How far can you go by train in 5h? • Hacker News Board

Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?

#41

Post by londons_explore » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 2:26 PM UTC

choeger wrote: post #32

londons_explore wrote: post #13

I consider 'average travel speed' to be a critical metric by which to judge society. There is an average travel speed for people, information, and goods. The telegraph, telephone, and internet all revolutionised travel speed for information. Each one enabled far more than the one before it. Average travel speeds for people haven't done so well - people in London 100 years ago travelled at an average of 12 mph, mostly…

> So: If you here on HN can think of a way to dramatically increase travel speed for people, goods, or information, I think you will become rich, famous, and very impactful. I think it's nearly trivial to have a system with much higher (2x? 3x?) traveling speeds: Rent a private jet. Doing this in a climate-friendly manner is merely (;)) an engineering challenge, cue synfuel. The real challenge is in scaling this up t…

Jets need to be cheap and convenient enough that you decide to fly to another city to meet a friend for a coffee and fly back home. Sure, the flight might be only 30 mins, but the 'other stuff' makes it impractical.

That will never happen though. The aircraft world is ossified with regulations, and isn't the sort of industry a VC backed startup can swoop in and disrupt Uber style.

Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?

#42

Post by mike_hock » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 3:27 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #40

mike_hock wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "1-2 hours of commuting every day" he gave is a pretty good (inverse) metric for quality of life. Edit: Not as in, 1 hour of commuting is good, but as in, commuting time is a good way to measure quality of life.

If someone lives in a small village where everything is 5 minutes walk away, that person might still decide to work at the better paid job 30 mins drive away, or shop at the bigger shop in the next town over. And in his free time, he may choose to fly to a beach rather than spend his holiday in his garden or local park. People trade off travel time for other benefits.

True, I mean it's an important metric, not that it's directly inversely proportional to quality of life.

Like air quality, for example. It's important, but pretty much everyone living in a city trades it for something else.

Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?

#43

Post by Dr_ReD » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 6:37 PM UTC

Nice site, interesting.

Not relevant to Italy though, where trains (when they start, which is not a given) never-ever keep their schedule. Sigh!

Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?

#44

Post by dreen » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 8:56 PM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #39

dreen wrote: post #23

Good luck in Poland, where an hour delay for a train is not a surprise. I recently had one delayed for over 2.5h and had to get a hotel due to missed connection. No point even bothering asking them for a refund.

> Good luck in Poland, where an hour delay for a train is not a surprise. Worth remembering this is not inherent to trains, as evidenced by countries who run their trains like clockwork, e.g., the Swiss: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muPcHs-E4qc Also the Japanese, who issue official apologies when trains leave 20-25 seconds earlier : * https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42009839 * https://www.bbc.com/news/world-…

Of course, the problem in Poland is bad planning and lack of tracks. Europe on avarage has only got about half of the tracks we had before ww2, due to extensive damage. Still I can see things improving, slowly.

Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?

#45

Post by tester756 » Sun, Aug 21, 2022, 11:00 PM UTC

dreen wrote: post #35

tester756 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk, I've used to travel via train in southern Poland basically everyday for 2-3 years and delays longer than 10 mins I think I could count on the fingers of one hand Which region are you talking about?

The 2.5h one was in Pomorze, but Im from the south too, I think you were lucky. Go on a random big station on infopasazer.intercity.pl and its likely youll see at least one 1h+ delay (granted its low traffic on sunday midday)

I've used KŚ