavarotti's footsteps for a singer career though I sing like a wounded duck. Can you find some similarities? Yes, he and I were/are fat. There are many similarities between the GB and the US, but none that matter here. I don't think you are lying, but I think you are wrong about the central question in this very, very long debate. There cannot and will not be a HSR train between Seattle and Portland. There are a couple of good spots for them in the US, but not many and not out here in the West. Look at California's HSR and tell me if you and I will EVER be able to board a HSR train in San Francisco and ride it to LA, though that is the plan (you can't even board a slow train from SF to LA, but must cross The Bay to Emeryville to get to LA). We won't. China does not need to worry about paying for existing right-of-ways as they are not required to pay compensation nor do they in most circumstances. That is not an option here in the US or the UK.
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@frafraplanner9277 Yeah, labeling something. That's a good counter argument. Calling national health care "socialist" doesn't make it bad.
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@davecooper3238 HS1 was built in two parts, section 1 and then section 2. I road them at different times so my experience of them is as two different trains. They really aren't, but they were very different rides in my life.
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@davecooper3238 Yes, but Compulsory Purchase is the same eminent domain and works the same in the UK. The Government takes the land, but it must compensate the owners for the fair market value. What is "fair market value" is subject to substantial disagreement depending on the view point and, therefore, subject to much litigation. I assume the average Brit is about as happy having his home taken as the average American.
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@davecooper3238 The Wiki article, under route, specifically says there were two sections that opened at different time. How am I mistake?
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@davecooper3238 Compared to the Chester to Liverpool Central ride, it is faster than Stargate travel.
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@consisepepper73 Why? For what? Your comment is out of left field.
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@consisepepper73 Well, he isn't the first and won't be the last. Nothing upsets people like speaking the truth.
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@WhereWeRoll You clearly haven't taken a bus if you think the experience of riding one is in way comparable to traveling in your own automobile.
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@meebie Those other countries heavily subsidize their train ticket prices. Also, the cost to obtain the necessary right-of-ways would be astronomical. Moreover, there isn't any evidence the train would have a significant number of passengers unless we greatly subsidize the price of a ticket.
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@meebie The country close to being carbon neutral are very small, not a good model for us. We are going to produce all those cars anyway, as people replace their current vehicles. The emissions, as opposed to other environmental costs, are minuscule to construct an EV compared to the lifetime carbon emissions of an ICE vehicle. So, we ARE going to replace virtually all of the current vehicles over the next twenty years, they will be autonomous by the end, and they will be the preferred means of travel.
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@TheUrbanGaze Because most of Europe nationalized the railroads decades ago and own the right-of-ways. They don't need to spend money to acquire the necessary property. I've written this about 40 times here. Could you do me a favor before posting another totally obvious question that I've answer dozens of times already? Go back and actual read what has already been written rather than thinking you're the first schmo to think up the oh-so-devastating question. I wish this didn't sound so snarky, but I am totally bored with this whole topic because I've answered everything already many times. Don't bother me again unless you have something original to contribute.
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@iliashdz9106 For the 9,000th time in this discussion.: The California project escalated out of control because of the land costs (the right of way). Yes, lawsuits didn't help and some major inefficiencies added to the burden, but the French are not known for cheap projects either and the land is the expensive part. California hasn't even begun to purchase the necessary land into the Bay Area or into LA. The French already own most the land on which they built most of their HSR system. The cost of buying the land between Seattle and Portland would be astronomical.
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@iliashdz9106 Short answer: Yes, of course. Long answer: The average cost per square foot of land in Seattle suburbs is $333.29/square foot. Close to that in Portland suburbs. Lets go with $300/square foot for length of the line. The minimum right of way is 40 feet but most modern systems use 100 feet or so for access roads and safety. That makes the right of way $30,000 per foot. Downtown Seattle to Downtown Portland is about 175 miles or 924,000. To make things easy, lets make it 925,000 feet times the $30,000 per foot, or 27,720,000,000. That is $30 billion dollars for the average cost of land ignoring the considerably more expensive land in the cities of Portland and Seattle. Not add in land inflation, speculation, and the eminent domain costs, we are staring at $100 billion just to get the right of way. Now let's start building the thing ten years from now, because it will take that long to acquire all the land (one of the things most people don't realize about eminent domain is the government can get the land relatively quickly and start using it while settling on the price and the lawsuits, but the environmental impact suits in two different states and Federal claims, ten years easily). Just look at how much the initial estimates in California escalated just to get the useless part built.
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@iliashdz9106 The big benefit of HSR of fast speed is lost if we slow the train down to work on existing tracks. I don't know if you've ever taken the train from Seattle to Portland, but almost none of the existing tracks now run through low population rural areas with open land. I doubt there is an available stretch as long as 100 miles of open land between the two cities unless one goes very far east. Doubling the travel length at twice the speed isn't much of a gain. I suggest the current Amtrak train is about as nice and as fast as we could manage without significant lengths of new track. The number of people currently using the train is about a tenth those using planes.
