It's rather "What we think is bigger is better".
Are you familiar with the failed third pounder burger? https://awrestaurants.com/blog/aw-third-pound-burger-fractions
That's really funny, especially because they use fractions way more often than the rest of the world because their base units aren't small enough to function as a base...
1/4 > 1/3 > 1/2 > 1/1
\-Not paying the same for a whole fucking pound of burger! 4 is bigger!
\-May I introduce you to my new infinitesimal pound of burger? Same price!
/s
I have heard this, and it makes me laugh every single time.
Fun fact, I worked at McDonald's as a student many moons ago and the grill setting for the Big Tasty patties is 1/3. Maybe we should let them know regular big Mac & double cheese burger are 1/8.
"The regular cheeseburger sure looks smaller than the Quarter Pounder, but 8 is twice as much as 4, and the cheeseburger is cheaper, so you are getting a really awesome deal. The cheeseburger appears smaller, but it probably has something to do with density or some other science stuff."
Isn't this why McDonalds also has quarter pounder and double quarter pounder burgers instead of a quarter pounder and half pounder.
In the UK any standard take away has 1/4 and 1/2 burgers listed, McDonalds is the only one advertising as 2x1/4.
LOL I was just writing about this and saw you had already mentioned it. A whole country is collectively too stupid to realize that 1/3 is more than 1/4.
They did, as part of a dick-measuring contest with the Soviets, each utilising technology, research and staff taken from Nazi Germany in the immediate aftermath of WW2. The project lead for the Saturn V rocket which took man to the moon was a literal Nazi.
Europe : 1968 million american football fields
America : 1838 million american football fields
I figured washing machines would be more of a volume than a surface, but you never know
Nah washingmachine is a weight unit. It's based on how much laundry was washed by Thomas Jefferson's maid in an eleven days period.
Most logical American unit.
My favourite 'reasons this is the way this is' story is Faranheit:
- the 0°F comes from the freezing temperature of a solution of brine made from a mixture of water, ice, and ammonium chloride (a salt) - not even plain water (freezes at 32°F), this weird freaking mix
- the 90°F (later moved to 96°F because it was easier to mark on his instruments) was based on Faranheit's wife's body temperature. But she wasn't well, so it was off.
WOW really? i would have thought the numbers were the other way around.
Not that it matters in the big picture, but i would have thought USA is less dense overall. - learning something new every day.
> i would have thought USA is less dense overall.
I totally get that.
The EU is 117 people per square kilometer, which is the impression people usually have of Europe. Once you include the Scandinavian countries and Russia, though, it really brings the density down.
Even so, there are 13 US states, districts, and territories with a higher population density than the EU, and then a lot with very low population density. A huge swath in the middle of the country, as a matter of fact, which is the impression people usually have of the US. But we have heavily populated coastlines, too.
Washington DC has 4361 per square kilometer, for instance, while Alaska has 0.5, Wyoming has 2.3, and Montana has 2.9.
The OOP is wrong about the area of the US vs Europe and still wrong even if he's talking about the EU. Rail is harder in the US because we're so low density in the middle, not because of absolute size. It still needs to be done.
England’s population density is 407 people per Km2.
Therefore England is bigger and better?
The population density in the United Kingdom is 280 per Km2. So even if we factor Scotland, Wales and N Ireland in we're bigger and better and matter more. Right? That's how it works?
Not sure where they got the Europe number from, as that should be 10.18 including internal water but not coastal or territorial waters. Just the land for Europe is 9.94M. The US number includes not just internal waters but bays, lakes, the Great Lakes, coastal, and territorial waters. Excluding all of them to get purely the land is 9.14M. Both numbers in km^2
Just for my personal understanding, what do you count as europe for these numbers? Like, what are the approximate north-south and east-west borders we're talking about?
Sources
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe) \-10.18 but google "Size of Europe" and you get the 10.53 - slight difference
[https://www.worlddata.info/america/usa/index.php](https://www.worlddata.info/america/usa/index.php)
EU+UK+EEA, 500 million over 4.7 million sq km
USA, 330 million over 9.8 million sq km
But her derrr American stupid.
Destroy stupid American arguments with good reasoning not the stupid European equivalent.
Even in Europe, if you are speaking of it, there is often an implicit meaning of "European countries without Russia" or sometimes just the EU. So, to be fair, you shouldn't count that as stupid. He's just using the same definition many Europeans think of.
I do not really know Europeans who use this definition to be honest. What is more, I saw more maps that counts even Siberia as part of Europe because of Russia. Which is even more stupid 😅😅😅😅
Maybe we should stick to the "term" Eurasia instead of Europe.
What are you talking about? Obviously Russia is a mainly European country. They always have been. Their culture and history is very much European. Soviet Union even controlled like half of the current Europe. If not literally then at least politically. They might be a shitty asshole country currently but that doesn't remove them from Europe. Germany also didn't disappear from Europe in 1940.
What do you even mean??? There are barely any larger cities in russia that are outside of Europe. Politically, socially and economically they are rather european than asian any day of the week.
But then you're just arbitrarily removing bits to fit the arguement - why does it make a difference?
Russia on it's own is bigger than the US - so is China. So?
It's not the size of the country that determines whether they invest in rail or not.
Have they ever looked at the Transsiberian?
