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Am I the only one who finds it surreal to see long distance trains in the US? Don’t get me wrong - I know they exist. It’s just that I feel like they never get

Am I the only one who finds it surreal to see long distance trains in the US? Don’t get me wrong - I know they exist. It’s just that I feel like they never get depicted anywhere in the media. I also don’t think I know a single American who has gone to another US city by train.

keerthiko 2y ago
Media depictions are a hugely underrated aspect of public transport perception. In japanese and korean media (my experience is with a ton of anime and k dramas, more in the former than the latter though) trains are very common casual and serious backdrops for a variety of scenes, either within the train, at the station, or just a train passing by on the bridge in the background. In Hollywood/American TV, it's always cars, with the occasional airport/plane. It riles me up quite unreasonably that shows/movies set in New York fuckin city with 24-7 subway service, and characters are shown trying to catch a cab in Manhattan in the middle of the night to go 20 blocks away. At least Marvelous Mrs. Maisel acknowledged this directly as a class thing for some characters and other characters took the train, but most movies just assume the American viewer cannot relate to someone using the subway.
- pavlov 2y ago
  Yeah, people in “Friends” never took the subway which is just weird. Of course it’s because these shows are shot in LA, and they have Manhattan street sets built and ready in Hollywood studio lot, but no subway set.
  - n1b0m 2y ago
    Seinfeld was also filmed in LA, but I recall at least one episode where they took the subway.
    - zikduruqe 2y ago
      The TV Guide episode with the cigar Indian?
      - n1b0m 2y ago
        Yes that’s the one, where Kramer stops to get a gyro.
        andrewshadura 2y ago
        a gyros*
        rssoconnor 2y ago
        There is also an infamous episode where they are playing Risk on the subway.
    - jMyles 2y ago
      Yeah, the technical aspects of the subway shots in Seinfeld are interesting, and really give a sense of how hard everybody worked to make that show what it was. The first scenes to take place in a subway (to my knowledge, anyway) were in the 30th episode, which was called "The Subway". And indeed, most of the episode takes place in a subway. The subway set for this show was rented from Warner Brothers and was sent to the Seinfeld lot in several pieces on trucks. It was apparently a huge PITA and presented a lot of technical limitations. They assembled it on springs and had a bunch of crew shake the car to simulate movement. They had to light it using stage lights, manually simulate the mechanical opening of the doors, etc. And it was apparently difficult to do anything but a closeup without it looking fake. They redecorated it for each of the different subways that it was used to depict (in the episode, different characters are simultaneously taking different subways to different places). After the episode, the set was disassembled and placed back on the truck to send back to WB, but the truck driver went under a low underpass, which the set struck and was destroyed. As a result, Tom Azzari, Seinfeld's Production Designer, led a small team within the show to design, engineer, and build an entirely new subway set, fixing all the technical problems while they were fresh in the team's memory. They even got actual subway light fixtures and pneumatic doors. This set was used for the remainder of the show, and went on to be used in other shows and films as well. (There are a few interviews about this process on the Seinfeld DVD extras, Season 03 "Inside Looks")
      - n1b0m 2y ago
        That’s fascinating, thanks for sharing.
  - ta1243 2y ago
    Chandler did however take a train to Poughkeepsie
  - Symbiote 2y ago
    A subway set is probably expensive, especially if you want a working train. Almost everything set in London uses either the disused Aldwych Station on the Piccadilly Line, the disused Charing Cross station on the Jubilee Line, or the Waterloo and City line at weekends when it is normally closed — sometimes even when the setting ought to be a much larger train and style of station elsewhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldwych_tube_station#Use_in_media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldwych_tube_station#Use_in_me... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charing_Cross_tube_station#Use_in_media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charing_Cross_tube_station#Use... https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/filming-and-photography/filming-and-photography-on-tfl?intcmp=1594 https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/filming-and-photography/fi...
  - Bluestrike2 2y ago
    It's almost certainly less to do with location scouting and production design, and more about perceived biases. If studio executives think American audiences can't relate to trains or subways because they're less commonly used in real-life, we're going to see fewer of them on the screen. There's probably a cultural blind spot at play there, too; if writers don't ride trains--or even perceive them--very often, they're far less likely to write about them. It's a vicious circle. As for locations, a quick Google search found a genuine New York City R17 subway car[0] that can be rented out in LA. The Sierra Northern Railway--a freight carrier in California--has rented out[1] its rolling stock, facilities, and tracks to film productions for nearly a century. They've got quite the roster, spanning multiple eras. There's also Amtrak, the various local/regional metro systems, other rental companies, and even private collectors if they need something specific. As for stations, that's even easier. Various urban backlots have underground subway station entrances[2] where you could characters exiting the station. Or the station platform itself is just a long room; you don't have to show the actual tracks, or you could composite in a train moving across the frame, etc. Plenty of permanent sets can play that role. Set designers do far more with less all the time. Hell, you can just reference it off-screen for a sitcom. That's a huge chunk of Seinfeld (or any sitcom). Shit happens, everyone reacts...often poorly, with hilarious results. 0. https://www.thevillaserena.com/subway-car-standing-set.asp https://www.thevillaserena.com/subway-car-standing-set.asp 1. https://movierailroad.com/ https://movierailroad.com/ 2. https://www.alamy.com/subway-entrance-in-the-soho-set-area-backlot-paramount-studios-hollywood-los-angeles-california-usa-image556561785.html https://www.alamy.com/subway-entrance-in-the-soho-set-area-b...
