6 ms·

USA's lacking rail commutes come down to the fact that America's leaders made the deliberate decision to destroy its own rail network and force people onto plan

USA's lacking rail commutes come down to the fact that America's leaders made the deliberate decision to destroy its own rail network and force people onto planes. The electric range of this aircraft is 125 miles[0], which is at the low end of the range where conventional intercity rail is time-competitive with the plane. A bullet train would absolutely smoke this. tl;dr I have a few qualms with this app[1]. Now, this thing might take off (pun intended) anyway, for one simple reason: a theoretically faster train does not compete with it if it doesn't exist. The midwest and west are chock full of towns whose rail connections were either abandoned or never existed in the first place, but have regional airports. This thing would be perfect to service feeder flights from hub airports to regionals or as a charter plane. That being said I wouldn't expect this to revolutionize air travel. You're still going to be packed into a sardine can and made to pay extra for the privilege of bringing a reasonable amount of toiletries with you. And all the long-haul flights are still going to be using fossil fuels because the energy density of batteries sucks. But still, I'd rather have this than 10 million AI companies. [0] 500 miles for hybrid operation on SAF, because the FAA would not certify a plane with such a small range [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

idiotsecant 13d ago
I'm not sure the Midwest is the intended target, here. I think it's more suited to small, frequent trips like island hopping or trips to remote settlements.
- mgerdts 13d ago
  It seems like a great option to get between MSN, MKE, or RFD and ORD. Maybe even an interesting connector between MDW and ORD. The key thing question is whether smaller more frequent flights eat up too much runway time to be economical.
QuantumNoodle 13d ago
I'm rooting for electric planes not because I prefer them over rail but bc I share your disappointment and pessimism about American railway. I much rather take a train but when Amtrak NYC<->DC costs as more than a plane, leaves from the same destination, and takes hours longer then flying becomes preferable. There are many route similar to this. Only legup that Amtrak has is frequency. If planes become cheaper hopefully airlines will afford more of them and offer more frequent flights. I dream of a constant stream of aircraft flying between destinations. But never underestimate greed, airlines will probably reap the cut costs and charge customer the same as before :/
bluGill 12d ago
> USA's lacking rail commutes come down to the fact that America's leaders made the deliberate decision to destroy its own rail network and force people onto planes This is utterly 100% false! The US made the decision to focus rail roads on freight. You never think about freight because you never use it for anything personal, but it is still there. The US beats any place in Europe for Freight and few countries even come close to US for freight rail. There was a decision made to get rid of passenger rail. However most of those destroyed routes are routes that nobody sane would put passenger rail on today even in high rail mode share countries. There are only a small number of routes should return - for most of the lost routes a bus is better. That isn't to say passenger rail is bad. However the routes we had were bad.
- sien 6d ago
  Freight modal share by country is interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usage#Freight_modal_share_for_rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usag... Latvia, Rusia, Estonia and Switzerland have a higher modal share of freight than the US. But the US is higher than the countries many people think about when they think about Europe in Germany, Italy, France, the UK and others. Which is really significant. US freight rail is also super efficient and cost competitive. US freight rail is definitely unappreciated.
- kmeisthax 12d ago
  No, the freights are NOT OK. US freight railways are responsible for the "precision scheduled railroading" brainworm that makes freight genuinely worse for anything that can be carried by truck and isn't good for anyone: 1. Freight customers spend longer waiting for their deliveries, and pay more money for them. As a result, a lot of mid-size freight customers have moved to trucking instead, and the market has shrunk. 2. To save money as less-valuable cargo is pruned from their networks, freight railroads have been downgrading their infrastructure from double- to single-track with sidings. This would be acceptable, except... 3. Freight trains have gotten longer and longer in order to reduce the crew needed to attend to a given amount of freight. Sidings on single-track routes are rarely long enough to accommodate mainline freight trains, so passenger rail gets delayed, and grade crossings stay closed for way longer. That last bit is actually why I personally complain about freight railroads. I am someone who has spent a good chunk of his 2026 lobbying Utah's state representatives to adopt the Rio Grande Plan[0]. You see, Salt Lake City is divided in thirds by UP freight mainlines, which get hourly freight through-traffic that paralyzes car and pedestrian traffic across the various sides of the city. The railroads themselves don't inconvenience passenger train traffic[1], but they absolutely make it miserable to walk, bike, or drive across the city, and we can't run any transit services parallel to the railroad for obvious reasons. Everything that has to cross the tracks reliably has to go over one of two rail-crossing bridges in the entirety of downtown. The reason why you are saying "a bus would be better" is primarily a matter of federal infrastructure spending. Buses get to ride on the Interstate Highway System for cheap, and government-provided highway infrastructure is significantly better for both freight and passenger traffic than the privately run railroads can offer. But at the same time, buses are a demonstrably worse answer to the question of "how do we get a bunch of people from one city to another" than trains or planes. Personally, if money was no object, I'd call for the government to run intercity rail corridors along highway rights of way with open interconnection, overhead catenary, passing tracks, and passenger-priority dispatching. These would specifically be open to both passenger and freight rail, specifically because both are suffering under the weight of hedge funds that moonlight as Class I freight railways. [0] The Rio Grande Plan is a citizen-led initiative that calls for building a train box in downtown Salt Lake City along 500 West and burying all heavy rail freight and passenger traffic inside of it. [1] ...because we built our own railroad parallel to the UP mainline. Amtrak's California Zephyr service is absolutely inconvenienced by Union Pacific, though - in fact, it's the worst delayed route in the entire network!

