Comment by Animats
3 days ago
Japan's railroad system has a big geographic advantage - the country is long and narrow. The railroad system is primarily a long end to end line with short crosswise branches.[1] That's an efficient structure. The branch lines don't have to be fast. Many are still narrow gauge, at 3 ft 6 in.
The US had to fill a huge area in the railroad era. That left a lot of underutilized track once the road network got good.
> the country is long and narrow
The northeast and west coast metropolitan corridors are similar, and combined have comparable populations, densities, and distances as Japan. Yet we can't even build a single high-speed line. And for all the excuses about the difficulty of building rail through developed regions, the existing rights of ways and infrastructure in both the NE and California are comparable to what everybody else has had to work with, at least in the past 50 years. The density of the NE is nothing like what you see elsewhere in the world, especially Asia, and Japan and China specifically.
It's lack of political will and ambition, period, by both the community and leadership. And excusing our inability by pointing at the hurdles, insinuating that others succeeded because they didn't face the same challenges, only perpetuates the paralysis.
> The density of the NE is nothing like what you see elsewhere in the world, especially Asia, and Japan and China specifically.
Yeah, I defy anyone who claims the US can't build trains "because of density" to fly to Tokyo, and actually take the Seibu Shinjuku line west from Shinjuku station. Look at those buildings built right next to the tracks, for many, many kilometers. People live in those -- if the windows opened, you could reach out and touch the laundry on the balconies that overlook the tracks [1].
Compared to that (and let's be clear: that's one average line in west Tokyo), even the Acela line in the east coast is a bad joke, density-speaking. The US doesn't build decent trains because the US is corrupt and sclerotic and run by incompetent people, not because of some mythical structural advantage in Magical Asia.
[1] I have no idea how people manage to live like that -- these trains are loud, and run basically from 4AM until 1AM every day -- but it's not lost on me that the fact that people can build houses right up next to the tracks might be the true advantage of Magical Japan.
> these trains are loud, and run basically from 4AM until 1AM every day
Not that bad actually. You get used to it and even if trains are frequent they don't need 10 minutes to pass by your home.
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The U.S. can build trains and has a good rail system—for freight not passengers. It’s not obvious how Japan moves freight, but the U.S.’s rail system evolved to move freight efficiently. That is a huge difference and not necessarily the result of corruption or incompetence.
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It can be a factor of many things, can it not? Seriously, if Japan was a map option in Transport Tycoon, it would be labeled "easy".
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I think a big part of it is also that (partly because of the necessity of building for earthquake resistance), Japanese construction is a lot more robust than American housing, and also tends to have extremely good soundproofing on windows and doors. Actually, it's most of the rest of the world, except the US.
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The advatange they have is that all 4 of their major metropolitan areas are in a straight line across flat land. The enemy of high-speed is any diviations from flat and straigh. On he accela top speed can be maintained less then 40% of the trip.
All the major metro areas on the Acela corridor are also on a straight line, on significantly flatter land than Japan. Notice how the Acela never spends 10+ minute periods in long, deep tunnels under mountain ranges. The Acela primarily spends most of the trip going below 100 mph because it is operating on 100+ year old infrastructure that has only ever been upgraded piecemeal as it starts to fail.
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Japan isn't that flat. The Tokaido Shinkansen has 70km of tunnels (12% of the route), and for the new maglev Shinkansen, they're boring 250 km of tunnels (90% of the route!)
That's got zero to do with anything. you do not need to add rail to the whole country.
As an example SF Bay Area and Switzerland are about the same size, SF has double the population density. It has a Bay, Switzerland has mountains. Switzerland has like 10x the trains. There's no reason SF Bay couldn't too.
It's similar for most metro areas. LA used to have a huge train system. Bad insentives and government policies killed it. They're adding new ones back but they're adding them in the worst possible way, making them unprofitable and designed only for people who can't afford cars means they'll only be a money sink at best, or they'll get underfunded and decrepit at worst
Even the lowest density US states have most of the population in corridors or areas with sufficient density.
