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New rule - all #checkin responses limited to two letters, except this one

To answer the question, I'm in an urban area/big city, so lots of transportation options (subway, bus, several commuter rail lines, etc.). I don't even have a car.

However, it does make commuting times odd compared to other US places. No, I'm not traveling to Fort Lee, NJ. Sure it's maybe 8 miles (14 km) as the crow flies, but since I'd have to get through traffic, get on the subway, switch, and then get on a commuter line, it's at least an hour, if not more. Pass.

@David "Kahomono" Frier (he/his) #blm #saygay 💉💉🇺🇦 I was watching an old Carol Burnett skit last night with Carol and Roddy McDowell having an entire conversation with only one word at a time. When he finally used six, she called him a chatterbox.

Oh!

Of course you noticed the blunder - and by the way, I fixed my accidental miss pressing the enter key too early and resulting too short a heading within the minute - but the thing got published anyway. Oh my. Technology.

As I see it, you were fastest @David "Kahomono" Frier (he/his) #blm #saygay 💉💉🇺🇦 ! Have a ä1 trophy 🏆 ! 😛arty
Strong 2nd place for @Jodi K, yo!

@David "Kahomono" Frier (he/his) #blm #saygay 💉💉🇺🇦 So

Mrs. Dean and I were messing about in Germany, surprised at a train system that didn't seem as reliable as rumor had it. Then we were in the Amsterdam, and because of a bridge outage we had to consult with a specialist to cobble together an itinerary for Brussels, which ended up with something like 6 different routes, some with 6-minute transfers. I was nervous about wasting the whole day waiting for delayed trains, but it was just bang, bang, bang, hello moules frites!

When I was working in Germany, the frequent delays to routes became somewhat annoying, occasionally outright infuriating. I never really looked into it, but I suspected that it was privatization followed by capital extraction. My feeling is that rail systems are expensive to maintain, but nothing compared to letting them degrade ever so slightly and having to repair or rebuild stuff that wouldn't have broken with proper maintenance, thus a downward spiral. It wasn't always terrible, about half the time things went smoothly, especially if I started early in the morning. If I had to be on time, like getting to the airport, I just spent the euros on a Schnellzug.

I used to take Amtrak's MARC train from Baltimore to DC when I was working down there. Man, that platform is like something out of Blade Runner. I hear they're doing a big renovation. Thank goodness!

Hello, everyone! Been away for a bit, just kinda overwhelmed with stuff.

Public transportation is highly variable, in my experience, here in the US. Some cites have outstanding public transportation and others (like Cleveland) not so much. I mean, if I need to go specifically to Downtown Cleveland, or any of the spots along a very narrow corridor on the way, the Rapid Transit is the way to go. But the bus system, as I have heard it, is truly awful to deal with. Multiple-hour bus rides with multiple transfers just to get from the East side to the West side... no thanks.

When we were in Israel, we saw what a small, moderately socialist country can do with national bus and rail lines. It was an amazing opportunity to see this done right.

We take the train when we're in Vancouver and I used to use it when we lived in Calgary; way better than buses.

There's been a rumour of a train connecting the 2 big cities in Alberta for 40 but it's never materialised in spite of it being a really good idea.

WE the People of #Checkin salute you @Carsten Raddatz!

Haven't used a train in years, but did occasionally in the past. Amtrack was OK. These days, the trains don't go where I need to go, nor do the buses, so it is the tyranny of the car. My son used to commute by train every day to Chicago before COVID.

When we were in Israel, we saw what a small, moderately socialist country can do with national bus and rail lines. It was an amazing opportunity to see this done right.

Bus stops in the middle of the desert!

@Jodi K Indeed! And it's a good thing, too - there's a lot of empty land between the cities (save for small-to-medium sized villages and towns).

@Joyce Donahue Oh why thank you!! 😁

@Dean Calahan people here complain about it too. While the official excuses are "not enough staff to staff the trains because they called in sick", "track repairs are delayed", "we take a route offline for three weeks months because modernising", and so on..
the real issues are deeper. Germany is a country of cars and Autobahnen, so new tracks and expanding one-track train routes to two is a very. slow. process. Not helpful that the Minister or Transport regularly hails from where Audi and BMW have their headquarters.

Also, the commuter lines into and from around Berlin are chock full of people everyday, and all the commuters get is a vague planning called "i2030" to improve things bit by bit, as if the problems were new and there's ample time to ponder.

