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Comment by devonkim | Hacker News Reader

Trains at least stop and open their doors occasionally letting in fresh air. Each car has less people in it than a typical commercial flight, and my train trips are significantly shorter than my plane flights as well. It’s not obvious to me what’s worse one way or the other.

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Can you give an example of your train trips that are shorter than the flights. It seems like a short flight between SFO-LAX is about ~1.5 hours of sitting-inside-the-tube. I am not aware of a train between these two cities that can do this trip in any significantly less time than that.

One thing to consider is that train seats are significantly roomier and more comfortable than airline economy seats. This site[1] lists most high-speed trains having seat pitch of >900mm (or 35in), some reaching 1,000mm (39in). According to [2] most airlines have seat pitch of 31-32 in.

[1] https://misc.transport.rail.europe.narkive.com/ffTnAi0D/seat...

[2] https://www.seatguru.com/charts/longhaul_economy.php

6 feet is 72 inches though. So this is insufficient.

Wasn't sure which were the apples and oranges to even begin comparing it seems. I was thinking of train trips locally like commuter trains for about 30 - 40 miles v. short flights a state away because for a train trip to be made a route needs to exist, and those tend to be commuter trains. I wouldn't suggest a train to be an aggregately shorter time period for a long distance trip.

Another factor to consider is that total time for air travel for the covid context should include sitting on a tarmac and loading / unloading.

Building high-speed train track would provide exactly that, something like Shinkansen or CRH trains.

the parent comment is that we should build highspeed trains like the ones in other countries that demolish plane travel time and overall checkin to destination time.

A plane lets in fresh air the entire time throughout the flight.

When I read a long time ago I interpreted recirculated air to mean 100%. It seems that old planes had 100% fresh air and modern planes are 50% or so recirculated. Heck, I didn't think even HEPA filters would have been sufficient until I just did some reading, but clearly if as of 2002 a simple cold virus won't transmit appreciably with recirculation, the coronavirus won't either [1].

[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/195131

The problem with recirculation is not that it makes through the filter (although that'd be part of the issue, if it did), the problem is that air is blown throughout the cabin, and those droplets travel quite a bit _before_ they reach the filter. Someone sneezes 3-4 rows away from you, and you could inhale whatever they expelled.

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