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And people still ask me why I prefer taking high speed trains! Flying by plane is so nerve-wracking nowadays, what with dogs sniffing about and burly custom age

And people still ask me why I prefer taking high speed trains! Flying by plane is so nerve-wracking nowadays, what with dogs sniffing about and burly custom agents and you have to arrive 2 hours beforehand, wait in long lines, sit in an enclosed room and wait even longer, share a bathroom with hundreds of other people. In euro style fast trains, you arrive 2 minutes before, walk in, you can go have a meal, there is electricity for your laptop, there are toilets everywhere. For any journey that can be done in 6 hours with the train, the plane journey, which would take between 1 hour and 2 hours actual flying, will take much longer. That high speed train china built is the way to go. Planes should be used for flying really big distances, and then trains should be used to go on. The entirety of europe should be connected with trains, the U.S should have 10 major airport hubs and the rest done with trains. Nowadays, flying is just such a bother!

dtf 17y ago
In euro style fast trains, you arrive 2 minutes before, walk in, you can go have a meal, there is electricity for your laptop, there are toilets everywhere. Or for those stuck on last Friday's Paris-London Eurostar, not so much toilets everywhere as everywhere a toilet. I payed a premium to use the channel link to get me home this Christmas and, after 3 days of travel hell and sheer incompetence before I finally got on, I can't see myself ever using them again. In fact, after reading what actually occurred under the channel on Friday - tunnel operators seemingly asleep, staff going AWOL, passengers urinating on the floor, not to mention Kent police interrogating those who finally made it out as if they were potential terrorists (save for Claudia Schiffer, who got a police escort home and a free croissant) - I'm not sure I actually trust them to even run a safe service, let alone a convenient one. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/22/eurostar_eurotunnel_fiasco/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/22/eurostar_eurotunnel_... My faith in international rail travel from the UK has been destroyed completely in one fell swoop, and it has nothing to do with the engineering malfunction that instigated it all.
ams6110 17y ago
Terrorists blow up trains, too.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- callahad 17y ago
  And yet, somehow, they're still a more civilized means of transit.
- daten 17y ago
  The "terrorists" aren't the reason he prefers the train. Terrorist attacks on both are so rare that they're not a real reason to prefer one over the other. However the overly invasive, rude and ineffective airport security is a strong reason not to fly when there's an alternative available. For some reason the trains, malls, schools, libraries, churches and stadiums around where I live aren't getting blown up by terrorists and they have little or no security at all.
  - ams6110 17y ago
    The point being, if a few train attacks occur, you can expect similar TSA regulations being issued for that mode of transport. Not that its very likely in the USA; with a few exceptions rail service is abysmal. It took me 48 hours to travel from Nevada to Chicago last time I took the train, what with mechanical breakdowns and other unexplained delays. Lost my luggage too. Never again.
    - imajes 17y ago
      The uk experimented with metal detector type screening at train stations after our bombings on the 7th july. It doesn't work with you have thousands of people streaming in and out of the gates- all you do is end up practically shutting down the station. So now they focus on temporary gates and profiling - which turns out to be much more efficient than random screening.
  - imajes 17y ago
    One thing to bear in mind- mass transit terror attacks over the past ten years have probably killed more people directly in attacks on trains (and subways/tube) than plane attacks. Bombs in london and madrid caused hundreds of lives lost or serious injuries, bombs in the pakistan/india region often claim thousands. The threat (as also mentioned here) is that a hijacked plane is, in reality, a massive missile and, to use the phrase, a true weapon of mass destruction. This however was resolved after 9/11 with new cockpit procedures and more alert passengers. (c.f. Bruce Schneier's blog for more)
