Re: Independence Day

D  <nospam@example.net> wrote:

Kludge writes:

Contrast this with my leaving Buffalo NY today much earlier than I would like,
because all the Buffalo-to-NYC trains are in the morning in order to
accomodate the freight line schedule.... and then wait overnight in NYC
because the two daily trains to my hometown are also scheduled to accomodate
the freight lines schedule.  The less said about the food the better.
Everything had to be scheduled well in advance since the Buffalo-NYC leg
fills up completely well beforehand.

>
I have now contrasted this and come to the conclusion that despite its
faults, if things in the US are like you say they are, the swedish trains
are way better. Yes, delays and breakdowns, but nothing close to what you
describe.

Most of the issue there is because the tracks are privately held and the
cars and stations are publicly-owned and the organizations don't get
along well.  So we get issues from both piled on top of one another.

In Europe when the trains are filled up they usually just add more cars on
and increase capacity for one trip up and one back.  Amtrak does not have
enough cars to meet demand as it is, let alone keep spare capacity for
demand peaks.  Don't even think about holidays.

>
I had no idea that the US system was so bad. Once I took the train from NY
to Boston in autumn and it was a lovely experience, but it must have been
23 years ago. Maybe things worked better then? Or maybe I was just lucky.
Regardless, I enjoyed it!

I do still like it, and going north-south on the coasts is pretty good. 
The good news is that the DC-Boston route is publicly-owned track, so
the trains are usually on time.  The problems come when you are coming
from Pittsburgh, say, and get stuck behind a freight train and get
behind schedule.  Then when you get into DC to change trains, you miss
the connector.  Or my situation, where I am in southern Virginia and
if I can make it to DC in time on the CSX freight tracks, everything is
fine.  But if I am late coming into DC then it screws their schedule
up and we wind up waiting behind other passenger trains for a slot to
continue north.

So general rule is north-south is good and east-west is bad.

Amtrak buys trains from Europe but because the tracks are graded and
configured for freight, they wind up having to pay a lot for design
modifications to accomodate the tracks.  Those modifications do not
always perform as planned.  The freight companies have no motivation
to change their tracks for passenger service.

There are some exceptions here and there though... like this one:
>
https://www.blataget.com/sv/history/
>
If I had the time and opportunity, I would definitely try it!

We do have a few historic railways in the US, all privately owned and
some of which have some pretty peculiar rolling stock.  This looks like
a fun trip though!
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."