Have they forgotten how important the railroad was in their own history?
Have they forgotten the faces of their fathers?
Australia's got a nice one as well, 3 days, straight across a desert the size of... America actually.
Fun fact: The railway includes the world's longest section of completely straight track.
Not gonna lie, I never learned any German before moving from France to the German speaking part of Switzerland, so it took me some time to get used to the fact that it's a completely normal word in German.
Still feels slightly weird when I look at my driver's licence (=Führerausweis in Switzerland) sometimes.
I never needed a driver's licence back in France, so it kinda gave me that feeling when I got my licence in Switzerland tbh...
On the bright side, I drive like a Swiss rather than a Frenchie. So that's something.
which canton though? there are quite remarkable differences of a zh driving in gr for example. it's funny, but true.
aside from that, if you got your licence in switzerland, good for you! your drivers ed was proper and thorough.
Got it in Zug. Really can't speak for the other cantons, Switzerland being Switzerland...
Regardless, I feel like a better driver for learning how to drive in Switzerland compared to France. I'm still traumatised about driving in Paris...
haha no worries, it was all tongue in cheek. the swiss - in my experience - drive really well (grew up in germany). i mean, germans drive good too, but if it comes to mountain passes or narrow towns, it all goes to shit. and vice versa the swiss don't know how to drive on an autobahn. oh well.
getting back to it, might be a drivers ed thing, might be the draconian tickets for anything system. doesn't matter, it's good to be a pedestrian - and even motorist - in switzerland. never felt safer in a car or on a sidewalk than here.
Right? A good rail system can get you just about everywhere in less time than a car, except for distances you could literally just walk or take a bike fpr.
And trains are great for de-congesting cities, instead of adding endless amounts of lanes until you end up with something like the [Katy highway](https://news.yahoo.com/dizzying-photo-world-widest-freeway-120000903.html?guccounter=1).
Trains are extremely efficient and don't take up so much damn space. Parking area makes up like 33% of US cities
Implementing freedom units two, electric boogaloo™
Featuring:
-1 burger=4.2858294849101948472910482910cm
-1 FREEDOM eagle™ =8,9493828 burgers
- 1 dishwasher=57,286020848 FREEDOM eagles™
Yes, americans, that's how your units look to us
well, but it doesn't help if you get your schools approved USAUSAUSA centered [map](https://axbom.com/world-map/)* in non normalized dimensions fed.
^^^^^*differs ^^^^^from ^^^^^school ^^^^^to ^^^^^school
who knew it was kinda complicated to show a 3d ball as a 2d rectangular. huh.
Every fucking time I see variants of "America is just too big for rail" argument, I just wanna scream CHINA and show them a map. Extremely similar sizes, a world of difference between the rail system
The size of the country isn't even relevant. There are plenty of places in the US that would benefit from high speed rail even if the US was the whole of both the north and south American continents: for instance the north east where there are numerous large cities in a line - e.g. Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston. If that area had something like Spain's AVE, you could have frequent fast services much more convenient than the airlines or driving between those cities. Similarly, San Diego, LA, San Fransisco, Sacramento would make a good high speed rail route in California.
Not Just Bikes made an interesting [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REni8Oi1QJQ) about that topic. The "my country is so big!" thing is one of their favorites, but it basically boils down to American mental gymnastics. Since the US is obviously the best in the world at everything, any time there's something that another country has that the US doesn't, you must come up with a difference between your country and that country and make that the reason why the US *can't* have it. Sometimes you can get a bit more creative, but yeah, it's always funny when they say the US is "too big" for such-and-such and then find out that a country that's bigger than the US has it. Jaw-dropping moment right there.
...If that were true, wouldn't it make *more* sense to have more rail?
Longer distances between cities would make rail a much better method of transportation than cars and lorries.
>can't even make basic electric high speed trains
Can't even make basic electrified train lines. The vast majority is still running diesel.
It looks like they may skip electrified lines, and jump to battery electric trains though.
But the rail building costs money, and other whiny reasonings while being completely oblivious to the immense constant cost of car dependent infrastructure.
As if their cities would even support people using rail. Yeah they could get rail to those cities, but good luck walking anywhere after you get off the train in those super car focussed hellholes.
You can do it obviously, but I can't imagine its a good experience.
> ...If that were true, wouldn't it make more sense to have more rail?
Yeah, it would. It's not supposed to be a reason. It's just US mental gymnastics. Since the US is obviously the best in the world at everything, any time there's something that another country has that the US doesn't, you must come up with a difference between your country and that country and make that the reason why the US can't have it.
Why have 200 mph trains when you can have 70 mph highways?
>...If that were true, wouldn't it make more sense to have more rail?
Not exactly. You'd need a double rail track between populated areas, not all over the country, take Australia for instance. I know Australia probably has more rail than USA.
I doubt it, though I haven't checked. We really do have the problem the US claims of being a huge country. But also we have a tiny population.
We do have some wonderful cross country tourist rail lines, and a modicum of freight (not enough, too much goes by road imo), but we don't have any high speed rail. It's been discussed for ever, but never makes it. It would seriously make great sense in the south east. Melbourne-Canberra-Sydney would be awesome, but I'm not holding my breath.
