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.
I really really wish I wasn’t American
That’s a sad statement.
Well, technically, you’re not because no one is. America is dead. Some corporate fraudster (redundant to say that, I know), tricked zuckers into fucking anything at all didn’t matter, broke the machines with the cracker, generated his fraud of success (like every corporation, ever), then threw away half the votes so that those idiots discoverrs could fight with those calling out the cracker instead of realizing that they agree that:
That “person” is NOT the president. Never was, but that’s a whole other corporate sham. When no one stopped them, they’re dismanted the whole gorram gov and Auctioned it out after smuggling anything that mattered to the other place doing the same damn shit pretending we’re any fucking different from his trick.
Cuz of all the issues that come with laying rail lines. Eminent Domain has somehow become even more unpopular as of late. And guess what building rail lines requires?
Frequently, blowing holes in hills and mountains so you can get that 3% gradient.
Steel?
And indentured workers!
Rich people owning land and trying to get a mark up on the value or a backhand. Or just being near it.
I know this website is pretty communist and I’m not. But surely anyone with half a brain even a die hard capitalist can see the gain in buying land and resetting the market for what is most valuable now not legacy at what was most valuable in the 60’s.
Anyone that is against heavy funding in public transport, tax on land/ reallocation for more density and education isn’t a capitalist they are just a cunt.
Anyone that is against heavy funding in public transport, tax on land/ reallocation for more density and education isn’t a capitalist they are just a cunt.
Especially true since there’s a lot more potential for capitalism in trains than there is in roads—the latter of which is probably the biggest socialised cost in America.
Right, but you pay that price once. Cars and planes have a lot more maintenance costs than trains.
Rail doesn’t work to solve most transit issues. I say this as someone in the area of NJTransit. I know why SEPTA is able to cut 45% of their train service - it doesn’t do the job.We just need a lot more buses, nationwide.
SEPTA is complete trash compared to most European train systems and not something you should measure trains as a whole by. Literally the best train systems in the US still do not measure up to world standards and that is mostly intentional.
Honestly it’s kind of funny that the meme is how US neglects trains and then you disagree based on the fact that you’ve used trains in the US and they’ve been neglected.
Trains are faster and more efficient than buses.
You don’t need buses outside of low traffic areas.
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.
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?
I would be more surprised that you yourself would withstand vibrations extreme enough to kill a hard drive, for 8 hours at that.
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.
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.
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)
I thought about taking an Amtrak to Boston for a trip since it was a vacation and I wasn’t in a huge rush travel wise. By “incredibly long travel time” in my case it would have gone from ~3 hours (two roughly one hour flights with a very short layover you’ve got to haul ass through because for some reason the relevant gates are both at the far ends of different concourses at Dulles) to about a day. Wasn’t in a rush, but that’s a bit too far to the other extreme.
Doesn’t Europe have an extensive passenger train network?
Yes and no. It depends on which part of Europe you are in.
It’s a bit like that in the States, with a lot of the infrastructure appearing to be concentrated in the Northeast.
Where there are lots of people close together, weird how that works…
and that’s the one legitimately good reason to oppose it. The city folk act like they are the only places in the world and completely ignore the rest of the country, the worlds largest ball of yarn wouldn’t exist without small towns, neither would wal-mikes.
It does, though there are some issues with track sizes that are being solved here and there every 10 years. Depends on what someone means by “high speed rail” though, since most people think “maglev” as if it isn’t almost the same bullcrap as hyperloop in terms of viability.
Europe has an extensive passenger train network, but most of it is not high speed rail.
I looked on travelling from Madrid to Paris and it takes 2 hours if you fly (and then some time before for travelling from the city center to the airport, luggage check-in etc.), 11 hours with train and 13.5 hours with car. I think there are high speed rails between Madrid and Barcelona and in France, but still it takes that long time. The cost is similar.
Trains are really good but they have limitations, each type of travel has its advantages.
When I checked how long distance it was between Columbia, SC and Baltimore, MD I realised it was much shorter than Madrid - Paris. So I checked Munich - Paris instead which is only a 10 km longer than Columbus - Baltimore. It takes 7 hours with train and 8.5 - 9 hours with car. The flight takes 1 hour 35 minutes but the estimated time for travelling from central Munich to the airport, transfer time, flight, transfer and travel to central Paris is 5 hours.
