After reading the postings on this thread, I've noticed that the commentary on why trains are better than planes hasn't noticeably changed in the almost 50 years since Peter Lyon said the same things in "To Hell In A Day Coach" and Anthony Haswell made the same points when he established NARP.
At about the same time, TRAINS noted in editorial comment about an economic comparison by CB&Q of the balance sheets of the "California Zephyr" and a single Boeing 727 flight between Chicago and Denver to the disadvantage of the CZ.
Meeting very interesting people over meals was briefly touched on but to me it is a wonderful part of the journey. Most of my train travels have been in sleepers on the long distance trains thus enjoying the meals in the dining car. Because of this my wife and I enjoyed a wonderful dinner with David Plowden while travelling down the Hudson River corridor to NYP. Of the many meals I have had, I can think of only one where the company was something I couldn't get away fast enough.
At the end of the journey, I always feel more rested after a train ride than on a plane.
Emirates is putting some A380's in service with 615 seats.
http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2015/11/12/emirates-sets-record-with-most-passenger-seats-on-new-plane/
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
CSSHEGEWISCH Everybody talks about wanting more comfortable seating, better cabin service, etc. but nobody seems to be willing to pay more to get it. It's also interesting to note the passenger capacity of the Comet and some of the long-range piston-engined airliners. 44 seats is around the capacity of your average regional airliner today.
Everybody talks about wanting more comfortable seating, better cabin service, etc. but nobody seems to be willing to pay more to get it.
It's also interesting to note the passenger capacity of the Comet and some of the long-range piston-engined airliners. 44 seats is around the capacity of your average regional airliner today.
You can get great seating and service in first or even business class on transatlantic and transpacific flights, but the price is very steep. Fly this Tuesday on Lufthansa Chicago to Frankfurt non-stop, same plane (747): economy coach is $2861.80 one way; business $7294.80; first $12717.80. Of course you could get much cheaper fares by booking RT longer in advance, but just showing relative differences.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
daveklepperThe plane was Russian, but seemed very simjilar to me to a Macdonald-Douglass DC-9.
Could have been a Tu-134.
My own experience with British train travel was over the period 1962-1990. Except for one unfortunate experience when I sat down on a seat without looking first and on which someone had spilled some drink, I enjoyed every ride, always had a seat, found food in the diner betwen good and excellent, when the length of the trip required a diner, and found the trains generally on-time. Have things gone downhill since then?
I also enjoyed talking to people on the British trains, the person sitting next to me or across the table in a diner. And I think they enjoyed talking to me.
My most unique flying experience was from Budapest to Prague on Hungarian Airlines. The plane was Russian, but seemed very simjilar to me to a Macdonald-Douglass DC-9. I told the steward, who looked like a waiter I knew at Fine and Shapiro's Kosher restaurant in Manhattan, and spoke with the same accent, that I kept Kiosher. He said: "In that case all we have for you is coffee and a bagel." I said OK, and went to the john to wash. When I returned to the seat, on the fold-down table there was a huge plate with a bagel, and also two kinds of cheese, a cut-up apple, a sliced pair, a peeled tangerine, grapes, raisins, and walnuts.
Somehow, I have usually been able to enjoy my flights, even when comfort was not the best and the food even acceptable, and thus not consumed. The only flights I did not enjoy were the two legs of my emergency journey from Fort Bragg - Fayetteville to Richmond and then to New York upon my commanding officer's informing me of my Dad's passing on. The only time I felt ill on a flight. After the funeral, I returned on an ACL Champion, Jim Masters was the dining car stweard and an old friend, and that train ride and the service and food he provided restored my spirits to the point that I looked forward to returning to my Army projects and the people I worked with.
Paul,
I've seen a couple of write-ups on the Brabazon, IIRC one was on California Classics (site devoted to Convair, Douglas and Lockheed propliners).
Apparently there was a bit of discussion on how to fit out the Brabazon, some wanted to make it a mass market airplane, i.e. a piston engined foreshadowing of the B-747 while others wanted to focus on the high end luxury market. The pre-war market for BOAC was for the Upper Class, pretty much the same market segment that now buys private jets. My guess is that the folks at BOAC decided (probably correctly) that there weren't enough of the Upper Class to keep the Brabazons filled.