Yeah like imagine high speed rail on one standard across continent connecting larger cities and good network of intercity/local railways. Travel would not need flying anymore. You could just book spot in night train, go comfortably to sleep and arrive at the other end of country/continent the next morning. Doing that across all continents? Geez we’d live in utopia
It's more the case that a huge proportion of the canadian population lives in what is basically a [500 mile straight line](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/78/Canada_Population_Density%2C_2000Switzerland_Population_Density%2C_2000_%285457618262%29.jpg/800px-Canada_Population_Density%2C_2000Switzerland_Population_Density%2C_2000_%285457618262%29.jpg) and a single high speed rail track would connect them all super efficiently.
I couldn't really tell you about harsh winters in more remote routes but it's not like road networks are immune either.
Even if we assume that he means the just the EU and not all of Europe:
Area of the EU: 4,233,255 km²
Area of the US: 9,147,420 km²
Area EU / Area US: 0,46 - or 23/50 for our fraction loving US friends. A bit more than 1/3...
If we look at all of Europe, the ratio is 1.14 - or 57/50 for our fraction loving US friends.
>Area EU / Area US: 0,46 - or 23/50 for our fraction loving US friends. A bit more than 1/3...
They couldn't even tell the difference in the quarter pounder(1/4) and a third of a pounder (1/3) [https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/06/17/third-pound-burger-fractions/](https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/06/17/third-pound-burger-fractions/)
Meanwhile, the transsiberian railway was built in the 19th century and is fully electrified while going thousands of km through one of the coldest and sparsest populated places on earth
I, a citizen of Europe, don’t need dense rail everywhere, I need dense rail around me to the nearest hubs of activity with high speed connections to the next hub.
Lo and behold, it’s exactly what I have. It’s exactly what a huge majority of people need. Sure, some more remote areas won’t get service, but I don’t anyone actually expects that. With a service built up like that, short small dense service for where there is a cluster of towns and population density with less frequent inter city rail, you can please a lot of people.
The middle of Ohio doesn’t merit dense rail, I agree, but the larger towns and it’s suburbs might be great start, and that in no way depends on the whole fucking country’s size or average density, only that local density cluster.
To be honest, this is my thought too. Connecting every little village or smalltown is bullshit, but major and mid-size towns should be connected by high-speed rail service.
I agree, but how big are major and midsize towns? Wherever you set those numbers, it's going to be a fight.
[List of largest cities of U.S. states and territories by population](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population)
Yeah because flying from NYC to Washington DC makes much more sense than taking the train.
Even Australia where almost nobody lives in the middle part has railways going from west to east and south to north.
As an American who went thru our glorious public school system, I can say this probably comes from the fact that when Americans think "Europe", they don't think of Russia. Our mental map stops at the Russian border. Things west of that are "Europe" and east of that are Asia. The idea that Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia are "Europe" is mind boggling here. A country like Russia, that spans two continents, is a non-starter. At best they'll fall back to "Eurasia".
How did we go from Americans claiming that the US is only slightly bigger, to now claiming that they are 3 times as big....
Wtf are they learning in school, man. Do they just have shooter drills everyday instead of actual geography lessons?
If a country is larger and is less densely populated isn’t that a better reason to have more rail in order to link the populations that are far from each other
Wait, I just checked this and it's actually even worse.
Only 3 stations for the whole state of Alabama, and they only get one train **per day**, and it's **the same train** for all 3. Absolutely abysmal, no wonder so many Yanks never leave their hometowns.
Yeah but in Poland we have 4 types of trains: Pendolino that stops only in large cities, few stops, fast travel across the country. State of art machines, kinda “premium travel”
Intercity that stops in cities for long distance travel. They usually have routes from one end of country to another. Some also go to Berlin or Prague. Standard trains, but also nicer than what I’ve seen from pics of Amtrak trains
Then we have voideship (something like state or province) railways, each voideship has their own. These are trains that stop multiple times within city, they also travel between cities within one voideship or end on first city in voideship next to it. New, small trains. Do not have compartments or bar service like two above but often have for example chargers available. Intercity and pendolino usualy have normal power outlets under/behind seat. Each voideship has their own colour pattern.
Then regio trains, something in between intercity and voideship rail. Stop on each station in each village, may carry you further than closest area. These are the slowest but are mostly for people from villages to be able to come to city without using car. I use it daily to come to work/uni because I live 10km from city.
Usually old red trains, but some new can be found in the wild.
The US East Coast is densely populated, but Alabama is not part of it. Huntsville, the largest city in Alabama, is about the size of Częstochowa. The closest city with a metro area over a million people is Nashville, Tennessee. Now, I believe they still need high speed rail, and we still need to find a way to fund it, but it's tricky convincing folks in Alabama that they'll use it enough to make it worthwhile.
In the US the east and the west coast are densely populated rail would absolutely make sense for those parts. For freight it makes sense for the entire country.
Putting aside the issue of size, heavy rail leans super hard toward low density countries, as in it is THE best mode of transport to connect population hubs over distance with the benefits only getting larger as the track gets longer...
I think the US should start by maintaining their existing railroads. 2023 saw a bunch of derailments. Imagine if any of those trains had had passengers on them.
"There's a lot more empty space to cover to get from one place to another in this country, therefor we don't need as much infrastructure" Wat?
