alt.hn

1/10/2025 at 5:16:16 PM

When a winter storm trapped a luxury passenger train near Donner Pass

 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-a-deadly-winter-storm-trapped-a-luxury-passenger-train-near-the-donner-pass-for-three-days-180985782/

by pseudolus

1/14/2025 at 12:49:02 AM

> “In the 1950s, you had this mid-century hubris—technology could conquer all,” says Ty Smith, director of the California State Railroad Museum. “Part of the reason this episode happened was this unyielding optimism that we could solve every problem. In the face of a blizzard in the Sierra, that just wasn’t true.”

My takeaway was the opposite. A hundred years before this, a different group was stuck in the same pass, and couldn't get help for 4 months. This situation resolved in 3 days, and there was no cannibalism. When something similar happened to an Amtrak in 2019, it only took a day and a half, and people still had access to Twitter the entire time. Not to diminish the suffering, etc., etc., but it seems like there's cause for optimism when it comes to technological progress.

by karaterobot

1/14/2025 at 4:07:48 AM

Reading the Wikipedia article on the Donner party[0], it seems like what happened was less so an unfortunate accident and more so the norm for human survival in more perilous environments, which we generally aren't exposed to anymore.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party#

by DiscourseFan

1/14/2025 at 11:01:46 AM

Unfortunate accident because they were not supposed to be at the pass, there were well travelled safe routes to California, but the party were told of a "shortcut" that was untravelled and dangerous. They got stranded far from civilisation, with no chance of having someone stumble on them or know to send help.

Shouldn't have happened and they got help from some indigenous people that have been surviving there for quite a bit, I reckon - which tells me that people could survive then in those conditions.

by dmbche

1/14/2025 at 12:00:43 PM

Nitpick: when the Donner Party got snowed in, they were already back on a well travelled route, their problem was just that taking the supposed "shortcut" (the "Hastings cutoff" - map: https://www.historynet.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/donner...) delayed them so much that they weren't able to pass the Sierra Nevada while the weather still allowed it. The reason no one stumbled upon them was that no one was foolish enough to attempt crossing the mountains at that time of the year anymore (and, if they had attempted it, they would have ended up in the same situation as the Donner Party).

by rob74

1/14/2025 at 3:40:44 PM

The previous winter someone had overwintered no problem because they gathered wood early and knew how to fish.

by wbl

1/14/2025 at 5:18:13 AM

Having access to Twitter may well have made that one and a half days seem like 4 months though.

by 6LLvveMx2koXfwn

1/14/2025 at 8:43:48 AM

Yeah I'd rather get eaten at that point

by saagarjha

1/14/2025 at 4:40:50 AM

I think that's an acceptable takeaway in the context of the train company. And I don't think it's a sentiment incompatible with optimism about technological progress

As far as I get from the article they didn't call for help for two days trying to free the train with other trains, and the train was stuck in there in the first place because the staff saw a wall of snow and tried to plough through.

I don't know if those were or are standard practice but it sounds like guests got somewhat close to suffering pretty serious consequences for it.

Avoiding cannibalism is nice but also a pretty low bar to clear

by arlort

1/14/2025 at 9:37:52 AM

Commonly management tasked with say, rescuing a disabled train have a plan A and they get focused on trying to make plan A work even if plan A has now introduced so many further obstacles that a complete re-evaluation is appropriate.

Yesterday was the first day of in person exams at my employer (a large University) and we got reports that a key system wasn't working, the students were not able to take one of the exams on offer that morning as instead a "User friendly" something-went-wrong-tell-a-grown-up message appeared.

We didn't know, but in fact this bug could have been fixed by (temporarily) removing a single line of code from some server software, maybe 5-10 minutes to implement, test and ship to production under emergency conditions, then an afternoon of paperwork. However our early attempts to diagnose tickled a different bug making it seem hopeless, and so effort focused on manually tweaking the configuration of every single exam computer across the entire physical estate, which took maybe half an hour or more.

The bug could also have been worked around, with insight, by a single SQL query, taking maybe 10 seconds to write and execute. The software would still be broken, but those students could have taken their exam which is what mattered.

But we soldiered on with plan A. And that worked, it was just much slower. If it had taken a whole day I'd like to hope we'd have re-evaluated instead.

by tialaramex

1/14/2025 at 10:47:08 AM

Different plans have different stakes.

An exam being postponed is pretty drastically different as a worst case scenario than hundreds of people ending up frostbitten or worse

by arlort

1/14/2025 at 10:14:06 AM

I mean, if this was to happen today, I think it's fairly unthinkable that the same thing (the company tries to solve it themselves for two days before involving authorities) would happen. If nothing else, they'd be sued, and rightly so. There's a difference between people not being able to take exams, and people potentially freezing to death.

by rsynnott

1/14/2025 at 7:34:09 AM

generally i agree with you. Though for example comparing the current fire in LA and say The Great Fire in London i'm wondering where the almost 4 centuries of progress are.

by trhway

1/14/2025 at 8:44:41 AM

The Great Fire of London began in a bakery - such fires don't tend to burn down cities anymore

by none_to_remain

1/14/2025 at 9:32:08 AM

i agree, prevention and putting down small - wrt. city scale - fires is better. Yet once the fire is several blocks, it surprisingly looks like not much difference.

by trhway

1/14/2025 at 10:19:22 AM

Well, for a start, most of LA, you'll note, is still there. The Great Fire of London destroyed 15% of the city's housing and displaced about half the population.

