New terminal station under development in Bangkok:https://www.railwaygazette.com/news/news/asia/single-view/view/four-storey-bangkok-bang-sue-station-takes-shape.html …
Certainly conventional thinking in the West is that rail can only be successful if run by gov, financed by taxes...but overwhelmingly Westerners think rail is for long range, intercity travel--they routinely neglect suburban and regional travel
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...also China's HSR is 100% tax financed and run by the government (well, by state-owned enterprises)
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Yes, state-owned company. But not run by or sustained by government. What PRC does - like any owner - is it gives the company the seed money, then company is expected to support itself financially. Also much if not all of that seed money came from the other SOEs, not tax money.
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For operations, maybe--but certainly not for construction of new lines
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Private companies built almost every mile of track in the US. When when Amtrak runs on them it’s like their throw money into the furnace.
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Yes, occasionally with free land etc from the gov, but they generally raised their own money. But that was when trains were the *only* way to go long distances at speed--it's much tougher to find investors for something like that now.
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Real estate acquisition is a marginal cost in rail construction. But those rails still exist. Amtrak doesn’t have to do a thing but lease or maintain them, and they can’t seem to do it.
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They're kind of crippled in the sort of service they can provide due to hostility from the freight railways that actually own and maintain the tracks--they tend to prioritize their own trains and are loathe to allow the sort of frequent service which makes passenger rail work
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That said, Amtrak is a terrible Frankenstein's monster of a company--they either need drastic overhaul or outright replacement. Most of the long-distance routes they run should probably drop their passenger service, but the senators from those states aren't fond of the idea
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The long-range intercity routes are the ones losing money. Amtrak makes almost all its money on the NE corridor; that and billions from Congress sustain the rest of the system. Which is “popular,” but not sustainable. China testing that it can be both.
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I know Amtrak makes most of its money there--but whenever I bring up trains in America, I get asked questions like "why would I take a train from NYC to San Francisco instead of flying?" because that's the sort of distance people assume trains work at
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Because Amtrak today still promotes that, in advertising and when begging Congress for money. It can dominate in ranges under ~200 miles; airlines can’t compete in time or - if operated correctly - price. Which is why NE corridor so successful. No one flies from DC to NYC.
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It doesn't even dominate in the NE corridor (tons of bus companies operate there, plenty of people just drive, and yes, a lot of people do fly as well), and certainly not in its other sub 200 mile corridors
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The other sub-200 corridors Amtrak operates in are atrocious. Greyhound can beat Amtrak in both time and price. In NE, Amtrak fastest. Bus is the value choice there, and flights due to company contracts.
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Amtrak isn't fastest between NYC and Boston--only between NYC and DC afaik
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