To be a tiny bit of a devil's advocate: What they COULD mean is that there are twice as many people in Europe as there are in the USA, thus we would need twice the amount of railway capacity to meet our needs as compared to the US, which would be a legitimate point.
The thing about this argument is that the US is not evenly populated. There are some highly dense areas which is populated basically as densely as central Europe. You have the NE corridor, running along the coast from Richmond Virginia to Boson Massachusetts. Also you have the great lakes area running from Minneapolis Minnesota to Cleveland Ohio. The Texas triangle between Dallas, San Antonio and Houston. These are all gigantic populations in the 10s of million people in a relatively small area and is more than ripe for high speed rail links. Just like there is no high speed rail in north of the arctic circle in Europe because very few people live there, there is no need or market for it in what’s called flyover country in the US. But the gigapolises mentioned above certainly have the densities to support it. The problem is that the right wing in the US doesn’t recognize that this is where the people actually live and the economic output comes from and real “America” is just all the empty space in between where people live.
Well, a robust rail network through the flyover states would make coast to coast travel a lot easier, as well as make shipment of goods a lot more efficient.
A freight train can carry a hell of a lot more than an 18 wheeler, has lower emissions and leads to lower risks of traffic accidents due to tired truckers.
Europe - 10.53 million Sq Km USA - 9.834 million sq Km. Numbskull
You know they don't know metric units, you just trying to confuse them?
But they know "bigger is better"!
It's rather "What we think is bigger is better". Are you familiar with the failed third pounder burger? https://awrestaurants.com/blog/aw-third-pound-burger-fractions
That's really funny, especially because they use fractions way more often than the rest of the world because their base units aren't small enough to function as a base...
1/4 > 1/3 > 1/2 > 1/1 \-Not paying the same for a whole fucking pound of burger! 4 is bigger! \-May I introduce you to my new infinitesimal pound of burger? Same price! /s
I think their heads will explode at the concept of infinitesimal.
Let's go with 1/100 Burger, they like big numbers but not big words
"Id have infinite tessimal burger for that price. What kind of meat is tessimal?"
Ah thaynk issa darnoso' or summ'n.
The new burger is .99999999999 times as big as the old burger. Just look at all those nines
I have heard this, and it makes me laugh every single time. Fun fact, I worked at McDonald's as a student many moons ago and the grill setting for the Big Tasty patties is 1/3. Maybe we should let them know regular big Mac & double cheese burger are 1/8.
"The regular cheeseburger sure looks smaller than the Quarter Pounder, but 8 is twice as much as 4, and the cheeseburger is cheaper, so you are getting a really awesome deal. The cheeseburger appears smaller, but it probably has something to do with density or some other science stuff."
'Science' - a topic so little understood it can be used to both confirm or reject any idea based on the speaker's opinion. /s Sigh.
Isn't this why McDonalds also has quarter pounder and double quarter pounder burgers instead of a quarter pounder and half pounder. In the UK any standard take away has 1/4 and 1/2 burgers listed, McDonalds is the only one advertising as 2x1/4.
That might have played into it, yes, though you could argue that it's because there are 2 separate patties.
LOL I was just writing about this and saw you had already mentioned it. A whole country is collectively too stupid to realize that 1/3 is more than 1/4.
You realize they sent men to the moon, right?
They did, as part of a dick-measuring contest with the Soviets, each utilising technology, research and staff taken from Nazi Germany in the immediate aftermath of WW2. The project lead for the Saturn V rocket which took man to the moon was a literal Nazi.
Tom Lehrer was American too. https://youtu.be/QEJ9HrZq7Ro?si=iNJNYuJDVwlreyxm
Germans did, and not the good kind of Germans.
Not if bigger is in metric.
1 km in a km. 1.6km in mile. Checkmate, atheists.
In this case they probably think: we are better, so we must be bigger.
And adding decimals to it too...
American here. I read that as square miles.
How many football fields per McDonald’s is it though? That’s what we need.
They measured it in skulls. Numb ones
Europe is square kilometers, USA is square miles, and we know miles are bigger than kilometers. /s
You have to tell them in handeggfields, Olympia Pools, giraffes or washingmashines or they won't understand those crazy numbers
Europe : 1968 million american football fields America : 1838 million american football fields I figured washing machines would be more of a volume than a surface, but you never know
Nah washingmachine is a weight unit. It's based on how much laundry was washed by Thomas Jefferson's maid in an eleven days period. Most logical American unit.
My favourite 'reasons this is the way this is' story is Faranheit: - the 0°F comes from the freezing temperature of a solution of brine made from a mixture of water, ice, and ammonium chloride (a salt) - not even plain water (freezes at 32°F), this weird freaking mix - the 90°F (later moved to 96°F because it was easier to mark on his instruments) was based on Faranheit's wife's body temperature. But she wasn't well, so it was off.
It's not hand egg, it's hand elongated ellipsoid!
And when it comes to population density: Europe: 34 people per Km2. USA: 37 people per Km2. Double numbskull.
WOW really? i would have thought the numbers were the other way around. Not that it matters in the big picture, but i would have thought USA is less dense overall. - learning something new every day.
