Armed Polite Society

You aren't wrong on the range while towing, indeed we've had these conversations before.  I think your description of "actual truck" and "work for most people " might be a stretch though.  What percentage of 1/2 ton trucks in the US do you suppose pull anything,  much less an 8000 camper?

I agree if you plan to multiple day offroad, tow very much, or haul heavy loads in the bed this is probably not the truck you want. The other 75% of folks will be fine driving to the mall, soccer game or Home Depot.

Desperate times takes desperate measures.  Guess they’re tired of all the crime going on in that area.

Imagine if there is an incident the owner will be the scapegoat.

Question for the Group:  If the existing rail lines set up some nice passenger cars on the rail around the country, would anyone actually ride them?

What you have described is known as "Amtrak" and it's pretty sucky because it attempts to use private freight rail for passenger use. Despite sucking I'm still glad we have it because it's better than nothing.

It has been shown that even as sucky as Amtrak is, some people do in fact ride it. Amtrak doesn't come to my city at all, so I can't.

Generally if the trains went where people want to go, then people ride them.

 

The speeds would be relatively slow and have limited destinations.

Yes, but why do we shoot so low? Why can't the trains be fast, and go many places? Why are we the most (formerly) great country in the world and we are talking about aspiring to crappy slow train running on freight rails?

Not to mention rail yards are not always in the best areas of cities.

Which is why passenger rail is universally separate from freight rail. Passenger stations need to be where people want to go. One example is when I lived in Dallas, there was a DART station right by TI blvd where I worked. I was able to take it right to the courthouse. No traffic or parking. One less car on 75.

Only way I could see it work is if a city had an existing mass transit rail system, a connection could be made to the interstate rail to allow people to switch over.

 

Yes, what you have imagined is called a "connection". By connecting train lines, you can form what is known as a "rail network", allowing you to travel around! You can also connect the rail lines to other modes like airports, rental garages, and bus terminals, forming what is known as a "transportation network". These "rail networks" are common everywhere in the world except the US.

I doubt it would make economic sense to build all that if it didn't exist.

And here we are back to the fall of America. We can't build anything. Only if it was already built by previous generations of Americans, the ones who did great things (or even mundane things like build trains), is it possible. We are doomed.

A few points on that:
1.  I don't think Russia has any sort of interstate highway system like the US.  I don't know if they have ever encouraged freedom of travel like we do. 

Question for the Group:  If the existing rail lines set up some nice passenger cars on the rail around the country, would anyone actually ride them?  The speeds would be relatively slow and have limited destinations.  Not to mention rail yards are not always in the best areas of cities.  Buses make a lot more sense these days than rail.  Only way I could see it work is if a city had an existing mass transit rail system, a connection could be made to the interstate rail to allow people to switch over.  I doubt it would make economic sense to build all that if it didn't exist.

On #1, that's part of what I was getting at regarding infrastructure . There may not even be roads in some areas between Moscow and  Vladivostok for all I know. It's a 1000 miles shorter distance, but a relevant example would be not being able to drive from LA to NYC because there are no roads in Colorado.

On the question, certainly we no longer have the train stations of old here from all those movies from the 1930s. A few big hubs like Union Station sure. I recall the train station in Santa Barbara (I often dropped hippie coworkers off who wanted to take the train to San Diego or wherever) was just seats, a ticket counter, and bathrooms. If you look at European train stations, from mid-sized cities on, the train stations are almost like airports here, with lounges, restaurants, etc.

One guy replied to my questioning of that:

Someone's going to start shooting sometime.

"partner femicide" is included in the "murdered by fascists" count? 

I hear "right wing" people from TV or youtube talk about getting death threats as a daily part of life not worth complaining about.  Been going on for years. 

I would like to see examples of the "Famous pundits and politicians running for office calling for and cheering on terrorist violence against us."  Seen far too many people stretch very innocent statements into whatever they want to imagine.  Show me the proof. 

"If our rhetoric was really inflamed, churches would be getting blown up and rightwing agitators would be getting disappeared." - There have been a number of Churches burned down, but not compared to the shear number of Churches out there.  The only "disappeared" people I can think of now are the Jan 6th people.  Nearly two years now.

You might be right about the shooting.  Consider that most of the "mass shooters" are NOT right wing agitators. 

