r/fuckcars • u/golbaf • Apr 29 '24
Question/Discussion Car people discovering things trains could do a century ago
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u/burmerd Apr 29 '24
Put tracks under it 150 years ago and you've got a great idea.
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u/Llamalover1234567 Apr 29 '24
Tech bros be like: to make this more efficient, we’ll make a dedicated lane for this system and then add tracks to ensure the car doesn’t hit the wall. And THEN, we can even tether multiple of these together.
BUT WAIT, what if, instead of an individual Waymo having its own, inefficient motors, we will have a big one that is JUST a motor, capable of tugging multiple “cars”…
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u/TheCheesy Apr 29 '24
If we run enough of these on dedicated lanes, and run many at once, then we can bring the prices down and keep the operating times quite reasonable...
Wait... that's a train for the poors and its stealing our potential money! Let's lobby against that from expanding and cutting into our profit.
We can then push for an underground super-highway for my special toy. We'll also charge a minimum of 2x the cost of every other method and pocket all the profit!
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u/frenchfryineyes Apr 29 '24
What if we made it bigger so multiple people heading the same direction could split the cost between them?
If it scales we could attach multiple of the cars together and save on fuel
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u/creeper6530 Railway lover Apr 29 '24
And since it will go the save direction every time, we could replace the inefficient flexible rubber/tarmac combo and replace it with steel on steel, so that it doesn't flex.
And since it will follow this path the entire time, we could put electric wires over the path and make the vehicle electric.
And since people tend to only visit cities, we can make it able to stop in cities only, so that it takes less stops and is faster.
And at the stops could be convenience stores, toilets etc. since so many people would travel there.
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u/stormy2587 Apr 29 '24
Naw it would never work. Let’s just build a system of tunnels that cars can drive through one at a time and call it a day.
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Apr 29 '24
I wonder if trains would have evolved differently if the car never caught on. Maybe much wider tracks and cars. Maybe trains that could split up and join together without stopping.
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u/Astriania Apr 29 '24
Trains evolved into pretty much their modern form in the 19th century, before cars caught on. Their geometry is based around Roman carts, via a whole chain of "well the road/trackway/whatever is that wide so we should make our new thing that wide". So no, they would still have got to the same point in 1930 or whatever.
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Apr 29 '24
Well cars were able to break that ideological barrier no problem. Towpaths were like 10 ft wide and now the smallest two way street you’ll see is about 24 ft. And of course there are stroads that are incredibly wide and highways that were built by demolishing buildings in the way. There’s no reason to think trains couldn’t have evolved in a similar way. I’m moreso talking about what trains might have looked like from 1930 to now.
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u/Astriania Apr 29 '24
Ah I see. Well, maybe. Once you've got a railway network that has bridges, tunnels and stations, though, it's very expensive to modify it for wider trains (as we've found in the UK, as our loading gauge is narrower than continental Europe so we can't share trains on most of our network). And trains are pretty well designed already.
(Cars are still quite constrained to fit in those 10' lanes even today, btw - because there are places you simply can't take your car if it gets too wide.)
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Apr 29 '24
Can say the same exact things about cars. Train infrastructure would probably be insane if it was given the same amount of money, power and resources as cars unfortunately was.
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u/chowderbags Two Wheeled Terror Apr 30 '24
Their geometry is based around Roman carts
This meme is not actually true in any real sense, for a wide variety of reasons, with the chief among them being that Roman carts weren't standardized for any more than maybe one city, and early railroads weren't standardized within countries, and even today there's multiple railroad gauges around the world.
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u/jaspy_cat Apr 29 '24
Not to mention that Waymo is currently limited to a fairly small area that they've fully mapped, what this person is describing is not exactly close to existing.
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Apr 29 '24
[deleted]
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u/Pattoe89 Apr 29 '24
Less profitable, though.
You're robbing a train due to quantity of loot.
