If you mean to say “trains with high average speeds have high average speeds” I’ll agree, but even in countries trying to get faster average speeds it’s still relatively new outside of Japan.
There’s also cost to consider. You can get a fast train Paris to Berlin and it’s 4 hours faster than driving, but costs more than 4x to transport 1 passenger vs a car which can bring 5. The main route is slow, matching the speed of a car. (If you had a family, would you pay 60 euros to drive, 520 euros to train at car speeds, or 932 euros to train faster?)
However the “fast” train is still only reaching normal highway speeds (120-130 kmph) on average…it’s just the roads are so bad google is estimating an average car speed of less than 80 kmph which is essentially like…suburb/business area street speed here in this country.
I’m cheating slightly because I’m considering distance in terms of the direct train. The other is faster but goes another few hundred km wayyyy out of the way so I’m considering that to be the average speed for comparison purposes.
The other fatal flaw in the analysis is that while gas (actually I used VW+diesel) is pretty flat rate, trains can be cheaper off-peak. But I was mostly looking to confirm that the general economics aren’t that different.
Where the us is real dumb is we actually have a shitton of space. Like the whole LA-SF train if we built it would be literally just next to i-5 in the middle of a redneck wasteland…plenty of space to get up to speed, and pretty much no reason to stop between sf and la. But we don’t do it because we suck.
If you mean to say “trains with high average speeds have high average speeds” I’ll agree, but even in countries trying to get faster average speeds it’s still relatively new outside of Japan.
There’s also cost to consider. You can get a fast train Paris to Berlin and it’s 4 hours faster than driving, but costs more than 4x to transport 1 passenger vs a car which can bring 5. The main route is slow, matching the speed of a car. (If you had a family, would you pay 60 euros to drive, 520 euros to train at car speeds, or 932 euros to train faster?)
However the “fast” train is still only reaching normal highway speeds (120-130 kmph) on average…it’s just the roads are so bad google is estimating an average car speed of less than 80 kmph which is essentially like…suburb/business area street speed here in this country.
is the paris-berlin route really that slow?
vienna-munich travels at around 200 km/h…
I’m cheating slightly because I’m considering distance in terms of the direct train. The other is faster but goes another few hundred km wayyyy out of the way so I’m considering that to be the average speed for comparison purposes.
The other fatal flaw in the analysis is that while gas (actually I used VW+diesel) is pretty flat rate, trains can be cheaper off-peak. But I was mostly looking to confirm that the general economics aren’t that different.
Where the us is real dumb is we actually have a shitton of space. Like the whole LA-SF train if we built it would be literally just next to i-5 in the middle of a redneck wasteland…plenty of space to get up to speed, and pretty much no reason to stop between sf and la. But we don’t do it because we suck.
Train should take the German highway to go faster