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Well, they also have huge apartments which--like many/most urban TV sitcom characters--are pretty much totally incompatible with where they could actually afford to live.
- throw0101d 2y ago
  > In Hollywood/American TV, it's always cars, with the occasional airport/plane. Except for the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Classic: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planes,_Trains_and_Automobiles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planes,_Trains_and_Automobiles
- kmeisthax 2y ago
  As someone both born and raised in Long Island and raised on lots of Japanese media, it seemed perfectly normal to see lots of people taking the subway. Granted, Long Island is still car dependent suburbia, but it at least made sense to me that if you were going into "the city", you took LIRR and the subway. So Japanese media depicting public transit or walking mentally registered in the same headspace as Manhattan. I moved out of NY almost a decade ago, but car-centric America still feels more foreign to me than Tokyo does. On LI, if my family had to drive off the island, we treated it like Europeans treat driving to a foreign country. In SLC, it's entirely common for people to spend 10+ hours on the road as if it were nothing. Hell, I've done it myself. Still feels weird.
chgs 2y ago
Earlier this month I took a train Washington to New York, plenty of people on that. I then went down to Miami, train was fairly full - not many stayed on the entire trip but I wouldn’t expect them to, they got off at various stations along the way. Everyone I head in the dining car was American.
- NoboruWataya 2y ago
  When I visited New York (from the UK) last year I took trains up to Connecticut and Rhode Island. I was surprised at how regular and comfortable the trains were given the US's reputation for passenger rail. I saw that you could go south as well. Is it just that the each coast is particularly well connected compared to the rest of the country?
  - jwagenet 2y ago
    The with respect to Amtrak, shorter line trains on the east coast and CA capital corridor these trains are commuter trains and often have more ownership/priority on the rails so they are more frequent and punctual. If you took metro north, it’s a pretty extensive commuter line as well.
  - dagw 2y ago
    The US actually has a handful of pretty nice passenger rail corridors, with decent schedules and nice trains. Washington DC to Boston is one such corridor. Portland to Vancouver is another one I've taken that also worked pretty well.
  - saalweachter 2y ago
    It's that the East Coast is particularly dense compared to the rest of the country, and has a lot of walkable cities. So you can take a train to New York, or DC, or a number of lesser cities, and not need a car when you arrive.
    - chgs 2y ago
      Well I got an Uber from my office to Union station, as the metro in DC isn’t great. Obviously no need for an Uber in New York as I could get the subway. Had I flown to Miami I’d still need a taxi to my hotel, just like I did from the train station. I don’t get that argument.
billfruit 2y ago
What about long distance bus travel? Is is possible to go coast to coast on a bus?
- agys 2y ago
  The comfort of bus travel is way inferior to train travel!
  - lucb1e 2y ago
    Due to having to sit up? One can also book seats in night trains -- which I've never understood, btw. That only seems logical as a last resort when you need to be somewhere but got no money to get there, when you're planning to sleep the day away at your destination, or enjoy the prisoner's dilemma where you hope the potential co-passenger decides not to "defect" (buy a ticket) such that the seat next to you is free and you can lay down and sleep at night. But anyway, more on topic, I am wondering if the laying down is what you mean or something else in addition
    - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
      The seats on long distance Amtrak trains are not at all like you're imagining. Think of them as more like a lounger/recliner. Not the most comfortable you'll ever sit in, but it's reasonably easy to sleep them in, and even more so if you're young. Someone next to you matters only if they snore or smell.
  - agys 2y ago
    1) More leg space 2) Depending on train you have a small desk so laptop work is possible and comfortable 3) I don't get travel sick on trains while working 4) Toilets are large, many 5) Bar/restaurant on board? 6) On-off boarding usually happens in city center (From personal experience, not in U.S.)
- nkrisc 2y ago
  You’d probably spend a lot of time sleeping overnight in a bus station waiting for a bus for the next leg of your journey. Coast to coast by bus sounds miserable.
Uehreka 2y ago
It’s so funny that this all came up today, last night my partner showed me the episode of Sex and the City where Carrie and Sam travel from NYC to San Francisco by train, though it’s mostly depicted as being an annoying hassle (imo their expectations of what train travel would be like were too high).
- ta1243 2y ago
  That's the one where Carrie complains about the fact the shower at the toilet are above each other.
markphip 2y ago
You've obviously never watched a Hallmark Christmas movie. Train travel is pretty much the norm in that world :)
gcanyon 2y ago
> a single American Hi there, nice to meet you! I've take the train: San Diego to Redding D.C. to New York and back St. Louis to Chicago and back St. Louis to Little Rock St. Louis to Kansas City and back
elijaht 2y ago
I take the train several times a month to different cities in the US
Klonoar 2y ago
Growing up on the east coast (VA), quite a few people I knew took the train between cities. Usually it’d be for going into DC for the weekend to party, or up to Baltimore or something. Certainly not uncommon.

