[HN Gopher] Dolly Parton's Dollywood Express
___________________________________________________________________
Dolly Parton's Dollywood Express
Author : FinnKuhn
Score : 126 points
Date : 2025-06-11 16:46 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thetransitguy.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thetransitguy.substack.com)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| It's a great time, highly recommend if you're in the area.
| moron4hire wrote:
| I concur. We did a family trip a few years ago with my parents
| and my sister and her family. 5 adults (2 in their 60s) and 3
| children aged 5 to 8. Pigeon Forge and Dollywood were a great
| experience for everyone.
|
| My mother has some mobility issues and the park was pretty well
| laid out for her to get around with an electric scooter. The
| park has lots of rides for different ages of children. And the
| surrounding Pigeon Forge area has lots of other attractions to
| make a jam-packed week of activities.
| crooked-v wrote:
| For people who aren't theme park nerds: Dollywood consistently
| gets ranked as one of the best theme parks in the US. It's
| absolutely worth planning a vacation around if you generally
| like that sort of stuff but shudder at the current pricing of
| Disney/Universal.
|
| The city it's in is also right next door to the Great Smoky
| Mountains National Park, so it's very easy to make a day trip
| for various trails or tours.
| flippyhead wrote:
| > Dollywood Express, the heritage steam train that operates
| within Dollywood, has a higher rail ridership than 27 states.
|
| I don't now if it's useful, but this way of putting quanties in
| context, would be neat to see about all kinds of things. Like how
| they seem to always do rare things compared to your chance of
| getting hit by lightning.
| benterix wrote:
| I believe the point of the whole article is that the public
| transportation is broken if a train in a theme park has more
| users than regular trains in many states.
| jandrese wrote:
| More riders than the commuter trains in _over half of the
| states_.
| pythonaut_16 wrote:
| I'm pro public transit and trains, but the stat has more
| shock value than actual logic.
|
| What's feasible for a theme park doesn't necessarily
| extrapolate to public transit.
| xnx wrote:
| > The trains run all day during park hours and can burn through
| up to four tons of coal per day and 4000 gallons of water.
|
| Oof. That's a lot of coal. ~ 1000 tons of coal/year or the CO2
| equivalent of 10 million miles of driving.
|
| Edit: corrected math
| disentanglement wrote:
| I'd love to see the system of mathematics where 4 times 365
| comes out to one million. Maybe I can get my bank to use the
| same system.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| They do: inflation + compound interest!
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| 4 * 365 ~= 1500 tons
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| Just 98,500 tons off
| jonah-archive wrote:
| I've ridden it before, it's really fun! The two locomotives are
| Baldwin 2-8-2 Mikados built in 1938/9, more details here:
| https://www.steamlocomotive.com/locobase.php?country=Canada&...
|
| I think my favorite part is when the announcer explains the
| emergency stop system, and clarifies that getting a cinder in
| your face doesn't count as an emergency (IIRC they have safety
| goggles you can wear if you're concerned about it).
|
| EDIT: found a video I took of it going by where you can hear the
| whistle blow (I was there over the holidays which is why it's
| decked out for Christmas):
| https://www.instagram.com/p/B64mteDJUBl/
| anonymars wrote:
| I love steam trains in the abstract, but was appalled at how
| filthy it was. My skin and clothes were covered in soot and I
| pulled my shirt up to my mouth to try and avoid breathing it in
| and coughing.
|
| That said, Big Boy 4014 is traveling between Cheyenne and
| Denver next month
| (https://www.up.com/heritage/steam/schedule/index.htm)
| cjj_swe wrote:
| In my Tennessee mountain home, life is as peaceful as a baby's
| side
|
| As an East Tennessee native, I love everything Dolly Parton!
| cjj_swe wrote:
| It seems the music note emoji were stripped out. The first line
| is a quote from one of her songs.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| In the same way that "hold me closer Tony Danza" is a quote
| from one of my favorite Elton John songs.
|
| You're looking for "Life is as peaceful as a baby's _sigh_ ":
|
| https://genius.com/Dolly-parton-my-tennessee-mountain-
| home-l...
| kirubakaran wrote:
| Elton John Confirms Tiny Dancer IS About Tony Danza
|
| https://www.madhousemagazine.com/elton-john-confirms-tiny-
| da...
| cjj_swe wrote:
| Yikes! I wish I could edit
| kirubakaran wrote:
| Baby's _sigh_
| bufordtwain wrote:
| Thanks, was scratching my head and thinking that a baby's
| side isn't always peaceful.
| cjj_swe wrote:
| My apologies. I wish I could edit
| cjj_swe wrote:
| Yikes! I wish I could edit haha
| jpiburn wrote:
| the Patron Saint of East Tennessee
| cjj_swe wrote:
| And the Queen!
| lisper wrote:
| The comparison of the Dollywood Express ridership to statewide
| railways is pretty unfair. The Dollywood Express is not really
| transportation, it's an amusement park ride, more comparable to
| the Disney Railway than Amtrack, and I'm pretty sure more people
| ride the Disney Railway than the Dollywood Express. The economics
| of amusement park rides and actual transportation systems are
| radically different. (Actually, the Disney Monorail(s) would be a
| more apt comparison because it actually serves as
| transportation!)
| eesmith wrote:
| The author both points that out, and links to his essay "How
| Disney Became One of the Largest Transit Agencies in North
| America' (What Does a Theme Park Operating the 10th Largest
| Transit Agency in the U.S. Say About Us?)" at
| https://thetransitguy.substack.com/p/how-disney-became-one-o...
