Looking at prices, the chunnel car shuttle seems to be $200 for a 50 mile trip. If a regular American car was driving this distance it would cost about $10 in gas.

I don't see this catching on for links between cities.

the chunnel goes _under the sea_ for 30 miles.

Yes. But most of the cost of the ticket will be operating expenses for the train and associated service. The cost of building under a body of water, which is large, does not make most of the ticket price difference.

The cost of the Channel Tunnel (by car) is determined by what the market will sustain: the only alternative to move a vehicle is a ferry. The train is a bit faster.

A more realistic comparison is something like Villach in Austria to Edirne in Turkey, which is 1400km by road, and €259 one-way for a car plus €149 for one person (https://www.seat61.com/motorail-trains.htm).

For comparison, math for the Villach to Edirne trip comes up with USD 158 in gas for the average US car mileage and gas price for 1400km, versus USD 443 for the car + person tickets.

With the average EU consumption (6.0L/100km) and the average price (€1.59) it's €133.

(Though for a journey this long people with multiple cars would probably be taking the larger one.)

The train costs more, but means families can play with their children (around a table) rather than having them stuck in the back seats for hours, and probably part or all of the journey is overnight.

I'd gladly pay 300 dollars not to drive 1400km. Once or twice a year, I drive 320km, and I think about twice that (to and fro) is the limit of what I am reasonably willing to drive over a couple of days.

Those are rookie numbers. I used to drive 100km for dinner sometimes or to visit friends on a Saturday afternoon. This is in a major US metro.

Driving 100km on a straight highway with driver assist is nothing.

Driving 100km on a nauseating mountain serpentine can easily take 2-3x longer.

But yeah, 300 dollars in Turkey is a lot of money that most people will be willing to save.

Depends on the roads, obviously, but my limit is around 12 hours a day, however far that gets you.

I’ve driven 680 km each way on interstates to my in-laws’ home. There on Friday, back on Sunday. Had to drive because I was bringing gifts, way too much for air travel.

And to most Americans, that’s not a particularly long drive. It’s all a matter of what you’re used to. I’ve done 4800 km in eight days and didn’t do anything but local driving on three of those days. That’s a bit more than Madrid to Berlin and back. It’s a lot of driving, but it’s definitely doable even if you’re not twenty years old.

Madrid to Berlin is not comparable to the same distance across the USA. The population density means the roads are much busier and have many more junctions etc.

I take it you’ve not driven from Boston to Miami and back.

Interesting.

In my own little world, I don't worry too much about 1400km in one day. I'll probably stop and take a long break at some point (and maybe catch a nap), but I don't think I'd be willing to pay $300 to avoid the drive.

It's a long day of driving, but I enjoy the diversions on trips like that. There's a whole world of stuff between A and B and it's nice to be able to stop and take some of it in whenever I feel like it when driving alone, which I can't do with a train that has my car loaded on it. (My solo driving style suits me very well.)

Or: With passengers, we can take turns driving and the cost per-head decreases instead of increasing.

1400km in Europe is significantly more taxing than in the USA. The density means more junctions, traffic, variations in speed etc -- I think it's twice the mental effort of the same distance in North America.

Something like a drive between Denver to Kansas City is utter torture for me because it's nearly void of any mental stimulus, doesn't matter that I can cruise along at a high speed in a straight line the entire time, I'm worried about myself or other drivers around me falling asleep at the wheel midway through the utter nothingness that is Kansas. Give me cities and terrain to navigate so that I'm doing something with my body while just sitting there for hours and hours and hours on end.

Yes, it does. It does to recoup costs, even decades later, and it does so because the alternative is a ferry, and so they can charge this price.

Also a lot of the cost is load/unload time.

There is one single car train route on the east coast that goes between Virginia and Florida with no stops.

I am skeptical about the ease of scaling this, especially given the state of non-car distance travel on Amtrak.

I looked into this a few years ago. It cost more and took longer than if I just drove it. Not sure how that calculation would work out today, though.

As I mathed it out just now for a potential date next spring:

Train: Auto-Train costs $280 per head, flat, for minimal accommodations. (Transporting the car itself is... free? I guess?)

Driving: The IRS mileage rate is $0.67 per mile (which is supposed to cover fuel and other easy-to-spot consumables, as well as purchase price and insurance and depreciation and and and), and the distance is 811 road miles between those same two points that the Auto-Train covers, or about $527.

Based on these assumptions,

For one person, the train looks cheaper. It is $280 to take the train, vs $527 to drive.

For 2 people, it's very close the same price: It is $280 per head to take the train, vs $264 per head to drive.

For 3 people, driving pretty clearly takes the financial win: It is $280 per head to take the train, vs $176 per head to drive.

If you used to sleeping in a very quiet room, I suggest getting some Loop Earplugs or similar.

The background noise should be much less than a plane, and the air pressure etc is obviously normal, but the erratic noise can be more -- e.g. some clunks if the train stops.

> To drive between those same two points is 811 road miles. At $0.67 per mile (the IRS reimbursement rate, which is supposed to include consumables like fuel and also less-visible things like insurance and depreciation), that's $544.

That IRS rate is incredibly high. It's probably around $150 or so in fuel depending on prices and efficiency to make that trip. I can't see food, insurance, and depreciation adding another $300. The ability to not drive is what can make it worthwhile for some, as you note.

Erm, $400 not $300. I guess I typoed that.

People will come up with the craziest solutions to problems solvable with 200 year old technology (trains). Why you need these heavy metal boxes instead of taking a train is beyond me. Cars are optimal for trips below 100-ish miles. Anything above is high speed train and airplanes.

You're making a very big assumption that once you get dropped off by the train at your destination that you aren't going to need a vehicle once you're there.

It's definitely worth reminding anyone that this is why you need train stations to have good bus service to the surrounding area. You can't even take a commuter rail (in a city with decent rail transit) unless your destination has good bus service or a friend to pick you up.

These things come hand in hand, if you want to make it work things either need to be walking distance from the station or with reasonably frequent buses. If a bus comes once an hour (actually the case in my city off rush-hour) it may as well not exist.

Or you take a folding bike with you. Brompton even make an electric version for those that need it.

Rent one?

Have you rented a car recently? I'd rather drive my own car for 3 hours. Then I'll also have an easier time securely bringing a whole bunch of stuff, which I sometimes do also.

Such an easy solution, all we need to do is raise every city and suburb in North America to the ground and rebuild them around a massively expanded rail network which we also need to build. It would be nice if NA cities were already amenable to walking and public transit and served by ubiquitous passenger rail but there’s a century of car infrastructure instead that nothing but a century of overhaul will fix.

> raise every city

raze = tear down

Absolutely, instead of actually fixing the problem, let’s invent muskisms like creating underground highways by boring tunnels underneath cities or ferrying said cars across long distances with a train.

That’s the public infrastructure equivalent of technical debt.

A better solution imho is to create a plan for building train capacity where it makes sense (high traffic areas where trips are such and such - Boston-NYC-Philly-DC) and fund them through public-private contracts.