Biden to embark on a post debate train tour of Pennsylvania and Ohio

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Oh yeah, daddy is coming home to the old stomping grounds of the mahoning valley that has been responsible for building our nation and sending democrats to the white house, including his old boss Barry O.

[NHI]

I Love This!

[Duke of York]

I love this. As a rail fan this makes me very happy. When was the last time a presidential campaign did this? Its likely been decades.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

I love this. As a rail fan this makes me very happy. When was the last time a presidential campaign did this? Its likely been decades.

Obama did in 2008. Hillary did a GMA interview on a train 2008.

[Dr. Arch]

Between this vintage tour that's 100% Populist and Trump's tax scams, the contrast couldn't be starker.

[Pericles]

I love populist Biden, he's doing it exactly right.

[GoTfan]

I'm sure Uncle Joe would be delighted to learn that Brady Trains, a model train company, has a collection named specifically for him.

[Bootes Void]

Biden is already doing a better job than clinton

[Fight for Trump]

I LOVE THIS

(and Joe, once you've addressed America's 20-odd crises, we'd love some high speed rail)

Amtrak already runs "fast enough" Acela in the only truly viable market, although I think Brightline has identified two real contenders in Florida and Southern California due to their unique markets and geography.

HSR is usually a loser. One does not need to go very far to find a white elephant vanity project, like Athens-Thessaloniki, for every success story, like Madrid-Barcelona. And taking people from downtown to downtown only works in places where people are actually traveling downtown to downtown, which doesn't apply to most markets in the US, especially west of Chicago. And even when they're built, HSR only really benefits businesses and relatively well-off travelers. Poor people usually take the bus, not even the slow train.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

I LOVE THIS

(and Joe, once you've addressed America's 20-odd crises, we'd love some high speed rail)

Amtrak already runs "fast enough" Acela in the only truly viable market, although I think Brightline has identified two real contenders in Florida and Southern California due to their unique markets and geography.

HSR is usually a loser. One does not need to go very far to find a white elephant vanity project, like Athens-Thessaloniki, for every success story, like Madrid-Barcelona. And taking people from downtown to downtown only works in places where people are actually traveling downtown to downtown, which doesn't apply to most markets in the US, especially west of Chicago. And even when they're built, HSR only really benefits businesses and relatively well-off travelers. Poor people usually take the bus, not even the slow train.

HSR pretty vlearly makes sense in five parta of the USA: Florida, California/Vegas/Phoenix, the Texas Triangle, Cascadia, and broadly the area between Chicago, Boston, and Atlanta. This could approximately replace 25% of all plane trips and twice the cumulative number of car trips while inducing travel demand. It's worth it, even if proposals to bring it to Wichita or whatever are dumb.

Also, Aclea is a travesty. There's no excuse for NY-Washington taking more than 90 minutes.

Finally, your point about downtown to downtown is lacking. While orgins are spread out all over the place, destinations are usually extremely concentrated except for some VFR travel. Plus people generally live closer to downtown than an airport anyway.

[Rand]

Fitting since the Trump Train has clearly
DERAILED.

[Fight for Trump]

I LOVE THIS

(and Joe, once you've addressed America's 20-odd crises, we'd love some high speed rail)

Amtrak already runs "fast enough" Acela in the only truly viable market, although I think Brightline has identified two real contenders in Florida and Southern California due to their unique markets and geography.

HSR is usually a loser. One does not need to go very far to find a white elephant vanity project, like Athens-Thessaloniki, for every success story, like Madrid-Barcelona. And taking people from downtown to downtown only works in places where people are actually traveling downtown to downtown, which doesn't apply to most markets in the US, especially west of Chicago. And even when they're built, HSR only really benefits businesses and relatively well-off travelers. Poor people usually take the bus, not even the slow train.

HSR pretty vlearly makes sense in five parta of the USA: Florida, California/Vegas/Phoenix, the Texas Triangle, Cascadia, and broadly the area between Chicago, Boston, and Atlanta. This could approximately replace 25% of all plane trips and twice the cumulative number of car trips while inducing travel demand. It's worth it, even if proposals to bring it to Wichita or whatever are dumb.

Also, Aclea is a travesty. There's no excuse for NY-Washington taking more than 90 minutes.

Finally, your point about downtown to downtown is lacking. While orgins are spread out all over the place, destinations are usually extremely concentrated except for some VFR travel. Plus people generally live closer to downtown than an airport anyway.

It's not only the time and distance of the journey itself that matters, but also the layout of the cities and the infrastructure on either end. Acela works (despite the infrastructure it runs on being crap) because a) you can actually get places without a car from Penn Station or Union Station (the NY to Boston stretch has no competitive advantage over flying, so it's excluded), and b) most important destinations are a short walk/cab ride away. Plus, there are big intermediate cities with strong demand like Baltimore and Philly to keep trains full. HSR does not work if too many people have to rent a car at their destination, because they could just fly to the airport (which is still faster and cheaper) and rent a car there instead, and get right on the Interstate rather than driving through busy downtown streets they're not familiar with. What's the point of having HSR to downtown Dallas when travelers' destinations are going to be all over the Metroplex, and you can't get around without a car? Florida and Las Vegas can only work because of the high number of tourists and conventioneers, who basically go to the same places.

It's no surprise that the very few countries that fit the profile for successful HSR (centrally-located main city, dense urban cores, strong public transportation at both ends, distances that are slightly too short for flying but too far for driving, manageable terrain) are leaders in it - Japan, France, Spain, and East China (which has many, many other factors driving HSR).

