It's less than half the speed in Germany. The extra stops do not account for the difference.
At any rate, yes I can compare the absolute times because that's what passengers will do when making choices on how to get from A to B. If the trip in Germany was an hour faster, more people would choose the train.
In the US, it's usually always faster to drive. Traffic congestion can make the train attractive in the northeast.
> It's less than half the speed in Germany. The extra stops do not account for the difference.
You sure about that?
The non-stop train takes 4 hours from beijing to shanghai. now they stop once and it takes 4hr48 (reduced max speed from 330 to 300km/h). At the same distance, DB stops roughly 14 or 15 times. if a stop costs you 10 minutes, you save an additional 2 1/2 hours just by not stopping.
Took the info from wikipedia [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing%E2%80%93Shanghai_High-...
Does every stop cost 48 minutes? I don't have the answer but simply saying it's the number of stops without evidence is not factual.
Re:Germany's New Crowdfunded Train
by mschuster91 on Saturday December 17, 2016 @04:32PM
(#13202771)
At least a stop at a major hub will take that time. Basically, you don't only have the time spent stopped at the station, but you also have long period of acceleration and deceleration - an ICE3 takes 3km to stop from full speed in normal conditions according to a quick google search. Also, trains usually have to move extremely slow (40 km/h) in the surrounding area of a station... and the larger the station, the more switches.
One train on google maps for example has 7 stops between Beijing and Shanghai. Meanwhile Hamburg-Munich has 9 stops on a trip half the length.