keerthiko 2y ago

Media depictions are a hugely underrated aspect of public transport perception. In japanese and korean media (my experience is with a ton of anime and k dramas, more in the former than the latter though) trains are very common casual and serious backdrops for a variety of scenes, either within the train, at the station, or just a train passing by on the bridge in the background. In Hollywood/American TV, it's always cars, with the occasional airport/plane. It riles me up quite unreasonably that shows/movies set in New York fuckin city with 24-7 subway service, and characters are shown trying to catch a cab in Manhattan in the middle of the night to go 20 blocks away. At least Marvelous Mrs. Maisel acknowledged this directly as a class thing for some characters and other characters took the train, but most movies just assume the American viewer cannot relate to someone using the subway.

pavlov 2y ago
Yeah, people in “Friends” never took the subway which is just weird. Of course it’s because these shows are shot in LA, and they have Manhattan street sets built and ready in Hollywood studio lot, but no subway set.
- n1b0m 2y ago
  Seinfeld was also filmed in LA, but I recall at least one episode where they took the subway.
  - zikduruqe 2y ago
    The TV Guide episode with the cigar Indian?
    - n1b0m 2y ago
      Yes that’s the one, where Kramer stops to get a gyro.
      - andrewshadura 2y ago
        a gyros*
      - rssoconnor 2y ago
        There is also an infamous episode where they are playing Risk on the subway.
  - jMyles 2y ago
    Yeah, the technical aspects of the subway shots in Seinfeld are interesting, and really give a sense of how hard everybody worked to make that show what it was. The first scenes to take place in a subway (to my knowledge, anyway) were in the 30th episode, which was called "The Subway". And indeed, most of the episode takes place in a subway. The subway set for this show was rented from Warner Brothers and was sent to the Seinfeld lot in several pieces on trucks. It was apparently a huge PITA and presented a lot of technical limitations. They assembled it on springs and had a bunch of crew shake the car to simulate movement. They had to light it using stage lights, manually simulate the mechanical opening of the doors, etc. And it was apparently difficult to do anything but a closeup without it looking fake. They redecorated it for each of the different subways that it was used to depict (in the episode, different characters are simultaneously taking different subways to different places). After the episode, the set was disassembled and placed back on the truck to send back to WB, but the truck driver went under a low underpass, which the set struck and was destroyed. As a result, Tom Azzari, Seinfeld's Production Designer, led a small team within the show to design, engineer, and build an entirely new subway set, fixing all the technical problems while they were fresh in the team's memory. They even got actual subway light fixtures and pneumatic doors. This set was used for the remainder of the show, and went on to be used in other shows and films as well. (There are a few interviews about this process on the Seinfeld DVD extras, Season 03 "Inside Looks")
    - n1b0m 2y ago
      That’s fascinating, thanks for sharing.
- ta1243 2y ago
  Chandler did however take a train to Poughkeepsie
- Symbiote 2y ago
  A subway set is probably expensive, especially if you want a working train. Almost everything set in London uses either the disused Aldwych Station on the Piccadilly Line, the disused Charing Cross station on the Jubilee Line, or the Waterloo and City line at weekends when it is normally closed — sometimes even when the setting ought to be a much larger train and style of station elsewhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldwych_tube_station#Use_in_media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldwych_tube_station#Use_in_me... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charing_Cross_tube_station#Use_in_media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charing_Cross_tube_station#Use... https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/filming-and-photography/filming-and-photography-on-tfl?intcmp=1594 https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/filming-and-photography/fi...