Boeing tried for something a bit less extreme with the B-377 Stratocruiser, which was a double deck fuselage mated to B-50 wings (which were essentially B-29 wings with P&W Wasp Majors instead of the Wright engines used on the B-29). For the long distance routes that the B-377 was intended for, the market was dominated by the DC-6, DC-7 and Lockheed Connies, with the last hurrah being the DC-7C and L-1649. The latter two had the longest range of any production propliner (more routes could be non-stop) and were substantially quiter due to extra five feet of wing between the fuselage and inboard engines.
BOAC did have a bit of a winner with the Comet, the big benefit of flying is speed and the comet was the fastest airliner when it entered service. It only seated 44, so wasn't as crowded as cattle class in current airliners. Unfortunately it was was originally built with square windows... Interestingly enough, the intercontinental fit-out for the DC-7C only held 44 pax, due to weight restrictions with full fuel.
The US did have something similar to the Brabazon, the C-99, which was a transport fuselage stuck between a pair of B-36 wings. The airliner version was intended to be a mass market, holding well over 100 pax. Pan-Am was considering buying some for the Hawaiian route. Another proposed airliner that didn't make the grade was the airliner version of the Republic Rainbow which would have held 40 to 50 pax and cruised at 450 MPH.
The ultimate for room to stretch out while flying were the Zeppelins, particularly the Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg.
Addendum: The "extra space" issue also comes up in the discussion between corridor trains and long distance trains. The space needed for comfort on a one to two hour trip is less than for a thirty to forty hour trip. On a personal note, my mian requirement for a short trip is space for setting up a laptop, which means no reclined seat in front of me (though reclining by moving the seat cushion forward will work).
Well, of course. However, their explanations of market forces go far beyond those of classical economics, incorporating the advances of behavioral econ for a greater and more complete understanding.
I think all of us can benefit from exposure to knowledge beyond our comfort zones. Would you agree that engineers benefit from developments in the field since Adam Smith's time?
I guess I misinterpreted your claim that I would "benefit from reading" the works of two prominent economists to be criticism of my assertion that market forces favored faster over modes of transportation with more comforts and amenities.
So we are in agreement that everybody, even the nationalized enterprises of the Clement Attlee government, are subject to the effects of markets?
Good. Such common ground can advance the cause of advocating for trains.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Paul Milenkovic So then, why am I deficient in understanding of human desires, prejudices, wants, and weaknesses to speak of a "market" as shorthand for the cumulative effect of same from large number of people? I was only repeating what that British guy said in the documentary on You Tube when he was wistfully recounting that the Brabazon was not the failure people made it out to be, it was quite the technological accomplishment, but that it just couldn't be sold to anyone. Does this man need to do more reading?
So then, why am I deficient in understanding of human desires, prejudices, wants, and weaknesses to speak of a "market" as shorthand for the cumulative effect of same from large number of people? I was only repeating what that British guy said in the documentary on You Tube when he was wistfully recounting that the Brabazon was not the failure people made it out to be, it was quite the technological accomplishment, but that it just couldn't be sold to anyone. Does this man need to do more reading?
So, rather than check out what those two behavioral economists have to say about markets, you prefer to pose questions based on a false assumption of why the suggestion was made. It was for your possible information and enlightenment, in general, not specifically in relation to the airliner in question.
And what is that benefit that I may derive from reading Akerof and Shiller?
Notice that I put "market" in scare quotes and that the omitted rest of my quote was something to the effect that the plane successfully meeting specifications drawn up by a government commission could not find a buyer in the government-run national airline. And the thinking of this commission (the Brabazon commission after Lord Brabazon, its leader) was along the lines of the 27 Reasons Trains are Better than Planes but applied to an aircraft.
I said airline customers along with largely national airlines (BOAC (later British Air), Air France, Lufthansa, and yes, even the privately owned Pan Am) making purchasing decisions on their best hunch of what the ticket holder wanted were part of the process of how we did not end up with a fleet of Brabazons plying the Atlantic.
Paul MilenkovicThe "market" chose the faster, more crammed jet, the market being the decisions made by the ticket buyer
You might benefit from reading some recent works by Nobel laureate economists George Akerof and Robert Shiller.
My wife would say that travel by train was travel in civilized comfort--and she said this before passengers going by air had to submit to searches.
Johnny
Any mode can be comfortable if you throw enough resources in it, and any mode can be miserable if you, well, make it that way for cost economy.