With delays, my actual time was around 11 hours. The last leg, from Washington, DC to Baltimore was actually on high speed commuter rail, and that was phenomenal. The cars were newer and the speed was far greater. I imagine if most traffic in the northeast US is like that, it’s actually pretty good.
Thanks for the European info. It’s interesting to know we have similar challenges. I would think, though, that high speed rail would be easier to implement in Europe since you don’t seem to have as many people stuck on automobile culture as we do in North America. However, I could see politics being an issue, wherever you go for various reasons.
I fly because it’s fast, not because I like airplanes. Even the fastest train is way too slow to replace a plane for a long-distance trip. Then for shorter distances cars win out because of how convenient they are. There’s no niche for passenger trains except for commuting into urban areas with no parking. (And those aren’t places I go unless I have to.)
It doesn’t help that in the USA train tickets seem to cost more than plane tickets. I think I’d still usually fly even if the train was free, so I’m certainly not going to pay more for slower method of transportation even if it is a little more comfortable.
It depends on what you mean by “shorter distances”.
Going from Amsterdam to Paris by train is about the same time as going by plane, and actually a bit faster if you show up to the flight two hours early as recommend.
Depends what you are thinking of as long distance. NY to LA? Sure. NY to Chicago would be 4-4.5 hours, downtown to downtown, with a proper train (typical French TGV speeds of 330 kmh / 205 mph). Faster than flying when you count the time and cost of getting to the airport etc.
Exactly this. People too often compare price and time of “train ride” vs. “flight”, which the flight often wins. You need to compare the full travel, and train travel has a lot less overhead, which means a train travelling 100-200 km/h usually wins on stretches below 500 km.
But 500 km (or rather 310 miles since I’m in the USA) is at the upper end of the distance I’d drive. There isn’t a distance for which a train is better than both flying and driving.
With what I’ve heard about the train infrastructure in the US, that doesn’t surprise me. Personally, I only ever use a car if I’m travelling into the mountains or transporting a lot of luggage. I never drive if I’m travelling between cities with little luggage, if only because it’s much less of a hassle to just hop on a train and get where I’m going.
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.
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.
Somebody didn’t watch Christophe Lambert’s The Hunted…
Or Under Siege 2.
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.
Only for Eurostar and some other international trains you get some checks when boarding, especially since Brexit.
There’s barely any checks they basically glance at your passport and go, yep you have a passport, you can pass.
Presumably if there was an arrest warrant out for you there’s a chance they might do something, but then again they are French so you’d have to catch them at a good time.
Yes indeed if you want to be safe book a train that leaves between 12:00 and 14:00 that’s when they’re at the bistrot for lunch.
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Or driving it into a sky scraper !!!
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Ok. Thinking explosives. Where are high speed trains being attacked by explosives? I don’t hear much in Germany, France, China, or Japan.
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Don’t jinx it.
As I said in another reply, too late, by twenty-one years.
And yet, no TSA-like bullshit.
Commuter trains aren’t high speed trains though.
True (though the AVE also stops at Atocha, as it did back in 2004).
They also tend to carry more passengers, which means the number of victims was significantly larger than if it had been an AVE.
And yet, your prediction of a nine-eleven-like security theater didn’t come to pass. 🤷♂️
Those countries arent full of Americans though. If a thing exists Americans will try to attack it.
Didn’t cause security theater, though. 🤷♂️
Those are dense packed commuter trains from more than 20 years ago. Sort of the opposite of comfortable high speed long distance trains now days.
If you search for “bomb train” you’ll get results but it might be worth looking deeper than the headline.
Those are dense packed commuter trains from more than 20 years ago
So, even fucking worse when it comes to number of victims.
If you search for “bomb train” you’ll get results
I don’t need to search for it, it was all over the news for months.
And yet, we got over 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).
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.
in china there are similar security checks for high speed rail
What do you mean there’s already been terrorist attacks on trains but nobody really cares because it’s a train.
Shhh! It’s an american, he can’t comprehend high speed trains.