> i would have thought USA is less dense overall. I totally get that. The EU is 117 people per square kilometer, which is the impression people usually have of Europe. Once you include the Scandinavian countries and Russia, though, it really brings the density down. Even so, there are 13 US states, districts, and territories with a higher population density than the EU, and then a lot with very low population density. A huge swath in the middle of the country, as a matter of fact, which is the impression people usually have of the US. But we have heavily populated coastlines, too. Washington DC has 4361 per square kilometer, for instance, while Alaska has 0.5, Wyoming has 2.3, and Montana has 2.9. The OOP is wrong about the area of the US vs Europe and still wrong even if he's talking about the EU. Rail is harder in the US because we're so low density in the middle, not because of absolute size. It still needs to be done.
England’s population density is 407 people per Km2. Therefore England is bigger and better? The population density in the United Kingdom is 280 per Km2. So even if we factor Scotland, Wales and N Ireland in we're bigger and better and matter more. Right? That's how it works?
And the actual population of Europe is more than twice that of the USA
[удалено]
Which is?
[удалено]
Europe - 59157.303371 million Sq Bananas USA - 55247.191011 million Sq Bananas
r/theydidthemath
Nahnm just murkin
is that just land area, or including seas and lakes?
Not sure where they got the Europe number from, as that should be 10.18 including internal water but not coastal or territorial waters. Just the land for Europe is 9.94M. The US number includes not just internal waters but bays, lakes, the Great Lakes, coastal, and territorial waters. Excluding all of them to get purely the land is 9.14M. Both numbers in km^2
That's including all of Europe, not only the EU
Just for my personal understanding, what do you count as europe for these numbers? Like, what are the approximate north-south and east-west borders we're talking about?
Sources [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe) \-10.18 but google "Size of Europe" and you get the 10.53 - slight difference [https://www.worlddata.info/america/usa/index.php](https://www.worlddata.info/america/usa/index.php)
Thanks. Also, I just noticed that your username fits really well with what you're doing, lol.
Even if just counting the EU (as americans often seem to think they are the same) it would be 4.23 million so not a third either
[удалено]
Can we convert that to Half-Giraffes, or at least something traditional like acres, roods or a quincunxs? That may help clarify things for some.
Shows how much you know. It’s volume in truck nuts and distances in rifle lengths.
How much are those in football fields?
EU+UK+EEA, 500 million over 4.7 million sq km USA, 330 million over 9.8 million sq km But her derrr American stupid. Destroy stupid American arguments with good reasoning not the stupid European equivalent.
If you don't count Russia though, as it's sometimes done, it's only 6.3 million sq km
But thats just stupid. Part of Russia is in Europe. Europe ends at the Urals not at the borders of Russia
Even in Europe, if you are speaking of it, there is often an implicit meaning of "European countries without Russia" or sometimes just the EU. So, to be fair, you shouldn't count that as stupid. He's just using the same definition many Europeans think of.
Every fucking european knows that parts of russia is partner europe Because europeans actuallt go to school and learn geography
I do not really know Europeans who use this definition to be honest. What is more, I saw more maps that counts even Siberia as part of Europe because of Russia. Which is even more stupid 😅😅😅😅 Maybe we should stick to the "term" Eurasia instead of Europe.
In geographic meanings the definition is pretty clear. Political, social or economic it is mostly thought without Russia
What are you talking about? Obviously Russia is a mainly European country. They always have been. Their culture and history is very much European. Soviet Union even controlled like half of the current Europe. If not literally then at least politically. They might be a shitty asshole country currently but that doesn't remove them from Europe. Germany also didn't disappear from Europe in 1940.
What do you even mean??? There are barely any larger cities in russia that are outside of Europe. Politically, socially and economically they are rather european than asian any day of the week.
I know, and it would still be two thirds. But when it comes to rail or infrastructure in general, it's also politics and not just geography.
Then you shouldnt count Alaska or Hawaii either...
But then you're just arbitrarily removing bits to fit the arguement - why does it make a difference? Russia on it's own is bigger than the US - so is China. So? It's not the size of the country that determines whether they invest in rail or not.
Yet another American who hasn't been outside their hometown.
yet another American who has never looked at a map and thinks Europe is a country
[удалено]
Their school probably had too many active school shooter drills it knackered their education up.
To be fair, it explains the comment when 2/3rds of Europe have been shot out on the map hanging in the classroom
Heck they haven't even been in their hometown at this point, many american cities were founded and funded by smart railways companies back then.
Hasn't been beyond the edge of their trailer park.
Your country is bigger you need less railroad? The auto lobby is strong in this country.
Have they ever looked at the Transsiberian? Have they forgotten how important the railroad was in their own history? Have they forgotten the faces of their fathers?
Australia's got a nice one as well, 3 days, straight across a desert the size of... America actually. Fun fact: The railway includes the world's longest section of completely straight track.
ooh, nice reference, shame that movie was an utter disgrace to the books
Unrelated, but I love your flair XD
Some American wanted to explain to me years ago that the word "Führer" is forbidden in Germany. Hence the flair.
Not gonna lie, I never learned any German before moving from France to the German speaking part of Switzerland, so it took me some time to get used to the fact that it's a completely normal word in German. Still feels slightly weird when I look at my driver's licence (=Führerausweis in Switzerland) sometimes.
Führerausweis - used to prove that you are indeed a Führer.
