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I'd be interested in their perspective since you can buy a 'train' ticket which includes a ferry crossing, so the isochrone would either extend up to London and beyond (if you allow the ferry), or be restricted to just the island itself (if you do not).
It also shows how much the train networks focus on domestic travel. In nearly all bigger countries it is possible to reach most bigger cities within the 5h. But journeys in this time-frame seldomly go much beyond the border. There is still much optimization potential for transnational travel in Europe's train network.
If you take the biggest countries worldwide, this doesn't apply.
Being in the east of France, it's a bit sad how misconnected we are with the west of France. (Lyon Bordeaux you'd think can be done in 2 hours, but no it'll take like 6 hours).
California's cities are all arranged in a line, it should be the easiest high-speed rail project ever, but it languishes due to lack of imagination.
As a European it boggles my mind seeing how trains are basically non-existent in the USA (just look at Houston station), given how dominant the whole "Wild West" railroad rush is in everybody's immagination. Railroads are super ubiquitous here, and we've to work with a pretty hostile terrain - Italy has lots of mountains, hills, rivers, and yet has one of the best networks in the world. Most of the USA are basically…
The US has a lot of freight rail, and we use it.
The Wild West mentality has gone away in the railroad industry which is now hyper-conservative and regulated.
I do sometimes wish the US lived up to the Wild West stereotype the Europeans imagine. But no, we often have just as much stifling regulation (if not more), depending on where you’re talking about. But we do have gun violence, so there’s that.
As a European it boggles my mind seeing how trains are basically non-existent in the USA (just look at Houston station), given how dominant the whole "Wild West" railroad rush is in everybody's immagination. Railroads are super ubiquitous here, and we've to work with a pretty hostile terrain - Italy has lots of mountains, hills, rivers, and yet has one of the best networks in the world. Most of the USA are basically…
It also shows how much the train networks focus on domestic travel. In nearly all bigger countries it is possible to reach most bigger cities within the 5h. But journeys in this time-frame seldomly go much beyond the border. There is still much optimization potential for transnational travel in Europe's train network.
I think you are thinking about European countries. If you take the biggest countries worldwide, this doesn't apply.
E.g., train connections from Czech Republic to southern Germany are missing all together.