Americans can’t do trains because it requires public infrastructure (rails), which apparently we are allergic to.
I’ve read articles in the past about high speed trains and/or just new train lines in general would get held up by little towns who didn’t want to lose the commuter traffic since it was the only thing keeping them afloat. There are too many towns that exist literally just to serve motorists and now nobody wants to get rid of them.
that is such an absurd and pointless reality
It’s literally socialism!
it requires cooperation with the project across all of these counties that the railway runs through. and they’re all corrupt or subject to democracy or whatever
Doesn’t Europe have an extensive passenger train network?
Also, I recently rode on Amtrak for a long trip from Columbia, SC to Baltimore, MD. This was my first time on any kind of train other than a subway or metro line. It had its drawbacks (incredibly long travel time and delays), but I always felt safe, and I had a lot more room than I would have had on any flight. The major drawbacks where the seats were somewhat uncomfortable and things like that are largely due to the fact that the cars were pretty old, and not inherent to train travel if it was properly maintained. The cost was much less, and the free parking was such a great bonus.
I kind of like the thought of me pissing in the train and it travelling 300+ kph sideways and 9.8 m/s² downwards
Why would Americans care about trains when they’re gonna be a billionaire any day now and have their own private jet?
/s
Dane here. While I love trains, they are a) more expensive than flying in almost every long distance scenario, and b) take much longer. We are trialling sleeping trains but reception is mixed and capacity limited. People don’t like to waste an extra 2-4 days of their vacation on travel. Especially if they’re paying more for that privilege. I should note that this isn’t an issue of imbalanced subsidies. The EU subsidises air travel (in many ways) to the tune of around €30–40 billion annually depending on what you include and what you consider to be a “subsidy.” Using similar criteria, rail is subsidised to the tune of €40–75 billion per year. So rail gets a lot more investment despite it serving 16% fewer travel kilometers per year in the EU than air travel.
The thing is, if even we can’t make it cheaper and faster despite our relatively high population densities and high rail subsidies, I fear the case is much harder still in the U.S. My personal position is that trains are excellent commuter alternatives, and should be liberally built and subsidised in all dense cities. For longer travel, there is no substitute for airoplanes.
No turbulence while taking a piss or shit
Train bathrooms seem specifically designed to discourage using the bathroom while riding a train.
Also I had a laptop die from the constant vibrations destroying the hard disk drive.
Also I had a laptop die from the constant vibrations destroying the hard disk drive.
Well, that’s pretty much an issue of the past now.
It was last year.
Ok, but it’s rather specific case if you were still using a laptop with an HDD last year.
There are still a few use cases… mainly price. A 4TB 2.5" HDD can be had for less than a bottom-of-the-barrel 2TB NVME.
But I would definitely hesitate to bring spinning drives on a bumpy ride.
Spinning drives have a no place in a laptop. In a desktop at home, sure.
Absolutely no reason to put one in a new laptop.
But not all computers are new.
This seems highly unlikely. Modern HDDs are extremely resilient.
But I don’t know the details of your situation, obviously, and it’s not impossible.What, like the head crashed by sheer coincidence, after eight hours of rattling?
And at least the laptops I had with spinning drives had vibration dampening.
Train infrastructure is so underfunded (thx oil) that you can still get the fingering at most train stations for a really reasonable fee.
based.
Because they like TSA fingering their assholes?
I’ll sometimes go back & go through TSA multiple times, they love that, makes them feel appreciated!
The only national passenger train service I know of is Amtrak, which shares its tracks with freight carriers. So the current infrastructure isn’t designed for high-speed rail and freight carriers usually get priority.
Also, The US is really big, so everything isn’t a short train ride away from everything else. If I wanted to visit the Grand Canyon from where I live, it’s over 2,000 miles away. That’s 30 hours of driving just by car.
Yes, the US is really big, and we have a bunch of mountains, but there’s still no good reason why reasonable train infrastructure doesn’t exist. We have train lines from Seattle to LA, SF to Chicago (and transfers to NYC and DC), and NYC to Miami, but they’re all super slow and have to share with even slower freight sometimes.
I live in Utah and know a bunch of people who would take a train to Vegas almost every weekend if it existed and was somewhat fast. I’d take one from SLC to LA if it existed, and I’d consider one across the country if it was reasonably priced. But no, the train takes twice as long as a car for most destinations, and is often more expensive than an airplane, so why would I ever take the train outside of the train being the point (i.e. as a novelty)?
Make them fast and convenient and people will rife them. Apparently Amtrak gets decent usage in the NE because they’re fast and convenient. Do that for the west and people will use them.
freight carriers usually get priority.
They’re not supposed to. Passenger traffic on Amtrak should be getting priority but the rail lines basically say “fuck it” and do what they want.
Some asshole Mba/lawyers figured out that if they made the trains physically too long to fit onto the pull outs, then they could just shrug and say “golly, we’d love to pull over for you, but we just can’t lmao” and it’s perfectly fine. It’s called Precision Scheduled Railroading
Seems like an easy solution would be fining the shit out of them for that. Or requiring an expensive permit for overly long trains.
Well, see, for that to happen, you’d need politicians who aren’t complicit in trying to rip the wiring out of the walls. Also, regulating railroads is hella complicated in the US because we’ve got a bunch of ancient laws that give the railroads more rights than God, to the point where you almost stop being a citizen when you step onto railroad right of way. We COULD deal with that, but it’d be almost as much of an almighty fucking lobbyist shitshow as when we try to regulate oil.
