Dolly Parton's Dollywood Express

https://thetransitguy.substack.com/p/dolly-parton-runs-a-train-busier

by FinnKuhn • 1 year ago

176 208 1 year ago

thetransitguy.substack.com

It's a great time, highly recommend if you're in the area.

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• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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.

jandrese6• 1 year ago

More riders than the commuter trains in over half of the states.

pythonaut_16• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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_zamoyski2• 1 year ago

They do: inflation + compound interest!

lo_zamoyski2• 1 year ago

4 * 365 ~= 1500 tons

FinnKuhn• 1 year ago

Just 98,500 tons off

jonah-archive• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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_swe6• 1 year ago

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_swe6• 1 year ago

It seems the music note emoji were stripped out. The first line is a quote from one of her songs.

lastofthemojito• 1 year ago

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...

kirubakaran2• 1 year ago

Baby's sigh

bufordtwain• 1 year ago

Thanks, was scratching my head and thinking that a baby's side isn't always peaceful.

cjj_swe6• 1 year ago

Yikes! I wish I could edit haha

jpiburn• 1 year ago

the Patron Saint of East Tennessee

cjj_swe6• 1 year ago

And the Queen!

lisper• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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!)

stusmall• 1 year ago

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.

WorldMaker5• 1 year ago

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.

xp842• 1 year ago

That's great to hear. With Six Flags being such a polar opposite to the kind of care Dollywood represents, especially.

I'm still sad that Cedar Fair sold out to Six Flags, because they had at least a modestly better reputation. Six Flags in my opinion has long been run in a fashion that makes private equity proud: Reduce cap-ex to the minimum level, minimize cleaning, maintenance, staffing, etc. while extracting every last dollar possible for short-term gain.

johng• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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.

jandrese6• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

For all we know having a running mate named "Tim" is the actual campaign kryptonite.

bpt38• 1 year ago

Maybe try running candidates that aren't highly unpopular? Or ones who don't call a significant percentage of the population "deplorables"? Or ones who don't refuse to state consistent policy objectives or provide coherent explanations for major swings in her stance on key political positions? Or...

Trump is a reaction to large portions of the population being actively screwed over by decades of neoliberal policy that the Democrats are still trying to ram down their throats, and "anything other than more of that" is what is winning in most swing states. It's unfortunate the the Republican party is incapable of running someone who isn't a infantile, thin-skinned, nasty blowhard to govern responsibly while in power, but here we are, and we'll unfortunately stay here until either the Republican party grows a spine, the Democratic party figures out how to not intentionally alienate a good portion of the voting population while also preventing their base from destroying the party from within, or the whole thing blows up.

bigthymer• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

I never thought either of them was a shoo-in, especially Harris. Was that really a consensus?

bigstrat20032• 1 year ago

We thought Hillary and Kamala were shoo-ins too.

I'm sure some people did think that. But in my experience, many more people thought they were horrible candidates that showed the Democrat party cared more about rewarding insiders than actually winning the election.

chrisco2557• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

Best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, etc etc.

pizzathyme2• 1 year ago

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.

TimTheTinker• 1 year ago

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-kind2• 1 year ago

horse ownership is very high,

Spivak• 1 year ago

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.

siver_john• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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.

hinkley3• 1 year ago

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?

dylan6042• 1 year ago

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.

bobajeff• 1 year ago

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.

NoblePublius5• 1 year ago

“ 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-kind2• 1 year ago

and we are severely worse off because of it

richiebful1• 1 year ago

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?

NoblePublius5• 1 year ago

“Land use choices” are downstream of what residents want less what they can afford. You have it backwards.

omegaworks• 1 year ago

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.

NoblePublius5• 1 year ago

It’s funny to me that you think people were forced to by cars by “ripping out trolleys” when it was the buying of cars that did that.

jandrese6• 1 year ago

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.

bpt38• 1 year ago

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).

NoblePublius5• 1 year ago

Again, you have it backwards. Penn Station went bankrupt in the 1960s because rail passenger volume didn’t match the projections made in the 40s and 50s. Most American, even poor Americans, could afford cars, so they bought them. The only way mass transit (it doesn’t have to be public) works is either in dense urban environments or with a society too poor to afford alternatives. I’m not making a pro car argument or anti transit market. I’m just pointing out the actual forces that influence the creation and usage of all transit.

amiga386• 1 year ago

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

bpt38• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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.

NoblePublius5• 1 year ago

America built train tracks at the same time and the rail Operators went bust post WW2 because Americans stopped taking trains.

sarchertech6• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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.

rtkwe2• 1 year ago

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...

ThunderSizzle2• 1 year ago

If Amtrak wants right of way, it can build its own rail network.

bell-cot2• 1 year ago

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.

