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Which geographically large English speaking nation has the best passenger rail transport system?

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philosopher

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To me, the large English speaking nations are Australia, Canada and the United States of the America. I think it is fair to say that none of these countries have great passenger rail systems, with their rail systems being primarily optimised for freight transport and air travel being the main mode of passenger intercity travel.

However, which of the three do you think does best in terms of transporting passengers?
 
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philg999

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To me, the large English speaking nations are Australia, Canada and the United States of the America. I think it is fair to say that none of these countries have great passenger rail systems, with their rail systems being primarily optimised for freight transport and air travel being the main mode of passenger intercity travel.

However, which of the three do you think does best in terms of transporting passengers?
What do you mean by ‘large’? Both Australia and Canada have smaller populations than England!
 

hexagon789

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To me, the large English speaking nations are Australia, Canada and the United States of the America. I think it is fair to say that none of these countries have great passenger rail systems, with their rail systems being primarily optimised for freight transport and air travel being the main mode of passenger intercity travel.

However, which of the three do you think does best in terms of transporting passengers?
1. US
2. Australia
3. Canada

In that order.
 

rg177

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Within the big cities, the US will do better.

I was quite impressed by VIA Rail on the "corridor" though between Toronto and Montreal. Decent price for First Class with good catering.
 

philosopher

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What do you mean by ‘large’? Both Australia and Canada have smaller populations than England!
By large I mean any country substantially larger than the UK in physical landmass. The UK, Republic of Ireland and New Zealand therefore do not count.
 

Sorcerer

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I suppose the answer is the United States by default since it used to have a great railway system before the rise of air travel and widespread car ownership. Plus, as well as investment into a replacement for the Acela Express, there is also Brightline and other notable construction of new lines such as California High Speed Rail and even one in Texas. Unfortunately the potential of the US railway system is held back by multiple factors such as freight rail companies owning most lines with passenger rail being secondary, along with the influence of car and oil companies with great lobbying power as well as somewhat dubious arguments that don't stand up to scrutiny such as the size of the country and the landscape somehow not being suitable for it, along with a strange consensus that railways are somehow a wasteful subsidy while urban and interstate highways are a necessary public service.
 

philosopher

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English is an official language of India <D
If you are counting India, then I think it easily beats Australia, Canada and USA in terms of comprehensiveness of its passenger rail system, not so sure about speed though.
 

zwk500

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If you are counting India, then I think it easily beats Australia, Canada and USA in terms of comprehensiveness of its passenger rail system, not so sure about speed though.
OP does say 'english speaking nation' and while English is an official language of the government for colonial history-related reasons the actual number of english speaking people in India is rather small in proportion to their total population, especially as first language.
 

RT4038

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'Best' is rather subjective. Truth is, apart from the UK and Ireland, none of the English speaking nations [and I am counting all of the former colonies that still have English as an official language] have a particularly good system - India has quite an extensive system but overcrowded and many infrequent lines; Malaysia, Egypt, Australia, Canada, US have some good trains but coverage is patchy. NZ, South Africa, Zimbabwe, well...... Most of those countries have passed out of the (particularly passenger) railway age, to road and air travel, apart from some suburban passenger and bulk freight operations.
 

StephenHunter

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South Africa has been having some major problems in recent years with cable theft and vandalism to the point safety is compromised.
 

67thave

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The answer is Australia.
Though it seems odd at first, there's very good rationale for answering this way.

Canada's passenger rail network is nearly nonexistent outside of the Windsor to Quebec corridor with only token of VIA "lifeline" services which, in reality, function more as tourist land cruises (though Vancouver does have limited commuter service linking the city to some of its eastern suburbs) providing passenger rail service. The sole bright spot is the Golden Horseshoe, where GO Transit runs a very comprehensive network of integrated rail and bus services.

On the surface, the United States performs best. Train service along the Northeast Corridor from Boston to Washington and along some key corridors in California is quite frequent. There are other corridors with five or more trains a day scattered about, including Seattle to Portland, Philadelphia to Harrisburg, and Chicago to Milwaukee. A few select places also have commuter rail networks which link most major destinations on a regular basis (northern Indiana, Connecticut, and eastern Massachusetts). The reality is, however, quite different. Large gaps even in the best-served areas exist, such as the lack of train service westwards from New York City to the Lehigh Valley and Scranton. Long-distance services, while not as tourist-heavy as those in Canada, still carry more leisure traffic than one would expect for a "lifeline" service and often serve non-coastal cities at off hours (for instance, all trains which stop in Cleveland serve it during the dead of night).