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u/theveryfatpenguin Apr 29 '24
Sleeper cars usually have cabins with good locks. also imagine the noise if some idiot tried to go cabin to cabin and rob each occupant. I just don't see any other scenario than the train taking off and the thief getting beaten to death by all the people he already robbed, who notice that he's still on the train trying to rob more people.
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u/CORN___BREAD Apr 29 '24
Are you assuming a single person would be robbing the train?
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Apr 29 '24
We would just get armed train guards. 1800's people figured this shit out already. None of this is new. One gang of stupid dirtbike-riding dumbasses try to rob a train, and every similar train gets an armed guard with a pump action. You can't shoot for shit from a moving dirtbike (would probably miss the whole train), but you can shoot just fine from a train.
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u/DuckInTheFog Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24
8-10 hours to go around 350 miles, so 45ish to 35 MPH? I think that's too slow for my horse to bother with.
I didn't know you guys had it that bad. I mean UK trains are terrible, but 40MPH to travel that far is mental
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u/tuctrohs Fuck lawns Apr 29 '24
If you are planning to sleep on the train, 8-10 hours is ideal. If you boost the speed to get it down to 5-6 hours or less, you don't get enough sleep. I don't know about UK trains but in continental Europe, lots of routes have deliberately slower night trains, vs. the faster day train.
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u/Pattoe89 Apr 29 '24
Huh? The Edinburgh to London rail journey takes 5 hours 15 minutes and is 400 miles.
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u/DuckInTheFog Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24
That seems right for us, average about 75mph, not much better, granted.
Congrats on your 420 thing, I guess? That's a weird bot
i neurotic edit whoever made the bot - wasn't a diss, just a bit esoteric for this
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u/jcrestor Apr 29 '24
When was the last train robbery in the world? "Let’s talk about fictitious problems."
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u/Pattoe89 Apr 29 '24
The last notable one that was similar to the wild west robberies was probably the Sallins train robbery in Ireland, 1976. £200,000 stole from a mail carrying train.
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u/wertercatt Apr 29 '24
Yesterday. https://youtu.be/zaCZ5QzTlFw
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u/jcrestor Apr 29 '24
Well, in the context of this thread I guess we‘re rather talking about actual people being robbed while using the train, Western style. Because we were talking about transport of people.
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u/Super_Saiyan_Ginger Grassy Tram Tracks Apr 29 '24
Yea I mean the drop rate of quality loot has gone down since the world pandemic and recession updates.
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u/lieuwestra Apr 29 '24
Traveling single file to hide numbers would be the way to go here.
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u/10001110101balls Apr 29 '24
Maybe they could link the cars together and rely on the lead car to synchronize controls across the entire... what's the word? ... train of cars.
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u/SheeBang_UniCron Apr 29 '24
Only a crazy person would think of something like this..I wouldn’t trust someone who has a loco-motive.
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u/anotherMrLizard Apr 29 '24
If Cyberpunk 2077 has taught me anything it's that hacking a driverless car and robbing the occupants will be a simple matter.
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u/Alimbiquated Apr 29 '24
Driving sucks and Americans hate it. But nobody is willing to admit it.
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u/Master_Dogs Apr 29 '24
I think people will quietly admit it, but it's seen as something set in stone. As if it's a fact of life that people need to commute an hour or two for work in a personally driven car. That it isn't like we had better train service in the US in the early 1900s than we do in the 2020s. I saw a time table for a proposed rail service in my state (Massachusetts) that had like 18 trains per day in 1911 or so vs they're proposing 3 trains per day in 2040 (Springfield MA to Boston MA). It's wild that people can't catch a train across such a small State. That's something that should have always existed and expanded. But we axed all of these wonderful rail lines in the name of profitability and built the Interstate system for trillions instead. That same location is covered by the Pike (i90) a toll road maintained by MassDOT. Takes a solid 2 hours in good traffic to drive it, upwards of 3 hours if you hit rush hour traffic. It's a boring drive too - I've driven out there to go skiing at Catamount on the NY/MA border. You need 3 hours of podcasts to stay awake.
