Comment by ianks
2 days ago
There is nothing more saddening than the state of America’s train situation. It’s like we’re fundamentally incapable of understanding the value of shared infrastructure.
In the rare case that a state escapes the matrix and actually realizes the benefit, we can’t get the damn thing built.
I want a packed bullet train, not a fucking slow private train car.
American trains are the best in the world - at freight. even overall I'd call us rail best in the world - the state of freight rail is that bad in most of the world.
of course people see passanger trains and don't think of freight. However that is missing the true picture.
naa, in india we got double stacked container trains fully electrified across 95% of 40000 mile route. you guys are still running on diesel
That is a factor in India's favor, but there are a lot of other factors. Overall India just doesn't move that much freight when you examine everything so I still give the point the the US despite things not being perfect.
Of course how you weigh the various factors in subjective. The more important take away is there are lots of different things in the world and you should be working on where your weaknesses are not trying to claim you are great despite them. (I'm only claiming US good here in reaction to the passenger focus - I'm aware of plenty of problems with US rail that are not on topic so I'm not giving indication of being aware. I don't know you, hopefully you are honest about the shortcomings of whatever your system is and working on fixing them where it it appropriate)
I'd really like to know where you're taking this claim from.
> I'd call us rail best in the world
ever heard of Japan or Switzerland or China or ...?
The USA moves an incredibly insane amount of bulk goods by rail ridiculously long distances.
It’s so insane that it’s probably too cheap and we should do something else, but there are trains full of petroleum because a pipeline hasn’t been built.
And if coal is being brought to Newcastle it likely crossed the USA in a bulk train.
> best in the world
Except for the electricity.
It’s never been shared, FWIW. The rails are mostly privately owned and were built that way too.
That said - bullet trains are great but I fully support the ability of individuals to pay to access freight or passenger rail to subsidize the infra.
Land was granted to the railroads with the agreement that they would run passenger rail services. When passenger rail became so unprofitable that it was bankrupting rail companies, they lobbied to make it the governments responsibility to move people around and leave them to make money shuffling freight.
It was kind of a mixed bag.
Part of the way this worked was that USPS was actually paying for a lot of the rail services to deliver mail (which is also what the government wanted more so than passenger rail service.) The moment USPS pulled contracts in favor of long-distance airmail the whole model went belly-up.
1 reply →
Most rails were not land grant. Those were what you read about in history, but most had to buy their own land. Land grant mostly was for places where today almost nobody lives and even less back then.
1 reply →
> bullet trains are great but I fully support the ability of individuals to pay to access freight or passenger rail to subsidize the infra.
It’d be even nicer if you could hook your private car to a bullet train.
Unlikely. Because they tend to be close-coupled units with distributed power and traction control. In case of anything Talgo-related with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobs_bogie 's even more so.
Strangely enough, Florida, of all places seems to be having really good success with their Brightline rail network. The initial system runs from Miami to Orlando, with a few stops in between. They're planning on expanding up north and east into the panhandle. Financially things are a bit dicey, but it got built, and it's reliable. Ridership is increasing, which takes cars of the road, and property values in the areas it stops are going up. Meanwhile California doesn't even have their tiny "initial operating segment" built, and is projecting to be up to 3-4x their original budget of 33 billion dollars.
This is an important example; Brightline feels qualitatively different from Amtrak and they get points for actually delivering new passenger rail service. They have a newer, cleaner, faster product. I rode once from Orlando to Boca and sat next to some British rail fans who went out of their way to try "the new train" on their way to a cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale.
Unfortunately despite significant capital investment to run double track on the FEC corridor from West Palm to Miami (their initial route before expanding north), they and the FEC have been unable/unwilling to do much about the fundamental flaw of rail in densely populated South Florida: at-grade crossings, many in no-horn zones because nearby residents have lobbied for that. This has been a problem for decades even when the line was freight-only.