This leaves us with Australia. Why is Australia the best of the three? It has to do with the concentration of population, regional connectivity, and bus/rail integration. Compared to Canada and the United States, the Australian population is highly concentrated in a few select cities. Excluding Queensland and Tasmania, over half of the population of each Australian state (as well as the Northern Territory) lives in a capital city. The five major capital cities have extensive and frequent mainline rail networks. Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane have extensive regional rail networks which link each of them to nearby urban centers on a regular basis. Victoria in particular blows any comparable area in North America (with the possible exception of southern Ontario) out of the water, with 3 trains an hour between Melbourne and Geelong and hourly service to Ballarat, Bendigo, and the Latrobe Valley. New South Wales, Victoria, and Western Australia also have large intercity networks which connect to coach services and therefore create a network where long-distance bus services compliment train services instead of competing as is the case in Canada and the United States (assuming that such services even exist at all due to the decline of coach travel in the United States and Canada). Though these services aren't particularly frequent, they do operate on a regular basis and provide reasonably comprehensive coverage at the state level.

Of course, Australia's network isn't without problems. Western Australia's integrated bus and train network is limited to the southwest. The Northern Territory has only the tourist-targeted Ghan linking its two main population centers. South Australia has no non-tourist trains operating beyond the Adelaide commuter belt and Tasmania has no passenger train service at all. Service could be a bit more frequent along the Queensland coast and there is no regular train service between Brisbane and Toowoomba. Nevertheless, on a pound-for-pound basis, the network is much more comprehensive than those in Canada and the United States in terms of serving people and communities.
 
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RT4038

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South Africa has been having some major problems in recent years with cable theft and vandalism to the point safety is compromised.
Yes, but the bulk of the network mileage had lost, or virtually lost, passenger train service long before then.
 

superalbs

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If you are counting India, then I think it easily beats Australia, Canada and USA in terms of comprehensiveness of its passenger rail system, not so sure about speed though.
India gets up to 100mph on limited sections, with a Shinkansen supposedly due in a few years.
 

nw1

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The answer is Australia.
Though it seems odd at first, there's very good rationale for answering this way.
I can't comment directly, having not visited yet - but looking at @TT-ONR-NRN's trip report it does seem that within the more populated areas of New South Wales at least, the service is almost European in style, and rural or mountainous areas appear easy to reach. Reaching the Blue Mountains seems much easier, for example, than reaching any comparable mountainous area close to large cities in the USA or Canada, and it looks like you could see a good deal of non-interior NSW - and not just the cities - by sticking purely to public transport.

Of course it's much less frequent on intercity routes between states, but the distances involved would make flying the most viable option anyway.
 

TT-ONR-NRN

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I can't comment directly, having not visited yet - but looking at @TT-ONR-NRN's trip report it does seem that within the more populated areas of New South Wales at least, the service is almost European in style, and rural or mountainous areas appear easy to reach. Reaching the Blue Mountains seems much easier, for example, than reaching any comparable mountainous area close to large cities in the USA or Canada, and it looks like you could see a good deal of non-interior NSW - and not just the cities - by sticking purely to public transport.

Of course it's much less frequent on intercity routes between states, but the distances involved would make flying the most viable option anyway.
Wow, thank you for the unexpected advert, link in bio ;):lol:

No seriously, Sydney and NSW’s integrated public transport system is world-class. Flawless. The interstate diesel trains are obviously slow and infrequent, but suburban & intercity Trains, Light Rail, Buses, Metro and Ferries all tied in on the Opal system are fast, frequent, expansive and cheap as chips.
 

Dr Day

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suburban & intercity Trains, Light Rail, Buses, Metro and Ferries all tied in
This is the key point - not just looking at heavy rail in isolation but the wider public transport provision, which is generally easier in a few standalone highish-density urban areas than the historic network of smaller market towns and villages we have in the UK, all looking to connect with each other as well as the bigger cities (which on Australian scales are still pretty close together).
 

yorksrob

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suburban & intercity Trains, Light Rail, Buses, Metro and Ferries all tied in on the Opal system are fast, frequent, expansive and cheap as chips.

It's interesting to see that it's not just Europe whose railway system provides better value for passengers.
 

TT-ONR-NRN

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It's interesting to see that it's not just Europe whose railway system provides better value for passengers.
A return from Sydney to Newcastle on the comfortable electric tri-decker V Set trains - about the same distance as London Birmingham - walk up weekend fare with concession Opal -> $4AUD or £2.50… that’s the cap.

Opal Adult $16 cap weekday / $8 weekend - halve it for students like me - and that lets you do about a 150 mile radius from Sydney city centre in all directions, on all modes.

And if you use your Opal more than seven times, it’s half fares for the rest of the week, on top of concession discount and cheaper weekend pricing.

The only downside to Opal is the surcharge for boarding and alighting at either of the two railway stations serving Sydney Airport. What would be a $1.30 fare to the stop before rises dramatically to $14, and then lowers again for the next stop after them.
 

yorksrob

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A return from Sydney to Newcastle on the comfortable electric tri-decker V Set trains - about the same distance as London Birmingham - walk up weekend fare with concession Opal -> $4AUD or £2.50… that’s the cap.