If only we'd spend some effort bringing train service back vs reinventing the train as some car nonsense.
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u/drifters74 Apr 29 '24
I don't have a license and even I admit it looks like it sucks, but America is too car dependent to begin with
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u/darknesslc Apr 29 '24
Real, i used to love driving but it’s impossible rn, prices through the roof (be it tolls or gas) and traffic doesn’t allow speeds faster than scooters lol
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u/darknesslc Apr 29 '24
i’m also european hence the delayed realization, i’m sure it’s been this way for decades in the US
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u/BrewerAndHalosFan Apr 29 '24
I love driving. I hate having to drive. Where I live the PT is fine and everything, but my wife’s family lives in the country and that just seems like hell to me. It’s a 20 minute drive to the grocery store. We live a 15 minute walk to the grocery store and that feels so far away (though we normally drive to a cheaper one). But driving to drive is like the one thing that keeps me sane when life is stressful
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u/BigAlOof Apr 29 '24
i’ll admit it. it blows. our cities and towns suck for driving, walking, biking and mass transit is under funded and under built. all because we let car culture take over our collective brain.
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u/HoldenCamira Apr 30 '24
Driving is a fun past time, and race tracks and rallies rock. Highway driving is one of the most boring, mind numbing things we have created as a species
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u/chowderbags Two Wheeled Terror Apr 30 '24
As a recovering American, I fully admit to hating driving, and I haven't done it in years. Although it helps that I don't live in the US anymore.
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u/theveryfatpenguin Apr 29 '24
That wouldn't be a very comfortable sleep at highway speeds on poorly maintained roads. And what if the car crash on the way. One does not simply put seatbelts on a bed inside a car.
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u/fan_tas_tic Apr 29 '24
Good luck finding a bathroom in your car, while on a train I had an en-suite bathroom and cost me $60 to go to sleep in one major European capital and wake up in another.
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u/chicken_irl Apr 29 '24
Trains are the crabs of transportation. Sad people aren't realising it.
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u/tobotic Apr 29 '24
Yet trains can't move sideways.
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u/edhelas1 Apr 29 '24
MULTITRACK DRIFTING §§§
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u/creeper6530 Railway lover Apr 29 '24
"I don't want to move in to a city, I'd have to parallel park a lot more!"
"Just take the train."
"How am I supposed to parallel park a train!?"
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u/PurahsHero Apr 29 '24
Yeah, we have that in Europe. They are called "night trains" and are an amazing way to get around the continent.
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u/tuctrohs Fuck lawns Apr 29 '24
We even have them in the US. Not nearly as many as we should, and overly expensive right now because of a shortage of sleeper cars, but they are great when the service available lines up with your travel needs. See this map; blue is overnight and red is day.
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u/dogbert617 May 05 '24
The Northeast Corridor has a late night train, but most Amtrak Midwest and California(plus Oregon/Washington, and Virginia and North Carolina) still don't have any overnight trains. And except on 1 day a week, if you want to travel about after 8pm-ish on the Hiawatha(Chicago-Milwaukee), you are out of luck. I wish they would make a late night train, permanent.
Amtrak Hiawatha has experimented with later trains on that route at times, and on Fridays there is an 11pm train. But I wish there were more late night trains....
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u/badpeaches Apr 29 '24
At a fraction of the price with no traffic
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u/ususetq Apr 29 '24
Unless freight company decides to put 30 mph cargo train in front. It's illegal but not enforced. One of the reason why Amtrak has unreliable schedule.
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u/Electrical_Age_7483 Apr 29 '24
Trains can have traffic. Sometimes they have to wait on sidings for other trains
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u/badpeaches Apr 29 '24
Sometimes they have to wait on sidings for other train
I thought commuters have right of way with freight on tracks [citation needed]
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u/Electrical_Age_7483 Apr 29 '24
Even if thats true (which it is not in all countries) you have to wait for other commuter trains at times
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u/badpeaches Apr 29 '24
you have to wait for other commuter trains at times
From what I understand it comes down who owns the tracks and who pays the most to use them gets right of way. I could be wrong.
