I have this idea for a utopian short story cycle living rent-free in my head.
Last week, I had a conversation with my Californian brother-in-law, and he said that America is just too large for high-speed rail.
I personally disagree, and now I want to weave a network of long-distance high-speed rail connections into a solarpunk utopia.
@draco its a strange argument because high speed rail provides the fewest benefits in dense areas where the trains are stopping regularly — the faster you’re going the earlier you have to start breaking and the less time you spend at top speed
@draco anyway as someone who’s done the coast to coast train trip themselves (washington state to philladelphia via chicago) you can tell your brother that I’d be picking the train over the plane every single time if they could triple the speed. Which would probably only require switching to the class 7 track we already use for most of the east coast, rather than true highspeed!
because the real problem with US rail is that for some godforsaken reason freight has right of way and so you can end up pulling into the chicago a full 8 hours behind schedule because you were stopped so many times in montana.
@Satsuma I have traveled between Pittsburgh and Chicago by train one or two times, and IIRC at least once from Chicago to Pennsylvania.
There were some things I enjoyed more than on German trains: legroom and being able to take a good amount of luggage, but also the panorama car and the one time I traveled by sleeper train. DB currently doesn't offer sleeper trains, which I think is a shame.
@draco yeah i like our trains quite a bit! amtrak is generally punching well above its weight class in terms of funding per acre
@Satsuma trains are an awesome mode of travel if you ask me.
@Satsuma I travel throughout the southern half of Germany pretty regularly and I feel like there's still a speed difference between the ICE and other long-distance trains.
But I also have the impression that the stretches where an ICE can really run near top speed for hours are further north where stops are spaced further apart.
But AFAIK, the thing that's hampering rail travel in Germany is that DB has been skimping in maintenance and modernizing infrastructure for decades.