ig1 17y ago
From my experience European flights are much easier than international flights, typically you only have to turn up an hour before the flight and security is pretty quick at both ends, especially at smaller airports and if you've only got carry-on. From friends who've travelled business class out of City Airport in London, I've heard you can turn up as little as 20 minutes before the flight time. Trains are more pleasant, but it's not the huge chore that say flying to JFK is.
- elblanco 17y ago
  I'd say this is definitely true at smaller airports (Munich for example), but horrendous at the mega-monstrosity airports like Charles De Gaulle or London-Heathrow. There's just nothing you can do to move through those places faster. (My last trip through London put a warning on my transfer boarding pass to allow 1-hour to get from gate to gate. I thought they were joking.)
  - ig1 17y ago
    It can vary a lot. I flew from London Heathrow Terminal 5 to Berlin earlier this year, and it only took 15 minutes from getting off the tube to being ready to board.
imajes 17y ago
It doesn't have to be. Flying for me is fairly painless, but i've been doing it enough so i can optimize the process out. It doesn't take long (or much effort) to make flying equivalent to train travel, for instance (and it's much faster almost all the time).
- steveklabnik 17y ago
  This might be easy for you to do, but that's also only if you can shake the feeling of worry. I'm some punk kid, with tattoos and ear gauges, and when you combine that with my general distrust of authority, and mix in how terrible the consequences can be, it's not just the process that causes stress with flying. I don't carry a knife, but I do some craft-y stuff sometimes, and I constantly worry if I've accidentally left something in a pocket somewhere.
bbgm 17y ago
Yep. Which is why on European trips, when possible I travel by train. More efficient, more comfortable and on the right routes, you get to enjoy some good scenery too. I miss trains in the US, both for local transit and long distance travel. I don't mind flying, and I fly crazy amounts, but it's become increasingly difficult to justify the headache, especially for some of the shorter fly-in, fly-out trips that I take
ubernostrum 17y ago
And people still ask me why I prefer taking high speed trains! I know! I just love that hourly New York-to-London train service that runs under the Atlantic...
- pavel_lishin 17y ago
  You don't need sarcasm to make fun of rail. Every time I try to get a hypothetical route on Amtrak.com for Dallas to New Orleans, or Florida, it insists on routing me through Chicago. Every. Single. Time.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - smhinsey 17y ago
    In fairness, that's basically what the airlines do as well, they just have more hubs and the hub and spoke model itself is less visible because of the higher speeds involved. Presumably a more viable rail service would involve at least more hubs and hopefully also higher speeds.
  - ubernostrum 17y ago
    I live in the Midwest and always have to fly through at least one hub to get anywhere useful, so I'm getting a kick out of this. (I once was trying to book a flight from Kansas City to Portland, and -- I kid you not -- one suggested route was through Atlanta)
- maxklein 17y ago
  That would likely be a bit claustrophobic should it ever be made. That's what I mean - big planes should be used between big hubs, for example leaving from the ocean beside England and landing in the ocean beside new york, then you take a bunch of trains to the various destinations. Check-in, security checks and all that can then be distributed amongst all the small train stations. When you arrive at a plane hub, you just walk in with your hand luggage. I used to think that smaller regional planes were the future, but nowadays I'm thinking perhaps the large titanicesque planes may be the way to go to solve this problem.