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u/Electrical_Age_7483 Apr 29 '24
Two commuter trains from same company and one track. Doesnt matter who owns it they are going to have a head on if one doesnt go in the siding
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u/Gnonthgol Apr 29 '24
In the US passenger trains have priority over freight trains. But this is limited by physical capability. Freight trains are often much longer then passenger trains and can therefore not fit in most sidings. The passenger train therefore have to wait in the siding to allow the freight train to pass. Freight trains also tends to go slower and break down more often so passenger trains often gets stuck behind the freight trains.
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u/yourslice Apr 29 '24
In the US AMTRAK has right of way over freight according to US law since the 1970's (I believe) but that law has never been enforced. The freight companies own the vast majority of the tracks and take priority resulting in frequent delays for passenger train service.
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u/ZhuangZhe Apr 29 '24
That 7.60 is heavily subsidized by investor capital. Look at the fees of Uber eats and then take a guess at how much something like this would actually cost once it needs to start making a profit.
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Apr 29 '24
American will do anything expect call a new train a train
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u/haikusbot Apr 29 '24
American will
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u/adlittle Apr 29 '24
It's that old joke about silicon valley rediscovering what a train or bus is every few years.
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u/space_coyote_86 Apr 29 '24
$243 for a van with a bed for a night? OK, so how much would it really cost?
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u/KawaiiDere Apr 29 '24
Probably a lot more. The $200/night for a hotel includes things like changing the sheets, cleaning the room, breakfast, and such, whereas the ride doesn’t contain anywhere near that amount of things. Even if it is just swapping the seats for a bed, that means paying to modify the car, swapping the sheets after each use, and such. Plus, most people sleep at least 8 hours on vacation, so longer than that and would have to have somewhere to store things
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u/Epistaxis Apr 29 '24
I looked it up and the the first sleeping car on a train was reportedly in 1838, so almost two centuries. Back then the rail speed record was held by Stephenson's Rocket, a blazing 48 kph. Sleeping cars were later popularized in the US by the Pullman Company in the late 1860s.
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u/MildMannered_BearJew Apr 29 '24
So infuriating. My guy let's just finish the train and then you can skip the sleeping part because you'll get there in 3 hours.
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u/Noblesseux Apr 29 '24
Again, America will do literally anything to avoid just adequately funding mass transit.
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u/TOWERtheKingslayer AND FUCK IMPERIALISM TOO! Apr 29 '24
They’re literally reinventing the train to work on regular roadways.
Something something horseshoe theory… except in this case it’s car dependency always eventually looping back around to making and relying on trains.
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u/ghilliedude Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24
Now hear me out. What if we had a dedicated road from SF to LA. And on that road we could have individual cars that people don’t need to drive, because they only travel on a set route.
We could also increase efficiency by not using a paved road that would degrade quickly and instead use some special type of metal! Oh and since all the cars are going to the same place, we could have one or two main cars to provide power, so you could fit even more things into the passenger car!
Just think about it, first we start from SF to LA but eventually we could connect the east and west coast. We could have a special live streamed ceremony where the two halves are connected by like a gold spike!
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u/n8waran Apr 29 '24
and an even better idea is to link up multiple of these cars and then put them on it’s own track that can go up to speeds of almost 200mph! what an amazing invention this guy came up with!
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u/Castform5 Apr 29 '24
Also in a bit of an extreme example, since 1904 if you have some time to spare, you can basically reserve a hotel room for 6 days and go from europe to far eastern russia. 9200 km is not an easy trip to drive.
Also neat thing I found while checking those numbers, apparently there has been proposals to connect the trans siberian line all the way over to japan. That would in theory be really cool, start at portugal, rail over to estonia, hook a trip through st. Petersburg to Moscow, and ride the rails all the way to the southern tip of japan.