All too predictably, a recent investigation [1] found Brightline is the deadliest passenger railroad in the US. Good data visualization and sobering reporting in that article. The railroad wants to socialize the costs of upgrading the crossings but of course privatize the profits. That said, I feel communities that want the density/development benefits of "transit" should be prepared for the costs of achieving that safely.
[1]: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article308679915.html
> All too predictably, a recent investigation [1] found Brightline is the deadliest passenger railroad in the US.
Gosh, why won't those awful railroad do something to stop their trains from suddenly and completely unpredictably swerving into automobiles?!?
There ought to be a law requiring them to put up signs to notify motorists about the hazard these big dangerous trains that can just suddenly appear out of nowhere. We should also demand bright flashing lights on the fronts of trains as well, so the public can see them at night.
Additionally, I know this might be controversial, I think they should install some kind of automatic motorized "gate" with flashing red lights anywhere that a train might flitter near a roadway. The gate would block the road any time a train is nearby to prevent anyone from getting close to the train. In my imagining, railroads would be required to post signs at these "crossing gates" with the phone number of a 24/7 staffed call center that can stop trains if a car is stuck near the gates or the gates are working.
Boy, I sure wish someone would have thought to install basic precautions like these before allowing these trains to just dart all over the place, willy-nilly.
> Financially things are a bit dicey
Brightline missed ("deferred") a bond payment last month:
> Brightline, the private rail line linking Orlando to Miami, refinanced $985M of junior debt at a record-high 14.89% yield, reflecting deep investor concern after delaying a July interest payment on $1.2B in munis. The company, already downgraded deeper into junk by S&P and Fitch, faces falling ridership (53% below projections) and revenue (67% below estimates), plus a potential cash shortfall this quarter without an equity infusion.
https://florida.municipalbonds.com/news/2025/08/15/brightlin...
The only halfway competent rail in the US is that northeast corridor in New England. Everything else is crap. And even that northeast corridor is only halfway competent. That people are raving about any of the rail in the US only betrays a lack of use of many foreign rail services. Particularly those in Asia.
It’s sad, because I believe we have the ability to outdo everyone, but we can’t get it done.
How about the Auto Train? That one seems halfway competent too
1 reply →
Kind of a bummer comment. At least we're trying. Not quite the same but light rail in Seattle has been enormously successful.
> It’s like we’re fundamentally incapable of understanding the value of shared infrastructure.
I think most people understand the value of parks, roads, and airports.
> There is nothing more saddening than the state of America’s train situation
I can come up with a dozen things much more depressing than that and only in federal level politics.
This seems to be the most depressing time in US history.
It is because there’s NO REASON for us to be suffering, besides the fact that morons have political power
Well there was that whole genocide of Native Americans thing. And that Civil War thing where half the country was killing the other half. Black people were slaves, women couldn't vote (or own property, or a bank account, etc), being gay was illegal, the Irish were the immigrant whipping boys. Then there was the Jim Crow era, WWI, the Depression, Prohibition, WW2, McCarthyism, the Korean War, Vietnam (when the last Jim Crow laws were repealed).
But, sure, right now is the most depressing time in US history.
To be clear women gained the right to have bank accounts in 1974.
American Indian parents didn't gain the right to decide on their children's schooling until 1978.
The recency of these atrocities never ceases to surprise me. It's incredible how long we keep up barbaric practices and then how quickly they finally come to an end.
Marriage equality in the United States is only 10 years old. Anyone remember the debates as recently as the early 2010s? How many of us have high school diplomas older than any gay marriage certificate in the United States of America? It's absolutely ridiculous to look at arguments made barely over a decade ago about a thing that is now completely normalized and benign.
3 replies →
[dead]
The interstate system was originally built so that the army could move quickly from one place to another in the event of a war. I love how things happen in America.
Convince Americans that public transit will be needed to mobilize for World War III and we’ll have the best public transit system of ten years flat.
exactly where my train of thoughts were leading.