| larusso wrote:
| I think it doesn't matter. The point is that more people drive
| daily with these trains than most people in other states their
| respected train lines. It's just shows that the US has nearly
| no train infrastructure when a theme park train has more
| ridership than most states. Granted this is by design because
| the US over prioritized the highway system over a train transit
| system. There is a new video from Daniel Steiner who usually
| explains the origin of cities via maps did a take on the US
| highway system
|
| https://youtu.be/Sr2F4OZSETE?si=fh628Gb3RzhpLpYo
| deelowe wrote:
| Took the family to Dollywood this year and it was by far the best
| run theme park I've been to. I was amazed at the cleanliness,
| friendliness of the staff, and how well maintained everything
| was. The train was really cool too. One of only two times I've
| been able to see a real coal fired steam engine functioning.
| strictnein wrote:
| It's a great park with some surprisingly enjoyable rides.
| Lightning Rod is one of the most intense coasters I've been on.
| Definitely a little rough at times, but man it does not hold
| back at all. And it's kind of hidden in the layout of the park,
| with a lot of the track over the top of a hill.
|
| A visit to the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area and the Smoky
| Mountains is great trip, especially with kids. Lots of quirky
| nonsense to enjoy, as well as some beautiful nature.
| jdironman wrote:
| Also some fair dining. Local Goat, The Trout House, the apple
| orchards for sweets. it makes for a nice weekend / week
| getaway. clingmans dome (Now called Kuwohi Observation Tower)
| is a not so strenuous hike with 360 degree views. Highly
| recommend the drive up to it in the fall when the trees are
| golden and the sun is shining.
| madcaptenor wrote:
| I live in Atlanta and have not been up there. I have kids. I
| should probably fix that.
|
| (That is, I should "fix that" by going up to the Smokies with
| them, not by getting rid of the kids!)
| sarchertech wrote:
| 100% you should do that.
|
| I grew up in metro Atlanta and some of my favorite
| childhood memories are of family trips to the Smokies.
|
| Mingus mill is one of my favorite places in the world.
|
| I live in Chattanooga now and we take the kids every 6
| months or so.
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| Definitely should fix living near Atlanta, lol.
| marcusb wrote:
| It's worth it - just check to see if any big events are
| going on in Gatlinburg before you book. We went there one
| time (without checking) during a hot rod/motorcycle
| convention. The traffic was insane.
| stusmall wrote:
| I never really liked theme parks. They are always noisy,
| crowded and tacky. When I was in high school we made a family
| trip to Dollywood on the way to somewhere else. The fact that I
| remember Dollywood but don't remember our intended destination
| says a lot.
|
| We all had a blast and didn't expect to love it so much. Just a
| fantastic place and they are doing a great job.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Dolly's amusement parks company Herschend took over operations
| of Kentucky Kingdom and it has been very interesting watching
| the care being put into that park, especially with comparison
| to when it was managed by Six Flags. Kentucky Kingdom is not
| yet "Dollywood North" by any stretch of imagination, but you
| can see enough of the care and emphasis on friendliness that
| you can kind of see the expected trajectory at this point. I've
| found it encouraging to watch.
| johng wrote:
| I still believe that if Dolly ran for President, she would win.
| She's probably one of the most liked people in the country,
| percentage wise. I've actually asked quite a few random people
| what they think of her and I've never met someone that had
| anything bad to say.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| I think if we elected people for their general track record of
| good deeds, then Dolly would win and be a good candidate, but I
| also think what we need is someone to come in and be a total
| jerk to the total jerks that are ruining the world for everyone
| else right now, someone who would ruthlessly focus on making
| the world as decent as it can be for as many people as possible
| even if it inconveniences a handful of people.
| jandrese wrote:
| Many political pundits are still convinced that it's not
| possible to elect a woman as US president. Thus far the two
| that have tried have both managed to lose to Donald Trump.
| triceratops wrote:
| For all we know having a running mate named "Tim" is the
| actual campaign kryptonite.
| bigthymer wrote:
| > I still believe that if Dolly ran for President, she would
| win. She's probably one of the most liked people in the
| country, percentage wise. I've actually asked quite a few
| random people what they think of her and I've never met someone
| that had anything bad to say.
|
| All that would change the moment she decided to run (or maybe
| she could delay it until she got elected). The reason she
| maintains her popularity is that she generally stays out of
| politically divisive issues and that the media doesn't demonize
| her if she does dabble into one.
| creaturemachine wrote:
| We thought Hillary and Kamala were shoo-ins too. This rot runs
| deep throughout the electorate, something the media and parties
| know and are all too willing to exploit.
| lukas099 wrote:
| I never thought either of them was a shoo-in, especially
| Harris. Was that really a consensus?