WorldMaker5• 1 year ago

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.

sarchertech6• 1 year ago

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.

bluGill6• 1 year ago

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.

conscion• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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.

shortformblog5• 1 year ago

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.

pizzathyme2• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

With that logic airportd should not have been built everywhere and useless, yet they were and are not.

shortformblog5• 1 year ago

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/

xeromal• 1 year ago

I'm sure that density is even lower in most of the US south

xorcist• 1 year ago

Is there a reason Denmark was chosen for comparison, rather than neighboring Norway (15 persons/km^2) or Sweden (25 persons/km^2)?

Spooky232• 1 year ago

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.

bluGill6• 1 year ago

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.

whoisyc• 1 year ago

It is funny the author chose Denmark as an example because Greenland is technically a territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, and with Greenland included the Kingdom of Denmark has a population density of 2.68 per km^2.

Does this mean it is not worthwhile to build public transit in the European part of Denmark? If not, then why does the population density of the entire US matter in a discussion about Tennessee, a state 80% denser than the American average?

By the way, Finland has both a smaller economy and a way lower population density (18.4 per km^2) than Denmark and the US. Would railways be not useful in Finland because of that?

Retric• 1 year ago

It’s really not that simple.

If Denmark population 6 million people and 141 people per/km^2 has zero issue with trains then Florida a flat state population 22 million population density 163/km^2 should be full of them.

And it’s not alone. MD has 6 million people and 246/km^2, Massachusetts 7 million 347/km^2, New Jersey 9.3 million and 488 people / km^2.

Further, if you consider the road network the overwhelming majority of roads are in high populations density areas. NYC alone has ~1/6 as many road miles as the entire interstate highway system which criss cross the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System It’s a classic edge to surface area problem, 10,000 acre farms need 1/100 the roads per acre as 1 acre suburban homes. The same kind of scaling applies to rail networks.

hollywood_court5• 1 year ago

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?

shortformblog5• 1 year ago

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.

sandworm1013• 1 year ago

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...

ethbr16• 1 year ago

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..."

tomcam• 1 year ago

It's a blessing that you were able to find help so easily.

susiecambria• 1 year ago

Oh, AAA.

My husband and I were driving a camouflaged CUCV (military bronco) from VA to WV around Thanksgiving. Towing a trailer full of stuff and had four large dogs.

The truck died. In Virginia, one mile from the WV line. Someone picked me up and dropped me off at the first gas station so I could call AAA. I had to talk with several CSRs; the last one told me the closest tow truck was in Charlottesville, hours away from where we were on I64. I was beet red, smoking like a chimney, and making up curse words.

Once we kinda agreed that there was likely a closer alternative, the young woman asked how the tow truck driver would identify the truck since it was camo. I told the men, they chuckled, and I told her it was CAMO, it was not covered by a cloaking device. I hung up.

The young man at the gas station/coffee shop called a local tow truck and we were dropped at Gate 3 of fair grounds in Fairlee, WV.

Ended up that the camo/cloaking device paled in comparison to the later challenge: It was the first day of hunting season and most garages were closed during the week of Thanksgiving.

I hate AAA.

Valien• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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.

toomuchtodo2• 1 year ago

https://culdesac.com/

PaulHoule• 1 year ago

Here you come again...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bflkeWVTNk0

cleverwebble• 1 year ago

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.

hirvi742• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

Americans are divided on a lot of things, but Dolly is universally beloved.

HenryBemis• 1 year ago

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!).

devilbunny• 1 year ago

She bought the property that is now Dollywood specifically to provide both amusement and jobs to people in East Tennessee.

Imagination Library is mostly an umbrella organization that provides logistical support to the many, many locally-funded groups that actually send the books.

She's very kind, and apparently very charming and down-to-earth despite having a deity-quality voice, but she's also really smart and knows how to leverage her celebrity to help people.

If you've never listened to it, watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMrfM711vXI - it's "Jolene", one of her most famous songs, but slowed down like it was a 45 RPM single played at 33 1/3 RPM like an LP. Not a single note is off, even that slowly.

mig39• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

it's true, but we still move plenty of the economy on trains, just not people. flights are cheaper and faster.

danans4• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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.

danans4• 1 year ago

I'm straining to think who besides yourself might think ubiquitous American rail and walkways were imaginary

We agree with each other. I know they were real in the pre-car era (and I have lived in some of the few remaining walkable US towns and cities), but note that my comment was speaking the present tense, not the past tense like yours.

