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Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

And by and large, people don't take trains for Chicago to Seattle type distances in Europe. That's further than the distance from Paris to Moscow.

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These long distance routes should be left intact because they are an important anchor for eventually expanding to high speed rail.

China kept their unprofitable rural slow passenger routes into the distant corners of their country, and now they are converting them to high speed routes.

The Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed line is 2,298km long, and used to be 22 hours but now runs in 8[1]

Being able to go from Penn Station in Manhattan to Union Station in Chicago in 8 hours in a comfortable train would be a serious alternative to air travel, and once the track is upgraded, it would probably be cheaper than existing service. And this is completely doable with decades old technology. Other countries have done comparable things with less.

I don't think we should abandon "legacy" routes just because they are not profitable right now. And even if they are never profitable that alone is not a good enough reason to abandon infrastructure.

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-20842836

Note that New York to Chicago by Amtrak is so slow largely because there's no direct route. You either take the Great Lakes route going through Albany, Buffalo, and Cleveland, or the northeast corridor route to Washington DC and then another line to Chicago. The more direct Keystone line through Pennsylvania only goes as far as Harrisburg.

I think the absolute time and distance is what matters, and it would still substantially benefit from being high speed, even if it is meandering through upstate NY and along the great lakes.

Eventually, a more direct NY - Chicago high speed rail route could be built that is even faster.

You’ll notice that there is a Detroit to Toronto line on that map. It’s not an accident. Chicago to Detroit has been running at 110mph for 80+% of the distance for almost 10 years now. The rail tunnel under the Detroit River already exists.

You just need a fast NYC to Buffalo with a little extension on to Hamilton, ON and you’ve got a very direct NYC to Chicago route.

They'd need to do something about the hour-long stop at the border for CBP and its Canadian equivalent to go through the train checking everyone's passports. Decades ago I ran into it on the now-defunct Chicago-Toronto line and I'm pretty sure it's why they don't run those trains anymore. The New York-Toronto and New York-Montreal trains still do it.

Seattle-Vancouver avoids it by not making any stops between Vancouver and the border, so the immigration checks take place at the station. This might be feasible for Montreal, probably not for Toronto, and a train that runs from Buffalo to Detroit without stopping in Canada at all seems implausible.

Could probably set it up to do checks on departure. End up in the wrong country without your passport? Just take the next train back to the last destination in the other country.

Would likely need a special treaty in place so Americans traveling from Chicago to NY can travel through without a passport (just ID). Alternatively if we’re talking diplomatic solutions, the US and Canada could move towards a Schengen-style free transit zone without cross country border checks.

> Could probably set it up to do checks on departure

There's a seaplane from Victoria-Seattle. It's been a few years since I took it but I believe this is what happened. There's a custom agent at each side. I can't remember if there were any checks before departure though. I would imagine they would do some preliminary check because they don't want to be on the hook for taking you back.

Shortest custom wait ever BTW since the plane only holds 10-15 people.

> US and Canada could move towards a Schengen-style free transit zone without cross country border checks

This would be a dream. I'm curious why I've never really heard any proposal about this. As a Canadian (currently living in the US), I think that Canada would be more opposed to this. We always seem to have a fear of the US amalgamating us. I think it'd be politically tricky on both sides though. Even though it was proven to be false, there's still this myth that the 9/11 hijackers entered the US through Canada.

> As a Canadian (currently living in the US), I think that Canada would be more opposed to this. We always seem to have a fear of the US amalgamating us.

If it helps, Switzerland joined the Schengen area while maintaining its own customs controls (with reasonably consistent enforcement) and autonomy on immigration policy (outside of temporary tourist travel which is mostly harmonized). Major policy unification isn't necessary, although the minimum feasible level is likely still unprecedented for the US and Canada.

Prior to 9/11, going between the US and Canada just meant answering a few questions, no passport needed, at least between Detroit and Winsor.

Sometime around 2008 that stopped and passports or enhanced licenses were required.

Yup, the USA messed up the longest, bestest border in the world.

And the other part of the problem is that you're going through a continental divide. Prior to air travel, I assume NY to Chicago was a major route so there may be good reasons for why the routing is as it is.

100 years ago there were many routes! I hate that the rails have failed, taking a train between Philly, Reading, Allentown, and Scranton makes so much sense!

Yes, but the 20th Century Limited flagship of the New York Central Railroad [1] actually did follow the current Lake Shore Limited route. I suspect that there are geographic factors that limit a more direct route.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_Century_Limited

Of course, there is a Paris to Moscow train. The thing about the coast to coast train routes in the US and the Paris to Moscow train is that you're not in any way required to take the entire trip - there are stations along the way.

I guess I picked a bad example in that, to my surprise, there is a direct train for that route--although it still takes about a day and a half. But I could certainly pick a lot of city pairs in Europe that are 1-2K miles apart that would be anything but efficient to travel by rail.

It is, I believe, the second longest passenger train in Europe. (The longest is a similar Nice–Moscow service.)

But both are weekly services, and even Nice–Moscow (yet alone intermediate stops) has more capacity most days by plane than the once-a-week train.

Well, let's hear some. You're probably gonna want to limit yourself to city pairs that have multiple direct daily flights though, as anything less won't have enough demand to merit a direct convenient train route either.

Without making a research project out of it:

- Rome to Athens

- Paris to Barcelona

- Madrid to Stockholm

Much of Europe is a very far way from having a seamless integrated cross-border train system.

Paris to Barcelona does actually exist: https://en.oui.sncf/en/train/timetables/paris/barcelona

The next direct train takes 6h39m.

> That's further than the distance from Paris to Moscow.

Which has, in regular times, a weekly service by the Russian railways. And it passes through Belarus, and ends in Russia, countries for which you need visas and aren't necessarily the friendliest. If that service makes sense, Chicago-Seattle certainly could ( as an experience, cheap travel, etc.)

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