As someone who grew up in Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, I came to appreciate how valuable high-speed rail was as a good alternative for flying between Boston, Washington and New York City. The trip from Washington to NYC is arguably more convenient at only three hours and reasonably priced to be competitive with the shuttle. Though, potentially on the docket for high-speed rail projects is a proposal to connect New York to Buffalo along the existing Empire Service route as part of the economic stimulus package. At first glance, the plan makes perfect sense: A 110 mph train cutting the trip between the cities from 8-hours down to just 5-hours.
I took a closer look at what this actually means when matched up against flying. Using two arbitrary travel dates (Monday, May 11 to Friday, May 15) the price to take the train (traditional-speed rail) is between $55 and $78 each way on a service offered three times per day. The trip on JetBlue (JFK-BUF) yields $69 each way with a 12 flights a day. The flight is about 80-minutes total vs. 300-minutes by high-speed train.
There is a fair point to be made when discussing a stress cost of not having to deal with airports and security. Though, the whole trip including the time it would take to go from the Financial District to Penn Station arriving 20 minutes before your train departs, still takes longer overall than if you went to JFK, arriving 60 minutes early from the Financial District and hopped a flight.
Price, in time and money, matters. A recent poll by travelzoo.com found that 40% of travelers would forgo using the bathroom free of charge if it meant a 50% cheaper plane ticket. Price, not stress, was the deciding factor.
Where the high-speed rail system finds its justification is in the intermediate stops between New York City and Buffalo that would otherwise be hard to reach by any other means than a car. The line would connect cities and moves goods and people between these intermediate points. This alone may serve as a good reason to build the line, though if the price is prohibitive compared to flying between the origin and end point along the line, then a high-speed rail system is only as good as it's utilized.
If the US is going to have a viable high-speed regional rail system then the proposition has to be competitive for consumers. High-speed rail for the sake of high-speed rail is no virtue.
Image credit Railfan and Railroad Magazine
on March 10, 2009 5:51 PM | Reply
Hi,
What if speed is 220mph instead 110 ?
Here in Europa, its usual speed for train London-Paris-Brussel-Marseille-Bordeau, Madrid-Barcelona, etc.
Such speed really makes the difference.
After more than 20year of front concurrency, Air France closed the Paris Lyon line where 500km are made in 2h from downtown to downtown. Now, challenge is between Paris and Marseille where both air and train shuttle exist.
A very good idea was to interconnect air and train in PARIS CDG where you can come from Britany (500km, 3htrain) directly to airport and catch you long range airplane by just going upstair.
Such speedtrain are in service in Japan, Europa (two concurrent trains supplier), Korea, and even may be in US (Texas) but I'm not sure.
best,
Yannick
on March 10, 2009 9:18 PM | Reply
Jon,
There is more to High Speed Railways than just the speeds.
Setting aside all the matter on infrastructure, meaning that construction of new tracks or the renewing of existing ones are critical when talking about speeds, we are left with a single question: How much does YOUR time cost?
Rather complex, taking into consideration as many factors as possible and a major challenge in Transport Engineering, it is the bottom-line when deciding which mode of transport to take.
Time critical passengers may sacrifice, for instance, 30 minutes if these 30 minutes do not mean "turning off the cell phone or laptop" (which is perfectly possible aboard trains, not airplanes yet).
Finally (I could spend a day here, as my thesis is about High Speed Trains x Aircraft), my opinion is that there is a major misconception when defining High Speed:
UIC accepts as High speeds anything able to reach speeds above 200 km/h (125mph). In Europe, object of my study, considering stop times and all, ALL TRAIN SERVICES operate at an average (or commercial speed) of about 200 to 220 km/h - 125 to 140mph (whole trip, peaking 300+ km/h - 190mph). It is of my understanding that a train that reaches the 110mph (180km/h) isn't, actually, High Speed. What would be its commercial speed?
Just something to think about ;)
on March 11, 2009 2:58 AM | Reply
The big thing to consider too when comparing trains to planes is convenience.
Many trains start in the city centre and end in a city centre -- unlike an airport which can be in the middle of nowhere.
Also, the lack of security checks makes getting on and off the train much easier than what you would experience at an airport.
on March 11, 2009 4:18 AM | Reply
Yannick, 220 mph is 352 kph. The TGV's maximum service speed is 320 kph. Your times to travel also seem to indicate a 250 kph speed rather than miles. 110 mph is 176 kph.
Assuming one wants a truly viable alternative to flying, 220 to 250 kph (136 to 156 mph) should be a minimum resonable objective for a northeast high speed train. It is certainly not anything groundbreaking by european or japanese standards.
Why are they aiming so low with 110 mph?
on March 11, 2009 7:34 AM | Reply
I think you are correct that the true comparison is between the other cities. Albany to Buffalo for example:
Train
- $43 each way
- ~5 hours
Air
* Non-stop
- $155 each way
- ~1 hour
* Thru NYC
- $144 each way
- ~4-5 hours
Car
- $0.55 (standard mileage rate) * 287 = $157.85
- ~4.5 hours
on March 11, 2009 9:18 AM | Reply
Jon,
As someone who travels frequently intra-NYState the problem is not so much price it is that there is no viable time-efficient and specifically weather-efficient alternative to flying.