And Acela is "fast enough", which is all it needs to be. The average speed of the nonstop Acela is 87mph between New York and DC, which is faster than the Paris-Toulouse TGV, and all but one (once-daily on weekdays, one-way) Edinburgh-London LNER train. The problem is that the Acela's price premium cannot be justified over the Northeast Regional or similar trains for all but business travelers, especially if you're getting off at an intermediate station.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

It's not only the time and distance of the journey itself that matters, but also the layout of the cities and the infrastructure on either end. Acela works (despite the infrastructure it runs on being crap) because a) you can actually get places without a car from Penn Station or Union Station (the NY to Boston stretch has no competitive advantage over flying, so it's excluded), and b) most important destinations are a short walk/cab ride away. Plus, there are big intermediate cities with strong demand like Baltimore and Philly to keep trains full. HSR does not work if too many people have to rent a car at their destination, because they could just fly to the airport (which is still faster and cheaper) and rent a car there instead, and get right on the Interstate rather than driving through busy downtown streets they're not familiar with. What's the point of having HSR to downtown Dallas when travelers' destinations are going to be all over the Metroplex, and you can't get around without a car? Florida and Las Vegas can only work because of the high number of tourists and conventioneers, who basically go to the same places.

The thing is, most business travelers and tourists are going to CBDs, even in America. Going to Atlanta for work? You'll probably be in Downtown, Buckhead, or Midtown. Going to Pittsburgh for school? You'll probably be in Oakland. Going to Los Angeles for fun? You'll probably be in Downtown, Hollywood, or Beverly Hills. And even if you are headed to the 'burbs, most HSR stations are closer than airports which make them pretty compelling if you'd otherwise fly. Going to see your mom in Norwalk? You're better off ubering or renting a car from Anaheim or LA Union Station than LAX.

And Acela is "fast enough", which is all it needs to be. The average speed of the nonstop Acela is 87mph between New York and DC, which is faster than the Paris-Toulouse TGV, and all but one (once-daily on weekdays, one-way) Edinburgh-London LNER train. The problem is that the Acela's price premium cannot be justified over the Northeast Regional or similar trains for all but business travelers, especially if you're getting off at an intermediate station.

It really isn't though. Self-respecting high speed rail averages well above 150mph. Sure, Amtrak might have a near-monopoly on Manhattan-DC traffic, but if it took 90 minutes from NY Penn (or Newark or Metropark or...) to DC (or New Carrollton or Alexandria or...), suddenly it gets a majority of the fly/drive/rail market from all of NY-NJ-CT to all of DC-MD-VA. The Northeast corridor is a bigger market than Tokyo-Nagoya-Osaka. It can support the best of the best.

One final point: In the Northeast, you're underrating the enormous pull of New York and how deeply undesirable it is to go with a car. Most people going to NY are going to the Island of Manhattan, and it's an awful lot of people. If you get serious HSR in on DC-NY, suddenly trips like Raleigh-New York, Pittsburgh-New York, Cleveland-New York, Detroit-New York, Toronto-New York, Charlotte-New York, Columbus-New York, Cincinnati-New York, etc. become viable in under 3 hours as each little addition to the network opens up travel pairs across the network. The same goes for Chicago, where most people are headed to the Loop and DC, where most people are headed to the L'Enfant City. These cities are bigger pulls than London, Paris, Madrid, Milan, etc. The amount of inbound traffic to these three cities alone that doesn't want a car on the far end is enormous, and the closeness of each city is such that just 100 miles of new rail can add 4 or 5 top-tier city pairs. But if it's gonna take 3 hours from DC-NY, you can forget about OH-NY or NC-NY or IN-NY.

[Fight for Trump]

I'm sorry, but the idea that the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic is a bigger collection area for New York than Tokyo is for Japan, or that Chicago has more rail potential than London or Paris is ridiculous. Tokyo is the home of the world's busiest air city pairs and the busiest train station in the world. ANA and JAL fly widebodies between Tokyo Haneda and Osaka Itami hourly (the vast majority not connecting passengers), in addition to low-cost carriers and massive rail capacity. The demand isn't there because of the infrastructure, the infrastructure is there because of the demand. Americans are spread all over a continental nation and have vastly different travel needs. Japan is a relatively small, extremely populous country where there is one definitive city where everyone needs to go.

HSR is not a case of "if you build it", especially given how expensive tickets need to be to recoup the investment required. HSR projects that have tried that approach, like Athens-Thessaloniki, failed spectacularly. Even countries generally regarded as well-run like Germany and South Korea have had big failures, and their geographies and existing infrastructure is decades ahead of the US. You need massive existing demand, and to be able to peel off at least 75% of the demand in the long run in order to achieve success, like the case with Eurostar, Madrid-Barcelona, or indeed, Amtrak from NY to DC. America definitely needs some improvement in rail infrastructure, and massive improvements in public transit, but an elite Shinkansen-type service is just not suited for any market. Local heavy rail metros and commuter lines should be the first priority, and only then can high speed intercity rail be a serious discussion.

[Gass3268]

Biden’s stops:

https://twitter.com/thematthill/status/1310908683316989954?s=21

[redjohn]

Loving the serious play for Ohio. Trump's sitting in the White House scared like a dog.

[woodley park]

I always thought BuildBackBetter was kind of an awkward mouthful of a phrase, but.. seems to be working!