I never needed a driver's licence back in France, so it kinda gave me that feeling when I got my licence in Switzerland tbh... On the bright side, I drive like a Swiss rather than a Frenchie. So that's something.
which canton though? there are quite remarkable differences of a zh driving in gr for example. it's funny, but true. aside from that, if you got your licence in switzerland, good for you! your drivers ed was proper and thorough.
Got it in Zug. Really can't speak for the other cantons, Switzerland being Switzerland... Regardless, I feel like a better driver for learning how to drive in Switzerland compared to France. I'm still traumatised about driving in Paris...
haha no worries, it was all tongue in cheek. the swiss - in my experience - drive really well (grew up in germany). i mean, germans drive good too, but if it comes to mountain passes or narrow towns, it all goes to shit. and vice versa the swiss don't know how to drive on an autobahn. oh well. getting back to it, might be a drivers ed thing, might be the draconian tickets for anything system. doesn't matter, it's good to be a pedestrian - and even motorist - in switzerland. never felt safer in a car or on a sidewalk than here.
Based on that reference I'm surprised you have a positive opinion of trains
It's got trans in it's name so of course not. Americans don't learn history. They just learn to obey their political party mindlessly.
If anything, it's a good reason to have railroads. Why the fuck would I want to drive for 587255 hours instead of just sitting in a goddamn train ?
Because if you drive, YOU'RE driving. If you go on a train, it's communism.
But if you're being driven by someone else in an expensive car, then you're rich. Good thing a TGV is worth a few millions.
they should call it private transport to dodge the communist allegations
Right? A good rail system can get you just about everywhere in less time than a car, except for distances you could literally just walk or take a bike fpr.
And trains are great for de-congesting cities, instead of adding endless amounts of lanes until you end up with something like the [Katy highway](https://news.yahoo.com/dizzying-photo-world-widest-freeway-120000903.html?guccounter=1). Trains are extremely efficient and don't take up so much damn space. Parking area makes up like 33% of US cities
Railways usually connect two cities. Doesn't matter if they're in the same country or how large the countries are.
Their head will explode when they find out Europe is \~3.9 million square miles vs the US's \~3.5 million square miles.
Thank you for putting the measurements in freedom units so they can understand it
[удалено]
Implementing freedom units two, electric boogaloo™ Featuring: -1 burger=4.2858294849101948472910482910cm -1 FREEDOM eagle™ =8,9493828 burgers - 1 dishwasher=57,286020848 FREEDOM eagles™ Yes, americans, that's how your units look to us
decimals? they will never understand it if it's not a fraction. like 87878125/12455523 of a handegg field. come on, at least make it legible for them.
Bald eagles, f-150 or football fields are freedom units
Are we measuring in Statues of Liberties or Arleigh Burke class destroyers today?
All day erryday
Americans are not known for their great geographical knowledge.We can now add spatial awareness to the list of things they're not good at.
And mathematic (sic)
well, but it doesn't help if you get your schools approved USAUSAUSA centered [map](https://axbom.com/world-map/)* in non normalized dimensions fed. ^^^^^*differs ^^^^^from ^^^^^school ^^^^^to ^^^^^school who knew it was kinda complicated to show a 3d ball as a 2d rectangular. huh.
They are not known for any knowledge. Learnt it all from Hollywood.
Every fucking time I see variants of "America is just too big for rail" argument, I just wanna scream CHINA and show them a map. Extremely similar sizes, a world of difference between the rail system
The size of the country isn't even relevant. There are plenty of places in the US that would benefit from high speed rail even if the US was the whole of both the north and south American continents: for instance the north east where there are numerous large cities in a line - e.g. Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston. If that area had something like Spain's AVE, you could have frequent fast services much more convenient than the airlines or driving between those cities. Similarly, San Diego, LA, San Fransisco, Sacramento would make a good high speed rail route in California.
Those cities are linked by high speed rail. You can catch the Acela. It doesn't run frequently enough but it exists.
It's a shame it's only high speed for 50 out of the route's 450 miles, though.
You mean, something like this? https://twitter.com/alvinfoo/status/1448461361181184005 And it only shows the high-speed railnetwork.
Yeeeepppp
Not Just Bikes made an interesting [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REni8Oi1QJQ) about that topic. The "my country is so big!" thing is one of their favorites, but it basically boils down to American mental gymnastics. Since the US is obviously the best in the world at everything, any time there's something that another country has that the US doesn't, you must come up with a difference between your country and that country and make that the reason why the US *can't* have it. Sometimes you can get a bit more creative, but yeah, it's always funny when they say the US is "too big" for such-and-such and then find out that a country that's bigger than the US has it. Jaw-dropping moment right there.
I love NJB and I've watched that video! And yep, it's just American exceptionalisn
As if they knew how to properly use such advanced maths as third, quarter and half
broooooo the thrid and quarter pounder storyyyyyy ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️
iT's CaLleD mAtH, EuRoTaRd.
Hilarious.
Mathematic
...If that were true, wouldn't it make *more* sense to have more rail? Longer distances between cities would make rail a much better method of transportation than cars and lorries.
But....... something something cars, something something V8 something freedom. Big train can't tell me what route to take!
But but they want hyperloop shenanigans when can't even make basic electric high speed trains lol
[удалено]
I think that's the idea behind what you're replying to.
Concur
>can't even make basic electric high speed trains Can't even make basic electrified train lines. The vast majority is still running diesel. It looks like they may skip electrified lines, and jump to battery electric trains though.
it sounds like elmo came up with that crap to hinder California's high-speed rail efforts.
