Is the website not working for anyone else? It says hover over a city to see the isochrones from that city. But when I do so nothing happens at all?
How far can you go by train in 5h?
101–110 of 457 posts
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#102It's sad to see how disconnected the national railway systems are in eastern europe. Basically, 5h always fills the national borders but no further in Hungary, Romania, Poland etc E.g., train connections from Czech Republic to southern Germany are missing all together.
The Czech borders are fairly mountainous. If you start in Prague, there's a tentacle that just barely reaches Regensburg in Germany. It crosses the border in the gap between two mountain ranges. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cham-Furth_Depression
Building other routes would likely be possible, but only with a lot of tunneling.
The Czech-Polish border is similar, I think.
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#103As 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…
I think any answer to this has to involve two staples of American culture, cars and racism. The prevalence of both has been a big detriment to rail initiatives. For whatever reason people have associated a nearby train station with crime and opening up the neighborhood to the "wrong people". And the incredibly cheap and ubiquitous car culture (especially in the post-war period) provided the alternative. That of cours…
I used to walk past a bus station to lunch most weekdays. Nearly every single day I witnessed an assault at the bus station. Mass transit hubs do bring crime. Why minimize that?
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#104It 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.
It also shows an effect that the focus on high speed rail brings: rural areas are often very badly connected. Here in France they've even kept shutting down regional lines. That creates the train equivalent of "fly-over states": areas that you see from the train while going through, but that it would be impractical to go to .
Has anyone considered the following? In a small town, you have a section of track running parallel to high speed rail. The track has a small and short "local" train (maybe just a couple of cars) that picks up passengers and accelerates to maybe 80 MPH, while the high-speed train slows to the same speed. The trains run next to each other for a couple of miles, some doors open between them, and people can step between the "local" train and the "long distance" train.
This lets the high-speed train serve a lot more places without losing much speed. Maybe the local train serves several towns in the area.
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#105Is the website not working for anyone else? It says hover over a city to see the isochrones from that city. But when I do so nothing happens at all?
Same here
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#106As 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…
As a frequent traveler to Tokyo, I became a fan of mass transit. A guaranteed way to become sad, is use the Tokyo trains, then come home to New York, and use the Metro/LIRR.
This.
I have fond memories of using the subway/trains in Tokyo. Ditto for Seoul (which I'd rank even better than Tokyo's), Hong Kong, Singapore.
I dread using the subway in NYC and nowadays try to avoid using it as much as possible (mostly via biking).
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#107It 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.
Wendover had a video on this topic just this week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9jirFqex6g For a short summary, the basic problem is that rail infrastructure is paid for by national funds, so there is a bigger incentive to connect two places within the same country than to connect one place within the country to another place within a neighboring country. Wendover theorizes that the decoupling of rail networks fr…
> For a short summary, the basic problem is that rail infrastructure is paid for by national funds
EU co-founded projects can be forced to operate only domestically too. For example polish high speed railways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendolino#Poland
> certification for international operation is not seen as a priority, as the trains are restricted to domestic services for an initial 10 years under the terms of a grant from the EU Cohesion Fund which covered 22% of the project cost.[31]
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>Intranational flight is a lot more common there. I imagine the economics of it are better, lower ticket price, and in many cases probably quicker too, even including airport BS. That is the problem in my opinion - I prefer sitting on a train, to sitting on a plane, but for most routes I need to travel (within the US) it takes longer to get there and is more expensive than flying - why would anyone want to pay more…
I don't really have a preference, but having done my first couple flights in close to 20 years in the past 3 months, I was struck by how much has changed in that time. PreCheck and Global Entry weren't around when we went to Bermuda in August 2001. It was a trip notable not only for its proximity to 9/11 - by chance, my bag was searched either before we left L.F Wade in St. George's or on arrival back in Newark, but…
> However, I quite like the idea of passport control on a train happening before you embark on the departing leg of a trip. With those formalities out of the way, just collect your bags at the destination and you're free to go.
It's better than that. Space on board is at less of a premium so train carriages can be made with plenty of room for luggage alongside passengers. No need to check baggage.
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>Intranational flight is a lot more common there. I imagine the economics of it are better, lower ticket price, and in many cases probably quicker too, even including airport BS. That is the problem in my opinion - I prefer sitting on a train, to sitting on a plane, but for most routes I need to travel (within the US) it takes longer to get there and is more expensive than flying - why would anyone want to pay more…
I don't really have a preference, but having done my first couple flights in close to 20 years in the past 3 months, I was struck by how much has changed in that time. PreCheck and Global Entry weren't around when we went to Bermuda in August 2001. It was a trip notable not only for its proximity to 9/11 - by chance, my bag was searched either before we left L.F Wade in St. George's or on arrival back in Newark, but…
They've been trying to implement passport control before boarding the train between NYC and Montreal for a while, but nothing seems to have come of it. It was an Obama-era priority.
I haven't taken that train in many years, but they basically stop the train at the border and immigration agents board and check everyone's passport. It's scheduled to take 2 hours. Really stupid. It's a 45 minute flight, and you go through US immigration in Canada before boarding the flight.
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#110Is the website not working for anyone else? It says hover over a city to see the isochrones from that city. But when I do so nothing happens at all?
Looks like the API returns either 429 Too Many Requests or a 500 error, so it's probably hugged to death.