Large cities do not, these days, as a general rule, more or less just spontaneously burn down; the LA fires are driven by extreme weather conditions, and even then have not caused remotely the sort of destruction that you used to see from big urban fires.

by rsynnott

1/14/2025 at 10:39:56 AM

>The Great Fire of London destroyed 15% of the city's housing

LA - 500 sq miles. The Palicades Fire is 37 square miles. With other fires it is smth like 55 and it is still not done.

>the LA fires are driven by extreme weather conditions

yes, sounds very familiar - in USSR we had a saying "suddenly came winter" explaining all the societal/economical/etc. failures there

by trhway

1/13/2025 at 11:13:35 PM

>The City was among America’s premier trains, a luxury streamliner that could hit 110 miles per hour while white-jacketed waiters balanced trays of cocktails

I wonder how passengers back then would have imagined rail travel today, 75 years later (aside from the life-threatening storms, of course). The Overland Route is now freight-only, and the closest equivalent, the California Zephyr, takes about 52 hours to make the journey this train did in just 40!

More on topic, I was surprised to read:

> When the steam generators’ water tanks ran dry, heat disappeared, too.

Weren't there surrounded by frozen water? Is there any reason snow couldn't be used in an emergency to heat the train?

by JeremyBarbosa

1/14/2025 at 12:17:02 AM

> I wonder how passengers back then would have imagined rail travel today, 75 years later (aside from the life-threatening storms, of course). The Overland Route is now freight-only, and the closest equivalent, the California Zephyr, takes about 52 hours to make the journey this train did in just 40!

I don't think people ride the California Zephyr to get from Chicago to the Bay Area as quickly as possible. Most of us spent as much time as possible in the observation car marveling at the Rockies and Sierras.

by basementcat

1/14/2025 at 12:42:28 AM

> I don't think people ride the California Zephyr to get from Chicago to the Bay Area as quickly as possible.

Of course they don't. It's too slow. Our rail shouldn't be as bad as it is.

I love that trip, and I've taken it more than twice, oohing and ahhing all the way, but I do not need it to last as long as it does.

by pessimizer

1/13/2025 at 11:21:31 PM

A few reasons that occur to me:

1. The volume of snow to be collected would have been significantly greater than the resulting water.

2. Heating snow at elevation requires more energy.

3. Perhaps getting snow into the steam generator wasn't so easy.

by colonelspace

1/14/2025 at 12:04:25 AM

> The volume of snow to be collected would have been significantly greater than the resulting water.

Yes, dependent on the nature of the snow but a broad idea is that if you want a litre of water, you need five litres of snow.

by glaucon

1/14/2025 at 1:23:53 AM

The stat I've seen is even worse at 10:1.

by SketchySeaBeast

1/14/2025 at 4:00:57 AM

Depending on elevation, the type of parent storm, the ambient temperature, and other factors, the water content to snow can vary from 1:6 - very heavy chunky lake effect snow falling right at the freezing point, the kind you get wet just walking from the car to the door, to 1:12 , the kind typically seen in mountainous, more semi-arid locales. The fine white snowboarding/skiing snow. Generally the colder the air, the less moisture in the snow, same with height, unless it's precipitating out due to orographic uplift first.

by Arjeigh

1/14/2025 at 3:27:11 AM

anecdotally I think I've had to scoop about 30l of snow in a stuff sack, to get about 2-3l of melted water (of which I've probably added at least a cup or 2 of water to get started - to prevent the bottom of the pot being scorched by heat before the snow melts), so that sounds about right.

by xarope

1/13/2025 at 11:36:08 PM

> I wonder how passengers back then would have imagined rail travel today, 75 years later

Show them the airplane that gets them to the same destination in a couple of hours vs days

by dylan604

1/13/2025 at 11:45:15 PM

It was January 13, 1952 they had airlines.

by Retric

1/13/2025 at 11:57:08 PM

OTOH, flying was considered a luxury in the USA until the airlines were deregulated in 1978. https://www.npr.org/2024/07/05/1197960905/flying-airlines-de...

by stevenwoo

1/14/2025 at 12:05:06 AM

Deregulation had far less impact on prices than people generally quote. Getting out of the energy crisis did a lot to shift prices quickly which made it seem like deregulation was suddenly working. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970s_energy_crisis

Longer term Airlines got a lot better and a lot cheaper worldwide at roughly the same rates because things like fuel economy and engine maintenance timescales skyrocketed.

by Retric

1/15/2025 at 8:23:10 AM

The general consensus among economists is that deregulation had a big effect on airline prices. For example:

>...Every serious study of airline deregulation in the intervening years has found that travelers have indeed benefited enormously. As we documented in our 1995 Brookings book, The Evolution of the Airline Industry, airfares, adjusted for inflation, fell 33 percent between 1976—just before the CAB instigated regulatory reforms—and 1993. Deregulation was directly responsible for at least 60 percent of the decline—responsible, that is, for a 20 percent drop in fares. And travelers have benefited not only from low fares, but from better service, particularly increased flight frequency.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-fare-skies-air-transp...

by opo

1/15/2025 at 1:19:42 PM

Percentage drops don’t add they multiply.

A 20% drop on its own is 20%, but if prices fell 33% it requires a separate 16.25% drop not a 13% drop. Meaning deregulation was responsible for 55% of the total decline for the numbers to work out.

PS: If they’re confused or lying in just that blurb I’d question the rest of their analysis.

by Retric

1/15/2025 at 4:59:22 PM

33 * .6 = 19.8

My general feeling is always that if someone is going against the consensus of the experts who have studied something (whatever the issue is - it could be climate change or GMO food or effects of airline deregulation or whatever) I think the burden of proof is on the person who claims the experts are all wrong.

by opo

1/15/2025 at 5:10:06 PM

Try and make what you did work.

  33 * .6 = 19.8
  33 * .4 = 13.2

  1 - (19.8 / 100) = 0.802
  1 - (13.2 / 100) = 0.868

  0.802 * 0.868 = 0.696136

  (1 - 0.696136) * 100 = 30.38% discount not 33%
Thus your burden of proof. Either they are utterly incompetent or lying.

by Retric

1/16/2025 at 1:31:26 AM

Thinking about this some more what they said is just as wrong as saying 2 + 2 = 5, but people are apparently innumerate enough not to notice.

I’m not sure if I should applaud the blazing disregard for people’s intelligence or appreciate that it works.

by Retric

1/16/2025 at 7:52:24 AM

Lol. It is pretty clear that the key point of the summary I quoted was that the consensus among economists who have studied this was that at least 60% of the decline in airfare prices can be attributed to deregulation. You didn’t need to put in all this effort to misinterpret it. (No one was adding percentages or whatever you were claiming.) Them rounding to the nearest multiple of 10 is reasonable - not rounding would be implying a higher precision than is really warranted.

If anyone is reading this thread, it illustrates a problem common in on-line discussions. Someone will make a big claim that contradicts the consensus of the experts in the fields who have studied the issue. (I have found that when discussions touch upon economics, it is virtually guaranteed, but it happens in many areas.)

Someone then points out that if the person is correct and the consensus position of the experts who have studied this issue are all wrong, the burden of proof is on them. The original poster won’t try and do this but will instead try to come up with a reason that those who devote their careers to actually studying these issues can’t be trusted or are incompetent, etc. Unfortunately, at this stage, the person is usually even more entrenched in their personal pet theory. They usually aren’t so blatant as to say “Either they are utterly incompetent or lying.”, but that is where we are.

by opo

1/16/2025 at 1:33:34 PM

You’re assuming they are accurately describing results of the field. They are not and in fact the field didn’t come up with such quotable round numbers.

I can point to plenty of research that says otherwise, but when you quote someone saying 1 + 2 = 4, they don’t merit a more comprehensive rebuttal but to simply point and laugh.

The guy being quoted presumably came up with numbers from thin air which is why they both don’t make sense and don’t line up with actual research.

by Retric

1/14/2025 at 3:10:24 AM

I am not an expert, just recalling the latest thing I heard/read about the subject but I think we can both agree that in the 1950-1960s inclusive, flying was not egalitarian as it was after the changes in operating environment we discuss.

by stevenwoo

1/14/2025 at 4:21:38 AM

Yeah I mean you hear about what a lot of airlines were like and many domestic first/business class seemingly don't even compare despite energy costs were significantly higher.

by vel0city

1/14/2025 at 10:56:41 AM

Airline regulation set floor prices to certain routes so I’m not sure how the energy crisis resolving would have fixed that.

by refurb

1/14/2025 at 12:23:35 PM

Which is why I said less of an impact not zero impact.

Regulators didn’t set floor prices to wildly unreasonable levels. So yes, it did modestly lower prices and service quality because airlines now competed in different ways. But we’re talking the difference in the cost of an inflight meal etc not some wildly different number. For that you needed wildly more efficient aircraft from other companies.

Post regulations we also got lots of bankruptcies and bailouts which shifted costs from consumers to taxpayers.

by Retric

1/14/2025 at 12:22:15 AM

> Weren't there surrounded by frozen water? Is there any reason snow couldn't be used in an emergency to heat the train?

I have tried this.

Snow is not very dense. A lot of snow makes a very small amount of water. Quite an astonishingly small amount of water

I expect the steam generators were quite thirsty, I do not know.

by worik

1/13/2025 at 11:36:04 PM

There were special water filling stations on many stops.

That's why currently running steam engines are better off with diesel pushing them: https://youtu.be/12Zpb0Yh-sM

by deepsun

1/14/2025 at 1:58:22 AM

UP's Big Boy got some upgrades after a year or two of touring the UP system. It no longer needs a Diesel helper. Previously, the helper engine carried the modern Positive Train Control gear, and the steam engine cab had a display connected by a cable to the Diesel helper. Now, UP 4014 has its own PTC gear and antenna in the tender, so it's self-sufficient. UP runs that engine on heavily used main line track, so it needs to be fully connected to safety and dispatching systems.

This was mostly a power problem. UP 4014 had a small steam turbogenerator atop the boiler to power lights and such. Now it has three such generators, and there's enough electric power to run auxiliary equipment.

UP did a serious rebuild on the Big Boy, to original main-line standards. Many parts were fabricated from scratch. It's ready for regular use for decades. Most heritage railroads lack the resources for such major overhauls.

Here's the first test run with no Diesel, in May 2024.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khJZ6NO5rhQ

by Animats

1/14/2025 at 4:37:27 AM

Oh, "PTC gear" as in equipment, not just one magical gear that prevents accidents, as popped into my mind at first!

by DonHopkins

1/14/2025 at 10:14:41 AM

Is PTC the first step in getting rid of human engineers, billed as a safety system?

by redmajor12

1/14/2025 at 1:18:45 AM

Snow is dirty, and getting dirty water into a high pressure steam engine is an awful idea, even in the short term.

by sonofhans

1/14/2025 at 1:22:25 AM

Why, where and how is snow dirty?

The much bigger issue that steam is massively less dense that liquid water: roughly a 1:10 ratio. Loading up 10x more snow than you need water is no small task.

by PaulDavisThe1st

1/14/2025 at 1:35:45 AM

Snow is dirty all the time, everywhere, especially near commonly-used train lines. It’s not difficult science. Particulates, dead insects, leaves, mouse shit — all end up in snow. Scoop up a bucket of snow and melt it and I guarantee you’ll see a bunch of crap in the bottom of it.

by sonofhans

1/14/2025 at 2:45:55 AM

Is that true at 7k ft on a train line that only has 1 train on it? I can understand next to a busy freight line or something like that but it seems like freshly blown snow (to the volume that it stops a train) wouldn't have much in it. I can't say I know the purity of snow at that altitude though.

by gaadd33

1/14/2025 at 3:11:13 AM

A 12 foot snowslide might have trees in it.

by bobmcnamara

1/14/2025 at 2:55:41 AM

You must be thinking of a different kind of snow than I am. Have you ever been through Donner Pass?

by PaulDavisThe1st

1/14/2025 at 4:26:46 AM

Yes. Every piece of snow crystallizes around a piece of dust or something else in the air. Even the prettiest snow in the world will have some "junk" in it after you melt it. Not to mention all the stuff that falls off nearby trees and passing trains.

by RandallBrown

1/14/2025 at 6:02:03 AM

I’ve played in snow on most continents, in the wild and the urban. Never have I seen snow clean enough to put into a steam engine. You may be underestimating (a) how important clean water is in this context, (b) how much particulate matter there is in the air and, thus, in snow.

by sonofhans

1/14/2025 at 11:45:34 AM

I don't really have time for a deep dive but from a brief look these are diesel electric trains. The water and steam we are talking about here is likely a simple boiler where the steam is only used to deliver heat to the carriages.

This is similar to heating systems installed in skyscrapers of the period (I'd definitely recommend this video if you haven't seen it https://youtu.be/nkgM0qCy5o4?si=46vNv6aaoYHcDO2l).

After the steam condenses the water in a skyscraper is trivially returned to the boiler (by gravity). However, on a train I suspect they run it as a total loss system and the condensate is simply discharged when it reaches a trap.

This whole system is relatively low pressure and, more important, low velocity so it's unlikely it would have caused an immediate issue (the train would obviously have required work before going back into service in any case).

I think the problem is more likely to have been an inability to collect enough snow to make a meaningful amount of water, in addition, it would likely have needed to be liquid to introduce it to the boiler, you can't just shovel it in.

by VBprogrammer

1/14/2025 at 8:18:59 AM

I think you had a typo, you meant "snow" where you wrote "steam".

For the water:steam ratio, obviously it's an expansion and I think it's around 1:1,600. Steam wants space.

by unwind

1/14/2025 at 10:22:02 AM

> The Overland Route is now freight-only, and the closest equivalent, the California Zephyr, takes about 52 hours to make the journey this train did in just 40!

I mean, this is largely a product of the US's general disinterest in and underinvestment in passenger rail; with a modern high speed system it'd be about 10 hours.

10 hours is _probably_ too long to be particularly useful, mind you; people would just fly. The sweet spot for high-speed rail is more in the 5 hour and less range; at that point when you factor in the faffing around involved in getting to airports, going through security, the inevitable delays etc, the train is still faster.

The longest high-speed route in the world is about this length: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing–Kunming_high-speed_tra...

by rsynnott

1/14/2025 at 11:22:07 AM

It's doubtful that you could build a high speed rail that could fly from Chicago through the Rockies to California in 10 hours. Even more doubtful that the cost benefit would be worth it considering you can fly from Chicago to the Bay Area in 3.5 hours. And you can't factor time spent getting to airport and not factor time to train station and time to stop at other major cities on the way (as trains are wont to do).

The Chinese route you mentioned does not need to go through one of the largest mountain ranges in the world. It's also at least 15-20% shorter than the distance from Chicago to SF, and experiences much less elevation change over the course of the journey. And the wiki article claims it "averages 10.5 to 13.5 hours", so there is a huge amount of variability in time to travel on that route.

by chrisco255

1/14/2025 at 11:32:05 AM

> And the wiki article claims it "averages 10.5 to 13.5 hours", so there is a huge amount of variability in time to travel on that route.

Yeah, I think it depends on how many stops it calls it; there are a few different services on that line. While it's a high speed line they're mostly not classic express services and actually have quite a few stops. I'd expect a notional Chicago->California high speed line would have fewer. A journey with no stops at all at 300km/h (ie high standard high speed rail, but not absolute state of the art) would be 10 hours; any stops would add a bit.

> And you can't factor time spent getting to airport and not factor time to train station

As a general rule, airports are not hugely conveniently located. Normally intercity rail in big cities will depart from a central train station, which usually will really be quite central, and will be linked into all the other transport. You get there, and walk onto the train, and you're done.

The airport will _never_ be central, for obvious reasons, and if it has a rail line at all, it will likely be a single line, usually relatively infrequent, and, for some reason, with the airport end almost always extremely inconveniently located (this seems to be a law of nature). You'll want to get there at least an hour in advance, and the plan will likely be delayed at least somewhat on both ends. At least one queue will be involved. On the other end, you will then make your way slowly into the city.

by rsynnott

1/15/2025 at 12:15:53 AM

10 hours are perfect for a night train

by campl3r

1/14/2025 at 1:52:16 AM

So I've driven Route 50 between Tahoe and Placerville a few times. Many of these times the weather has been quite bad. Many of these times I've had to wait for hours while an accident was cleared, or 12 foot snow drifts were plowed.

When I'm traveling in mountain snow, I'm always very neurotic about prep. AWD or 4x4, water, chains, food, emergency kits, etc ... I always assume I could be stuck for 24 hours or more.

In the meantime, I am constantly shocked by how many people make this trek with little or no respect for how deadly snow can be. The worst of it is when it puts others in danger: I'll never forget seeing a front-wheel drive sedan repeatedly driving up, then slipping back on a steep hill, while a line of 20 cars waited behind it.

Part of it is just not knowing (I grew up in the east coast), but part of it is just human nature to not understand some things to be inherently dangerous. Snow and cold looks so serene, but cold in it's various forms has killed many more people than heat.

by lchengify

1/14/2025 at 3:11:01 AM

>Many of these times the weather has been quite bad...In the meantime, I am constantly shocked by how many people make this trek with little or no respect for how deadly snow can be

I'm amazed at how many people make this trek during a snowstorm. I get that some people have family, work or other obligations and have a strong reason to make the trip, but most are just going up to ski.

by Johnny555

1/14/2025 at 5:01:05 AM

I've driven both the 50 and 80 dozens of times in snowstorms. Yes, usually to ski (or come home from said activity).

It's just not that deadly. Literally, people don't die in snowstorms on the 50 or 80. I can't find record of any weather related automobile deaths. I'm sure it must have happened, but not in recent history.

Certainly travel in these conditions is not without risks, but I'm pretty sure the bigger risk for the day is on the slope. People get carried off in stretchers every day from every resort.

Which is not to say that everyone should do it - be equipped, have snow driving skills, and be prepared for the worst (stuck for many hours, which can happen). But don't overstate the risks or be so priggish (new word of the day) about the people who take them.

by stickfigure

1/13/2025 at 10:53:55 PM

>If a debacle on this scale is surprising today...

I used to think of American passenger train travel as this romantic affair until being similarly stranded in an Amtrak the Cascade's for 24 hours with no cell or heat back in 2019 (thankfully no carbon monoxide poisoning either.)[1]

Now I say leave the rails to freight. 500tmpg is a pretty good multiple over sending things via truck and about 14x more efficient than sending the same weight in passengers. Despite common ignorance, our freight rail is the best in the world.

[1] https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2019/02/am...

by paulgerhardt

1/13/2025 at 11:10:49 PM

If I could travel by train domestically in the USA as is common in Europe, I would prefer it.

It's a real shame that the USA has yet to develop decent passenger trains.

by colonelspace

1/14/2025 at 1:37:16 AM

>common in Europe

European rail travel is mostly small-town-to-city (for commuting) and city-to-city, mostly when the cities aren't that far apart (a few hours at most).

International travel in Europe is much less common than interstate travel in the US, mostly because of the language and culture barriers, so most trips people take are in the same country. Our countries are far smaller, and the major cities of each country are far close to each other than the major cities in the US, so trains make sense.

Trains in Europe mostly replace cars, NOT planes. It's just that a lot more travel here can be done by car/train in a reasonable time.

To an average European, SFO to LAX by train would be just about bearable, depending on country and train speed. Anything much farther than that would probably be a flight.

by miki123211

1/14/2025 at 2:36:08 AM

A bit more context: Very few people in Europe travel internationally by train. If you need to go fast you go by air, or if you need to go cheap you go by bus.

Train travel works well within some countries (a decade ago, I took a train from Rome to Venice and back for a 1 day conference - driving would have been around 6 hours each way), but for international travel it's usually not worth it. You are also dealing with different ticketing and scheduling systems, not to mention theres a bunch of big mountains in the middle of Europe meaning it's geographically hard to cross.

by fy20

1/14/2025 at 10:04:43 AM

I live in London and work for a French company. I’m travelling to Brussels and Paris fairly regularly. Many of my colleagues do the same. It’s a 2 hour high speed train. Far better than flying.

Europe is a large place, but my experience in Western Europe is that people absolutely travel by inter-city train between countries when the journey time is 3 hours. More than that and flying starts to be favoured.

Driving isn’t really an option for these journeys because the trains are so much faster than cars. A 2 hour train journey would take 4+ hours by car.

by leoedin

1/14/2025 at 12:05:27 PM

A similar distance to NY-to-DC (which would be half an hour slower on the train according to Google).

by nmeofthestate

1/13/2025 at 11:16:53 PM

Seriously. EU rail is great! Show up 15 minutes before my train leaves, sit on my phone (albeit often without reception) and pass the time sitting at a comfy table.

I took a first class trip in Italy recently. Food was fine and it's Italy, but those seats were very comfortable!

by cheeze

1/13/2025 at 11:19:56 PM

Likewise, it's a real shame that Europe has yet to develop cheap cargo trains.

Perhaps both regions should look into doubling their rail networks.

by vkou

1/13/2025 at 11:34:37 PM

Where in Europe doesn't have cheap cargo trains? I used to live next to a train line in Poland and the cargo trains never stop going, there's so much cargo being moved by rail that the lines are almost always at capacity.

by gambiting

1/13/2025 at 11:47:04 PM

Measured in mile-tonnes, ~40% of US cargo travels by rail. Meanwhile, only ~20% of EU cargo travels by rail.

The US prioritizes freight on its rail network, the EU prioritizes passenger service.

by vkou

1/14/2025 at 1:29:21 AM

This is disingenous.

There is no "rail network" about which the US (through some political process) makes decisions about prioritization.

There is a freight rail network, and there is Amtrak's rails between Boston and DC. That's it. We're not prioritizing freight, the network is owned by freight companies.

Also, with regards to percentages, this is the wrong comparison. The numbers you need (which I could not find) are what percentage of cargo travels to within Nkm of its destination by trail in the USA, where N is the typical value for Europe. We have substantial freight hauling in the US because of long distance journeys. The last Nkm is generally done by truck. In Europe, there is much less long distance freight hauling, and much more hauling that takes place under the Nkm "limit", ergo more is done by truck.

by PaulDavisThe1st

1/14/2025 at 2:51:45 AM

Although under the law that created Amtrak, the track owners are supposed to give priority to passenger trains. I don't think that's been enforced for 30+ years (maybe ever) so freight is prioritized since it makes the owners more money.

by gaadd33

1/14/2025 at 7:16:25 AM

No, Amtrak trains are always prioritized. Well, almost always.

Every train journey is planned in advance, so that each block of rail is reserved for a specific train and only that train. When those reservations are made, Amtrak trains get priority over freight trains. However, in recent decades the average length of the freight trains has increased greatly. This results in trains that are too long to fit on any of the sidings. This means that it is possible for a freight train to be in a place where it cannot pull into a siding and allow an Amtrak train to pass or overtake it. The law simply does not anticipate this scenario, and it cannot force the freight companies (who own most of the track) to extend their sidings to accommodate the larger trains or to change the length of their trains. I believe that the FRA has tried to resolve this for some time, but unsuccessfully. At this point it will take either a big lawsuit or an act of Congress to fix the problem.

It should also be noted that if an Amtrak train is forced to stop and wait on some other train, that this does not delay the Amtrak train. The stop is part of the train’s schedule so while it makes the trip longer it doesn’t make the train late.

On the other hand, an Amtrak train that is _already_ late loses its reservations and therefore could get delayed even more by freight trains. No guarantees though; sometimes they make up time simply because there are no freight trains in the way.

by db48x

1/14/2025 at 3:14:57 AM

That's fair enough, but that leaves a certain level of ambiguity (or perhaps ambivalence) about what is prioritized by government. What we can say is that the track owners' priorities are clear.

The Biden administration did begin to take steps to enforce the law in this area, but I think it did not get very far and will almost certainly cease in the new administration.

by PaulDavisThe1st

1/13/2025 at 11:41:49 PM

The question is, where?

Most of the midwest is empty, same with other states.

You have very dense areas in the east coast, which already leverage a large train network. In the west coast, Oregon and WA already have trains connecting their largest cities (Portland/Seattle/Vancouver).

California has caltrain, and internal city trains. In the USA, for passengers, it makes much more sense to fly than trains, the infrastructure costs and time costs of trains vs planes don't make sense.

by Izikiel43

1/13/2025 at 11:54:15 PM

I'll put it this way: if it were easy and efficient to take a train from Chicago to Bloomington, Dubuque, Rockford, Ft. Wayne, every one of these places would make the effort to make it worthwhile to ride that train. Instead we just accept that all these places are effectively served by Chicago's OHare Airport, and there's no reason to travel among these places.

by ocschwar

1/14/2025 at 12:37:40 AM

> Most of the midwest is empty, same with other states.

Most of the Midwest has the same functional density as Europe. Indeed, if you overlay a map of France on the Midwest, with Paris centered on Chicago, you'll find that there are cities of comparable sizes at comparable distances.

The Great Empty largely exists only on the plains and the mountainous west, where all but the most ardent fantasists concede that no passenger system is viable. But most of the population in the US lives in or near a city that would have viable high-speed rail destinations!

by jcranmer

1/14/2025 at 2:33:59 PM

Even Montana, which is a favourite example of mine when the discussion of US density comes up, because it has no passenger service connecting the towns in the South, and is very low density, has a density along the old Southern rail corridor that operated until the 70's that is similar to existing viable passenger train lines in Norway.

There certainly are stretches in the US that aren't worth covering by train, but as you say most people don't live there, and the proportion who do live there is really tiny.

A lot of the time people seem to think the end to end travel need to be viable, and ignore that if the service is regular enough, plenty of pairs of towns along the route will contribute to demand.

by vidarh

1/14/2025 at 12:53:54 AM

Now compare walkability. You're going to have to rent a car when you get there anyway, may as well just drive.

by bongodongobob

1/14/2025 at 1:37:20 AM

One time I had a weekend of working in a small village about 30 minutes by train outside of Munich. I got off the plane, took a train into Munich Hbf, took another train to the village. The trains ran every 20 minutes.

"You're going to have to rent a car" is a statement about historical US development patterns and political/economic decisions, not any sort of inevitable or immutable state of nature. As such, it is subject to change. It hasn't even been a century since flying around the country was an option (and for many, not even a half century), if you need a reminder that things can and do change ...

by PaulDavisThe1st

1/14/2025 at 3:51:14 AM

Of course it's the state of affairs. Redistricting and changing the natural flow of a city isn't super reasonable in less than a couple generations at best. You're going to convince everyone they need to rebuild their city and way of life? This really pisses people off.

by bongodongobob

1/14/2025 at 5:38:11 AM

If you look up historical photos and maps from a hundred years ago, one of the thing that you notice is that even pretty small towns in the US had local streetcars. In modern days, these same towns would be equally well served with small bus routes (you don't need all the infrastructure costs of a streetcar system, after all). But also note that there's a strong directionality to trips--a lot of these are going to be "going from Podunk, Ohio to Chicago" not "Chicago to Podunk, Ohio", so the unsuitability of Podunk, Ohio to effective transit isn't that detrimental.

There is a separate problem that bus transit in the US is almost invariably horribly laid out, but that has more to do with the US being culturally incapable of planning transit well, and especially the US being incurious about how transit works in places where it does work. Essentially, there's a blind spot (even among transit enthusiasts, annoyingly) that assumes that transit on anything less in scale than Manhattan is infeasible, so transit planning is equated with Manhattanization where it doesn't need to be.

by jcranmer

1/14/2025 at 2:58:10 PM

> You're going to convince everyone they need to rebuild their city and way of life?

We already did this at least twice during the 20th century, first with invention and production of automobiles, and then again with the combined hit of the interstates and aviation.

by PaulDavisThe1st

1/14/2025 at 12:04:36 AM

The density is a function of our travel system. Putting dedicated passenger train routes into the US to connect the biggest cities would lead to the smaller cities along the routes receiving increased immigration. Every city has a road through it to do the same thing.

>In the USA, for passengers, it makes much more sense to fly than trains

You don't live in the midwest I take it. It makes more sense to drive than to take a flight that passes you through one of the airline hubs for most every trip that is less than 400 miles.

by undersuit

1/14/2025 at 12:54:43 AM

So, most trips.

by bongodongobob

1/14/2025 at 1:34:03 AM

No, no and no.

The rectangle defined by Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Des Moines is about as densely populated as most of Europe. Ditto for a triangle like that in TX, and another polygon with one vertex in Atlanta.

The east coast train network is not "large" given the population size. It consists of a primary line (Amtrak), and very little else given the population living with (say) 200 miles of that line.

Ditto Caltrain, which compared to European service for similarly populated areas is incredibly limited. The line between Portland and Vancouver may yet see the sort of service you'd expect on that route if you were European, but it does not have it yet. The trains are relatively infrequent, and not very fast. Let's not talk about the customs/border situation either.

by PaulDavisThe1st

1/14/2025 at 12:07:01 AM

"We have rail at home"

Rail at home:

> Boston to Buffalo: 11h32m

by itishappy

1/13/2025 at 11:21:30 PM

These days, UP has the rotary snow engine they use to clear things up towards Donner. For the most part it’s usually parked in Roseville (I believe).

A neat video - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iSe1izplce0

by jmspring

1/13/2025 at 11:53:55 PM

The ones SP had back then couldn't get through the snow. Article says they had 4 of the things trying to clear the tracks.

by shawn_w

1/14/2025 at 5:59:47 AM

The current one is sometimes in Portola, CA, old rail town trying to survive. Usually during their railway days (they have a rail museum). It’s a sight.

by jmspring

1/13/2025 at 11:37:03 PM

Among the rescuers was "Dennis Whiles", actually George Gärtner, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Gaertner> the last German prisoner of war in the United States.

by TMWNN

1/14/2025 at 12:14:27 AM

Fascinating story. Somebody should probably submit that as a top-level HN entry.

by mindcrime

1/14/2025 at 4:20:45 AM

Anyone know where this happened? The article says "near Yuba pass" but Yuba Pass is on the 49, far north of Donner Pass and not on the RR line. It also mentions the rescue train from Reno got stuck at Soda Springs, which _is_ on the RR line and west of Donner Pass.

EDIT: Seems to be more detail (and better pictures) here:

http://cprr.org/Museum/Stranded_Streamliner_1952/index.html

(tiny link from the article, easy to miss)

by stickfigure

1/14/2025 at 5:44:37 AM

I was half expecting the outcome to be worse than it turned out. Two died while helping with the rescue, but all of the passenger and crew on the train survived.

by divbzero

1/14/2025 at 12:00:11 AM

> On Wednesday night, after warming up at the ski lodge’s fireplaces, the bedraggled passengers boarded a special train that included eight Pullman sleepers and two dining cars. No streamliner equipment awaited the travelers this time: These cars were riveted steel battlewagons from the 1920s. They were heavy, quiet and toasty. The Southern Pacific had retired these cars, regarding them as worn and ungainly—but they showed their value on this night.

by CaliforniaKarl

1/13/2025 at 11:50:53 PM

Wow! I never gave it much thought that a train could get stuck in Donner pass. I grew up in the area and the snow can really come down. Warning, if you wait until snow is sticking in Reno then you might not make it through.

I've had several near escapes through the pass. Following the semi's in their treads saved me in a little 2WD car.

by dmwilcox

1/14/2025 at 2:37:19 AM

This would make an excellent movie, something like Titanic showing the luxury onboard and then the deterioration of the situation albeit not as dramatic.

Two rescuers died while attempting to reach the stranded passengers.

https://youtu.be/hYa51nRB344

by nntwozz

1/14/2025 at 7:07:34 AM

Which director would you trust to take on such a project?

by interludead

1/14/2025 at 11:06:31 AM

I do not understand how the engine ran out of water. They are surrounded and trapped by water. Could they not shove snow into whatever reservoir that required it? Preferably well before the water runs out.

If they had enough diesel to keep it going.

by ThinkBeat

1/14/2025 at 11:03:58 AM

I know little about locomotives. It is a diesel engine in a "steam engine" locomotive?

The diesel heats the water instead of "wood/coal"?

by ThinkBeat

1/14/2025 at 1:12:19 AM

They should rename the pass Train Trapped in Snow Pass to serve as a cautionary reminder for anyone traversing that pass in the winter

by beau_g

1/14/2025 at 1:29:19 AM

The location is in fact called "Streamliner Curve" to this day. (I don't know if that's an official name, though...)

by AnimalMuppet

1/14/2025 at 1:40:26 AM

There's a pass on the Inca Trail in Peru called "Dead Woman's Pass" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warmi_Wa%C3%B1usqa). I have to assume this is a similar warning.

by ghewgill

1/14/2025 at 3:00:01 AM

I seem to remember a guide stating that this pass has that name because there are two equal sized hills near it and so, umm, it has the profile of a woman lying down on her back, rather than implying that a woman actually died there.

by martinpw

1/14/2025 at 4:11:26 AM

That also seems like a reasonable explanation. I never got any of the background story from our guides.

by ghewgill

1/14/2025 at 7:03:36 AM

Sometimes I am frightened by the fact that even now we are (sometimes) powerless against nature

by interludead

1/14/2025 at 4:49:16 AM

Unreadable what with all the web advertisements

by psyclobe

1/14/2025 at 7:10:02 AM

Prioritizing user experience over ad revenue is not the way unfortunately

by interludead

1/14/2025 at 12:28:33 AM

Just by the title. Please let it be a Lord of the Fly's situation where the Rich eat each other.

by FrustratedMonky