What is missing here is a long term plan (beyond this election and the next), and an EU perspective. I don't wanna sound ungrateful, but our night trains are run by Austria.

@David "Kahomono" Frier (he/his) #blm #saygay 💉💉🇺🇦 @Jodi K Oh my, and some comments get mangled when I post them too. This keyboard user so needs coffee.

Massachusetts has a rail system, both long range commuter rail, connections into the Amtrack system (with Rail to NYC and down to Washington DC), some light rail and subway. The MBTA has been suffering from years, and only recently got some federal funding in, thanks to national exposure of its maintenance failures (as commuter trains on fire and people jumping off bridges to avoid getting trapped) in the past 6 months or so...

But its also had huge cutbacks in service due to a lack of staffing... they have been running ads for people like crazy for positions of all sorts, on Youtube.

We take the Amtrak where we can. Trips up the US eastern seaboard from DC to NYC or Boston.
They could be better and faster, but resistance is constant. Trips south of DC are kind of mind numbing because the speeds are very limited for the first 100 miles. As a means of just getting somewhere it's not too bad.
Back in the early 80's I went from DC to Laramie, WY on Amtrak. Better than the bus, comfort wise. A different view of humanity.
If you want to get there faster than a car stuck in traffic, not so much. The will to upgrade and innovate has not been there.
But, new toll roads are All the rage now. Gotta track you.
Visiting England in the late 90's we took trains out to sightsee. Wow, night and day from the US.

Good morning!

@Cass M I giggled when I read your comment about liking Vancouver's train system. I'll admit, it is ok for certain routes. It connects only some places but there's nothing but buses and congested highways for the rest. Also, what exists is way underbuilt - at this time of year the congestion is unbelievable. Although this region is beautiful, investment in mass transit was blocked for decades by environmentalists. It took the 2020 Olympics to break the deadlock. As you can imagine the turmoil and expense of constructing anything since has been/is a nightmare. For 12 months a year for a few years+, I have to deal with the fallout of 4 construction zones whenever I commute to Vancouver.

However, as Cass mentioned, if one travels along the Skytrain serviced routes and not during rush hours it is nice.

New rule - all #checkin responses limited to two letters, except this one

OK

good morning...nothing close to public transportation here. I used Amtrak a lot in Calif during the 80s to get from the central valley to the bay area....I never needed a car there so why drive. I also did the commute from Tx to New Brunswick for a few years and could only get to my destination via train VIA train an over night trip from Montreal...there is a Dickens novel that features the building the railroad in England [at this point I forget which one....I am sure someone here remembers the title( I am bad at titles of books)] and how it turned society topsy turvy ....I grew up with street cars and electric busses and cable cars...never needed to drive until I was in my 20s. Public transportation is the sign of a civilized country.

Developed public transportation very much is the sign of a civilized county! @Nora Qudus, I agree. I also like how the standard varies: Japan's new maglev project is criticised for "only allowing trains every 10 minutes", unlike the old system which can scale up to every 3 minutes. Oh well. Luxury problems that tap into refinancing, but anyhow. No need to run services profit-driven, right?

Rush hour here sees subway trains every 2.5 minutes, and that is enough for early mornings, and every 5 after that. But, the last new line of considerable length was opened in the 1980s. After that, piecemeal.

It is kinda scary that large investments outside of Asia happen once operations approximate the lower limit of "keep running until it grinds to a halt", right? I had once posted a video someone did about Berlin and its railtracks built a century ago - wars and politics cut some lines in the meantime, and not all of them are open again. It could be so easy.

I walk, ride bicycle, ride motorcycle, drive truck/autos...

...I'd LOVE to take a train trip someday...

...but I don't fly or boat, which is going to make my tour of Europe quite difficult to achieve. ;)

Good evening! While checkin is getting shorter, we still have long posts!
In general I love riding by train, when it comes...
Some switching stations in Germany are also really old and still operating, they were built when Germany still had a Kaiser!

Anyone here on Zwift? I recently signed on to keep motivated over the winter, so that I stand a chance to participate in next year’s Horribly Hilly Hundreds, which I last did in 2009 (considerably younger and more fit). I would welcome a ride with you, wherever you are in the world.

Many issues here on this thread!!

As has been mentioned by many historians the destruction caused by European wars and WW-II opened up a lot of room for railroads to be built with reasonably straight rights of way and without too many grade crossings.