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Dollywood is great, but unfortunately the article gradually
| shifts into bashing Tennessee and America for not using enough
| passenger rail. That train left the station a long time ago. Car
| ownership is very high, sprawl is very high. We do not have urban
| cores with the same density or concentration of business
| districts as European or Asian cities. Most of the time buses
| make more sense for public transportation in America, but even
| those often get low ridership. It's likely we'll shift towards
| autonomous mini-buses and electric over the next couple of
| decades and unlikely that anything changes significantly wrt
| passenger rail. There are real structural and societal
| differences here.
|
| I say that and at the same time, I'd love it if Memphis,
| Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga were all connected by a
| high speed rail line (and on down to Atlanta from there). I just
| don't see the will to get it done.
| conception wrote:
| Best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, etc etc.
| pizzathyme wrote:
| Is the suggestion here to build more subways/rails? The
| problem is that more rails would not be useful because there
| is lower density in the US. Denmark is 141 persons/km^2,
| whereas the U.S. is about 36 person(census data).
|
| Even if you built train lines everywhere outside urban areas,
| any stop you step off at would still require a 20 minute
| drive to get to where you are going.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Tell that to Sweden with a density of 26 people/km^2 and a
| functioning rail system. Also why use Denmark of all
| places, their rail system isn't even that great compared to
| e.g. France or Germany.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Density follows infrastructure more than infrastructure
| follows density. Building a station in a place is more
| likely to spring up new businesses (and residences) around
| it. It's not a guarantee and there are a lot of variables
| in play, but the same reason train stations wouldn't remain
| "20 minute drive to get to where you are going" are
| basically the same reasons on average most Interstate stops
| aren't "20 minute drive to get to where you are going"
| either.
|
| The density map of the US already resembles the US highway
| map. Many of the few pockets that _don 't_ are explainable
| with old passenger train maps overlaid on top of that.
|
| Just adding passenger train-only routes on top of existing
| interstate highways, stopping only at existing exits, would
| go a long way to service a lot of the US population. It
| would also presumably spur more walkability efforts at a
| number of those exits if it was also a passenger train
| stop.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| OP wasn't making a shallow excuse. But this rebuttal does
| lack nuance :)
|
| The overlapping network effects OP mentioned of how modern
| metropolises were built, combined with modern bureaucracy,
| make widespread passenger rail an exceedingly difficult
| political and economic proposal - far more difficult than it
| would have been 100 or even 50 years ago.
|
| I'm sure others have mentioned this here, but look at how
| high-speed rail in California is faring for a good example of
| the political difficulty involved. The legal hurdles,
| environmental reports, back-and-forth bargaining between
| varying levels of government, the NGOs that need to be called
| in and paid a lot... it's not at all easy. And that's before
| you get to the structural mismatch between widespread rail
| transport and all the network effects that led to car
| culture.
|
| Perhaps Tennessee can fare better due to it being a
| comparatively very conservative state (which currently codes
| as having less regulatory burden). But I'm not holding out
| hope.
| breaker-kind wrote:
| horse ownership is very high,
| Spivak wrote:
| Sure but cars replaced horse ownership 1-1. The thing that's
| high is personal transportation. If whatever you propose as
| an alternative doesn't confer the benefits of personal
| transportation then adoption is likely to be quite low. Ride
| services took off even though busses were already there
| because it was personal transportation for hire.
|
| Even in countries that don't have the structural problems the
| US has that lead to cars you still see personal
| transportation, be it vehicles or motorized bikes, thriving
| and the preferred means of travel.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| It was not a 1-1 replacement. The rate of private horse
| ownership was not nearly so high back in the day as the
| rate of private automobile ownership is today. Today in the
| United States there are 284 million registered vehicles.
| Almost one car for every person. The American horse
| population peaked at 25 million in 1920, when the human
| population was at 102 million.
|
| https://www.howardweinsteinbooks.com/single-
| post/2017/07/05/...
| chrisco255 wrote:
| People also used oxen and mules for personal transport
| (we don't even have numbers for these and the equine
| count is probably less than accurate as well), back when
| the population was less than 70 million (and couples had
| upwards of 8 or 9 children frequently, so much of the
| population was younger) before mass migration at the turn
| of the century (itself made possible by advances in
| transportation with steam engines in use at sea and by
| rail). By 1920 cars were already commonplace, but either
| way, most of the population was doing subsistence farming
| in the late 1800s and went to town maybe once or twice a
| month for supplies. We were much poorer before cars, and
| raising and maintaining a horse requires land and
| resources.
|
| You can see SF in 1906 as cars started to take the place
| of horse and buggy:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHkc83XA2dY. The early
| automobiles even fit the same profile as a buggy.
| siver_john wrote:
| I mean the passenger train from Lebanon, TN to Nashville, TN is
| quite busy. I rode it over a decade ago and it was quite used
| and my partner rides it now and it is much the same. If it
| still ran at night like it did back then, I'd probably take it
| into downtown (and go downtown more often) for events. I don't
| believe the train left the station a long time ago, we just
| simply shifted it off the tracks.
| benji-york wrote:
| > I mean the passenger train from Lebanon, TN to Nashville,
| TN is quite busy.
|
| From the article:
|
| > Outside of Amtrak's once-daily City of New Orleans,
| Tennessee has only three rail transit systems (two of which
| are currently suspended). That leaves just the WeGo Star in
| Nashville, which is among the lowest-ridership commuter rail
| lines in the country.
| hinkley wrote:
| We condensed redundancies in the 80's to improve profit margins
| for rail. Those lines could have supported more cargo and
| passenger trains but they're gone now. It's difficult to add
| rail through populated areas. And some population centers are
| big enough that going around them is not feasible. Like you
| could go around Portland Oregon to add new west coast routes
| without much high profile eminent domain, but can you still do
| the same in New England?
| dylan604 wrote:
| You can't do that through Texas which is why the plan for a
| high speed rail making the triangle between DFW, Houston,
| Austin/San Antonio never succeeds. There's so much wide open
| space in Texas, but it's privately owned so eminent domain is
| a huge issue.
| hinkley wrote:
| Even in the Midwest you see little doglegs in county and
| state highways where it's obvious one farmer would not part
| with a 40 ft slice of land at the edge of his property so
| the road has to swing into his neighbors and then back.
