Yeah why doesn't Europe have trains?
Europe definitely doesn't have trains already.
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Yeah why doesn't Europe have trains?
Europe definitely doesn't have trains already.
Still too much plane for local journeys
And is France train are not cheaper than planes or buses... Which is stupid, they should start to properly taxe Airlines
We do. Not as much as we used to because privatisation is a plague upon mankind, also we have very diverse geography which makes developing new lines prohibitively expensive, even more so when you're a private company. Add to that a lack of political backing and yeah, it's all rather turgid, even if there are some extremely recent talks concerning transeuropean night trains and such.
Those are going to be for our nice flat and speedy routes no doubt, but hey, it's an effort in the right direction.
But yeah, things are not gonna get better fast as long as we are cursed with privatisation. What a shit show to see our glorious TGV reduced to a shell of its former self.
Meanwhile I just got an article yesterday that Wuhan is now connected to the super high speed network and the first 450kph train now connects it to Shanghai. Last time I was there the train was already TGV levels of speed and much more modern, and only a year later they are leaving us on the fucking dust...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
The monkey paw grants your wish but all the trains are built by Boeing.
Americans can't do high speed rail because we have aircraft, automobile, and petroleum industries who don't want us to.
Meanwhile, right wing parties in Quebec are fighting against a tramway project in Quebec city, that the entire country agreed to pay for, for which we have already invested half a billion, build stations, etc. They call it "War on cars".
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.
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.
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.
I'm not sure about other countries but one thing Amtrak has over planes is that they're more disability accessible. Still making improvements on legacy equipment but they're under the ADA, whereas airlines lobbied themselves out of it, which is why they never bothered to create wheelchair spaces or accessible bathrooms or even seats a normal human can occupy comfortably.
Why would Americans care about trains when they're gonna be a billionaire any day now and have their own private jet?
/s
Yeah i got used to TSA sexually assulting me just to get to the to my plane
Honestly I think it's just sticker shock. I would say that as soon as we get some people would be more willing to get more, but no, because people are hesitant to expand existing rail. MARTA please expand, I beg you. Oh great spirits of public transit, I pray that you soften the NIMBYs' hearts.
It's so upsetting that every small town in my state has an old historic train stop but none of them are actually passenger train stops anymore. Once you see it you can't unsee it. I am 15 minutes from my town's historic train stop which is a steak house now. My parents are about the same distance from theirs, probably even closer, but it's a museum or something. Can I just take a walk to the train, ride down, and see them? Nope. Gotta deal with the hellscape that is metro Atlanta traffic.
Train infrastructure is so underfunded (thx oil) that you can still get the fingering at most train stations for a really reasonable fee.
Cheaper? come to the UK, where flying can be less expensive than rail
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.
tickets are cheaper? if you want to travel the same distance it is far from cheap to travel by train, in Europe at least
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.
Is there any parody porn about TSA? I want to masturbate to it. As long as it's not too noncon (like TSA in real life), I don't really care about the details (I'm ok with any gender, large insertions/fisting, etc.).
TSA exists, therefore...
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.
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 extra for a slower method of transportation even if it is a little more comfortable.