idiotsecant 13d ago

I'm not sure the Midwest is the intended target, here. I think it's more suited to small, frequent trips like island hopping or trips to remote settlements.

mgerdts 13d ago
It seems like a great option to get between MSN, MKE, or RFD and ORD. Maybe even an interesting connector between MDW and ORD. The key thing question is whether smaller more frequent flights eat up too much runway time to be economical.

QuantumNoodle 13d ago

I'm rooting for electric planes not because I prefer them over rail but bc I share your disappointment and pessimism about American railway. I much rather take a train but when Amtrak NYC<->DC costs as more than a plane, leaves from the same destination, and takes hours longer then flying becomes preferable. There are many route similar to this. Only legup that Amtrak has is frequency. If planes become cheaper hopefully airlines will afford more of them and offer more frequent flights. I dream of a constant stream of aircraft flying between destinations. But never underestimate greed, airlines will probably reap the cut costs and charge customer the same as before :/

bluGill 12d ago

> USA's lacking rail commutes come down to the fact that America's leaders made the deliberate decision to destroy its own rail network and force people onto planes This is utterly 100% false! The US made the decision to focus rail roads on freight. You never think about freight because you never use it for anything personal, but it is still there. The US beats any place in Europe for Freight and few countries even come close to US for freight rail. There was a decision made to get rid of passenger rail. However most of those destroyed routes are routes that nobody sane would put passenger rail on today even in high rail mode share countries. There are only a small number of routes should return - for most of the lost routes a bus is better. That isn't to say passenger rail is bad. However the routes we had were bad.

sien 6d ago
Freight modal share by country is interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usage#Freight_modal_share_for_rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usag... Latvia, Rusia, Estonia and Switzerland have a higher modal share of freight than the US. But the US is higher than the countries many people think about when they think about Europe in Germany, Italy, France, the UK and others. Which is really significant. US freight rail is also super efficient and cost competitive. US freight rail is definitely unappreciated.
kmeisthax 12d ago
No, the freights are NOT OK. US freight railways are responsible for the "precision scheduled railroading" brainworm that makes freight genuinely worse for anything that can be carried by truck and isn't good for anyone: 1. Freight customers spend longer waiting for their deliveries, and pay more money for them. As a result, a lot of mid-size freight customers have moved to trucking instead, and the market has shrunk. 2. To save money as less-valuable cargo is pruned from their networks, freight railroads have been downgrading their infrastructure from double- to single-track with sidings. This would be acceptable, except... 3. Freight trains have gotten longer and longer in order to reduce the crew needed to attend to a given amount of freight. Sidings on single-track routes are rarely long enough to accommodate mainline freight trains, so passenger rail gets delayed, and grade crossings stay closed for way longer. That last bit is actually why I personally complain about freight railroads. I am someone who has spent a good chunk of his 2026 lobbying Utah's state representatives to adopt the Rio Grande Plan[0]. You see, Salt Lake City is divided in thirds by UP freight mainlines, which get hourly freight through-traffic that paralyzes car and pedestrian traffic across the various sides of the city. The railroads themselves don't inconvenience passenger train traffic[1], but they absolutely make it miserable to walk, bike, or drive across the city, and we can't run any transit services parallel to the railroad for obvious reasons. Everything that has to cross the tracks reliably has to go over one of two rail-crossing bridges in the entirety of downtown. The reason why you are saying "a bus would be better" is primarily a matter of federal infrastructure spending. Buses get to ride on the Interstate Highway System for cheap, and government-provided highway infrastructure is significantly better for both freight and passenger traffic than the privately run railroads can offer. But at the same time, buses are a demonstrably worse answer to the question of "how do we get a bunch of people from one city to another" than trains or planes. Personally, if money was no object, I'd call for the government to run intercity rail corridors along highway rights of way with open interconnection, overhead catenary, passing tracks, and passenger-priority dispatching. These would specifically be open to both passenger and freight rail, specifically because both are suffering under the weight of hedge funds that moonlight as Class I freight railways. [0] The Rio Grande Plan is a citizen-led initiative that calls for building a train box in downtown Salt Lake City along 500 West and burying all heavy rail freight and passenger traffic inside of it. [1] ...because we built our own railroad parallel to the UP mainline. Amtrak's California Zephyr service is absolutely inconvenienced by Union Pacific, though - in fact, it's the worst delayed route in the entire network!