| const_cast wrote:
| When we built the interstates in the 50s and 60s nobody
| really gave a flying fuck about that. We destroyed a lot of
| towns and eminent domain'd a lot of property.
|
| Naturally the regulatory and political landscape of now is
| quite different, and in a lot of ways for the better. But
| it is unfortunate that we've more or less forgotten how to
| do things.
| dylan604 wrote:
| In the 50s and 60s, the population was smaller.
| Towns/cities were smaller and not as developed as now. It
| would have be so much easier to build that infrastructure
| than it would be today. As it is now, to add rail cities
| are having to lose some streets to replace with rail or
| have some mixed use rail/car type of use. It makes no
| sense to compare today to the 50s/60s
| bobajeff wrote:
| Nashville really sucks when it comes to public transit in
| general. The reason ridership is so low is because it doesn't
| go where you need it to and it takes way way longer to get to
| the places it does go. Also traffic is very bad and always
| getting worse everytime I come back. It's pathetic and it
| deserves all the flak it gets and then some.
| NoblePublius wrote:
| " I love Disney and I love Dolly Parton, but it says something
| deeply broken about our national priorities when their theme park
| trains outclass public infrastructure in billion-dollar
| economies. Be serious."
|
| Europe has lots of train infrastructure because it was very poor
| after WW2, and its people could afford nothing but train fare.
|
| America has lots of car infrastructure because it was very rich
| after WS2, and its people have the freedom to choose personal
| transportation.
|
| Over 90% of American households have at least one car. It's not
| because American government doesn't invest in public transit.
| It's because Americans, even poor Americans, overwhelmingly
| choose personal transportation.
| breaker-kind wrote:
| and we are severely worse off because of it
| richiebful1 wrote:
| Certainly there's an element of personal choice. I currently
| live in a town of 3,000 in a rural state that was previously
| served by trains. Once cars became accessible to the masses,
| that train service was no longer sustainable.
|
| But in actual US metro areas where much of the country lives,
| land use choices were made to enhance moving cars at the
| expense of other modes of transport. Urban areas were bulldozed
| to funnel cars into downtowns from far-flung suburbs.
| Amsterdam, on the other hand, was once a car-loving city, but
| has chosen to redevelop streets for transit and active
| transportation. Personal choice matters, but how much is driven
| by incentives?
| omegaworks wrote:
| >its people have the freedom to choose personal transportation.
|
| A lot of American choice is an illusion. The national
| expressway network was created to serve national security
| purposes. Beloved trolley systems in medium density cities were
| unceremoniously ripped out. Car and tire companies pushed the
| bus-ification of public transport in order to kill any notion
| that it should offer comfort and reliability.
|
| The American government refuses to invest in density because
| its sees sprawl as a deterrant against nuclear threat. (A
| threat that it takes an active role in escalating, mind you.)
|
| >It's because Americans, even poor Americans, overwhelmingly
| choose personal transportation.
|
| If you take notice, much of the most expensive and valuable
| property in this country is in dense regions where it is
| possible to live without a car. If Americans truly had a
| choice, they'd pick the kinds of walkable communities they can
| only experience now on university campuses and in theme parks.
| jandrese wrote:
| > It's not because American government doesn't invest in public
| transit. It's because Americans, even poor Americans,
| overwhelmingly choose personal transportation.
|
| If there is no usable public transit then people have to use
| cars. But if they have cars then there isn't the will for the
| public transit. A vicious circle.
|
| Public transit does need to be built somewhat on a "if you
| build it they will come" philosophy, which is hard when people
| want immediate returns on investment.
| bpt3 wrote:
| It is built in major metro areas, and requires endless
| subsidies to stay afloat in all but one of those areas.
|
| Public transit cannot compete with private transit outside of
| cost unless you have a very, very high population density,
| which makes it unpopular with people who can afford
| alternatives (i.e. almost all Americans).
| cycomanic wrote:
| > It is built in major metro areas, and requires endless
| subsidies to stay afloat in all but one of those areas.
|
| So how do you thing roads are build? Is that not a subsidy?
| Especially out in rural areas where people always complain
| the loudest that public transport doesn't work because it
| requires subsidies. If you would make people pay for their
| road use, rural living would very quickly become
| unsustainable for most.
|
| Let's not even talk about all the externalities like land
| cost of those roads especially in metropolitan areas.
| const_cast wrote:
| It absolutely can compete with cost, we just have to not
| cheat.
|
| Often when we compare transit to automobiles we don't take
| into account the cost of roads (???). Interstates have cost
| us over 25 trillion by now. That's just the interstates.
| amiga386 wrote:
| It's a bit more complex than "Americans were rich". Whether
| they were rich or not:
|
| * the US Federal Government gave returning servicemen a lot of
| money, including low-cost mortgages and loans, which resulted
| in huge housebuilding programs that created huge suburbs and
| exurbs (because it's much cheaper for the housebuilder):
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill
|
| * the US Gov spent billions on public works to create the
| highway system in the 1950s:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal-Aid_Highway_Act_of_195...
|
| * huge swathes of the USA enacted zoning laws so that the
| _only_ type of house that could be built was single-family
| homes with huge gaps between them, creating the lowest possible
| density neighbourhoods, effectively requiring a car to get
| around (whereas higher density housing could have the same
| number of residents and be walkable) -- there 's a strong
| likelyhood this was done to allow white flight to
| neighbourhoods that keep the socioeconomically deprived out,
| and until the 1960s it was completely legal to say "you can't
| rent or sell this house to black people" (it was only made
| illegal in 1968 with the Fair Housing Act):
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-family_zoning
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_steering
|
| *
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenant_(law)#Exclusionary_co...
