How to keep trains as popular in North America as they are in Europe

[carturo222]

Does literally any other country in the world make rail passengers undergo the same security theatre as air passengers?

In India, you have to pass a metal detector to go pretty much everywhere (shopping mall, subway station, museum, cinema), and that includes train stations, where you have to put your things through an X-ray machine.

Indian airports aren't as obsessive as American ones, and train stations are very paranoid, so train and air travel in India are almost equally stressful.

 

[Bytor]

I know that people don't normally get public transport to buy groceries, I was more commenting on the mindset that takes hopping into your car for any and every errand to be a good and natural state of affairs.

Plenty of people do, where decent public transit is available. They just don't do a ginornous haul once a month like suburban SUV owners do. Hop-off-hop-on grocery store trips on the way home only take an extra 10-15 minutes but you can easily snag enough fresh produce and meat for a week of meals for 4 people with a couple of reusable shipping bags which are no problem on a bus or metro. I even had a foldable grocery cart the held 5-6 bags, but I only used that ocasionally when I wanted a big bag of potatoes or more rice or other bulky objects.

 

[Bytor]

More Rail travel, the TSA would also do their security theater there as well.

Today's security theatre for airports is mostly an overreaction to 9/11, and if you flew before and after you remember the difference. It's also important to point out that it is there in European airports, too, but not European train stations.

There's no reason to suspect that in an ATL where rail travel remained as popular in North America as in Europe that it would accrue the same security theatre as airports while Europe does not. If it would, then we really should have seen something similar happen OTL as well, but trains were not affected.

 

[Devvy]

A brief venture in to the US rail thread, as they usually descend in to quasi-anarchy, and a few points:
- Private passenger rail is doomed, the only way is state/federal backed passenger operations.
- Widespread passenger rail is only really viable in this very rough area of the US, as well as California. And by viable, I mean a rail network, not just one or two routes which might be viable elsewhere.

- You need freight and passenger operators to respect each other and work towards a common goal. Freight operators can earn some reasonable extra revenue through track charges on lighter used routes, especially if they are principally only used at rush hour.
- And on the back of above, you need them to work together towards keeping routes going, especially with double track for two-way operation. If the freight operator wants to single track an important passenger route; the passenger operator can buy the second track, and then both sides operate the route as a two way railway maintained to Class 4 or something. Share costs.
- Electrify routes to reduce operating costs (with high level overhead lines to not interfere with double-stack freight), operate multiple units with fast turn around times to make better use of rolling stock.

You'll end up with a load of city-based urban rail networks (I guess what the US calls commuter rail), with all-day service like several Toronto routes. Several of those will interchange at the far ends with each other, and Amtrak can also use those same tracks to provide better intercity transport between the cities.

TLDR version; properly maintain what was there instead of cutting it back massively and then trying to rebuild it. Most of the south half of the London commuter belt operates trains with a 80-90mph limit - you don't need fast trains, you need regular, reliable and easy to use trains. Those are easily fixable if freight and passenger can actually work together.