Writer David Brooks has an article about his expensive around-the-world vacation http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/t-magazine/vacation-four-seasons-around-the-world.html?_r=0. There was some pushback against what he had to say along the lines of "This guy has 120K to spend on an extravagant vacation, he is bragging about this by writing that essay, but he has to show his moral superiority by telling people it was a waste of money and that his fellow vacationers are people with too much money and too little compassion for the people serving them" or some such thing.
Yes, but, could we learn something about those convertible seat-beds on that jet cabin in the picture with regard to overnight train travel? But maybe this sleeping arrangement because you are screening people with the 120K tour package price, and if this was offered with a lower price of admission, you would be fitfully trying to sleep next to some uncouth stranger?
The deal is that if you have a slow mode, you need to make people comfortable over long periods of time in order to get them to use it, and then you have all of the amenities of roomier seats, the ability to get up and walk around some, and a lounge car where you can set your laptop and work papers on a table. There is nothing inherent, especially in early history, in a train that it provides this, but these amenities came to be in the face of competition from alternative modes.
How about watching this nominal half-hour TV program on the Brabazon airliner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxhbMZbh_O0? The Brabazon, as the video explains, has become part of British English as a word for a wasteful government program (kind of like Amtrak in the US -- and I don't offer this as a joke as people who are not train enthusiasts indeed use the word "Amtrak" in this way, and this is something we need to live with).
Yet the Brabazon was a technological marvel, a jumbo-jet sized propeller plane with 8 engines (3 locomotive units?) to transport passengers non-stop across the Atlantic in pampered comfort. The word "civilized" gets used to describe especially long-distance train travel, in contrast with modern jet travel that is a kind of Greyhound with wings. The government ministers who drew up the specs for a plane to make the government-run airline world-leading had the "civilized" concept in mind.
Is the world poorer that we are not crossing oceans in outsized prop-liners with sleeping berths and a movie theatre in the tail but instead are packed into jets? The "market" chose the faster, more crammed jet, the market being the decisions made by the ticket buyer, and yes, decisions made by that government-run airline competing with the national airlines of other countries.
Bring back the Brabazon!
I took 10 train rides in the UK. Nine were between 5 & 30 minutes late. The tenth was on time but broke down in the open country. We hiked a good distance over rail & ballast to buses.
The cars were packed so badly, you could have expired and not fallen to the floor. Forget about sitting. The people were remarkably friendly.
In Italy, train travel was on time and comfortable.
In the sixties, I took IC trains to Chicago to take ham radio and commercial radio operator exams. They trains were kind of run down. They were generally on time. Quite comfortable as they were more or less deserted! Never been on Amtrak.
Just my limited experience in train travel. I love trains but generally prefer to drive my own vehicle to wherever I go. Stop where and when I want to stop. Eat where and when. Etc.
England is very different from the US.
If you asked that question of people who use Amtrak in the NE Corridor, you'd probably get the same sort of response.
But, if you ask people in Phoenix, they would say, "What's Amtrak?" Fifth largest metro area in the US, no service.
It's all in who you ask.
Of course the Brits who were polled like their trains because they are often fast, frequent and most journeys are under 5 hours in duration. People here would choose trains if we provided transportation services like that. And remember, in the UK the trains are operated under bid contracts by private companies on track and signals owned and maintained by a quasi-government corporation.
So with connectivity, how fast you get there is not as important as being able to stay in touch while you get there. You need not sit jammed in cheek by jowl and scowl in a camped airplane.
Train travel is productive time.
On a plane, I barely have enough space to pull out a small computer, and then I have to constantly make sure the person next to me doesn't spill something on it, or put it away when refreshements come or I'm told to put electronics away.
On a train, even in a regular coach seat, I have plenty of room to relax, lean back in my reclining seat, pull out my computer and get comfortable to work. Even room to get to my bag and pull out some documents.
And when I'm tired of sitting in my coach seat, I can wander down to the lounge car and spread out on a table. All the time with multiple electrical outlets in easy reach.
This summer, I traveled on Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited from New York to Chicago and experienced an almost 7 hour delay due to a freight train issue. Even so, my time on the train was very productive as I could keep working the whole time. And of course nothing interfering with me sending text messages or making phone calls when needed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/journeysbyrail/11533054/27-reasons-trains-are-better-than-planes.html
What reasons would you add?
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