Opinions on trains and planes.

"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...
tim..... wrote:
"PeterL" wrote in message
...
On Aug 18, 9:15 pm, Hatunen wrote:
On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:00:06 -0600, DevilsPGD

wrote:
What makes you think that check-in and security would be any less
stupid on trains vs planes?

I don't think anyone is afraid that hijackers will fly a train
into a skyscraper.

--
************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *


Bombs on trains are no less dangerous.

How so? Please tell us how to take down the World Trade Center or
damage the Pentagon with a bomb on an Amtrak train.

--------------------------------------------------

Bombs under the tracks usually more so

??? How does putting a bomb under railroad tracks result in
skyscrapers falling down?

Just for information, there are six major intersections in the Washington
Metro, and one of them is underneath the Pentagon. I remember reading the
novel, "The Taking of Pelham 123," (a gang hijacked a subway in NYC) and
years later thought about -if they were terrorists- the author would have
had a much more interesting book.

http://www.wmata.com/metrorail/systemmap.cfm





--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Tom P wrote:
JamesStep wrote:
One factor that's often not considered is that around 25% of people
consider themselves nervous flyers, according to some surveys. Many
of these people would probably prefer train travel if it was
comparable to airlines in cost and time.

James

I commute regularly 250 miles inside Germany, sometimes by plane,
sometimes by rail. It is comparable in terms of cost and time - but
as
time goes by I am getting more nervous travelling by high speed
train
than by air. Trains are intrinsically less safe than airplanes for
many reasons-
- an airplane has two engines. If one stops, it carries on flying.
A train has dozens of wheels and axles. If just one of these breaks
at high speed, you're dead.

So how many people have died as a result of a single wheel or axle on
a train breaking? And have you seen those wheels and axles (hint--see
"The Island")? If not you are probably not aware that one of them can
easily be tossed right through a commericial airliner and come out
none the worse for wear. Airliners also have numerous wheels and
axles by the way, and if one from _another_ plane fails you can end up
dead--remember what happened with the Concorde?

- a plane has two pilots and a whole bunch of ATC guys making sure
you never get anywhere near anything that might hit you.

And yet there have been more than a few mid-airs, not to mention the
damn fools who choose to fly within the exclusion zone of US Navy
warships in a combat zone or drift across the border into Russia . . .

A train has
one driver and thousands of trees, animals and stupid car drivers
flashing past you just yards away from where you are sitting.

An airline pilot has to maneuver in three dimensions in a moving
medium that can if it chooses to kill any airplane. A train's
movement is constrained by the tracks. If you had actually travelled
on European high speed trains you would know that those tracks are
well isolated from stupid car drivers, trees are cut well back from
the tracks, and when a train hits an animal it's bad for the animal
and for the poor SOB who has to scraped the remains off the train but
that's about it, on the other hand planes that eat enough birds at the
wrong time go down with some regularity.

It just
takes one tree, one cow or a stupid truck driver to be just a few
yards in the wrong place, and you're dead again.

Where do you live that trees move spontaneously and of their own
volition? The Merry Old Land Of Oz? When has anyone on a train been
injured as the result of the train hitting a cow? Maybe if the truck
is loaded with TNT or nerve gas or nuclear waste or something it might
kill someone on board the train--do you know of any incidents in which
a train hitting a truck resulted in anything other than a smashed
truck and some scratched paint on the train? And how did that truck
get on the tracks anyway? You think that the TGV has streets with
flashing lights crossing the tracks?

- a plane can stop on the runway in less than a mile.

Or spread itself over a square mile of countryside if it misses or
doesn't make it to the runway, and if the brakes work.

A high speed
train needs over 3 miles to stop from full speed. Even if the driver
can see an obstacle, he can't do a thing about it

Of course he can. He can blow the whistle so that it has a chance to
preserve itself.

Even if you're not dead, it just takes one single stalled train
anywhere and the entire system collapses. We have had trains stalled
all night in the middle of nowhere, with no help for the passengers,
with the power lines down after a storm.

Who is this "we" and where is it that "we" have had these trains
"stalled"? We have had whole airports full of airliners "stalled" due
to snowstorms or other bad weather, and you know what, with those
planes unavailable traffic backed up everywhere else in the system.


--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...
tim..... wrote:
"PeterL" wrote in message
...
On Aug 18, 9:15 pm, Hatunen wrote:
On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:00:06 -0600, DevilsPGD

wrote:
What makes you think that check-in and security would be any less
stupid on trains vs planes?

I don't think anyone is afraid that hijackers will fly a train
into a skyscraper.

--
************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *


Bombs on trains are no less dangerous.

How so? Please tell us how to take down the World Trade Center or
damage the Pentagon with a bomb on an Amtrak train.

--------------------------------------------------

Bombs under the tracks usually more so

??? How does putting a bomb under railroad tracks result in
skyscrapers falling down?

