"It doesn't count because it's just passenger rail!!! The U.S. has the largest freight rail system!!"

some-controversy cope, crackers

  • Adkml [he/him]
    ·
    4 months ago

    Lmao at the "yea but it'll take longer" arguments this soon after a software update completely haunted all air travel in the country.

    "It'll take you like three days to get from LA to chicago." - somebody who has been stuck on standby at O'Hara for 72 hours.

    • quarrk [he/him]
      ·
      4 months ago

      I think the US airline industry is genuinely on the precipice of severe breakdown. It’s at the limit, it’s aging, and there is no sign of letting up. It doesn’t scale as well as trains.

      I really fear that air travel disasters will start to happen with more regularity until normalized a la gun violence. At that point I think many people will be happy to make the multi-day car ride instead.

      • Adkml [he/him]
        ·
        4 months ago

        I'm already at preferring a multi day car ride to any flight over 3 hours but also the top of the headrest is in the middle of my shoulder blades if I sit regularly and I have to sit up like I've got a steel rod for a spine to not have my knees fully buried in the back of the person in front of me.

        I really am sympathetic to anybody that has to fly for work, every single step of the air travel process is intentionally terrible to the point of feeling dehumanizing at the best of times.

    • wtypstanaccount04 [he/him]
      ·
      4 months ago

      It takes less than 3 days to get from LA to Chicago now, and that's with taking the Texas Eagle, a slow train that goes between the two cities by way of Houston and Dallas. It's not improbable to imagine a 12 hour high speed sleeper train between the two cities.

      • Adkml [he/him]
        ·
        4 months ago

        That's because it's 4 hours behind schedule because it got sidetracked and the train that had priority had one engineer for 120 cars.

        • wtypstanaccount04 [he/him]
          ·
          4 months ago

          4 hours behind schedule is a typical Amtrak delay.

          You have no idea how delayed freight trains can get

          • Adkml [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            4 months ago

            Yea that's because our rail infrastructure is shit and rail companies have one person conducting 100+ car long trains.

            Dozens of other countries figured this out decades ago, it's not that we can't it's that we very consciously do not want to.

            • wtypstanaccount04 [he/him]
              ·
              4 months ago

              Two-person crews are mandated now on all railroads (with some exceptions), but that's probably still not enough for how long some of the trains are. Without two-person crews you get Lac-Megantic.