If it takes more than 4-6 hours to drive there, high speed rail is the clear choice. I’m someone who has been on several 10+ hour road trips, and driving for more than a few hours at a time sucks. You waste up to an entire day just driving. Even if it does take the same amount of time, it’d be nice to nap or read a book in that time instead of focusing on just driving. It’s mentally and physically exhausting.
Especially I-70 in western Kansas and eastern Colorado.
The furthest I’ve driven in one day was about 9 hours to Edinburgh. Our trains over here are stupid expensive so it worked out much cheaper. But damn I regretted it big time around hour 4 when I realised I wasn’t even half way.
No way man, I’ve ridden the train London to the UK. It’s expensive in the sense that a first class ticket for me was … 200 pounds I believe? Amtrak is gobs more for a much worse experience. We’re fighting tooth and nail over here in the states to try to have something close to your system
Not tried rail in the USA so yeah, fair enough. But I’ve been to Italy a few times and I’m always jealous of their rail.
Fair, although while my ride in Italy was faster, I vastly preferred the overall vibe of the UK’s system.
It’s honestly hard to explain because it’s so much different compared to your guys’.
So we have exactly one route that can go up to 125, in a couple of places. So taking that one out of the equation, the next highest speed in our entire system is 90mph.
I live in Seattle, about 4 million people, about 1.8x of Manchester. We have 3 rail lines, that take you to 3 places.
- Portland, 5 times a day, 4 hours away
- Vancouver BC, 3 times a day, 3 hours away
- Chicago, 1 time a day, 36 hours away.
- LA, 1 time a day, 24 hours away
We have what you would call a “well connected” city in the states too. Outside of the northeast corridor, this is in fact a “train city” here in the states.
Except in most of the (non-New England) US. San Antonio to Dallas by car is 4-5 hours. By train it’s 10-11 because it has to constantly pull over for the freight trains that own the tracks. The US only has about 100 miles of HSR for the whole country.
I think they meant it more in a “high speed rail would work better in these situations if we had it” rather than “we totally have that infrastructure in place let’s use it”. That was my read anyway. Plus, my understanding is that what we consider HSR here barely even qualifies as such in other parts of the world.
The problem with trains is that they are expensive to maintain and slower (at least the traditional trains are)
It’s all electric now and you can only hear the electric motor and the wheel grinding the rail, so train these day are more like
WwwoooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
REEEEEEEEEEEEE
It doesn’t feel the same. Some engineer please design a chugga chugging machine for use on electric trains.
Thx
AhahahahahHahahahahahaha
What if we combined the two together perhaps we could even call it mmm a bus!
I want more trains because I think being a train robber is cool and I want more opportunities to become one.
In California it is pretty easy
Sometimes you just get the chugga chugga chugga chugga since there’s no railroad crossongs for it to choo choo!
!The_Picard_Maneuver@startrek.website You are, as usual, providing a disproportionate amount of the things that make me happy browsing lemmy today. Thank you so very much.
Happy to do my part!
<3
@The_Picard_Maneuver@startrek.website
I’m from lemmy.world, and on the mobile site at least, the ! makes a link but the @ doesn’t.
What is the correct number of chuggas?
Any multiples of 4
Laughs in 3-cylinders
Or 2 if you’re strapped for time
I just tried this and I think it’s correct (as long as its multiplied with the natural numbers excluding 0)
Besides that, I’d claim that choo choo must always come in a quantity of exactly two at once.
Edit: No, actually I take everything back because trains should be electrified and not need to make these sounds.
Whoa. “Chugga” is our word
All of them.
8 chuggas followed by a toot-toot.
Bonus points if you’re recounting a Vietnam war story about your buddy getting his legs blown off by Charlie. (Movie is Major Payne)
You want a better rail system to reduce traffic and greenhouse gas emissions.
I want a better rail system to win arguments and flex on obscure train forms.
I like trains because they are much more comfortable than airplanes (especially with TSA gymnastics) and I can do something interesting or productive rather than try to focus on the road for hours on end.
Where to I sign up
Thomas is
upsetthrilledI sent this meme to a group chat of autistics and they loved it.
