Comment by katbyte
1 year ago
Here in bc Canada we had profitable intercity rail (bc rail), a previous conservative government were elected with the promise they wouldn’t sell it, they instead leased it for 99 years cheaply and that was the end of passenger rail for most the province. Greyhound took up the slack but 10ish years ago they pulled out leavings nearly no way to get between cities without a car. There are now some private bus companies but as I understand it they are really expensive with terrible schedules.
It’s honestly sad how public transport was left to rot/fail/or sold off in North America.
And how people now go “it won’t work here! Europe is more dense! Things are too far apart” Ignoring it did and was (at least in bc) a few short decades ago
That's a bummer.
I'm happy with European rail. For instance, it is 36 hours by FlixBus from Amsterdam to Porto, but if you use high-speed rail (Eurostar, TGV, Iryo) it is only 23 hours, faster than going by car.
Traveling 2,000km in the US would take me like 5 hours including an hour in the airport each way. Even if you made it two hours on departure that's six hours of total travel time. Compared to a 23 hour train trip.
Distances like that, trains just don't make sense IMO.
Sure they do when you have proper high speed rain. That journey could be 10 relaxing hours at 300kph. No security, no awful plane noise and seats. Quiet comfy and relaxing (or overnight and you can sleep)
It’s also far better for the environment, and should be cheaper if you take plane subsidies and apply them to trains.
Also your math is wrong 5 hours with 1 hour each side (generous) is 7 hours. With 2 hours each side that’s 9 hours.
Either way I would much rather take a comfortable train for 10 hours then suffer in a plane for 5.
(The reason 2000km takes so long for op is its 7+ train changes, if you made 7+ plane changes it would be very long too)
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Europe has airports as well, of course. We're discussing other transport here though.
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