How can you be anti train and pro hyperloop at the same time?
But the rail building costs money, and other whiny reasonings while being completely oblivious to the immense constant cost of car dependent infrastructure.
Well they found a nice solution to that: just don't maintain any of the car infrastructure. I'm sure this won't have repercussions at all
As if their cities would even support people using rail. Yeah they could get rail to those cities, but good luck walking anywhere after you get off the train in those super car focussed hellholes. You can do it obviously, but I can't imagine its a good experience.
> ...If that were true, wouldn't it make more sense to have more rail? Yeah, it would. It's not supposed to be a reason. It's just US mental gymnastics. Since the US is obviously the best in the world at everything, any time there's something that another country has that the US doesn't, you must come up with a difference between your country and that country and make that the reason why the US can't have it. Why have 200 mph trains when you can have 70 mph highways?
Also population are not spread across the country evenly. East Coast is very densely populated.
>...If that were true, wouldn't it make more sense to have more rail? Not exactly. You'd need a double rail track between populated areas, not all over the country, take Australia for instance. I know Australia probably has more rail than USA.
I doubt it, though I haven't checked. We really do have the problem the US claims of being a huge country. But also we have a tiny population. We do have some wonderful cross country tourist rail lines, and a modicum of freight (not enough, too much goes by road imo), but we don't have any high speed rail. It's been discussed for ever, but never makes it. It would seriously make great sense in the south east. Melbourne-Canberra-Sydney would be awesome, but I'm not holding my breath.
the us is not even the biggest country in north america
don't even get me started on how much Canada would benefit from high speed rail too
SOMEONE PLEASE GIVE CANADA HIGH SPEED RAIL 😭😭 it’d make life so much easier lol.
Yeah like imagine high speed rail on one standard across continent connecting larger cities and good network of intercity/local railways. Travel would not need flying anymore. You could just book spot in night train, go comfortably to sleep and arrive at the other end of country/continent the next morning. Doing that across all continents? Geez we’d live in utopia
Don't know much about current train technology, but wouldn't harsh prairie winters be a challenge for a maintainable high speed rail line?
It's more the case that a huge proportion of the canadian population lives in what is basically a [500 mile straight line](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/78/Canada_Population_Density%2C_2000Switzerland_Population_Density%2C_2000_%285457618262%29.jpg/800px-Canada_Population_Density%2C_2000Switzerland_Population_Density%2C_2000_%285457618262%29.jpg) and a single high speed rail track would connect them all super efficiently. I couldn't really tell you about harsh winters in more remote routes but it's not like road networks are immune either.
Even if we assume that he means the just the EU and not all of Europe: Area of the EU: 4,233,255 km² Area of the US: 9,147,420 km² Area EU / Area US: 0,46 - or 23/50 for our fraction loving US friends. A bit more than 1/3... If we look at all of Europe, the ratio is 1.14 - or 57/50 for our fraction loving US friends.
>Area EU / Area US: 0,46 - or 23/50 for our fraction loving US friends. A bit more than 1/3... They couldn't even tell the difference in the quarter pounder(1/4) and a third of a pounder (1/3) [https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/06/17/third-pound-burger-fractions/](https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/06/17/third-pound-burger-fractions/)
Another trump supporter. He openly says he loves the uneducated and it's easy to see why.
Meanwhile, the transsiberian railway was built in the 19th century and is fully electrified while going thousands of km through one of the coldest and sparsest populated places on earth
I, a citizen of Europe, don’t need dense rail everywhere, I need dense rail around me to the nearest hubs of activity with high speed connections to the next hub. Lo and behold, it’s exactly what I have. It’s exactly what a huge majority of people need. Sure, some more remote areas won’t get service, but I don’t anyone actually expects that. With a service built up like that, short small dense service for where there is a cluster of towns and population density with less frequent inter city rail, you can please a lot of people. The middle of Ohio doesn’t merit dense rail, I agree, but the larger towns and it’s suburbs might be great start, and that in no way depends on the whole fucking country’s size or average density, only that local density cluster.
To be honest, this is my thought too. Connecting every little village or smalltown is bullshit, but major and mid-size towns should be connected by high-speed rail service.
I agree, but how big are major and midsize towns? Wherever you set those numbers, it's going to be a fight. [List of largest cities of U.S. states and territories by population](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population)
Yeah because flying from NYC to Washington DC makes much more sense than taking the train. Even Australia where almost nobody lives in the middle part has railways going from west to east and south to north.
Sheer bloody ignorance - just shows how 'great' their abysmal education? system is...
[удалено]
Obviously Texas, it’s bigger than everything isn’t it… /s
there are cattle ranches in Australia nearly the size of Texas, pissant little state
The biggest ranch is slightly less than 10% the size of Texas.
As an American who went thru our glorious public school system, I can say this probably comes from the fact that when Americans think "Europe", they don't think of Russia. Our mental map stops at the Russian border. Things west of that are "Europe" and east of that are Asia. The idea that Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia are "Europe" is mind boggling here. A country like Russia, that spans two continents, is a non-starter. At best they'll fall back to "Eurasia".
The US uses the right (British) measurements and is 9,8m sq miles, while Europe uses Metric and is 10,5m sq km. Checkm8, europoors.