|
| *
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_segregation_in_the_Uni...
|
| *
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residential_segregation_in_the...
|
| These components very much add up to incentives to build widely
| and sparsely and to rely on cars to make it work. It didn't
| happen _because_ Americans were rich, but because rich
| Americans _wanted to exclude poor people from their lives_
| bpt3 wrote:
| I came here to say this as well.
|
| I don't know why public transit nerds can't accept that their
| preferences are wildly unpopular with the American public at
| large, why they can't understand that public transit is a
| substandard option for anyone who isn't a single, healthy
| individual of limited means in a relatively urban area (which
| in case it's not clear, is a tiny percentage of the US
| population), or why they ignore that almost every human on
| Earth chooses to buy a private vehicle as soon as they can
| afford it.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Timeline is wrong. Most of the European rail infrastructure
| (and indeed American) was built before WW1, quite a lot before
| WW1.
|
| The critical ingredient wasn't wealth per se but oil. Which
| also determined the lines of attack and victory in the war.
| sarchertech wrote:
| If you're going to count the Dollywood Express, you'd better
| count the Tennessee Valley Railroad too haha.
|
| https://www.tvrail.com/
|
| In addition to the longer scenic trips, there is regular 6 mile
| round trip "Missionary Ridge Local" route that could
| theoretically be used for commuting.
| jancsika wrote:
| In real life freight trains have the right of way in the U.S.
|
| In other words, the Dollywood Express would be a lot less fun if
| it spent half the day waiting while trolls unload corndogs from
| two-person handcars randomly distributed along the track.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Sadly true even though legally it's supposed to be the
| opposite. [0] It's just not enforced at all and as a result of
| that (and freight trains becoming massive monsters that can't
| even fit on the passing sidings designed for them) Amtrak
| service sucks.
|
| [0] https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-
| performance#:~:text=For%20ove...
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| If Amtrak wants right of way, it can build its own rail
| network.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Back in the day, America's RR's ran their own passenger
| services (no Amtrak), on their own track, and generally gave
| right-of-way to the passengers.
|
| They got out of that business because it was losing ridership
| and money.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| When they _started_ getting rid of passenger service had a
| lot less to do with losing ridership and money and lot more
| that cargo contracts paid a lot more and with a lot more
| regularity. The "Robber Barons" get that nickname for a lot
| of reasons, but one of them was using public land and eminent
| domain tactics under the "public utility" excuse of providing
| passenger service for a time for an area, while negotiating
| for the shortest possible passenger service requirements and
| the least possible public oversight of their use of once
| public land, because they knew all along the real, big money
| was in cargo. A lot of passenger services ended to the _day_
| of passenger service requirements contracts ending, even if
| they were profitable and had high ridership.
|
| The scam was in from the beginning. The car helped exacerbate
| the problem and the train companies made big fusses about all
| the lost ridership to the car, as things went along, but even
| _at the beginning_ a lot of the US rail companies were built
| on the knowledge that cargo was lucrative and passenger
| travel the necessary trojan horse to pickup land for cheap.
| bell-cot wrote:
| I kinda doubt that the RR's - especially the long-
| established ones of the north-east - would have spent the
| vast sums on opulent passenger terminals, fast luxury
| trains, and high-density passenger service if passenger
| service was merely a legal necessity for their freight
| businesses.
|
| Flip-side, I have heard that the phase-out RMS (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Mail_Service ) cut
| the RR's passenger train revenue by about 1/3. Few business
| models can survive a 1/3 revenue cut.
|
| BTW - at the high end, airplanes were at least as damaging
| (to passenger rail) as cars.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| > I kinda doubt that the RR's - especially the long-
| established ones of the north-east
|
| I was talking most specifically about the early "oil
| rush" ones in a lot of "rollover country" (or yes,
| "flyover country" being the modern term because indeed,
| air travel also disrupted train travel a lot) that didn't
| live long enough to _be_ long-established, in the North-
| East, or bother much at all with opulent terminals and
| luxury cars. Many of those companies really did exist
| just long enough for eminent domain to do its job and
| launder public lands into private hands that cared a lot
| more about cargo contracts than any of the places the
| trains stopped along the way.
|
| Most of those rail company names are also kind of lost to
| time, too, and the tracks are owned by cargo-oriented
| mega-conglomerates like CSX today. Not to pick on any one
| in particular by naming names, but also the easiest one
| to anecdotally name because it owns the dilapidated
| station I regularly walk past that is today an awful,
| unsafe shelter for the unhoused that sometimes cargo
| trains sit on top of for hours at a time, and wasn't
| particularly "opulent" (outdoor and entirely exposed to
| the elements) even during the exactly 10 years it
| operated as a passenger station. (It closed to passenger
| travel before both most highways had been built and air
| travel became common, weird huh? Surely just a
| coincidence that 10 years was the required passenger
| contract by the eminent domain seizures that opened the
| land for rail development?)
| sarchertech wrote:
| Yep. My wife and I took the train from Atlanta to New Orleans
| once, we spent 50% of our total time waiting in multiple places
| for freight trains to pass.
|
| We got in 4 hours late if I recall and nearly all of that was
| waiting for freight trains.
| bluGill wrote:
| The freights respond if Amtrack would keep their schedules
| things would work, but once a train is late they have to do
| extra work to find places for that train that isn't running
| schedule. (and one badly maintained local railroad early in
| the trip is enough to ensure Amtrak is always late)
|
| I'm not sure who is right in the above, but it is important
| to at least consider all sides of the argument.