E.g. Montana used to have passenger rail through the most densely populated Southern part of the state. That region has comparable density to regions of Norway that have regular rail service. (There are efforts to restart passenger service in Southern Montana)
And it's not like places like Norway have rail everywhere either - the lower threshold for density where rail is considered viable is just far lower.
The actual proportion of the US population that lives in areas with too low density to support rail is really tiny.
> As an example SF Bay Area and Switzerland are about the same size,
> SF has double the population density.
These two statements seem hard to reconcile considering that Switzerland’s population is higher.
You're right my memory was bad.
Both the SF Bay Area (not SF, the whole Bay), and Switzerland have ~8 million people.
SF Bay Area is 7K sq miles, Switzerland is ~15k sq miles
The point is still correct. Switzerland has half the density but it has amazing transporation. There's no excuse for SF Bay Area not to as well.
There is no excuse for the US’s failure. Many countries have large areas to cover. China is a similar size and has massive HSR coverage. The US could too if they didn’t waste all the money on corruption.
China also has nationalized rail systems. The major reason for the failure in the US is that the rail lines are not publicly owned. The reason the rail systems never got upgraded and Amtrak couldn't deploy high speed rail everywhere (despite it being a national priority in the 70s, 80s, and 90s) is that outside of the northeast corridor, Amtrak doesn't own the lines and couldn't get the owners to allow Amtrak to upgrade them for passenger high speed rail.
> China also has nationalized rail systems. The major reason for the failure in the US is that the rail lines are not publicly owned.
The article we're discussing explains that Japan has the best passenger rail system in the world, and which happens to be privatized, along with privately owned track. So which one is it? Go figure.
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Russia is far larger and far less populated, it's an economic backwater and a cultural dead end. Yet despite that they have rail connecting their country together.
So did France. There is a common factor at play with Russia. Has little to do with the country's shape.
It's like saying certain rats solve the maze because the path is simpler. Except that the failing rats happen to have a different incentive.
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Once you get past the Urals, most of Russia's development is along an east west axis until you reach Baikal and the the far east. Also as a Marxist dictatorship for some years, there was little emphasis on independent travel (cars etc)
To call Russia a "cultural dead end" is a bit much, considering all the great artists of various kinds that country has produced. In fact, you'll find that famous Russian novels like Anna Karenina and Doctor Zhivago feature trains as motifs.
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"The US could too if they didn’t waste all the money on corruption."
China is also corrupt, but it is a dictatorship with massive central planning. Central planning leads to wastage and human costs in many areas but it is good at producing new infrastructure.
What is this corruption you are talking about? What specifically are you talking about? Things you don’t like aren’t necessarily the result of corruption.
It has a big geographic disadvantage too: the entire country is a mountain range. Japan's railway network relies on countless tunnels and viaducts, adding greatly to the cost, especially for high speed lines which require larger clearance and therefore larger tunnel diameters, and larger turning radii.
Geography is no excuse for the US not having better passenger rail service, especially when geography was no obstacle to the US having fantastic rail service in the 1920s.
Japan is also mostly mountains and is prone to natural disasters like earthquakes and Typhoon induced floods.
Sonce our first trip in 2017 at least two railways we rode have been damaged enough to be partially inoperable and under lengthy restoration work - Hisatsu line (washed away bridges) and Kurobe Gorge railway (bridge destroyed by earthquake).
Here in Spain a huge chunk of the population lives along the coast, so obviously what we need is a radial network along the coast, with a few spokes connecting to Madrid in the center. But for whatever reason it's impossible to make any trains that go anywhere other than the capital.
The Netherlands is a similar shape to the continental contiguous United States yet we have an excellent public transport system. Very good trains and every population has awesome cycling infrastructure.
The US could have all of this and more in their populated areas. They're the richest country in the world. Why is the infrastructure so neglected? It's clearly a choice.
US army can deploy air force, tankers, soldiers and all the logistics together with Burger King anywhere in the world within days and somehow people that pay for it still think a simple rail in their home turf is impossible.