It doesn't, but executed properly, it will kill more people on the train.

tin

"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...
Tom P wrote:
JamesStep wrote:
One factor that's often not considered is that around 25% of people
consider themselves nervous flyers, according to some surveys. Many
of these people would probably prefer train travel if it was
comparable to airlines in cost and time.

James

I commute regularly 250 miles inside Germany, sometimes by plane,
sometimes by rail. It is comparable in terms of cost and time - but
as
time goes by I am getting more nervous travelling by high speed
train
than by air. Trains are intrinsically less safe than airplanes for
many reasons-
- an airplane has two engines. If one stops, it carries on flying.
A train has dozens of wheels and axles. If just one of these breaks
at high speed, you're dead.

So how many people have died as a result of a single wheel or axle on
a train breaking?

101

Try a search for "Eschede".

tim

Jochen Kriegerowski:
Maglev is an interesting technology, but it doesn't make much sense
to develop a train system incompatible to existing lines.

I certainly tend to agree. However, there is a precedent:

High speed trains can use the existing infrastructure (at lower speeds)
and conventional trains can run on the hig speed routes.

This was not true in Japan when they became the first country to start
building new lines for high-speed passenger trains -- the Shinkansen.
Those lines use standard-gauge track, while the country's existing rail
network was narrow-gauge.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "I may be ranting, but I'm right!"
-- Wojeck: Out of the Fire

tim..... wrote:
"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...
tim..... wrote:
"PeterL" wrote in message
...
On Aug 18, 9:15 pm, Hatunen wrote:
On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:00:06 -0600, DevilsPGD

wrote:
What makes you think that check-in and security would be any
less
stupid on trains vs planes?

I don't think anyone is afraid that hijackers will fly a train
into a skyscraper.

--
************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *


Bombs on trains are no less dangerous.

How so? Please tell us how to take down the World Trade Center or
damage the Pentagon with a bomb on an Amtrak train.

--------------------------------------------------

Bombs under the tracks usually more so

??? How does putting a bomb under railroad tracks result in
skyscrapers falling down?

It doesn't, but executed properly, it will kill more people on the
train.

Just a hair under 3000 people died on 9/11. The worst railroad
accident in history resulted in a little over half that many deaths
and that was a train that was inundated by a tsunami. The worst
involving an explosion resulted in only a fifth as many and that
involved two trains and a fuel-air explosion pumped by a natural gas
pipeline that had a yield estimated to be in the same ballpark at the
Hiroshima bomb. The worst involving an explosion actually on the
train resulted in only a tenth as many.

To create a tsunami would require a nuclear explosion under water--no
amount of searching passengers would prevent it. To duplicate the
natural gas explosion would require tampering with and setting
igniters in the vicinty of a pipeline, again searching passengers
would not prevent it. So we have an onboard explosion, which has
never done what you claim.

Sorry, but your argument falls flat.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

tim..... wrote:
"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...
Tom P wrote:
JamesStep wrote:
One factor that's often not considered is that around 25% of
people
consider themselves nervous flyers, according to some surveys.
Many
of these people would probably prefer train travel if it was
comparable to airlines in cost and time.

James

I commute regularly 250 miles inside Germany, sometimes by plane,
sometimes by rail. It is comparable in terms of cost and time -
but
as
time goes by I am getting more nervous travelling by high speed
train
than by air. Trains are intrinsically less safe than airplanes for
many reasons-
- an airplane has two engines. If one stops, it carries on
flying.
A train has dozens of wheels and axles. If just one of these
breaks
at high speed, you're dead.

So how many people have died as a result of a single wheel or axle
on
a train breaking?

101

Try a search for "Eschede".

OK, one such failure in, well, forever. Yeah, that's real dangerous.


--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:06:04 -0700, Hatunen wrote:

On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:09:04 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

Hatunen wrote:
On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:22:54 GMT, Stefan Patric
wrote:

I doubt if we'll ever see "bullet" trains (other than for commuting)
in the US. The rail system here, which is 60+ years old, just can't
handle really high speed trains.

In the rest of the world high speed trains run on special tracks,
anyway; regular tracks have curves that are too "tight" for high
speed, and high speed tracks need to be very smooth. I've not ridden
teh French TGVs but I have ridden the Eurostar several times and there
is none of the clickety-clacking and swaying you expect on regular
trains. Similarly ofr the Germna ICEs (which only run at 250kph).

Also, Americans have a different mindset than Europeans with regards
to travel: Americans are too much in a hurry
to enjoy the trip.

I doubt that the business man taking a train from Hamburg to Cologne
is doing it for the enjoyment of the trip. If the expectation is that
HSR will make its money off people taking trips for enjoyment, it will
fail financially.