As for the US - it is huge but most people live concentrated along the coasts and in a fairly few inland centers. The east coast rail is hobbled from use of routes (and things like tunnels) that were built far more than 100 years ago. The western part of the country is mostly empty space with a lot of deserts and mountains. It's hard to build rails through there, much less fast rail lines. And for those distances, flying tends to be a better option for moving people; HSR rail shines at ranges below 500 miles.

High speed rail generally requires curves with a horizontal radius on the order of six kilometers - that's a lot bigger radius than on most east coast routes.

And then there are mountains - never fast for trains. Take the French TGV from Lyon to Geneva (the route follows the Rhone as it comes out of the mountains) to see what I mean - it isn't fast.

The mountains (of California) are the reason why the Calif HSR project is doing its initial builds in the flatlands of the central valley. Getting through those mountains, and earthquake faults, at 220mph/350kph takes some serious engineering and a lot of $$.)

Here in the US the railroad tracks are nearly all privately held by companies that want to extract profit out of them for freight. In fact, the recent droughts have lowered the Mississippi so much that there is a great demand to offload barge-borne freight onto railroads, but the railroad operators have, over the last few decades, eliminated most redundancy and excess capacity in order to extract as much $$ as possible. So there's no excess rail capacity here in the US to offload the Mississippi barge traffic.

The town I lived in in Germany was something like 97% flattened in WWII. There is a picture of a banner put up on one of the few remaining buildings some US soldiers thought was funny, "This is Jülich, Germany. Sorry it is so messed up but we were in a hurry! – 29th Infantry Division". There are like, two or three further stops on the rail line that serves it. I lived at the end of a dead-end street, just across from a tiny rail platform. Or, as I like to say, in a cul-de-sac at the ass-end of the Deutschebahn. Quite convenient, just 45 minutes from Köln, if the train from Düren was not delayed.

San Diego has light rail that I use to get downtown where I can catch the train or a shuttle to the airport. Or take the ferry to Coronado, and bike to the beach.

When my grandmother was in home hospice at the family residence in Santa Ana, I took the train up after work every Friday to give my sisters a break for the weekend. After work I'd walk the 1.5km to the transit center, take the trolley to San Diego's Santa Fe Depot, and board the train for Santa Ana Station. I'd catch the last train back on Sunday evening.

Right now the Pacific Surfliner is suspended due to some cliff erosion beneath he tracks (checks online to see if that's still the case.) It was closed between Oceanside and Irvine, and one had to bard a bus to complete the trip, but now it will take you as far north as San Juan Capistrano on a limited schedule.

I am not in a hurry and never have been all my life, hence 2 false alarms for my poor pregnant mom, but people need to chill and not worry about getting there yesterday...I rather be on a train rumbling to my destination watching the scenery pass or reading than driving the congested poorly maintained roads and arriving a few hours earlier all frazzled

2-3 hours drive can get me to Guerneville, which is a small town with several good restaurants, and (unless the pandemic hit them hard) a set of rental cabins, most with a porch or adjacent outdoor space.

I have always loved the Amtrak train ride up and down the west coast of the United States. It is so scenic! They even have a car that is largely made of glass, and has a tour guide narrating information about the sites outside the windows!

Oh my gosh. There have been efforts to get a light rail train out to these parts where I live for years. Just too many obstacles and objections. The big one is more or less funding. Who gets to pay for it (because public transit might run at a loss)?

Today, well, today a lot of work happened. It was very satisfying without being overwhelming.

Train whenever possible.

I've been sick and overwhelmed.
Just kinda checking in.

But I don't drive, and (since I was 3) don't fly - so train is the way to go for touring.

We've got multiple forms of public transportation here. Anyone can get from anywhere to anywhere else cheaply and easily. Tricycles, jeepneys, PUVs. light and medium rail, taxis, buses, and more.

Speed limits on trains south of DC...

A few years ago I took a flying trip up (FL to DC) and back—first time on a train trip that long—didn't even know how to put the footrest up, didn't sleep hardly a wink. By the time I got on the return train, I was beat (and somebody showed me how to work the footrest—what a revelation!). Woke up some hours later to dewater and had a vague sense that we were going pretty fast.
🤷🏻‍♀️
😴
Exchanging messages with Mr. Stranger when I got up for good, he informed me that we had been doing something like a buck-fifteen in the Carolinas 😳 (he'd been following our progress on their web site)

thank the gods we didn't hit anything

I was gonna say that was the fastest wee I ever took, but I think I went on a plane once...

‘Yes, it’s going to happen’: City of Madison gets wheels rolling on identifying potential Amtrak station location

I’ve been waiting my entire adult life for this to happen.