| sarchertech wrote:
| Oh yeah I'm sure there's plenty of blame to go around. But
| for passenger service, you really can't have a system where
| being 5 minutes late compounds into an hour late because
| then it's a positive feedback loop and there's no way to
| recover.
| bluGill wrote:
| that nobody has fixed the problem despite laws and years
| of talk shows how incompetent management is...
| conscion wrote:
| The US should really nationalize their rail infrastructure;
| only the rails themselves, not the railroad companies. The
| railroads should be treated as transportation infrastructure
| the same way that the highway system is.
|
| With nationalized rails, the US could set standards for rail-
| sharing which could help passenger rail and invest in improved
| rail connections between cities which would improve both
| freight and passenger rail service.
|
| Currently, each railroad company gets to maintain their own
| little fiefdoms in certain parts of the US
|
| https://public.railinc.com/about-railinc/blog/who-owns-railr...
| throwaway522482 wrote:
| How funny, my wife and I were literally just talking about
| Dollywood right before I opened Hacker News.
|
| We live in Sevier County, and Dolly offers $5 tickets to her park
| to locals this week, which is really quite a charitable thing to
| do. The discount even applies for taking ~$100 off of a season
| pass.
|
| Never realized that train got so much usage, but I guess it makes
| sense. Although you do have to pay attention if you sit near the
| front as you'll be slightly covered in soot after the ride.
| shortformblog wrote:
| The irony being, of course, that it is surrounded by an area
| where it is basically impossible to get by without a car.
|
| My wife and I once left Gatlinburg after a week there and our
| tire blew out on the way out of town. It was a Sunday morning.
| Literally our only option to get it replaced that day was a
| Walmart location 15 miles away. So we had to wait for AAA for an
| hour and a half to tell us we were stuck using a donut to get
| there.
|
| There is a trolley system but it is anemic.
| pizzathyme wrote:
| Exactly, more rails would not be useful because there is lower
| density in the US. Denmark is 141 persons/km^2, whereas the
| U.S. is about 36 persons/km^2 (census data).
|
| Even if you built train lines everywhere outside urban areas,
| any stop you step off at would still require a 20 minute drive
| to get to where you are going. (Or in your case 15!)
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| With that logic airportd should not have been built
| everywhere and useless, yet they were and are not.
| esseph wrote:
| Most airports are privately owned.
| shortformblog wrote:
| There are plenty of places where it would make sense,
| actually, but Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg are very much not
| on that list. They are towns surrounded by mountains where
| once you get off the strip, you may not even run into a gas
| station or grocery store for a while.
|
| Also, that was 15 miles, not 15 minutes. I think it took us
| more than an hour to get there with all the traffic.
| Excellent example of a tourist trap.
|
| A related quirk of the area is its onetime attitude towards
| free alcohol samples, which I wrote about last year:
| https://tedium.co/2024/11/10/free-sample-history/
| sarchertech wrote:
| It's not just surrounded by mountains, it's just outside
| the border of Great Smokey Mountains National Park. It's
| essentially a dead end for rail because to continue on you
| need to either go up a mile in elevation in a very short
| span or tunnel mountains inside a national park.
|
| One of the worst places for rail east of the Mississippi.
| xeromal wrote:
| I'm sure that density is even lower in most of the US south
| freedomben wrote:
| Yeah, and in the mountain west probably much lower still. I
| think to be useful, the numbers need to be regional
| sarchertech wrote:
| Most of the land area of almost every state is below that
| number, but there are 23 states below that number overall
| and only 3 are Southern.
|
| Nearly all of the low population density states are out
| West.
| xorcist wrote:
| Is there a reason Denmark was chosen for comparison, rather
| than neighboring Norway (15 persons/km^2) or Sweden (25
| persons/km^2)?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| You could make the same argument about highways if you didn't
| have the massive federal funding. Maintenance of an
| interstate averages around $15,000 per lane/mile. Bridges are
| 7-12x.
|
| We had a viable rail network all over the country as recently
| as the early 1950s. Federal policy blew it up because
| dispersing the population was seen as a civil defense
| priority for an atomic war, and cars and airplanes provided
| an economic engine to keep workers and returning soldiers
| employed.
|
| Later, the shift to rural industry and trucking was a way to
| break unions. Meatpacking transformed from a good union gig
| back to an oppressive industry fueled by undocumented labor.
| If the workers acted up, the owners would realize they knew
| where a bunch of undocumented people lived and call in
| INS/ICE.
| bluGill wrote:
| The US is a very large country. If you limited your
| population density numbers east of the Mississippi and the
| fast west coast from California to Washington you will
| discover population densities very similar to parts of Europe
| that have great transit.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| Isn't that standard though? If I get a flat, I hop out and
| replace it with a spare. Then I drive to a shop to have that
| flat tire either patched or replaced entirely.
|
| I know some new models don't include spares, but they often
| have run flats and temp sealant kits included.
|
| What are the other options?
| shortformblog wrote:
| The problem was less that we had to replace it and more that
| it was a fairly significant distance away. (A distance made
| longer because we weren't on the freeway but heavily
| trafficked roads in a tourist-heavy area.) We were near
| downtown Gatlinburg, and there were places that were closer,
| but they were all closed because it was a Sunday.
|
| We also would have had a better shot at not having our tire
| blow out if the closest gas station wasn't 10 miles away.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| 15 miles is nothing on a spare tire. I'm not sure how many
| poor people you've spent time around, but I regularly see
| Nissan sedans driving around with multiple spare donuts on
| them.