I flew from LGA-Rochester on the day of the plane crash in Buffalo. The horrific weather conditions all day (gusts >60mph) made experienced fliers sick. I had a two hour delay going out of LGA and my same-day flight home was cancelled. I'm sure weather is considered a (indirect) cause of the crash in buffalo. My only alternative was a 6 hour drive back to NYC, a longer train ride or the bus.
Traveling in the winter in upstate New York is often arduous. I would have much rather taken a faster train than to gamble with flying.
Paul
on March 11, 2009 11:21 AM | Reply
Trains have some other advantages.
Using Eurostar as an example: Eurostar runs every hour or so between Paris and London, taking just 2 hours 15 minutes to make the trip. From central London to central Paris, Eurostar is faster than flying as well as more comfortable, more convenient and more reliable. Over 92% of Eurostar trains run on time or within 15 minutes, against just 62% of flights on the same routes. Eurostar has now captured over 70% of the London-Paris market.
To me the relatively predictable travel time, with the full travel time being comfortable and productive tips the scale to trains every time. I frequently fly Toronto to New York, and my door to door time varies from 4 to 8 hours, quite unpredictably. And it's mostly unproductive time, because most of the time is spent shuffling between modes, dealing with security, boarding or deplaning. And the chunk of the flight that I'm allowed to have my laptop open is spent with a seat reclined into my lap.
Winter and evenings tend to be the worst, but it's very unpredictable. My worst trip to date was 10 hours door to door. If there was a 6 hour train, with reasonable reliability, and in which I could work comfortably for the entire trip, I would take it every time.
Reasons that an adequately fast train wins over airline service for routes under 500 miles or so?
-More comfortable - you really need to compare business class air to economy class rail.
-More reliable - weather and congestion are less likely to cause delays.
-Settled - you get on a train, you get off a train. When flying half your trip is spent negotiating each end of the trip.
-Consequences of unreliability are lower - Would you prefer to be stuck in an RJ during a 3 hour ground hold, or stuck in a train seat while snow gets cleared off a track?
on March 11, 2009 12:23 PM | Reply
On Highspeed Trains:
with new/uptodate rails and running stock
speeds well above 330km/h / 205mph are easily doable.
around 400 seconds are needed to get up to top
speed and about the same for a regular braking.
That equals time at top speed needed to travel the
distance plus ~6 minutes of "hanging around".
You travel from towncenter to towncenter with
easy access to local public transport ( if
you actually have that, he he)
No weather dependence, no checking in, no waiting on
the taxiway ...
So going from a towncenter to an airport, check in,
board, wait on the taxiway ... and the reverse
at your destination is probably ~3 hours all together.
That is about 600 miles traveled in a train.
Another question then is service frequency.
Fast Rail here ( Germany ) usually is an
hourly service for the whole day.
uwe
on March 11, 2009 5:09 PM | Reply
FYI about high-speed train, the main marketing criteria for french railway company is '3 hours max'. That is the maximum travel time to catch customers against Air France competitor. After that they adapt the speed (270, 300, 320km/h right now, and the next 350km/h will be used to get new cities far from Paris, or to reach cities where some portions of the rails do not allow high speed).
That is, if the travel is above 3 hours, customers really see a benefit of the train against the plane (ie. for down-town to down-town travels). Get the travel more then 3 hours, then plane keep its advantages.
on March 12, 2009 12:07 PM | Reply
Most already adresses the issue. 110mph isn't high speed.
I know it's near the overall speed of the Acela, but it's not good enough to compete with a plane for such medium to short distances.
Best comparaison is Paris-London or Paris-Marseille for those distances and travel time.
2.15 hours (with about 2 hours at 300km/h and 15 mins under the sea at 160km/h) for Paris-London and 3 hours (with about 3 hours at 300km/h) for Paris-Marseille
A few distances comparaisons:
Paris-Marseille : 761km for a straigh line, aroud 800km for the train line
Paris-Londres : 360 km for a straigh line, aroud 450km for the train line
NY-Buffalo : 343miles / 548km for a straigh line, aroud 376 miles / 600 km for the road, i'd say about the same for the train
Getting 5 hours for that, is simply inneficient for a high speed :)
on March 13, 2009 1:03 PM | Reply
As others have pointed out, 110 miles/hour is WAY obselete -- German InterCityExpress standard has been 250 kilometers/hour (about 155 miles/hour) for years, with newer lines being faster still. In terms of competing with air, the train also wins big on comfort -- ICE 2nd class is about like airline 1st/business class, and there's no need to worry about motion sickness on a turbulent day. Having a power outlet at each seat is great, too!
Of course, European airport security is also a lot less hassle than the US -- in 6 years of living in Germany, the longest wait I ever had at an airport security checkpoint was about 15 minutes, with 5 minutes being more typical. And no remove-your-shoes or whole-body-xrays either...