- Bluestrike2 2y ago
  It's almost certainly less to do with location scouting and production design, and more about perceived biases. If studio executives think American audiences can't relate to trains or subways because they're less commonly used in real-life, we're going to see fewer of them on the screen. There's probably a cultural blind spot at play there, too; if writers don't ride trains--or even perceive them--very often, they're far less likely to write about them. It's a vicious circle. As for locations, a quick Google search found a genuine New York City R17 subway car[0] that can be rented out in LA. The Sierra Northern Railway--a freight carrier in California--has rented out[1] its rolling stock, facilities, and tracks to film productions for nearly a century. They've got quite the roster, spanning multiple eras. There's also Amtrak, the various local/regional metro systems, other rental companies, and even private collectors if they need something specific. As for stations, that's even easier. Various urban backlots have underground subway station entrances[2] where you could characters exiting the station. Or the station platform itself is just a long room; you don't have to show the actual tracks, or you could composite in a train moving across the frame, etc. Plenty of permanent sets can play that role. Set designers do far more with less all the time. Hell, you can just reference it off-screen for a sitcom. That's a huge chunk of Seinfeld (or any sitcom). Shit happens, everyone reacts...often poorly, with hilarious results. 0. https://www.thevillaserena.com/subway-car-standing-set.asp https://www.thevillaserena.com/subway-car-standing-set.asp 1. https://movierailroad.com/ https://movierailroad.com/ 2. https://www.alamy.com/subway-entrance-in-the-soho-set-area-backlot-paramount-studios-hollywood-los-angeles-california-usa-image556561785.html https://www.alamy.com/subway-entrance-in-the-soho-set-area-b...
- ghaff 2y ago
  Well, they also have huge apartments which--like many/most urban TV sitcom characters--are pretty much totally incompatible with where they could actually afford to live.
throw0101d 2y ago
> In Hollywood/American TV, it's always cars, with the occasional airport/plane. Except for the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Classic: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planes,_Trains_and_Automobiles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planes,_Trains_and_Automobiles
kmeisthax 2y ago
As someone both born and raised in Long Island and raised on lots of Japanese media, it seemed perfectly normal to see lots of people taking the subway. Granted, Long Island is still car dependent suburbia, but it at least made sense to me that if you were going into "the city", you took LIRR and the subway. So Japanese media depicting public transit or walking mentally registered in the same headspace as Manhattan. I moved out of NY almost a decade ago, but car-centric America still feels more foreign to me than Tokyo does. On LI, if my family had to drive off the island, we treated it like Europeans treat driving to a foreign country. In SLC, it's entirely common for people to spend 10+ hours on the road as if it were nothing. Hell, I've done it myself. Still feels weird.

chgs 2y ago

Earlier this month I took a train Washington to New York, plenty of people on that. I then went down to Miami, train was fairly full - not many stayed on the entire trip but I wouldn’t expect them to, they got off at various stations along the way. Everyone I head in the dining car was American.