Walkability is not the average American's lived reality today. In fact, living in a walkable area tends to be a marker of heightened privilege nowadays, sadly.

ethbr16• 1 year ago

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 château 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• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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.

hirvi742• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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?

stevage5• 1 year ago

Yeah, that was my thought. I'd love to see steam trains converted to electricity or even diesel in a way that basically they still look like steam trains to the casual observer, but without all the coal burning.

danans4• 1 year ago

What's the point of the look if they're electric? A few steam engines operating for historical tourism doesn't seem like a big issue for emissions compared to the millions of ICE cars. We should keep them operating on their original fuel.

adeelk93• 1 year ago

I had the same feeling when I first rode it. It’s wasteful - a theme park is fundamentally wasteful. But it’s the only time in my life I’ll get to ride a steam engine. And for many others, the only time they’ll ever be on a train.

danans4• 1 year ago

But it’s the only time in my life I’ll get to ride a steam engin

There are historic steam engines operating all over the US. I know of a few in Northern California alone. But not coal mind you, most are oil fired.

eldaisfish2• 1 year ago

[flagged]

notgoodrobot• 1 year ago

I know a lot of people in the area. I'd say yes.

bigiain• 1 year ago

Dunno why this is getting downvoted. It's a fair and important question. I've never been to Tennessee, but I spent a week in Atlanta once 15 or 20 years back, and as an Australian the segregation and underlying racism really surprised and disappointed me. (Not that Australia is really any better with respect to how we are institutionally and often socially and causally racist towards our indigenous people...)

bigstrat20032• 1 year ago

Dunno why this is getting downvoted. It's a fair and important question.

It's getting downvoted because it's neither of those things. It's basically bigotry towards his outgroup ("ewww those rural hicks" drips from that comment) with a thin veneer of pretending to be concerned for minorities.

tomhow• 1 year ago

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44251098 and marked it off-topic.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.

Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

stevage5• 1 year ago

Dollywood moves about 5,000 people per day. That’s 92% of all rail riders in Tennessee, if you exclude Amtrak’s single daily train, the City of New Orleans.

So...why do they exclude the "City of New Orleans"? They don't explain.

sb057• 1 year ago

City of New Orleans is functionally a through line with the only major stop in the state being Memphis. The only other bookable stop period in the state is in the middle of nowhere with the only trips departing at 11pm and 4am. I suspect the average ridership between the two stations is approximately zero.

Reason077• 1 year ago

"U.S. States With Less Rail Transit Ridership Than Dollywood"

I'm sure Nevada wouldn't be on this list if the Las Vegas Monorail were included. Average daily ridership was 11,780 in 2022, and it can reach around 40,000 daily riders on peak conference days.

quitit• 1 year ago

I heard an interesting (and certain to be inflammatory) take the other day:

"When we visit the USA, we look at it the same way you might look at Fiji or some other underdeveloped country."

While I can explain part of that view as differences in cultural priorities (i.e. US residents valuing extensive highways over high speed rail). What I can certainly agree with is that internally in the USA, some states rate of progress far exceeds that of others to the extent that without significant leadership at the federal level there will certainly be "two Americas".

bpt38• 1 year ago

What is interesting about a quote from someone who is obviously ignorant unless it came from a highly advanced life form from another planet?

sltr• 1 year ago

Blount county native here. (How native? Almost got married in the church her nephew preaches at).

There was a joke that made its rounds here round about the time Queen Elizabeth died:

Bob: "The queen's dead"
Alice: "Dolly?!"

If you ride the train, be prepared for soot to get in your eyes.

I'm sure Dolly would be tickled silly to know a bunch of computer people were talking about her.

jacobjjacob• 1 year ago

Was just there a couple weeks ago and didn’t get to ride, they were doing engine repairs :(

jmartin2683• 1 year ago

The guy mentions that he’s never been to Tennessee and I believe him. Clearly he’s not aware of how low the population density is if he thinks trains make for sensible transport there.

rsynnott5• 1 year ago

Tennessee’s pop density seems to be a little lower than Ireland’s. Now, Ireland is not known for its good public transport, but just Dublin’s commuter lines have something like 100x the peak capacity of the Dollywood train.

And Ireland’s anemic rail network is more a result of no investment from the 50s til the 90s than a density thing, really; there is clearly demand for far more capacity and they currently can’t build it fast enough.

jhbadger• 1 year ago

The DART (Dublin's commuter rail to and from its suburbs) is great (as are the Luas trams around the city). The inter-city trains going to Limerick, Cork etc. (which many Irish I've met don't even know still run) remind me of Amtrak and not in a good way.

NoGravitas3• 1 year ago

I'm from Tennessee, and it could easily support light rail systems in the metro areas of each of Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville, and a regular rail route between those cities. Maybe not a lot more than that, but just having that would make life a lot easier.

simple10• 1 year ago

I've been to Dollywood a few times while visiting relatives in Tennessee. It's a trip. The rides and shows are fine. The real attraction is the people watching. By far the best and weirdest slice of Americana in a theme park. Highly recommended.

Dolly Parton's Dollywood Express

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