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Train connections are a wonderful thing. They really shrink the space between two locations like no other transportation type. Just hop in, read a book or newsp
by hasoleju 3y ago
Train connections are a wonderful thing. They really shrink the space between two locations like no other transportation type. Just hop in, read a book or newspaper and suddenly you are somewhere else.
For me it’s a one hour car ride to the next major city (in southern Germany). With the train it takes 25 minutes.
- rayiner 3y agoIn the US, train rides typically take anywhere from 1.5x-3x as long as driving.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 3y agoWhat a backward country.
- rayiner 3y agoIt’s not backwards, it’s dysfunctional. I remember my dad telling stories of how in rural Bangladesh, flood control levees would fail and have to be rebuilt each year because they were shoddily made by workers who cut corners. The US is the same way. The DC Metro was built as a fully automated system in the 1970s. That has been shut down since 2009–at the expense of ride quality and frequency—because WMATA let all the associated sensor infrastructure decay.
- thatfrenchguy 3y agoI mean, that’s what happens on lines that haven’t been upgraded since the late 19th century.
- rayiner 3y agoThis is true even of DC’s system which dates only to the late 1970s.
- saagarjha 3y agoIndeed, the US’s adoption of high speed rail essentially stopped after that point. Which means we have a handful of trains that go about 100 mph and not much infrastructure to support anything better than that which came later.
- eynsham 3y agoDB in its present state isn’t a very good advertisement for the virtues of passenger rail to be honest.
- usr1106 3y agoDepends on how you view it: Only a felt 50% of my train journeys in Germany are on time these days, for those with tight connections proably even less. But basically all of the delayed/rerouted ones are still faster / more convenient than any public transportation you find in 99% of the US.
- hasoleju 3y agoI occasionally travel with DB for almost 18 years no. I cannot remember a time in this period where it was either much better or much worse than now. Of course that's a subjective observation. I take care that I choose direct trains and if I have to change trains in between, I always plan for a delay and take a early connection accordingly. With this strategy I have a positive experience with train rides.