Lmao, money concentration wins over all the things human.
We deserve ourselves as a species.
Not sure if the rest of the species do.
With 300mph trains instead is highways that’s 7 hours, k, let’s say 10 hours of leisure, dining, sightseeing.
(vs 2h airport + 4h flight + 1 or 2h airport taxiing & stuff again)The railroad infrastructure seems expensive just bcs it is presented that way (and planes & roads arent).
presentedregulated that way: companies can buy kerosene for airplanes tax-free, but need to pay tax on electricity for trains. Funding for airports and trainstations differ greatly from high ways. Governments hand out money to make the best mode of transportation (from their pov) also the cheapest.Yes.
But else laws got passed bcs it was presented like how airplanes deserve being untaxed (to the cost of taxpayers) but railroad doesn’t.
You can try to change those laws & get the same lobby propaganda in return.
Like how is there always money for another lane but much cheaper infrastructure is crumbling.
Governments hand out money to make the best mode of transportation (from their pov) also the cheapest.
Yeah, no, corruption & short-term gains are the main factors by which the gov decided what is best.
And why more socialist or even communist states tend to have that sorted out better.also the cheapest.
Cars were never that tho.
Can Boeing make a train? Just wondering if I should look out for occasional flying safety exist door while watching trains go by.
Maybe they do make trains, but like so badly they just accidentally take off (for an uncontrolled amount of time).
If high speed rail becomes popular, all that stands between the current freedom and ID-required tickets and fingering by agents is one terrorist attack, staged or not.
I’m sure they’d finger you if you asked nicely, and have showered recently.
What are you going to do with a hijacked train? The moment you hijack it they’ll just shutdown power. Hostages? Good luck there are like 30 carts on the train all of which have window break tools and emergency door open tools.
Look at Germany or France. High speed trains are everywhere and there is no ID requirement beyond maybe a ticket check if you’re unlucky.
What are you going to do with a hijacked train? The moment you hijack it they’ll just shutdown power. Hostages? Good luck there are like 30 carts on the train all of which have window break tools and emergency door open tools.
Somebody didn’t watch Christophe Lambert’s The Hunted…
Or Under Siege 2.
Was that the one with the Apple Newton sending a fax?
Only for Eurostar and some other international trains you get some checks when boarding, especially since Brexit.
Who said anything about hijacking? Think explosives etc.
Or driving it into a sky scraper !!!
What if the train is the size of Chrysler building? 🤯
Ok. Thinking explosives. Where are high speed trains being attacked by explosives? I don’t hear much in Germany, France, China, or Japan.
Didn’t cause security theater, though. 🤷♂️
Don’t jinx it.
My point is once a terrorist attack happens, there will be TSA like checks for getting on high speed trains.
My city (Mumbai) has seen multiple local train bombings so the newly built metro lines have baggage scanner at the entry.
Don’t jinx it.
As I said in another reply, too late, by twenty-one years.
And yet, no TSA-like bullshit.
Those countries arent full of Americans though. If a thing exists Americans will try to attack it.
one terrorist attack
Had one in 2004, didn’t result in security theater (though its mishandling did almost certainly result in the ruling party losing the election).
in china there are similar security checks for high speed rail
We don’t even have that stuff on flights here (at least within Schengen). On my last 4 flights I had to show my ID once and the security check is just standing in the scanner thing for a second.
I never had actual cavity search but it varies within Shengen. Germany is the least pleasant, always some problem. Last time they insisted on searching a preschooler.
Has to harm billionaire asset to matter. Killing the rest of us is a game billionaires already enjoy and would applaud the Panem twist of a visiting team
Something something Hungarian National Railway fucking useless once you go further than a 100 kms from the capital city.
Hungary have repetedly fucked up aid money from the EU by being anti democratic, maybe that’s the reason?
No lol it’s been shit since before we joined the EU, it’s basically like our very own original sin.
Edit: sorry almost forgot to say fuck orbán
Hopefully it’ll change for the better next election!
& Fuck Orban of course.
As someone who boycotted the TSA for like 5 years and only took Amtrak, the tickets are not always cheaper. I mean sure, you can get across the country for like $100.
Even when I was doing Boston-Baltimore on the Acela, it was routinely slightly cheaper to fly.
Amtrak on the east coast is decent, it’s offensively bad on the west coast and most places in the middle of the country.
Amtrak is not cheaper, but trains in other countries are. Because Amtrak, specifically, sucks.
AmTrak is designed to suck. Freight lines own most of the rails, and while they are required to give priority to passenger trains, they avoid this in several ways. Like having the freight trains too long to fit on side rails so the passenger trains are required to stop instead to make way.
Flying is way cheaper in Europe. Partially because trains are taxed much higher than flying.
Not always. Flying from Amsterdam to London is cheaper and faster than taking the train. The train is usually sold out because people still prefer it, but…
Parking is cheaper No TSA fingering your asshole Tickets are cheaper Safer travel On the ground Can take the next train if late
These aren’t (completely) true where I live, it’s still more convenient to take a plane or even drive to go to another major city 500-600km away, which is ridiculous specially considering that it’s consistently ranked among the best high speed rail systems in the world.