|
| For some reason, it's always a Nissan.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Nissan's been making minimum cost models for awhile*,
| that are just reliable enough to stay rolling.
|
| Ergo, if you want the cheapest car you can get, it'll
| probably be a Nissan.
|
| * Before the late-10s Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi insanity
| hollywood_court wrote:
| Oh I know. Carlos Ghosn got them to focus more on the
| fleet market. I'll always be a Toyota/Lexus man, but I
| owned a Datsun wagon for a while and I followed the
| industry closely when I ran an import repair shop (which
| was never open on a Saturday or Sunday).
|
| It's wild how that one man managed to change the entire
| path of a once great brand.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| I think of it as one too many levels of management. At
| some point, your nearest understanding of the business is
| powerpoints about powerpoints about powerpoints... and
| then dumb ideas start to seem reasonable.
| esaym wrote:
| Goodness. I've seen people drive for years on a spare. I
| don't know why you would sweat going 15 miles on one...
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Ya, changing a flat tire was once part of learning to drive.
| Also, manual transmissions, jumpstarting, swapping a fuse,
| and basic low-speed maneuvers like rocking out of snowbanks
| or crossing large potholes. All that is now gone. Most care
| owners dont know what a tow eye is, let alone where to find
| one. It is so bad that there are now university-level
| "adulting" courses for millenials. First up: changing a tire.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/adulting-101-life-
| skills...
| shortformblog wrote:
| We know how to change a damn tire. We just couldn't easily
| buy one because Gatlinburg didn't have any garages open on
| Sunday morning.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| Where do you live that has garages open on a Sunday
| morning? I don't think I've ever seen a tire shop or auto
| repair place (other than the big box and wholesale
| warehouse places) that's open on a Sunday.
| xp84 wrote:
| I decided to take a very non-representative sample, and
| found that in many (but not all) parts of northern
| California, locations of the chain tire shop that I use
| are closed on Sundays, but most locations in the LA area
| are open 7 days a week. This chain has a lot of
| locations. It could be that they're responding to what
| their competitors do in both cases. So maybe getting
| tires on Sunday is a so-cal thing? TBH, I personally am
| more used to expecting the tire shop to be open 7 days a
| week, unless it was a small, locally-owned place.
| esseph wrote:
| LA is an anomaly. Most places are 5-6 days a week, tops.
| Around where I'm at currently, if the place is open on
| Saturdays, they're closed on Monday to compensate.
| There's a lot of those
| sandworm101 wrote:
| But it does sound like you didn't know how to repair a
| flat. Any hardware store and most gas stations will have
| either a plug kit, or some of that horrible blow-in
| sealant in a can. Either will get you back on the within
| an hour.
|
| (Fyi, if anyone reading this does ever use that sealant
| stuff, when you get to a proper repair shop TELL THEM
| about the sealant before I pop the bead and spray it all
| over the shop.)
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Ref for anyone reading, plug kits + a DC-powered inflator
| should live in all your cars.
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_ocVkYAAaVg
|
| Turns an "omg" problem into "eh, hold my beer..." for 99%
| of tire punctures.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I would add a jumpstart kit and/or cables, preferably
| with the knowledge of how to use them safely. (Even
| teslas occasionally need to be jumped.) On long drives I
| also bring a small fire extinguisher (I take the one from
| my kitchen). Never had to use it but you don't need it
| until you do.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| As my father quipped, 'It's amazing how much luckier
| well-prepared people are.'
| shortformblog wrote:
| Our tire was shredded so that would not have worked.
| quesera wrote:
| > _It was a Sunday morning. Literally our only option to
| get it replaced that day was a Walmart location 15 miles
| away. So we had to wait for AAA for an hour and a half to
| tell us we were stuck using a donut to get there._
|
| I would describe that as "inconvenient" but actually very
| fortunate!
|
| Walmart was only 15 miles away? You have a donut/spare,
| or AAA has provided you with one? That's lucky! Nowhere
| near "problem" territory at all.
|
| Just an interruption to your schedule, but that happens
| on road trips.
| esseph wrote:
| A very large portion of the country doesn't have garages
| open on Sunday.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| In the US, I've only lived in Chicago, Portland (OR), San
| Francisco, Dallas, NYC, and Auburn, but I don't think I
| have ever seen an automobile garage open on a Sunday
| unless it was a WalMart, Sam's, or Costco.
| bluGill wrote:
| Most mechanics charge double time for working Sunday,
| even if they had not work at all the previous week (which
| doesn't happen, but if it did). Retail is open weekend,
| but mechanics like just about everyone else wants to work
| their 9-5 monday-friday job so they get weekends off.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Minor observation: you were in east TN, so chances are if you'd
| stood by your car with your thumb out, the next car would have
| stopped and happily offered you a ride to Walmart. (Said as
| someone who's hauled more than a few random people where they
| needed to get to in east TN)
|
| Part of Tennessee's charm is how far you can get with a smile
| and "Gosh, I hate to bother you, but could you..."
| eldaisfish wrote:
| does this apply if you are, say, Black or Latino?
| Valien wrote:
| Riding the train at Dollywood is one of life's best experiences.
| Highly recommend it for sure!
|
| Also, if you're ever in Pennsylvania and go to the train museum
| in Strasburg you can ride that steam train as well and it is also
| a blast.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| It's a dream, but I would love a small planned car free
| community.
|
| Bikes only, with a train station to a larger city.
