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Nobody takes a train from Germany to France (lemmy.skoops.social)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/fuckcars@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.skoops.social/post/727

crossposted: https://lemmy.skoops.social/post/665

Oh boy...

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[–] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

The US isn't as huge as you seem to believe (or Europe not as small). Europe is not as square, so its land area is much smaller, but the distances are comparable.

A trip from Hamburg to Vienna is not that much shorter than a trip from NYC to Chicago, but it's easily done by train in Europe: Board the NJ491 at 8pm in Hamburg central station (in the city centre, no need to be there more than a few minutes before boarding), have a good nights sleep, get your breakfast served at your bed (in the comfort category), take a shower and arrive well rested in Vienna (city center, no need to wait for your luggage) at 10am the next day.

Admittedly, a lot of people do fly from Hamburg to Vienna as well, as it can be cheaper than the train due to tax exemptions for the airlines (not everything is perfect in Europe), or they just don't like sleeping in a train, but these trains are usually well utilised.

EDIT: The link to truesize doesn't seem to work correctly, here's what I meant to show:

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Something I'm curious of is how many train companies exist in Europe that push for more rails.

    In America, there's not that many train companies for people. Most are for commerce. There's also a lot of political backdoor stuff, like airlines getting priority, states not interested in funding it, counties having a voice about it all.

    I was thinking about this when I went to Japan, and how Tokyo has MANY competing rail lines, and the population literally having factions over what company they prefer to ride over. Which sounds like a dream.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    I can only talk for Germany:

    Regional trains (in the 200km range) are usually commissioned by the municipalities and train companies then get paid for providing that service. Of course it depends on the route, but on average the municipalities pay around 50% of the cost and the other half is paid for by fares. They do that, because having a good train connection is good for the economy and lowers congestion, so they are obviously interested in having good tracks. There's a lot of smaller companies there, but the push comes from the municipalities. Also for one route there's usually one company to choose from, so no competition on the customer level.

    Long Distance trains are for profit, but there are only very few companies competing with the state-owned DB Fernverkehr on a handful of routes.

    So I don't think competition alone helps. The German rail network is in ruins btw. Maybe not in comparison to the US, but in comparison to the 1980s when there was no competition on the rail at all. The main reason for that is that we had incompetent carbrains as ministers of transportation for the majority of the last 30 years, leading to a massive underfunding.
    That has slightly changed with the Ampel government in 2021 and we may hope that the new conservative minister keeps going in the same direction, as in times of war the rail network is valued even by conservatives. But fixing the errors of the past will take us at least a decade of construction work and delay.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    You're right about all that, but it's worth noting that U.S. population centers tend to be coastal. New York to Chicago is one of the closer city pairs between the 10 largest cities in the U.S. Here's the driving distance from New York to each of the other 9:

    Los Angeles: 2800 miles (4500 km)
    Chicago: 800 miles (1300 km)
    Dallas: 1600 miles (2500 km)
    Houston: 1600 miles (2600 km)
    Miami: 1300 miles (2100 km)
    Washington: 230 miles (370 km)
    Atlanta: 900 miles (1400 km)
    Philadelphia: 100 miles (160 km)
    Phoenix: 2400 miles (3900 km)

    Dallas and Houston are close to each other. New York, Philadelphia, and DC are close (and are already connected by the most popular passenger rail line in the US). But the others are all pretty spread out.

    So the type of travel people might imagjne doing in the U.S. tends to be weighted towards pretty far distances.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (1 child)

    That's a good point, the population in Europe is much more evenly spread. But that still doesn't explain why a train journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles has to be 12 hours long.

    Also, I guess you guys do not regularly travel from New York to Los Angeles for a weekend trip, just as we Europeans don't usually do that with Stockholm and Barcelona (which is a distance the average European would also travel by plane).
    We do however travel from Frankfurt to Strasbourg for a day trip, and of course we do that by train.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    why a train journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles has to be 12 hours long

    That's its own saga, with a bunch of factors specific to California politics (and national politics with funding and permitting California projects). The California High Speed Rail project intends to connect SF to LA in less than 3 hours (and the original 2008 plan aimed for a 2020 operational start date), but we'll see if that ever comes to fruition.

    Also, I guess you guys do not regularly travel from New York to Los Angeles for a weekend trip, just as we Europeans don't usually do that with Stockholm and Barcelona (which is a distance the average European would also travel by plane).

    One wrinkle in comparing things is that the US's cultural affinity is less tied to geographical proximity than in Europe. Obviously European villages and cities and major population centers were established long before rail, much less before automobile highways and commercial air travel (or even before global television broadcasts), so each local region will have its own culture and language.

    In the U.S., with the population centers built up much more recently, cultural affinity between cities or regions is distinct from geographical proximity. So for many, a weekend getaway or a one-week vacation will tend to look to other similarly sized cities. One joke in the TV show 30 Rock was the idea that someone from New York would want to move to, or even visit, Cleveland. This is especially true for those who aren't straight white Christians, where much of the geographical footprint of the United States represents urban islands where you might feel like you belong, and where you'd want to hop from island to island rather than explore the vast areas geographically nearby.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    This is a wild comment. ~3.8MM sq miles vs ~1.6MM

    Lisbon to Vilnius ~2375 miles longest route I could picture Portland ME to San Diego ~3200 miles Portland OR to Miami ~3250 miles NY to Chicago ~800 miles Hamburg to Vienna ~600 miles

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Try Lisbon to Oulu: 4750km. I also explained why the land area is irrelevant when we talk about distances. If you're looking for a distance even closer to New York — Chicago (1271km) I could offer Vienna — Paris (1235km) which is also served by NightJet. Driving for one more hour doesn't really matter while you're asleep.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    You want to include Scandinavia, well if I include Alaska it's ~5k miles from Miami to Anchorage. Point still stands its a wild comment to make.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    You're right, that's a wild comment trying to exclude Scandinavia from Europe.

    Why wouldn't I want to include Scandinavia. It's part of mainland Europe, reachable by train from Portugal without ever crossing an EU external border. As opposed to Alaska which is not part of the mainland US. I didn't include Alaska for the same reason I didn't include Hawaii, Greenland or the French Southern and Antarctic Lands.
    Btw. Stockholm alone has more inhabitants than all of Alaska.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Your statement is incorrect. The Danish straits are considered international waterways and the gulf of Finland has a central strip of international waters (even though the Helsinki–Tallinn Tunnel never got started). So if you are trying to get technical, you should know your shit first. You cannot get to any of Scandinavia without crossing international space via train.

    This whole mess can just be over if you just agree that the statement is wild. You're pulling at straws to defend an argument that doesn't make any sense.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    You really don't know what international waterways are, do you. The Danube river is an international waterway, but that doesn't mean that there is any border going through Vienna. It just means that the state the waterway belongs to has to allow free passage through their territory. Also, you never enter the international waterway, because there is a bridge over the waterway and guess what: The waterway is in the water. So much for knowing your shit.

    I really don't care if you find any of my statements wild. I don't care about you at all. As far as I'm concerned you can keep your delusions about how great the USA are and how tiny the rest of the world is. Just stop bothering me with that BS.

    Farewell, have a great life.

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