They are already wildly popular in diverse regions in europe btw.
Who, me? The furthest west I’ve been was Wales.
Sorry, I thought someone who didn’t know speedtrains aren’t already wildly popular, and has already been targeted by terrorists must be american. Take that as you like 😉
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
I’m sure they’d finger you if you asked nicely, and have showered recently.
I hope they don’t find any lump
Are you sure? There’s at least one lump I hope they find, but it’s kind of deep up in there.
Not to shit on your perfectly reasonable parade, but in Germany there is high speed rail through the whole . takes about 6 hours from top to bottom.
Now look at the scale of the US versus Germany and then the density of people living there. High speed rail makes alot of sense where it’s difficult to build (bosnywash) and does not scale well in terms of time spent traveling.
Its better than car, but won’t replace air travel anytime soon. Sadly.
Not to shit on your perfectly reasonable parade, but in Germany there is high speed rail through the whole . takes about 6 hours from top to bottom.
Maybe not a great example there, with that running something like 100 km/h average speed.
If you bump those numbers up to be competitive with actually high-performing HSR operators, that trip would take 2-3 hours, immediately killing any competitive edge that air travel would have on those segments - 2-3 hours will basically get you to the airport and through security, you’ll have arrived already if you were on a well-performing train by then.
HSR is the best alternative for any trip up to approximately 800 km, at which point air travel starts beating it out. This is for daytime travel only - trains could be competitive for far longer distances with overnight sleeper service. I’d not be against taking night HSRs going between any points in Europe basically.
Alas, this would require non-shit politicians, which definitely does not exist
China is disagreeing, right now. Not disagreeing with your arguments, but they are definitely pushing a lot more than us because the amount of people you can move is ridonkulous compared to planes and cars, their geography seems to be helping and the technology is getting ridiculous (450kph trains, right now).
France has nearly the same population density as Ohio, and it has the TGV, which covers more than 5 times the land area of Ohio. So where’s the Ohio high speed rail network?
This is the scale of Japan compared to the US east coast:
So why aren’t there high speed lines that cover that same distance in the US?
Americans complain about US politicians and US policy on a near constant basis, and yet when comparing the US to other nations its apparently impossible for anyone to have made a stupid or self-serving decision. The US apparently is always operating at the absolute limit of what’s physically possible, and if there’s any deficiency compared to its peers its never because something was done wrong. Its always because “the US is too big” or “we’re too diverse” (what does that even mean? You can’t have nice things because black people exist?).
To be clear there are actual answers to the questions I posed above, but its not either of those moronic excuses.
what does that even mean? You can’t have nice things because black people exist?
It kind of is though.
Can’t have nice downtown because blacks live their so all the whites go out to the suburbs. End up with shitty inefficient suburb hell and under funded downtown.
No one wants to use public transport because of a sense of crime so only the lowest income people use it meaning further funding loss.
Nothing in America is for “the people” paid by the state except highways, oil and pouring water into the desert everything else needs to run a direct profit ignoring externalities.
Those lines do exist in the US. They are privatized, shitty, and expensive.
That statement is a bit too broad for me. You can not only use highspeed rail within Germany but also to reach the countries around it. E.g. Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, (ICE trains) or use the TGV to reach Paris in a reasonable time.
But with the (illegal) border controls currently it’s insufferable. Will travel through France by train in September and I fear that the border controls will totally derail (haha) our time and travel plans.
We decided to use the train because the air connections took us longer since we didn’t want to vacate in a city with an airport and don’t live in one either.
How are the illegal border controls from outside into Germany on train currently? By car, they didn’t even look us in the eyes when we passed, a complete waste of time.
The Bundespolizei could do actual work instead of just sort of chilling on the borders and checking people that don’t look German enough (presumingly).
I haven’t crossed border by train since they started to do this again. But when I’m travelling within Germany the trains that come from out of country are usually delayed.
Afaik the train is sometimes stopped to check the papers of all passengers. I guess these are the cases with the heavy delay. But they also do controls in moving trains which makes it more tolerable but still…
I think parts of the problems of train in the US is that they have a lot of desert in the western part of the country (rocky mountains and such) where public transport just wouldn’t make sense. You don’t have that in Europe.