But are the majority of travelers (on the train) business travelers or
are they just average people traveling for other reasons? I think the
latter. The exception would be if the train is a commuter type where in
the morning and late afternoon most of the passengers are going to or
coming from work.

I can remember traveling by train as a child and much of the enjoyment of
the trip was watching the changing scenery, seeing the small, rural
communities that one would never see if flying pass by, talking to the
other passengers, playing cards or games, etc. People just lived a
slower more gregarious life then.

As far a maglev trains: The technology just isn't there. A US
company using a German company's maglev system has been trying for
about 20 years to build an elevated train from Las Vegas to Anaheim,
CA--about a 300 mile trip. Total travel time, including two
intermediate stops, would be about 1.5 hours. Top speed of train is
projected to be 350 miles per hour. It's still on the drawing board.

Meanwhile, Shanghai has had a 30km maglev in operation for four years
and maglevs are being considered for other places in Asia.

That 30km maglev is a showpiece with as much relevance to practical
transportation as the monorail at Disneyland. Many things get
"considered". When there's a maglev running a major intercity route let
us know.

I'm a little dubious about maglev myself, but I'm only addressing your
comment "The technology just isn't there". It's there, but it's too soon
to know for sure that it's economically impractical. I'm guessing it is,
but the fact that some German company can't get funding for a brand-new
relatively untried technology from LA to LV doesn't mean it is.

The Shanghai maglev is what I would call a "proof of concept" or a
"working prototype." Even carrying the reported 7000 passengers per day
at around $6 each, the line is not even breaking even let alone making a
profit. The "technology" is just still too expensive to be truly viable
in a business sense. And to me, a devout Capitalist, until such time
that it is, the technology just isn't there. Maybe, in another 20
years.... But even if then, I think that maglev would be best suited for
short inter or intra city travel in major urban sprawls.

FWIW, I found this link on maglevs interesting, particularly the fact
based on actual tests that maglev trains are 78% noisier than
conventional track trains, and, of course, the Vactrain, a maglev with a
projected top speed of 5000 mph (8000Kph). Will never happen.

http://train.spottingworld.com/Maglev_train


Stef

On Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:01:35 +0100, "tim....."
wrote:


"Hatunen" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:09:04 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

Hatunen wrote:

That 30km maglev is a showpiece with as much relevance to practical
transportation as the monorail at Disneyland. Many things get
"considered". When there's a maglev running a major intercity route
let us know.

I'm a little dubious about maglev myself, but I'm only addressing
your comment "The technology just isn't there". It's there, but
it's too soon to know for sure that it's economically
impractical. I'm guessing it is, but the fact that some German
company can't get funding for a brand-new relatively untried
technology from LA to LV doesn't mean it is.

Every single attempt, outside of China, to get funding for a line by said
company has failed to find finance.

Kind of begs the question here, which is whether "The technology
just isn't there".

Even when the German Government were offering, what was it 1 billion Euro?,
they still could come up with the rest.

I doubt if maglev is going to go anywhere; it's too complex
compared to weheels runing on rails.


--
************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

On Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:40:18 GMT, Stefan Patric
wrote:

On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:06:04 -0700, Hatunen wrote:

On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:09:04 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

Hatunen wrote:
On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:22:54 GMT, Stefan Patric
wrote:

I doubt if we'll ever see "bullet" trains (other than for commuting)
in the US. The rail system here, which is 60+ years old, just can't
handle really high speed trains.

In the rest of the world high speed trains run on special tracks,
anyway; regular tracks have curves that are too "tight" for high
speed, and high speed tracks need to be very smooth. I've not ridden
teh French TGVs but I have ridden the Eurostar several times and there
is none of the clickety-clacking and swaying you expect on regular
trains. Similarly ofr the Germna ICEs (which only run at 250kph).

Also, Americans have a different mindset than Europeans with regards
to travel: Americans are too much in a hurry
to enjoy the trip.

I doubt that the business man taking a train from Hamburg to Cologne
is doing it for the enjoyment of the trip. If the expectation is that
HSR will make its money off people taking trips for enjoyment, it will
fail financially.

But are the majority of travelers (on the train) business travelers or
are they just average people traveling for other reasons? I think the
latter.

But are the latter people who are taking that form of
transportation for the enjoyment? I think, whether business types
or not, most of them ar etrying to get from point A to point B.

The exception would be if the train is a commuter type where in
the morning and late afternoon most of the passengers are going to or
coming from work.

I can remember traveling by train as a child and much of the enjoyment of
the trip was watching the changing scenery, seeing the small, rural
communities that one would never see if flying pass by, talking to the
other passengers, playing cards or games, etc. People just lived a
slower more gregarious life then.

Especially if they were children. When I was a child people had
little choice but the train. But my childhood was the Grat
Depressin and the Second World War.

As to the slower more egregarious life, the misty clouds of
nostalgia play a role...

--
************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *