Bill Stewart wrote: > Tim commented about railroad stations being in the ugly parts of town. > That's driven by several things - decay of the inner cities, > as cars and commuter trains have let businesses move out to suburbs, > and also the difference between railroad stations that were > built for passengers (New York's Grand Central, Washington's Union Station) > and railroad stations that were built for freight, where passengers > are an afterthought (much of the Midwest has train stations surrounded > by warehouses and grain silos, not houses or shops).
That's an important point. Railway systems are bistable - they want to be either all-passenger or all-freight. They have completely different requirements. Freight moves slowly, but takes up a lot of space. Also it isn't amenable to timetables. Passenger trains move fast and need timetabling. Passenger trains, especially in urban areas, go for cheaper trains & more expensive infrastructure - better rails for a smooth ride, electrification. Goods trains are much more likely to slam big diesels on and move over crappy old rails. Different economics. They tend to exclude each other. Rail systems dominated by goods people, like mast of US, see passenger trains as a sort of flashy parasite, denying them use of their network at irritating times. And vice versa. One of the reasons that the UK railways are having a harder time upgrading these days than the French or German is that they tried to share tracks. The railway beside my house has to pass about 20 passenger trains an hour each way. When some huge long thing hauling 50 trucks of gravel comes along, it gets in the way.