The fast lane truck channel on YouTube has done a few videos on using an electric truck as an actual truck. Let’s just say the results aren’t great range wise. Great towing ability; but the range wouldn’t be workable for most people. A “400+” mile range turns into 90 miles while towing an 8000# camper. It would make a summer camping trip take considerably longer once you include charge times.

Some interesting arguments to be sure. I guess I'll throw my two cents in (for passenger rail only, not freight).

It IS affected by population / population density. It IS affected by geography. It IS affected by culture. It IS affected by economics.

It has worked in modern Europe because of population distributions and geography. It has also worked there because they didn't get on the car bandwagon like the US did, when the US did. Some of my relatives in Germany didn't even own a car until the 1960s. By then, despite people becoming wealthier, a train system and train culture were baked in to Western Europe. Plus owning cars (and buying fuel) was and still is much more expensive in Europe than here. Though talking with my relatives at various times, in Germany at least, other than the greenies, in the last couple of decades people there have also tended more to like driving and going where they want, when they want. I don't know how it is in other Western European countries.

I did the Eurail thing in the 80s. For the most part, it was great, with trains going everywhere everyday. Still, while travel was clean (as in newer, well kept train cars) and efficient in the Germanic countries and the nordic countries, that wasn't the case everywhere. Traveling one time from Germany to Spain, everything was peachy until France, where suddenly in Marseilles (what a dirty train station) I was out of luck with trains going anywhere West when I arrived in the late afternoon and couldn't catch another train until the next morning. Going into Spain, the trains got crappier, and so did the schedules.

You can argue that in Russia, much larger than the US, they have trains running so how can geography make a difference? Well, economy and culture will make a difference. It's another place, unlike the US (and I think we are unique with our car culture) where there was neither infrastructure nor money in households to support individual cars for many people, so rail became a viable option. It's probably still difficult to drive the ~4K miles (as the crow flies) from Moscow to Vladivostok between bad roads and refueling infrastructure. You can take the rail of course, and I just looked it up: $400US for a 2nd class berth and a 160 hour train ride. The price is pretty reasonable, though you're bunking in the same room with strangers (and of course, the 160 hours one way, so build two weeks travel time into your trip). I tried looking at flights but Russian flights seem to be blocked on every travel site. I can't imagine they cost more than $400 though, and they only take 8 hours. Russians seem to like to drive cars in the cities moreso than taking public transport.

https://www.russianrail.com/search/A3KP2CU5PE

If you look at the ragistan countries who also have large geographic areas with lots of empty spaces, sure they have passenger rail, also because there's not a lot of car ownership and a lot of poor people who can't afford a car or airfare.

The US is simply designed for auto and air travel. Sure there are exceptions like the DC Metro. When I had to go to DC a lot for work, I took a cab from Dulles to my DC hotel, then everything was done on the metro. There were stops within 10-15min walks of everywhere I had to go. Certainly Nick makes a good point about the demographics. Even back then, I would constantly be accosted by aggressive panhandlers, which residents seemed to take as "well, that's just how it is." I'm guessing that has only gotten worse.

Then of course we have the government high speed rail in California. A bajillion dollars over budget, and a rail that was supposed to connect LA with SanFran is currently being partially built to connect BFE with BFE.

I can't think of any circumstances for longer distances in the US where a train gets me somewhere faster and easier than driving or flying. If it's a shorter trip, the car almost always wins. If it's a longer trip, the plane wins and is probably cheaper most of the time.

Edit: Angel Eyes posted on the CA boondoggle while I was typing.

A few points on that:
1.  I don't think Russia has any sort of interstate highway system like the US.  I don't know if they have ever encouraged freedom of travel like we do. 

2.  From what I have heard about Europe, part of the reason for the population density is zoning.  People are not allowed to buy up rural property and build a house.  There are waiting lists for housing outside the major cities.  Where they have relaxed zoning and allowed it, people there move out of the city and drive with the resulting traffic congestion.  IMO, no one wants to be packed into a dense area if they have a choice. 

3.  In the US, there was a lot of movement from the farms to the cities to work in industry just like a lot of countries.  Our road infrastructure has allowed smaller scale industry to move out of the cities and use the roads to ship materials and equipment. 

IMO, our road networks allow a great deal of individual freedom to move around without depending on anything but fuel.  I would hate to change that. 

