Re: Independence Day

On Mon, 22 Jul 2024, Scott Dorsey wrote:

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.

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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.

Interesting, so the opposite of sweden with private trains of public
tracks. Stations are public though. It terms of getting along, I think
the worst break down is the subway and commuter trains in stockholm
where the train operator was private and the rest public, and they
definitely do _not_ like each other. Since I don't live in sweden any
longer I haven't followed it, but I think both felt the other cheated on
the contract and there was lots of pie throwing.

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.

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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!

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

This is very good. If I ever travel to the US again, I'll make a note to
add a north/south train ride in order not to have to drive (which I do
not like) and not an east/west train ride.

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.

If memory serves, I think that sweden has a different track width
compared with the rest of europe. This makes international travel with
train from sweden to europe a bit more painful, since you need to change
in denmark. But this could be something I've dreamed. I'd say I'm 60%
sure.

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

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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!

Yes, a colleague tried it and said he recommended it! On a similar note,
there are some nice day trips around Stockholm with boat.
https://www.stromma.com/sv-se/stockholm/utflykter/dagsutflykter/drottningholm/
Highly recommended (on a nice and sunny day)!

--scott
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