NoboruWataya 2y ago
When I visited New York (from the UK) last year I took trains up to Connecticut and Rhode Island. I was surprised at how regular and comfortable the trains were given the US's reputation for passenger rail. I saw that you could go south as well. Is it just that the each coast is particularly well connected compared to the rest of the country?
- jwagenet 2y ago
  The with respect to Amtrak, shorter line trains on the east coast and CA capital corridor these trains are commuter trains and often have more ownership/priority on the rails so they are more frequent and punctual. If you took metro north, it’s a pretty extensive commuter line as well.
- dagw 2y ago
  The US actually has a handful of pretty nice passenger rail corridors, with decent schedules and nice trains. Washington DC to Boston is one such corridor. Portland to Vancouver is another one I've taken that also worked pretty well.
- saalweachter 2y ago
  It's that the East Coast is particularly dense compared to the rest of the country, and has a lot of walkable cities. So you can take a train to New York, or DC, or a number of lesser cities, and not need a car when you arrive.
  - chgs 2y ago
    Well I got an Uber from my office to Union station, as the metro in DC isn’t great. Obviously no need for an Uber in New York as I could get the subway. Had I flown to Miami I’d still need a taxi to my hotel, just like I did from the train station. I don’t get that argument.

billfruit 2y ago

What about long distance bus travel? Is is possible to go coast to coast on a bus?

agys 2y ago
The comfort of bus travel is way inferior to train travel!
- lucb1e 2y ago
  Due to having to sit up? One can also book seats in night trains -- which I've never understood, btw. That only seems logical as a last resort when you need to be somewhere but got no money to get there, when you're planning to sleep the day away at your destination, or enjoy the prisoner's dilemma where you hope the potential co-passenger decides not to "defect" (buy a ticket) such that the seat next to you is free and you can lay down and sleep at night. But anyway, more on topic, I am wondering if the laying down is what you mean or something else in addition
  - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    The seats on long distance Amtrak trains are not at all like you're imagining. Think of them as more like a lounger/recliner. Not the most comfortable you'll ever sit in, but it's reasonably easy to sleep them in, and even more so if you're young. Someone next to you matters only if they snore or smell.
- agys 2y ago
  1) More leg space 2) Depending on train you have a small desk so laptop work is possible and comfortable 3) I don't get travel sick on trains while working 4) Toilets are large, many 5) Bar/restaurant on board? 6) On-off boarding usually happens in city center (From personal experience, not in U.S.)
nkrisc 2y ago
You’d probably spend a lot of time sleeping overnight in a bus station waiting for a bus for the next leg of your journey. Coast to coast by bus sounds miserable.

Uehreka 2y ago

It’s so funny that this all came up today, last night my partner showed me the episode of Sex and the City where Carrie and Sam travel from NYC to San Francisco by train, though it’s mostly depicted as being an annoying hassle (imo their expectations of what train travel would be like were too high).

ta1243 2y ago
That's the one where Carrie complains about the fact the shower at the toilet are above each other.

markphip 2y ago

You've obviously never watched a Hallmark Christmas movie. Train travel is pretty much the norm in that world :)

gcanyon 2y ago

> a single American Hi there, nice to meet you! I've take the train: San Diego to Redding D.C. to New York and back St. Louis to Chicago and back St. Louis to Little Rock St. Louis to Kansas City and back

elijaht 2y ago

I take the train several times a month to different cities in the US

Klonoar 2y ago

Growing up on the east coast (VA), quite a few people I knew took the train between cities. Usually it’d be for going into DC for the weekend to party, or up to Baltimore or something. Certainly not uncommon.