Opal Adult $16 cap weekday / $8 weekend - halve it for students like me - and that lets you do about a 150 mile radius from Sydney city centre in all directions, on all modes.

And if you use your Opal more than seven times, it’s half fares for the rest of the week, on top of concession discount and cheaper weekend pricing.

The only downside to Opal is the surcharge for boarding and alighting at either of the two railway stations serving Sydney Airport. What would be a $1.30 fare to the stop before rises dramatically to $14, and then lowers again for the next stop after them.

I'm no mathematician, however, a walk on fare of £2.50 for a distance equivalent to London - Birmingham seems like very good value indeed !

Passenger value for money is the primary lesson this country needs to learn.

I presume Australia provides a heavy subsidy for public transport.
 

Dr Day

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I presume Australia provides a heavy subsidy for public transport.
Not necessarily, if it uses heavy rail for the things that heavy rail is most cost effective for (such as long distance inter-urban travel and bulk freight), and coaches, light rail and buses the the things that they are most cost effective for.
 

yorksrob

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Not necessarily, if it uses heavy rail for the things that heavy rail is most cost effective for (such as long distance inter-urban travel and bulk freight), and coaches, light rail and buses the the things that they are most cost effective for.

But that's more or less what we do here and you can't get from London to Birmingham for £4.50.
 

zwk500

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But that's more or less what we do here and you can't get from London to Birmingham for £4.50.
Australia is a different scale of economies though. Their coal and ore trains make ours look like a hornby set.
 

PTR 444

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I suppose that while Australia has huge parts of the country unserved by rail, these happen to be the remote and sparsely populated areas anyway. AUS is about the same size as the USA but has a much smaller population concentrated on a few large cities along the coast. This makes it much easier to provide rail transport to most of the population, unlike the USA which is more spread out, thus leaving huge cities there with no rail provision whatsoever.
 

yorksrob

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Australia is a different scale of economies though. Their coal and ore trains make ours look like a hornby set.

It is, but size wise, it wouldn't surprise me if the UK was more compact and economical for public transport than even the more populated areas of Australia with decent transport coverage.
 

philosopher

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This is what I have gathered from comments above, Wikipedia and the website the Man in Seat 61. I have included South Africa as a large English speaking country

Australia: Has excellent commuter railway services and in some cases reasonably good regional services connecting large towns to their state capitals. Long distance intercity services are however poor, with Perth having no meaningful passenger rail service to other Australian state capitals (I am discounting the Indian Pacific as it seems solely marketed to tourists). Adelaide is limited to a twice weekly service to Melbourne. Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Brisbane have one or two trains a day to at least one other state capital.

Canada. Reasonably good intercity passenger rail service between Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec City. Longer distance passenger rail services have reasonable fares but the frequencies of 2 or 3 a week make them only really useful for tourists. Montreal and Toronto have fairly good commuter rail services, Vancouver has a very limited commuter rail service, other cities have none at all.

South Africa: Did have good commuter rail services but vandalism and theft of railway infrastructure means this is probably no longer the case. Long distance intercity passenger rail seems limited to one train a day or less on key routes.

United States: Has a reasonably good intercity passenger rail service on the Northeast corridor between Washington and Boston and Ok intercity passenger rail services on a few other corridors such as in California. Longer distance trips are generally limited to once a day or less, but most of the large cities are served by at least one train a day. Commuter rail services into most cities are poor to non existent, with only the cities along the Northeast Corridor, Chicago and to a lesser extent Los Angles and San Francisco having decent commuter services.

In summary, I would say Australia is best for commuter passenger rail and the United States best for intercity passenger rail.
 

RT4038

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This is what I have gathered from comments above, Wikipedia and the website the Man in Seat 61. I have included South Africa as a large English speaking country



South Africa: Did have good commuter rail services but vandalism and theft of railway infrastructure means this is probably no longer the case. Long distance intercity passenger rail seems limited to one train a day or less on key routes.
I would take the information on the Man in Seat 61 as wishful thinking and with a pinch of salt! The passenger train network outside of the conurbations (which pretty comprehensively covered the entire country) was decimated in 1986-7, Intercity services on key routes reduced to one per day and a few other lines with one or two per week. In the last twenty years these have been gradually whittled away and reduced to 2 or 3 days per week or less until services stopped completely (following several fatal accidents) at the beginning of 2020. A limited restart last year sees a monthly service operated only on two lines. Many lines in SA have closed completely, or are technically open but with no traffic.
Suburban train services started to be reduced from the mid 80s and interruptions due to civil unrest, minibus competition and financial difficulties worsened services. It is also true that, since Covid in particular, vandalism and theft have brought the remaining services to a virtual standstill. Only the relatively new, standard gauge, Gautrain service (Jo'burg-Pretoria with a branch to the Airport) can in any way be described as good.
 
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