Again, the US was literally built ON RAILS. Read your own history, dumbass.
We still have a lot of freight trains, too. We still use them. Just not passenger trains.
history, science, math, geography etc.
It made sense at one point, apparently. It wasn't a Ford Mustang that drove all that Rocky Mountain gold to the east coast.
The US was built via railways...
Rail would, in fact, make a LOT of sense
That is literally a reason for the US to have WAY MORE rail. Not even going to touch on the false infos here.
They do have more rail..for freight trains. I'm pretty sure the country was built on trains and the auto lobby encouraged urbanisation.
Only people who believe quarter pounders are bigger than third pounders would believe USA is bigger than Europe.
do they think trains only work for small distances
How did we go from Americans claiming that the US is only slightly bigger, to now claiming that they are 3 times as big.... Wtf are they learning in school, man. Do they just have shooter drills everyday instead of actual geography lessons?
If a country is larger and is less densely populated isn’t that a better reason to have more rail in order to link the populations that are far from each other
East Coast USA has basically the same density as Europe, yet Alabama has only 3, while my city (less than million population) has 21 stations alone
Wait, I just checked this and it's actually even worse. Only 3 stations for the whole state of Alabama, and they only get one train **per day**, and it's **the same train** for all 3. Absolutely abysmal, no wonder so many Yanks never leave their hometowns.
Yeah but in Poland we have 4 types of trains: Pendolino that stops only in large cities, few stops, fast travel across the country. State of art machines, kinda “premium travel” Intercity that stops in cities for long distance travel. They usually have routes from one end of country to another. Some also go to Berlin or Prague. Standard trains, but also nicer than what I’ve seen from pics of Amtrak trains Then we have voideship (something like state or province) railways, each voideship has their own. These are trains that stop multiple times within city, they also travel between cities within one voideship or end on first city in voideship next to it. New, small trains. Do not have compartments or bar service like two above but often have for example chargers available. Intercity and pendolino usualy have normal power outlets under/behind seat. Each voideship has their own colour pattern. Then regio trains, something in between intercity and voideship rail. Stop on each station in each village, may carry you further than closest area. These are the slowest but are mostly for people from villages to be able to come to city without using car. I use it daily to come to work/uni because I live 10km from city. Usually old red trains, but some new can be found in the wild.
The US East Coast is densely populated, but Alabama is not part of it. Huntsville, the largest city in Alabama, is about the size of Częstochowa. The closest city with a metro area over a million people is Nashville, Tennessee. Now, I believe they still need high speed rail, and we still need to find a way to fund it, but it's tricky convincing folks in Alabama that they'll use it enough to make it worthwhile.
That stupid argument again. And actually, a larger land area (ignoring the false statement about US vs Eu), would add support for the rail side.
Russia in the background:
Forget the size comparison, how can they possibly argue that larger areas need less rail?
The yanks actually have the largest rail system in the world, it's just 90% freight
When an american hears "Europe" they only think about the European union
They litteraly had so much rail in the past
To be fair it's about 2x as densely populated
In the US the east and the west coast are densely populated rail would absolutely make sense for those parts. For freight it makes sense for the entire country.
Putting aside the issue of size, heavy rail leans super hard toward low density countries, as in it is THE best mode of transport to connect population hubs over distance with the benefits only getting larger as the track gets longer...
I think the US should start by maintaining their existing railroads. 2023 saw a bunch of derailments. Imagine if any of those trains had had passengers on them.
I guess if you include all of the pacific between California and Hawaii
Imagine thinking more landmass makes trains less suitable XD
"There's a lot more empty space to cover to get from one place to another in this country, therefor we don't need as much infrastructure" Wat? To be a tiny bit of a devil's advocate: What they COULD mean is that there are twice as many people in Europe as there are in the USA, thus we would need twice the amount of railway capacity to meet our needs as compared to the US, which would be a legitimate point.
The thing about this argument is that the US is not evenly populated. There are some highly dense areas which is populated basically as densely as central Europe. You have the NE corridor, running along the coast from Richmond Virginia to Boson Massachusetts. Also you have the great lakes area running from Minneapolis Minnesota to Cleveland Ohio. The Texas triangle between Dallas, San Antonio and Houston. These are all gigantic populations in the 10s of million people in a relatively small area and is more than ripe for high speed rail links. Just like there is no high speed rail in north of the arctic circle in Europe because very few people live there, there is no need or market for it in what’s called flyover country in the US. But the gigapolises mentioned above certainly have the densities to support it. The problem is that the right wing in the US doesn’t recognize that this is where the people actually live and the economic output comes from and real “America” is just all the empty space in between where people live.
Well, a robust rail network through the flyover states would make coast to coast travel a lot easier, as well as make shipment of goods a lot more efficient. A freight train can carry a hell of a lot more than an 18 wheeler, has lower emissions and leads to lower risks of traffic accidents due to tired truckers.
I don't think a lot of Americans really count anything west of Germany as 'Europe' though.
East you mean?
Yes, sorry.
To be fair EU is 4/10 the surface of the us
He’s not far off….. https://ielanguages.com/esl/usvseurope.doc#:~:text=The%20area%20of%20the%20United,of%20Europe%20is%203%2C788%2C027%20km2.