Why wouldn’t it make sense to cross these areas by train? You don’t need a stop in the desert but before and after sounds sensible to me.
crossing it makes sense, yes, but you could also do so by plane, which is much faster
When you add up all the miles of rail in Europe, how far could you stretch it out over the US?
Even if you adjusted for population (550 mil vs 330 mil) you could easily at least connect all the major cities in the US, given how many smaller regional lines there are in Europe too
Here are numbers from 2022 but you still need to do the math
Are they stupid?
(Yes)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.
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…
Flying is way cheaper in Europe. Partially because trains are taxed much higher than flying.
Americans can’t do trains because it requires public infrastructure (rails), which apparently we are allergic to.
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
It’s literally socialism!
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 so odd… I’ve only ridden Amtrak a few times, but I was amazed at how many stops were just some small town that happened to lie on the rail line.
Most small towns that lie on a major highway and are supported by commuter traffic are only going to support a truck stop and a few fast food restaurants at best. Sure, a true high speed rail line would likely only stop in larger metropolitan areas, so those meager income sources may dwindle. But on the other hand if I were a rail commuter in one of those rural/suburban areas, I’d be much more likely to spend some time doing a bit of shopping or lingering in a restaurant during that transition from the train to my car after work, than if I were just passing through in my car.
If i had a 24/7 high speed line to the big city from fuvkoffnowhere, i might choose to live in fuvkoffnowhere
But they could be fucking train stop bucolic paradise exurbs from (bigcity)!
that is such an absurd and pointless reality
Add some violence, and that’s america!
They are just very short sighted. Just lobby to have a station and a have commuter stops and people will flock to those “cheaper” areas to live bringing in tons of tax revenue and boosting the local economy.
Yes but that might take a few years, we need to prop up our shitty city now…
And the construction crews wont eat at our shit hole restaurants.
These small towns would still be an hour+ away from large cities, even with European speed high speed rail.
Like for me, the nearest “big town” is about 100 miles from me, which is about a 2hr drive. And, at least from some quick googling, it looks like most commuter rail in France tops out at about 100mph. A train would not bring in more people haha
You’d be suprised how many people commute more than an hour by car. The prospect of having affordable housing with more job opportunities will certainly bring in more people.
France spends ~$15 million/mile for high speed commuter rail. Which means that line would cost $1.5 billion.
I don’t think it’s bringing in that many more people. Even when you amortize it across all of the little cities it would go through
Implying the line would stop at the town and not carry on to the next. Also, how much is being spent on building and maintaining freeways?
too much, which is why I propose dirt highways with 45mph speed limits. Low initial cost, drivers drive safer, and helps the towing industry grow.
Even when you amortize it across all of the little cities
Please read the comment in it’s entirety before responding ❤️
Yeah, while I’m a huge advocate for an American Shinkansen, there’s really 4 zones of America for train speeds. East of the Appalachians its fast and easy and rail already works easy. West of them but east of the Mississippi, you’re gonna need high speed rail, but it’ll be somewhat similar to Europe. Between the Mississippi and the west coast, you’re gonna need high speed rail and quite a bit of patience. And on the west coast, you’ll hit up small cities, but honestly it’d be a great second high speed line after the New York-Chicago
Okay but the auto industry isnt paying me to want that and big city people are scary.
Anybody who is making money off existing transportation is going to be against public transportation. Cab companies lobby against rail everywhere, from city to burbs or airport to downtown. Trucking, for obvious reasons. Passenger rail can carry cargo at night. And of course anybody selling fuel to the mass of cars, the petro industry.
Planes are safer. Plus, TSA is the only way I get any sexual contact. I’m not giving that up.
Planes are not safer than rail. Definitely not if you fly Boeing.
Safer than American trains.
American trains are safe, they’re just really slow.
More of a joke.
American trains do suck compared to other trains.
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Asking nicely can go a long way.
Rail and aviation are pretty much on par. Both are far far much safer than road traffic.
Planes are safer.
Americans unironically believe stupid shit like this, hilarious
I kind of like the thought of me pissing in the train and it travelling 300+ kph sideways and 9.8 m/s² downwards