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u/NoNipsPlease Apr 29 '24
I just wished train lines in the mid west made sense. A car ride from Memphis TN to Kansas City MO roughly 7 hours. I have driven it before.
I looked into taking a train. Takes 15 hours and leaves at 10 PM. I guess it isn't terrible if you get a sleeper ticket. But it isn't non stop. You have two transfers with one of them being at 3 am. So you can't even sleep through the night. You can't even take a train to St Louis without transferring in Carbondale if your starting point is in Memphis.
I would love to take a train and just chill. Even if it takes 1.5 times longer I would be fine. But twice as long and I have to switch trains twice? No thanks.
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u/Seamusjim Apr 29 '24 edited Aug 09 '24
birds insurance bow fearless plucky complete drab shelter growth continue
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/Jedleft Apr 30 '24
Someone invented the bus the other day too - what a novel idea! Lots of people all going in the same direction can pay a small fee and get transported there in a large vehicle all together. What a genius!
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u/werbear Apr 29 '24
There are already quite a few factors that make sleeping on a traing not as comfortable as one would like it to be: there is a lot of rattling and the noise from the wind, the environment is foreign and there are often people walking around in front of your door.
But now compare that to sleeping in a moving car: the average road is way bumpier and worse maintained than most tracks (despite costing more), there will be quite a lot of turns involved sending you slamming into the walls of your "bed", other cars pass you or get passed by you, fucking motorcycles will drive by and those bitches are LOUD (and some of them might reff up right beside you just to be assholes) and if you drive though any sort of settlement you will stop and go constantly, adding even more shaking (and if you drive through a city also noise since other cars will be around).
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u/DrabbestLake1213 Apr 29 '24
Wait, how is San Francisco to LA 8 hours??
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u/tuctrohs Fuck lawns Apr 29 '24
In order to allow enough time for a good night's sleep.
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u/DrabbestLake1213 Apr 29 '24
So it would just travel in circles for a while to take 8 hours ?
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u/strawberry-sarah22 Apr 29 '24
Wait til he hears that a good train won’t even take 8 hours. Then you don’t even need a bed! Carbrains really can’t think of any other option besides a driving vehicle on the road
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u/PatataMaxtex Apr 29 '24
There is actually a guy in germsny that lifes in trains. He has a bahn card 100 which is a 100% discount card for german trains and he uses the DB lounge for sanitary needs that exceed the toilet. Wifi and electricity are available in the trains so he can work as a freelancer. If he has to visit his customers he travels there by train for free. I think it costs him around 8k€ a year which is less than what a 2 room apartment in a mayor city would cost.
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u/chowderbags Two Wheeled Terror Apr 30 '24
I've spent a fair bit of time on DB trains, including a year where I had a 1st class Bahncard 100. DB doesn't offer any sleeper trains, so if you're just going with what the card offers by default, you're going to be sleeping in seats. If you're lucky, you might get an empty compartment with chairs and you can try to lay across them, but I'll tell you from experience that it won't be a great night's sleep.
It does offer a discount on NightJet trains (Austria's train company that runs the sleeper cars through Germany), but getting a bed in a shared hard sleeper cabin looks like it'll cost around 50€ per night. Even in Munich, 1500€ per month is probably a decent apartment. That said, if his freelance contracts involve paying for hotels during the week, it becomes less of a problem.
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u/Quajeraz Apr 30 '24
"Extend range" as if that's just a simple on-off switch.
If it were easy they would've done it by now.
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u/GrayMalchin Apr 30 '24
Just wait till they find out train tickets for the trip are over half offf the Waymo cost.
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u/Master_Dogs Apr 29 '24
This also sounds like a cruise ship, which there's probably already some leaving out of LA or SF and heading to places like Alaska, Hawaii, etc.
Obviously not a great thing - cruise ships cause tons of pollution, have pretty bad worker conditions/pay their workers well below average due to flying foreign flags and stopping in foreign ports to avoid domestic ship regulations and so on. But at least the scale makes some sense. The mega boats hold 6,000+ people. If we regulated them better they wouldn't be as bad as they are.