The question to ask is "who owns the rail lines?". That matters for having a good rail system. It's basically the same problem for why the US doesn't have fiber internet available everywhere, too.
Good parallel. An article recently explained how Switzerland has the fastest fibre optical network: all companies share the same cabling. Dig once. No need to hook the property or do anything when switching provider.
For new rail at least, whoever wants to build them gets to own them, right?
I think what it comes down to is that if automobile companies had to build and maintain the roads, we certainly wouldn't have so many cars. But railway companies need to build the train lines, while competing with taxpayer funded automobile infrastructure. It's not impossible (see Japan) but also not easy.
Isn't Netherlands trying to deter from car use by laws and taxes and at the same time funneling public money into railroads and bike infrastructure?
>The US could have all of this and more in their populated areas.
Probably people in US have other priorities and that means there are other public policies.
I dunno, centre right national governments in recent years have been pretty car friendly. Driving can be cheaper for family outings. For two adults and two teens to go from Utrecht to Amsterdam and back (26 minutes each way) is €48 (with discount if you buy a flex pass monthly) or €80 without a discount. Suddenly driving is pretty competitive
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Oh this again.
Then explain international train travel in Europe or China's national train network. Both fill large areas.
Conversely, the UK is long and narrow, and unlike Japan has neither earthquakes nor is it particularly mountainous and yet its train system is rubbish.
Japanese rail companies are allowed to buy land, then build infrastructure, then enjoy the increased value of said land. American rail is hobbled by the extraction of increased land values by those who already own land by the stations. Of course, freeways are similar, but people don’t mind roads losing money.
It has very little to do with Japan's geography. It's actually because Japan was too poor after World War 2 to implement a road system. The rail companies were also the land developers so the train service operated at a loss and were essentially a value add to the real estate development projects.
This type of development is called TOD (Transit Oriented Development)
https://www.ur-net.go.jp/overseas/urtod.html
The USA's westward expansion was indeed facilitated by the timely development of railroads, and so many of the cities were built around the ability to haul freight and service depots along the rail lines, much like ancient cities sprang up alongside rivers and bays because of boat shipping.
However, the United States is also a nation built upon the motor vehicle, and our much-vaunted freeway system here was built deliberately as a national defense measure that could easily move materiel and troops between cities and states, in the event of a domestic invasion or future wars on our own soil. The freeways enjoyed deep investments also due to commercial utility, and again, many cities and habitations sprang up at the nexus of various freeways, as truck-based shipping could service them as well.
I think one of the main obstacles to rail lines in the United States is our car-centrism, and many motorists of any socio-economic class really, really hate trains and public transit of any kind, and any other type of transport that may impinge on their freedom to drive wherever they want on as many highways as possible.
Therefore it is extraordinarily difficult for railways to get good rights-of-way. Amtrak is a redheaded stepchild. Commuter rail may be better respected in places where it was established, like the Eastern Seaboard, but if I asked any voter or motorist here, they would be voting against any sort of rail project whatsoever.
>the country is long and narrow
This is a little counterintuitive but it does make a difference.
I recently moved from a coastal city (that is very linear) to a landlocked city spread evenly in all directions. I had naively assumed the new city would be easier to get around in, since on average places would be closer to you. But the first city has decent commuter rail, which meant I could get to the other end of the city in an hour, and use cabs for last mile connectivity.
I'm sure you can have good public transit in "round" cities too, but it is certainly more difficult to plan.
>I'm sure you can have good public transit in "round" cities too, but it is certainly more difficult to plan.
You don't have to be "sure", take a look at London which is a "round" city with excellent public transit.
Round cities are even better for rail. You run a line in a circle, like the Yamanote line in Tokyo, and now it has the advantage of periodic boundary conditions. Everywhere is central!
China is giant and sprawling and they are able to do it.
That said this reply doesn’t actually address much of what the article talks about, most interestingly how rail companies are private and are also real estate developers. That thought process ought to make sense to Texans or something.
There are also other factors. Heavy bombing during the war had the effect of clearing a lot of previous infrastructure so they were in effect building from scratch in some areas.