4 ms·

Moving to California gave me a new appreciation for UK rail.

• inferiorhuman 7y ago
  Most of California's rail is low speed and diesel powered. There's almost certainly a higher density of rail service in England, but electrified and/or high speed rail is fairly rare. The infrastructure was so poor around the reign of Thatcher that a lot of the notorious British innovation went into high speed service on low quality tracks. It's all quite unfortunate as the Brits really had a chance to build out an amazing system (something California hasn't really had the interest in doing). The Underground is pretty great, DLR is at least as dirty and disgusting as BART, and the regional stuff… they don't call it Worst Western Railway for nothing. Electrification is coming at a snail's pace both to California and the UK.