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@iliashdz9106 The existing tracks between Bakersfield and Merced, the current HSR build in California travel mainly through suburban areas because most of the strip between the two cities is highway 99 or Interstate 5 and housing development has followed along the roads. To take the train out into the rural areas and then back in to the towns along the route would add significantly to the length. The West Coast did not control for urban sprawl and, therefore, there are long stretches of homes between towns.
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@iliashdz9106 Have you ever even driven highway 99 between those towns? The areas between are nearly an unbroken strip of development.
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@iliashdz9106 Except, of course, Highway 99 more or less follows the long existing rail line that connect the valley agricultural towns. Notice, btw, Pixley is just down from Tipton and is the town mentioned in Green Acres and Petticoat Junction.
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@henryhui7045 That HSR is infrastructure doesn't give it a pass in cost-benefit analysis. HSR will move far fewer people for far more money than autonomous vehicles. There just isn't the benefit to make them worthwhile except in very rare places in the US.
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@darthmaul216 Tell that to the High Speed Rail Commission here in California. Do you know how mach land for right-of-way costs?
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Except this is a route of about 180 miles that would be 2-½ hours by autonomous vehicle and relatively easy and far less costly road improvements. Autonomous vehicles will be here in five year, ten at the most, while the train upgrades are 20 years off. An average of 274,000 vehicles per day already travel on I5. Even assuming only ONE passenger per car, far lower than the actual usage, that means 274,000 people per day travel I5. Amtrak single most used route is the NortheastDirect with about 24,000 daily passengers. That is not even 10% of the automobile traffic on the I5 route currently. Dollar for dollar we get far better increase in carrying capacity by improving auto lanes that train tracks. Plus, autonomous vehicles leave when you want from where you want, go to where you want, bring far more stuff with you, including passengers that add directly to carrying capacity. We could have autonomous buses on this route far sooner and for far less money than trains. There are already fabulous buses available between NY and DC for as little as $22 (please see: https://www.washny.com ). Make them autonomous and you have all the aspects of the train for little more than the rolling stock, plus it is far more scalable. Sorry, HSR, or even higher speed rail, isn't going to happen. There is not the political will or the demand and the alternatives are vastly better. This is sad, but facts are facts. Not. Going. To. Happen. Here. Not. Mike can answer this, but I think this is the longest single thread on DownieLive ever. What do you have to say, Mike?
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@YaBoiScrumpo The gobbledygook about mining material for batteries and such is such nonsense. Do mining lithium make a mess? Yes, but it can be cleaned up and regulations can stop it from happening. You put your finger on the heart of the matter and my very point, "ail travel went under in the 70s and hasn't recovered to date." It simply can't recover because Amtrak doesn't own the right of way and purchasing it now is wildly cost prohibitive. I am not arguing rail travel isn't nice, I am arguing it isn't practical in our country. It is like trying to build a canal network now. The conditions that made both work are gone. Autonomous vehicles are all upside. They are going to do nothing buy get better, faster, cheaper, and easier. Trains are already at their limit. I think we need an award from Mike for the longest running thread. Maybe he could take us all to lunch in Vancouver, BC. I'd drive up for it.
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@bluevortex1045 A boat is often defined as a hole in the water into which one throws money. Trains are black holes that suck in vast sums of money. Roads are not profitable, but they have a dedicated funding source, gas taxes, from users to maintain them. There is losing money and sucking up vast sums. Look I am all for improving as we can. I love the Coast Starlight and ride it to and from LA several times a year. I hope to take the Zephyr to Chicago someday. I am not sure anyone is planning autonomous trains.
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@bluevortex1045 Autonomous vehicles would likely be privately owned as they offer a profitable business model that doesn't need subsidies, as do passenger trains, but they don't require personal ownership. Just as I can now rent a vehicle for a day or a few weeks, I could rent an autonomous vehicle. I currently own a small car that I use daily, but I rent a more appropriate vehicle several times year when I am taking a large number of people or hauling material. I just rented a U-haul truck last week. I have never needed to transport 100 people, but I can charter a bus if I ever do. I can drive from my home in Sacramento to San Francisco by car in an hour, forty minutes, excluding traffic, but the train, at best, is two hours, forty minutes. I have had traffic on both with the train taking, by far, the longest. The question here isn't should we get rid of the trains we have, but should we pour hundreds of billions in to building new HSR trains. You think spending the $104 billion estimated to finish the HSR now being built will increase equity? Really?
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@bluevortex1045 Thank you, sincerely, for letting me know. Yes, gas taxes are a small part of supporting automobiles, but they are a major part of the roads. For the most part, people support their own vehicles and that process makes a profit. I am all for subsidizing the Zephyr and the Coast Starlight. I strongly support the Capital Corridor trains. However, if I were a homeless guy or even living in a van down by the river, as Chris Farley would say, I think I'd rather a hundred billion housing for supporting low income housing rather than the same amount for the California HSR project.
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