|
| I think theirs a project like this in Arizona.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://culdesac.com/
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Here you come again...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bflkeWVTNk0
| cleverwebble wrote:
| I grew up in a town called Seymour, which is in the same county
| as Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge. It's Dolly country. She's a hero -
| she's done so much for her community. Much of the money you spend
| at Dollywood goes to help so many public causes. One of them is
| the Imagination Library, which gives out free books every month
| from birth to 5 years of age. I was one of the first families
| that got to take a part in it. I certainly don't remember much
| from when I was 5, but I do remember getting those books. I
| imagine it had a positive impact on my growth.
|
| We'd go to Dollywood a few times a year - she would give out free
| tickets to people who worked in Gatlinburg to go. It's really
| well run, and their water park is great too. Growing up, we'd
| ride the train when we visited. While I didn't appreciate it much
| as a kid, when I grew up I realized how awesome of an opportunity
| that was.. I moved away from Tennessee about 12 years ago, one of
| the biggest things I have missed is Dollywood and their big steam
| train.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| Fellow native Tennessean here, as well.
|
| Words cannot describe the love and admiration myself and the
| vast majority of Tennesseans have for Dolly Parton. She is the
| closest thing to a living Saint that many of us will ever
| witness.
| BlackjackCF wrote:
| Americans are divided on a lot of things, but Dolly is
| universally beloved.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| I discovered her music 'recently'. The 'imagination library' is
| a thing she has been doing for years, and I read about this on
| CNN or BBC or something like that, and I was deeply moved. When
| I read more about it (if I remember well) she started this
| initiative because her father couldn't read, and she wanted to
| make sure every kid has books to read. When I read that last
| part I thought to myself "shit.. this is a KIND person" (like
| wow!! she is a great human being!).
| mig39 wrote:
| You'll be happy to know that Imagination Library sent monthly
| books to my 3 Canadian kids as well! We loved every single one
| of them!
| shermantanktop wrote:
| I listened to a great podcast which helped explain her appeal.
| She is a fascinating combination of genuine friendliness, talent
| and achievement, and incredible toughness and resilience.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_Parton%27s_America
| a_simple_man wrote:
| it's true, but we still move plenty of the economy on trains,
| just not people. flights are cheaper and faster.
| danans wrote:
| > I love Disney and I love Dolly Parton, but it says something
| deeply broken about our national priorities when their theme park
| trains outclass public infrastructure in billion-dollar
| economies. Be serious
|
| Reducing public transit to an unserious/unreal thing is the
| point.
|
| People who live in car-bound places (most of America) visit theme
| parks like Disney's where a big part of the novelty is the make-
| believe urban walkability and transit (i.e. Disney's "Main
| Street"), creating the belief that such things are fantasy (tied
| to the rest of Disney's make-believe world) rather that something
| quite normal that people in much of the urban world experience
| (minus the dancing anthropomorphic mice).
|
| Essentially, what is pretty normal elsewhere is repackaged as
| fantasy in the US.
|
| Are Dollywood/Disney part of some great conspiracy to undermine
| walkability and transit in the US? No, but they sure as heck know
| that people _feel_ _better_ in that kind of human-scale
| environment, and they are fundamentally in the business of making
| people feel better via escapism.
| Exoristos wrote:
| Main Street's "make-believe urban walkability and transit"
| represent all American towns of the pre-Henry Ford era.
| American families with roots here are well aware of this. Or
| people who browse classic American literature or film. In fact,
| I'm straining to think who besides yourself might think
| ubiquitous American rail and walkways were imaginary.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Related: Chaumont-Sur-Loire [0] and Chenonceau [1] are both
| absolutely gorgeous in person, especially when everything is in
| bloom, and less than 3 hours drive from Paris. (Or train, since
| it's a civilized country)
|
| Would highly recommend a chateau trip down the Loire valley
| over Disney. ;)
|
| And if you _really_ need a faux fix, there 's always Mini
| Castle Park [2] near Amboise...
|
| [0] https://domaine-chaumont.fr/en
|
| [1] https://www.chenonceau.com/en/
|
| [2] https://www.parcminichateaux.com/
|
| PS: Yes, I know Neuschwanstein, but haven't made it to Bavaria
| yet. On the list!
| absurdo wrote:
| > As I've written before, there are few institutions, or people,
| with a higher approval rating than Dolly Parton. While I love her
| for her music and the feeling of joy she gives us, I also love
| that Dollywood Express, the heritage steam train that operates
| within Dollywood, has a higher rail ridership than 27 states.
|
| Oh I'd ride that, alright!
| bombcar wrote:
| Six million people ride "It's a Small World" at Disneyland each
| year. That's more than many transit systems. But it's a useless
| comparison, really.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| I have met the man that was allegedly in charge of a lot of the
| operational management or something of the like for those trains
| at one time! He has a fully operational train track with various
| functioning trains in his front yard. He has quite the collection
| too.
|
| He has a little festival every year on his property:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuibCgyBqJM
| serf wrote:
| Yes, steam locomotives are neat. Yes, Parton is a saint. Yes,
| Tennessee is better place because of her. Yes, she did good
| things with her money.
|
| _BUT_ the fact that we 're all still so impressed by steam
| engines that we decided that 1000 tons of coal a year ( 622 cars
| worth of co2, the annual energy use of ~250 US homes a year) was
| a good value just to see an antique demo at the US's 30th (!!)
| most popular theme park bodes pretty poorly for us and our
| priorities.
|
| Might not be nostalgic, but these things have huge steam stacks
| and exhaust output seemingly; is capture at all possible?
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