dtf 17y ago

In euro style fast trains, you arrive 2 minutes before, walk in, you can go have a meal, there is electricity for your laptop, there are toilets everywhere. Or for those stuck on last Friday's Paris-London Eurostar, not so much toilets everywhere as everywhere a toilet. I payed a premium to use the channel link to get me home this Christmas and, after 3 days of travel hell and sheer incompetence before I finally got on, I can't see myself ever using them again. In fact, after reading what actually occurred under the channel on Friday - tunnel operators seemingly asleep, staff going AWOL, passengers urinating on the floor, not to mention Kent police interrogating those who finally made it out as if they were potential terrorists (save for Claudia Schiffer, who got a police escort home and a free croissant) - I'm not sure I actually trust them to even run a safe service, let alone a convenient one. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/22/eurostar_eurotunnel_fiasco/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/22/eurostar_eurotunnel_... My faith in international rail travel from the UK has been destroyed completely in one fell swoop, and it has nothing to do with the engineering malfunction that instigated it all.

ams6110 17y ago

Terrorists blow up trains, too.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
callahad 17y ago
And yet, somehow, they're still a more civilized means of transit.
daten 17y ago
The "terrorists" aren't the reason he prefers the train. Terrorist attacks on both are so rare that they're not a real reason to prefer one over the other. However the overly invasive, rude and ineffective airport security is a strong reason not to fly when there's an alternative available. For some reason the trains, malls, schools, libraries, churches and stadiums around where I live aren't getting blown up by terrorists and they have little or no security at all.
- ams6110 17y ago
  The point being, if a few train attacks occur, you can expect similar TSA regulations being issued for that mode of transport. Not that its very likely in the USA; with a few exceptions rail service is abysmal. It took me 48 hours to travel from Nevada to Chicago last time I took the train, what with mechanical breakdowns and other unexplained delays. Lost my luggage too. Never again.
  - imajes 17y ago
    The uk experimented with metal detector type screening at train stations after our bombings on the 7th july. It doesn't work with you have thousands of people streaming in and out of the gates- all you do is end up practically shutting down the station. So now they focus on temporary gates and profiling - which turns out to be much more efficient than random screening.
- imajes 17y ago
  One thing to bear in mind- mass transit terror attacks over the past ten years have probably killed more people directly in attacks on trains (and subways/tube) than plane attacks. Bombs in london and madrid caused hundreds of lives lost or serious injuries, bombs in the pakistan/india region often claim thousands. The threat (as also mentioned here) is that a hijacked plane is, in reality, a massive missile and, to use the phrase, a true weapon of mass destruction. This however was resolved after 9/11 with new cockpit procedures and more alert passengers. (c.f. Bruce Schneier's blog for more)

ig1 17y ago

From my experience European flights are much easier than international flights, typically you only have to turn up an hour before the flight and security is pretty quick at both ends, especially at smaller airports and if you've only got carry-on. From friends who've travelled business class out of City Airport in London, I've heard you can turn up as little as 20 minutes before the flight time. Trains are more pleasant, but it's not the huge chore that say flying to JFK is.

elblanco 17y ago
I'd say this is definitely true at smaller airports (Munich for example), but horrendous at the mega-monstrosity airports like Charles De Gaulle or London-Heathrow. There's just nothing you can do to move through those places faster. (My last trip through London put a warning on my transfer boarding pass to allow 1-hour to get from gate to gate. I thought they were joking.)
- ig1 17y ago
  It can vary a lot. I flew from London Heathrow Terminal 5 to Berlin earlier this year, and it only took 15 minutes from getting off the tube to being ready to board.

imajes 17y ago

It doesn't have to be. Flying for me is fairly painless, but i've been doing it enough so i can optimize the process out. It doesn't take long (or much effort) to make flying equivalent to train travel, for instance (and it's much faster almost all the time).

steveklabnik 17y ago
This might be easy for you to do, but that's also only if you can shake the feeling of worry. I'm some punk kid, with tattoos and ear gauges, and when you combine that with my general distrust of authority, and mix in how terrible the consequences can be, it's not just the process that causes stress with flying. I don't carry a knife, but I do some craft-y stuff sometimes, and I constantly worry if I've accidentally left something in a pocket somewhere.

bbgm 17y ago

Yep. Which is why on European trips, when possible I travel by train. More efficient, more comfortable and on the right routes, you get to enjoy some good scenery too. I miss trains in the US, both for local transit and long distance travel. I don't mind flying, and I fly crazy amounts, but it's become increasingly difficult to justify the headache, especially for some of the shorter fly-in, fly-out trips that I take

ubernostrum 17y ago

And people still ask me why I prefer taking high speed trains! I know! I just love that hourly New York-to-London train service that runs under the Atlantic...

pavel_lishin 17y ago
You don't need sarcasm to make fun of rail. Every time I try to get a hypothetical route on Amtrak.com for Dallas to New Orleans, or Florida, it insists on routing me through Chicago. Every. Single. Time.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- smhinsey 17y ago
  In fairness, that's basically what the airlines do as well, they just have more hubs and the hub and spoke model itself is less visible because of the higher speeds involved. Presumably a more viable rail service would involve at least more hubs and hopefully also higher speeds.
- ubernostrum 17y ago
  I live in the Midwest and always have to fly through at least one hub to get anywhere useful, so I'm getting a kick out of this. (I once was trying to book a flight from Kansas City to Portland, and -- I kid you not -- one suggested route was through Atlanta)
maxklein 17y ago
That would likely be a bit claustrophobic should it ever be made. That's what I mean - big planes should be used between big hubs, for example leaving from the ocean beside England and landing in the ocean beside new york, then you take a bunch of trains to the various destinations. Check-in, security checks and all that can then be distributed amongst all the small train stations. When you arrive at a plane hub, you just walk in with your hand luggage. I used to think that smaller regional planes were the future, but nowadays I'm thinking perhaps the large titanicesque planes may be the way to go to solve this problem.