Question for the Group:  If the existing rail lines set up some nice passenger cars on the rail around the country, would anyone actually ride them?  The speeds would be relatively slow and have limited destinations.  Not to mention rail yards are not always in the best areas of cities.  Buses make a lot more sense these days than rail.  Only way I could see it work is if a city had an existing mass transit rail system, a connection could be made to the interstate rail to allow people to switch over.  I doubt it would make economic sense to build all that if it didn't exist.

Hey, if any of you guys wants to bring a non-white friend onto APS, you need to ask permission from all of us white guys first. We might not want to put up with their poc shenanigans.

https://youtu.be/46m4-Sp0TOU

Also, apparently "yt" is the hip abbreviation for us white devils. I guess you can learn something new, even from racist videos.

There's a lot of "which came first" argument here.
Your claim is that the passenger service went away because the passenger rail service went away. My contention, based on admittedly 2nd hand information from the people that actually used the service, is that the passenger service went away because the passengers stopped using it.

Another argument you offer is that gas companies are forced to run service to every house. Out here in rural America they do not in fact run service to every house I know many people that are either total electric or have a big ass propane tank in their yard. Nor do all the people I know have public water service, I now many people that are on private wells. I also know many people that are generally unable to get reliable high speed broadband service to their house.

You position seems to be solidly rooted in a metropolitan/high population density mind set. It doesn't work in rural America.

Mass transit is all well and good in high population density locations. it would not work in my area or for my life style. I don't have a use for it, I don't want to be required to pay for it by way of taxation so other people can benefit from something I have no desire to use.

And rural people certainly don't want BigGov seizing land with eminent domain to run high speed rail trains through the area that will never stop anywhere nearby and restrict travel due to limited crossings. 

It's interesting that you used the term "industries". You probably consider railroads to be "industry", but you probably don't consider roads to be "industry" but rather "infrastructure". I reject the double standard. Both road and railroad is critical infrastructure, which supports many industries. Most of the world agrees.

I see your point but if you follow that line of thinking you can't do literally anything. You certainly can't have a civilization. You have to have a way of getting things done. It's like saying, why should gas companies be "forced" to run gas lines to every house. They aren't "forced" to do it, they do it as part of their very mandate for existing. Because we as a society recognize that's their entire purpose. You can't just one day let the gas companies start cutting off houses to boost their profits, with the idea that's it's evil to "force them to do unprofitable things". Or maybe in your world, you think that would be ok? I mean it would undeniably boost their profits if they could just start failing to provide services at their discretion, right? Repeat for any other essential service or public infrastructure. Would you be happy if some company bought out public waterworks and started cutting unprofitable services and extorting the remainder with high rates, while not maintaining the capital? They could boost profits to railroad levels and be business heros.

Why should any infrastructure exist? Why should we have any civilization at all?


Yes; all of those things happened as a result of specific government policy decisions.

And they didn't change the same way in other developed countries, due to different specific government policy decisions. This is the entire discussion. We aren't talking about forces of nature here. We got here by specific government policy action. Don't pretend the government had nothing to do with it.

Also, there is no arrow of progress leading to rail becoming obsolete. Rail was efficient then, and it's efficient now.

It stopped because the trains disappeared. You talk like people had a choice. When the railroads disappear, is that really a case of people choosing other options?

If the roads all disappeared and people took trains because that was their only remaining option, would you say that it must have been that people all decided they liked trains better? Or would you grasp the actual situation?
 

I don't think they reallly need to be taken over. Maybe there could be a government supported option to bus people long distances, that coexist alongside private options, but would have some guarantee that people could travel the great nation, even to "flyover country", in some capacity. Sort of like how the USPS delivers to everyone, while coexisting (even sometimes collaborating) with private options like FedEx and UPS.

Much of the passenger trains stopped because the interstate highway system made it easier and faster to drive longer distances.  Many of the state highways have improved as well.  I think demand had a lot to do with it.  Not to mention that driving comfort has improved in cars. 

On the freight side, trucks can haul a lot of the smaller volume freight in a much more flexible manner than trains.  I don't think the heavy 18 wheeler trucks were around until the '50's or '60's.

You mentioned interstate highways in Maine, those are built and maintained by the state govt with federal funding.  If they can't manage that, then building rail infrastructure won't be any better.