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tweet by amtrak ben: i think we should build high speed rail next to freeways only because it would make drivers feel like complete losers all the time
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It doesn’t need to go high speed, I was in a train a few years ago and the conductor on the loud speaker said “if you look on your left, you will be happy to be in a train and not stuck in a traffic jam.” Everyone looked and the highway was completely stuck. Really Really long traffic jam. Everyone started giggling.
The one thing Germany did right in the last like 20 years: Deutschlandticket. One ticket, 49€ per month, regional/local public transport for all of Germany. I can literally take a bus from my apartment to the train station, hop on an RE train and go wherever I want, and then take the local bus in that town.
It doesn’t include long haul highspeed trains, but the regional trains will still get you almost everywhere.
And if you travel a lot and invest in a BahnCard 50, long distance trains are not that expensive anymore. A Flex ICE ticket from Nuremberg to Hamburg will cost you 80€. Fuel will be more expensive. Well, if you buy the ticket a week earlier, you can get it very cheap like 13€.
This is the case in Germany, and it’s glorious. The fastest people on the Autobahn drive around 200 km/h, whereas the trains sometimes travel at 320 km/h. Always fun to see the slow cars!
I don’t know if Deutsche Bahn is the best example of this. ICE’s maximum speed only means you usually end up leaving when you are supposed to be arriving.
Well, Deutsche Bahn is the place where I experience exactly what the meme is suggesting. Should I have mentioned another rail service I don’t know and haven’t experienced?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2023/oct/08/german-train-travel-deutsche-bahn-kafka explains it better than I could in a single comment. Searching for “Verzögerungen im Betriebsablauf” will give you more examples of the mess Deutsche Bahn’s operations are.
I’m sure newer cars are much better at it, but 150 is already scary enough in my 2012 model. It doesn’t handle bumps well at 130, I don’t want to test fate.
It’s not a question of age, but of the car model. Any german upper middle class car from (at least) the 80s onwards was able to comfortably go 180–200 km/h, upper class > 200 km/h, lower middle class 160–200, smaller cars provide an adventurous driving experience at 150 km/h.
There shouldn’t be bumps on the autobahn.
Stuttgart - Köln is one of the connections that go max speed, and it really is glorious.
But I don’t think there’s actually that many places the ICE can go that fast, is there?
I posted this comment already elsewhere in this thread, but lemme quote myself:
The ICE’s max speed depends on model and variies from 250km/h to 300km/h. These speeds can be reached on:
- Hannover-Würzburg (280km/h)
- Mannheim-Stuttgart (280km/h)
- Oebisfelde-Berlin (250km/h)
- Siegburg-Frankfurt (300km/h)
- Köln-Düren (250km/h)
- Rastatt-Offenburg & Schliengen-Haltingen (250km/h)
- Nürnberg-Ingolstadt (300km/h)
- Ebensfeld-Leipzig/Halle (300km/h)
- Wendlingen-Ulm (250km/h)
There are more of these tracks currently under construction:
- Stuttgart-Wendlingen (250km/h)
- Bashaide-Rastatt (250km/h)
And many more are currently in the planning stage:
- Hamm-Bielefeld (300km/h)
- Oebisfelde-Berlin (300km/h)
- Ulm-Augsburg (300km/h)
- Gelnhausen-Fulda (250km/h)
- Frankfurt-Mannhein (300km/h)
- Bielefeld-Hannover (300km/h)
- Nürnberg-Würzburg (300km/h)
That works. The local L trains running along side the highway in Chicago got me, seeing 5 trains roll by while barley moving in bumper to bumper gave me the final push to covert to public transit
The number of people I’ve met who will never take Amtrak again because they saw one delay, but will sit in gridlock for an hour each way to/from work to go 10 miles without blinking an eye drives me batty
Yeah, there’s precisely one (1) train per day leaving North from Atlanta, and it departs at 11:30 PM. It’s a fucking joke!
We’re the end of the line but we finally got service back where I live (we had it… In the 80s or something?) we have a morning and evening now and it’s really good for heading north to DC and nyc.
I agree we need to get that network expanded though, we have the rail for it already
You’re moving barley? You can’t move barley on a passenger train, you need a freight train for that.
This is what infuriates me on every interstate freeway drive is that Eisenhower didn’t just lay tracks along the median of every intestate. If we had done it then, we’d have an entire network for the most heavily utilized corridors with natural station locations.
It isn’t even about being stuck in traffic, it’s also about the mind-numbing expanse that would be much more enjoyable if I didn’t have to pay attention.
As a California native who has commuted 2hrs a day to work for decades, but got to live in the UK for a year: I was way more productive when I commuted by light rail/subway.
Instead of looking out for aholes looking to break check, cut you off, deny you changing lanes; I was able to respond to emails, make some calls and even have a descent breakfast off the morning truck while sitting in a wifi available seat traveling into London from Gatwick each day. Way less stressful overall.
The median would probably be dangerous because of the tendency of automobiles to deroad
My city has had these since 1989-90. In all that time, I have never heard of a car crashing into the tracks.
Frankfurt - Cologne: about twice as fast by train then by car.
The ICE’s max speed depends on model and variies from 250km/h to 300km/h. These speeds can be reached on:
- Hannover-Würzburg (280km/h)
- Mannheim-Stuttgart (280km/h)
- Oebisfelde-Berlin (250km/h)
- Siegburg-Frankfurt (300km/h)
- Köln-Düren (250km/h)
- Rastatt-Offenburg & Schliengen-Haltingen (250km/h)
- Nürnberg-Ingolstadt (300km/h)
- Ebensfeld-Leipzig/Halle (300km/h)
- Wendlingen-Ulm (250km/h)
There are more of these tracks currently under construction:
- Stuttgart-Wendlingen (250km/h)
- Bashaide-Rastatt (250km/h)
And many more are currently in the planning stage:
- Hamm-Bielefeld (300km/h)
- Oebisfelde-Berlin (300km/h)
- Ulm-Augsburg (300km/h)
- Gelnhausen-Fulda (250km/h)
- Frankfurt-Mannhein (300km/h)
- Bielefeld-Hannover (300km/h)
- Nürnberg-Würzburg (300km/h)