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A comment on French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights. Parent comment

Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by fredophile on Sunday April 11, 2021 @06:20PM (#26774006)
I'd agree in terms of distance and traffic between the two cities. However, the long, relatively severe winters would probably add some complications to high speed rail.
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Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by Clewza313 on Sunday April 11, 2021 @10:00PM (#26775466)
There are plenty of high-speed services (up to 350 km/h) in northern China, Korea, Japan and Russia, all of which have severe winters and (on the west coast of Japan) some of highest snowfalls on the planet.
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Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by inter_netuser on Sunday April 11, 2021 @06:48PM (#26774241)
Check out the rail to Bergen, in Norway. Shot in 4K.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atyvdC15HFA

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Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by fredophile on Sunday April 11, 2021 @07:17PM (#26774436)
A quick search on Google tells me that train goes at 160 km/h. Not exactly high speed. It looks like they don't run into too many problems with weather related cancelations or delays though [0].

[0] https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/article/74614/norway-rai...

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Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by MarcusE1W on Monday April 12, 2021 @05:32AM (#26777487)
High speed trains in snow are indeed more difficult as the speed creates under pressure between the ground and the train. So much that even stones have to be remove otherwise they hit the train all the time.

This under pressure sucks up the snow and plasters it to the train.

In Germany at least ICE train speed is reduced (despite their name ;-) if there is snow on the track.

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Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by closeparen on Sunday April 11, 2021 @08:26PM (#26774898)
Amtrak generally averages about half that, so it seems pretty good.
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Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by fredophile on Sunday April 11, 2021 @08:52PM (#26775064)
The Edmonton to Calgary route is straight, flat, and has a mostly sparsely populated path. I'd hope that high speed rail under those conditions could do significantly better.

I also looked up Amtrak's speeds and found a report from 2016 saying that over half of their trains had a top speed of 160 km/h or greater.

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Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by xyzzyz on Sunday April 11, 2021 @10:35PM (#26775605)
> I also looked up Amtrak's speeds and found a report from 2016 saying that over half of their trains had a top speed of 160 km/h or greater.

This sentence can be interpreted in multiple ways. Maybe they mean that half of their trains could theoretically ride at 160 kph, but that doesn’t mean that they ever actually reach such speeds on their routes. Or, maybe, that half of their trains reach 160 kph on some fraction of their route, maybe very small one.

What I would be more interested in is their average speed according to schedule, weighted by the frequency of trains on a given segment, and same average but for actual ride times, including delays etc.

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Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by jcranmer on Sunday April 11, 2021 @10:45PM (#26775654)
Most of Amtrak's routes are likely to be on the NEC, where the top speed is I believe 140 mph (~200 km/h). Outside the NEC, the newest of the diesel fleet can probably reach 100mph (or 160 km/h), but the actual routes are unlikely to support that kind of speed with any amount of routine. Instead, the effective speed limit (again outside NEC) is going to be closer to ~60-70mph.
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Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by bluGill on Sunday April 11, 2021 @10:17PM (#26775534)
Amtrak mostly runs 1950s train service or worse. Don't use them as an example of anything.
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Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by Scoundreller on Sunday April 11, 2021 @07:06PM (#26774382)
Not sure if an electric rail-line would be an easy sell in Alberta.
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Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by alacombe on Sunday April 11, 2021 @07:35PM (#26774572)
Calgary/Edmonton seem to get about 2x as much snow as Bergen (~48" vs ~24"). Also, temperature fall much lower in Alberta than in Norway...
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Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by wirrbel on Sunday April 11, 2021 @06:35PM (#26774120)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway

Snow isn't an obstacle to trains (unless you don't want trains to be a reality).

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Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by fredophile on Sunday April 11, 2021 @07:19PM (#26774455)
The trans siberian railway isn't high speed. There are plans to make some of it high speed but the only article I could find was from 2018 and at that time it was still only in the early planning stages and expected to cost billions of USD [0].

[0] https://www.railway-technology.com/features/moscow-kazan-hig....

(Edited to fix an autocorrect correction from my phone)

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Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by go_blue_13 on Sunday April 11, 2021 @09:12PM (#26775189)
>trans siberian railway

>edmonton to calgary

I think think there's a slight difference between the things we're comparing

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Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by refurb on Sunday April 11, 2021 @09:31PM (#26775313)
It certainly makes things more difficult. You need to clear tracks, build shelters where there is avalanche risk.
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