"Going anywhere for the holidays?"
"Yes, upstate."
"Plane or car?"
"Oh Jesus no! Train."
"How long will that take?"
"9 hours. But my vacation starts when I get on the train, not when I get off the plane. It's much less stressful."
"You know... I can see that..."
Folks, I may have a made a convert today. Let's be real. Driving is work, and flying is torture. A train ride, might seem "long" but did you count all the time you spend getting to the airport, the security checks? The silly rules?
People who think "flying is faster" are falling for airplane propaganda. Take a day to travel. It gives you time to think, you can watch movies on your laptop and read. You can have a nice sit down dinner. Your ears won't pop and your legs won't cramp. No security people will yell at you for having too big shampoo.
The last time I flew was a decade ago. But I've been all the way to Alaska and beyond nonetheless. Travel itself should be part of the "vacation" not what you do when you get there
I was going to a conference one time and it was in Las Vegas and I was coming from Michigan. I wanted to take a train because flying is hell, but the train ride would've taken a week each way and cost like $2,000. Work was like "Yeah, you can do that if you take like 2 weeks of vacation time, and we'll reimburse you only for the $600 a plane would've cost." 😭
I'm sure there are trains within the island, and you can also take plane over sea and switch to trains when you'd otherwise switch planes.
@iju @futurebird
Not on the island - only a monorail from the airport.
But yes, I prefer trains in general. I love taking the shinkansen from Osaka to Tokyo. Faster than flying and you don't even have to book or check the timetable. Just get to the station and buy a ticket for the next one.
@migriverat @futurebird
There used to be a regular passenger ferry from Kansai. It took two nights; you slept in a large common tatami room; and you had to bring your own food. It also cost more than an airplane ticket. But that one stopped running ten years ago or so.
AFAIK there is one ferry that takes passengers to Nagasaki in summer, but it stops on every island on the way and is meant for sightseeing.
There's plenty of ferries between the islands of course.
@futurebird
I know people in North America miss out on the trains we enjoy in UK & EU.
Trains rock.
We do however have trains. And they go to most major places. I just know ... it can be a bit of a shock from those from more developed countries.
@futurebird
I know you have trains.
It's just that our trains cover a significantly larger proportion of our area than they do in North America, and a significantly larger proportion of our population use them here.
If anyone here didn't know about the ease of a direct train journey, I'd be extremely surprised.
You've convinced us. Now work on getting us trains to get us where we need to go. Right now we're at about 0 000001 percent. We'll wait, but drive and fly until then.
Thanks for your help!
@futurebird They say everything’s bigger in Texas but geez…
Austin -> Oklahoma City: 12h (incl. 3.5h transfer in Fort Worth)
Austin -> El Paso: 20h
Austin -> New Orleans: 27h (incl. 8.5h transfer in San Antonio)
I know, this is a Texas problem.
@bk1e @futurebird Last I knew Amtrak in Texas had even worse reliability problems than airlines. A disruption in Chicago throws things off all the way to LA. Multiple family members who tried Amtrak from Texas to Cali were offloaded to buses before they got there.
But my info is old. Please tell me things have improved and I'm completely wrong!
And I'm not anti-train. The solution is more trains not fewer - starting with a loop connecting the biggest TX cities.
I've always been envious of the people whose vacation in Europe meant crossing the ocean in a steamship, and being able to just relax on a boat for the journey (except I guess when the weather was bad 🤢 ). You had all that time to acclimatize to the idea of traveling.
It means less traveling, more saving up, but as I've said many times, I want to go to Borneo to see the Giant Forest Ants, (and well everything) someday. I plan on sailing.
Sailing ought to be a bigger thing than it is in these days of excellent GPS and satellite phones. This project will take so long to plan I've decided to start studing Bahasa Melayu and the history of the country. I think 15 years of planning will do it.
I realize this is a bit extreme.
@futurebird Word
Bit before the pandemic, my boss tried to give me a hard time for going SEA -> PDX via train vs plane, so I was like, OK, let's race! Compare how much time/$ we spent in transit, going through security, getting to accommodations, etc.
IIRC, SEA -> PDX via train vs plane saves you about US$75, 90 minutes, at the time
@futurebird Reminds me of one of my favorite children's books. (Although this one favors walking over trains.)
"Henry Hikes To Fitchburg is about two friends who have very different approaches to life. When the two agree to meet one evening in Fitchburg, which is thirty miles away, Henry decides to walk while his friend plans to work all day to earn the fare for a train ticket."
@futurebird Travelling by train instead of plane creates way less CO2. So, switching to rail is one of the biggest ways to lower your carbon impact.
I don't think you're reading the responses to your first post on this thread.
Okay, I guess. Thanks for the lecture.
@futurebird Yes, all this!
And if you travel in company, especially with kids, you get to play a game with them or have picnic at a table.
Where in a car everyone is just fixed in their seats.
@futurebird Just posted in another thread but worth a repost:
These people are my heroes! To call attention to the demand for night trains in Portugal, they threw a silent disco pajama party at the Santa Apolonia station in Lisbon.
Click through for video. #nighttrain
https://aterra.info/all-abord-the-night-train-pijama-party-silent-disco-em-santa-apolonia/
@neckspike You kinda missed my point. You can't really travel 10,000 km by train, especially when it involves crossing the seas.
"You can't really travel 10,000 km by train"
Texting this to my husband now who will take it as a challenge.
Rail cars on a container ship.
"You can't travel 10 000 km by train."
Well, I know someone who traveled from Austria to the Pacific (Wladiwostok) by train. That's more than 10 000 km.
No one claimed that EVERY journey can by done by train.
Maybe in a better future I hope. I'd love to make that trip... but given what's happened to US visitors to Russia recently I don't think I want to go.
I sometimes HAVE to fly for work, but I much prefer the train. Between Rochester and NYC, I have *just* the right amount of time to relax.
When I had my vaginoplasty earlier this year, I was supposed to dilate four times a day. Trying to handle that while transiting through the airport and six hours of flight time across a layover was completely untenable.
Instead, my wife and I booked rooms aboard the California Zephyr and Lakeshore Limited to get home. It was a delightful, relaxing experience that I would love to have again. Plus, I got to dilate with my brand new bits facing out of the window and into the wilderness of Utah, which felt kind of cathartic.
@futurebird last time my partner and I went to London from Germany, we did so by train.
In the end, the Journey took about the same time as I would have by plane, but we were comfortable the whole time.
Plus, when the train arrived in London, it arrived in London, not ~50 km (I may be exaggerating) outside of London, and then you have to take a train into London anyway. (but a bad train, made in England)
@futurebird Am at airport, they took my tire pressure gauge.
Why did I have a tire pressure gauge? I'm a truck driver, and it's a requirement that I check tire pressure as part of the DOT pre-trip inspection.
I'm going to pick up a new truck, so I kinda needed that...
In the US our trains are not as nice as... anywhere else I think. But they are sill nicer than the plane.
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