Anon likes trains

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...

I'm from Europe. What's a train?

My total journey from Berlin home this week was about 50 minutes late, and the connection after the ICE was not pretty.

Yeah, we have trains at home... (greece)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempi_train_crash

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.

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

Can't do public infrastructure, unless it's roads.

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 do you mean there's already been terrorist attacks on trains but nobody really cares because it's a train.

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.

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

in china there are similar security checks for high speed rail

I'm sure they'd finger you if you asked nicely, and have showered recently.

Amtrak is not cheaper, but trains in other countries are. Because Amtrak, specifically, sucks.

Amtrak on the east coast is decent, it's offensively bad on the west coast and most places in the middle of the country.

ah, the free market

Exactly!

In the words of someone who decided to not stop 9/11:

You dont fuck with billion dollar corporations.

Those are called trolleys because they don't have doors

That doesn't even take into account that a lot of rails in the US are owned by Canadian companies.

Where do I enlist?

Honest fuck this.

So you love driving and more people on the road will get off the road and take the train. It means you can drive even more! Why wouldn't you want that.

The US has been fighting for years to put a high speed rail in between DC and New York. Every right-wing neighborhood in between is throwing signs out stop the maglev.

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.

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.

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).

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

soften nimby hearts

They can soften the nimbys' hearts, but ill take them cooked to charcoal if that's what it takes.

You guys pay to get railed in UK?

A rail system is expensive, but the alternatives are even more expensive. The roads cost more to maintain and fuck do i know how planes keep getting cheaper. Maybe no tax and city funding?

tbf if airlines had to serve people they could not be profitable

They'll only be a billionaire if they pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Oh, that is definitely true in the U.S.

Also, I've found that rail travel is inconvenient in the U.S. I can't confirm, but it seems like the Amtrak only comes through my (Midwest) area once a week, on Wednesdays or something like that. So, if I plan a trip, I need to plan around.

Midwest to the East Coast is so much cheaper and faster by air. I want to travel by rail - and you'd think it should be cheaper - but it's totally not.

Part of it, I believe, is that Amtrak leases the usage of the rail lines from the shipping companies, so it must adhere to their schedules of shipping freight. The USA spends so much on upgrading its highway system; if they used a fraction of that money towards rail travel we would be set. But certain companies keep lobbying Congress to keep us locked in a model where we are totally reliant on cars and gasoline.

In Europe when you book ahead of time and are not too specific about the dates you can fly much cheaper. If I want to go from Amsterdam to Barcelona I can get a much much cheaper flight. Why would I go for the option that is slower and more expensive?

I wish trains where cheaper I'd take them more often.

I once heard someone make the argument flying is cheaper because a plane can fly from one airport to almost any other airport. So when you own a plane you can use it in a much more flexible way. A train can only go over a fixed track, yes you can use switches etc. But when you build an airport basically any plane can go there immediately. For trains it doesn't work like that. Make matters even worse in Europe usually train operators are national and most trains don't cross borders beyond a few stations.

TSA exists, therefore...

Is there any parody porn about [a thing]?

Yes. The answer is always yes.

And you'd miss it, right?

Same in the US, and they're slow. Going halfway across the country (i.e. anywhere interesting) takes ~24 hours, and the cheapest seats (not a room) cost about the same as a regular flight, more if you consider budget airlines. And that's if there's a train going where you want to go without ridiculous transfers.

try travelling between countries. eurorail is generally 2-3x times more expensive than cheapest airline. Trains have so much capacity and yet even within countries ticket prices are around £20-30 per two hours of travel. Should be much cheaper, governments should give train lines more incentives than airlines but I feel like that is probably the opposite.

Ameribro here, I can almost guarantee that your airlines are running at a loss as part of a long term EEE strategy to monopolize long distance travel. Once they've got the market cornered, your tickets are going to get A LOT more expensive like ours are. Oh, and they'll start demanding subsidies from your governments to keep from going tits up because they accidentally the whole thing to their shareholders. Don't fucking fall for it.

Traveling by ICE in Europe was fucking awesome. 300kph and like $10 euro to go basically anywhere...well 15 years ago it was that cheap. Dunno about now. And I say this as a gear head.

Such infrastructure should be completely & unlimitedly free for private use.

When Germany did (twice? Forgot the details :/) the experiment with the unlimited EU monthly tickets for 7€ or whatever people were really glad, everyone could travel & see more. And they still talk about that.

Steel?

Frequently, blowing holes in hills and mountains so you can get that 3% gradient.

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.

Right, but you pay that price once. Cars and planes have a lot more maintenance costs than trains.

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.

Doesn't Europe have an extensive passenger train network?

Yes and no. It depends on which part of Europe you are in.

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.

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.

Also, The US is really big

There's absolutely no good reason why you shouldn't be able to take a train from LA to Seattle or Miami to El Paso. The US coastline is plenty dense, with highway exits every five or ten miles state after state after state.

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.

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).

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.

I'll sometimes go back & go through TSA multiple times, they love that, makes them feel appreciated!

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.

Hungary have repetedly fucked up aid money from the EU by being anti democratic, maybe that's the reason?