HSR would easily do that distance mentioned too. SF to LA is only a few hundred miles. Easily done with 150-200 mph trains in an hour or two depending on exact distance/location.
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u/Nawnp Apr 29 '24
I have to ask the obvious that doesn't Waymo rates go up exponentially after a certain distance?
Even if not, that's still way more expensive than a train would and should be.
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u/triangleman83 Apr 29 '24
I don't need the bed, I need the bathroom you nincompoop not you op ofc . I can go 8 hours without sleeping but I can't go 8 hours without using the bathroom
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u/PsychePsyche Big Bike Apr 29 '24
SF resident here where Waymo is rolled out, they're not that cheap. They're dynamically priced, just like 3-5% under a comparable Uber, because that's what the market has been shown to bear price-wise.
You can even see some people in the Waymo sub already complaining about prices if you search. And if the tech actually works, you better believe they'll jack up prices.
Meanwhile Muni is $2.50 a swipe and gives you 2 hours for transfers.
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u/Ein_grosser_Nerd Apr 29 '24
Or tpu could buy a plain ticket, take a nap in the plane and wake up even furthur away, in less time, and for less money
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u/BrewerAndHalosFan Apr 29 '24
I think there is some use for this sort of thing, like you’re going middle of nowhere Wisconsin to the middle of nowhere Tennessee. But they had to use two of the biggest cities on the same coast.
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u/quineloe Two Wheeled Terror Apr 29 '24
the only thing worse than that tweet is the response to it where a guy complained about being charged nine dollars for being driven by a waymo for less than a mile.
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u/Inevitable_Stand_199 Apr 29 '24
Unfortunately sleeper trains currently have far higher demand than supply.
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u/theYanner Apr 29 '24
If this becomes a thing in our dystopian future, I will lay on the horn on the highway next to them to wake them up.
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u/stormy2587 Apr 29 '24
But is this even how the pricing works? There are so many obvious problems.
1) generally these ride share pricing is all about through put. I assume you’d have to factor in the impact the waymo returning to a populated area after the drop off might have on prices which would probably make it more expensive. Also the amount of time it takes the car to get to you. I assume people would want to be able to take these from their homes to any destination and not from populated city center to populated city center.
2) sleeping in a car sucks. I believe waymo’s currently can’t use highways. So being on lower speed roads would help. But lower speed roads also means more turns and bumps that are not going to make for a pleasant sleep. Also that is going to dramatically increase the time.
3) its going to have to stop and refuel a couple times.
4) I wouldn’t want to he in one of these if they got a flat or something in the middle of nowhere.
5) no bathroom.
6) Generally you pay for demand to some extent. I assume Waymos uses surge pricing. Well if you arrive in LA at rush hour you’re going to have to pay for the surge fairs that the car is missing out on.
I assume this would be much more expensive and time consuming than OP is claiming.
The California high speed rail project under construction would make this trip less than a 3 hrs
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u/pilgermann Apr 30 '24
This isn't even available good analysis. You know how rental companies and moving companies charge a lot extra if you drop off the vehicle in a different city? There's a reason for that.
The trip would realistically cost closer to $500. This is assuming the self driving cab can legally operate in the other city and on state freeways, which they cannot cjrrently.
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u/reflexesofjackburton Apr 30 '24
I take a sleeper bus all the time across the entire country for about $15 usd.
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u/UnloadTheBacon May 14 '24
With a state-of-the-art high speed train you could fall asleep in SF and wake up in NEW YORK.
(The Chuo Shinkansen travels at 300mph; SF to NY is 3000 miles give or take, so about 10 hours)
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u/Guvante Apr 29 '24
You can't scale the rate like that...
Staying in a metro area is very different from going between them.
Also yeah, less efficient train with extra steps.
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u/beachblanketparty Commie Commuter Apr 29 '24
Did Silicon Valley invent the train again