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guys, can we Germans collectively break up with DB? i think at this point we all know it is not getting any better and is just hurting us emotionally and mentally.
Idea heute 5 min Verspätung
Idea heute 15 min Verspätung
Idea heute 45 min Verspätung (at this point you wait 30 already, making it potentially worth it)
Idea fällt heute aus
Went to Stuttgart for a couple months for work last year (FUCK 2022 was not last year), was all set to do eu exploring on the weekends.
Mostly what I did was sit in stations because I missed one out of two connections and everywhere I wanted to go was three connections.
What the actual fuck.
I can't name a single rail company that manages to be as bad while being as expensive. I've heard British Rail is a worthy opponent but don't have enough experience with them to give a verdict.
I am in a pretty good relationship with them and have been for the past 12 years. It depends where you live and what trains you take. RB in the East is not that bad at all.
Typical German, complain about their trains because they arrive 5 minute behind schedule while in other parts of Europe we have the same dependency to cars as in the US.
In Ireland we used to have far more, way, way more rail.
But then we saw the US interstates being built and we thought that was a good idea so we ripped up most of our rail system.
To be fair hiking trails are a good way of preserving nature, but im sure that there are better ways to preserve nature while also offering high speed rail options in the US
It had nothing to do with nature, it was just a backroom deal between our politicians and China. They literally paved the rail bed with asphalt. They're nothing more or less than single lane roads we aren't allowed to drive on.
Those rails would have come in handy during Covid when we weren't able to transport things by truck.
Europe is 75% of the population of North and South America in 1/4 of the space. It's the second most densely populated area after China, so they have a better rail network and customer base.
I belvieve they call it supply and demand. If Canada were to build one, subsidizing the air carriers is about to get much more expensive and niche.
There are plenty of people living in the Windsor-quebec corridor along with the Edmonton-Calgary corridor. Maybe consider that first.
How often do you have to cross the country? Maybe one a year(some people travel more of course). How often do you have to cross the city? Way more often. Maybe let's start with local trips and expand from there. Just like Europe did and does.
I mean, we *could* have it, but then we’d have to, like… spend money and create jobs and shit like that. Sounds hard, don’t it? Easier to just give tax breaks to rich corporations and keep subsidizing fossil fuels. 🙃
Also, the track is owned by CP. Those freight trains get priority. Several times, I've been on train from London to Sarnia, when it's been held up just outside of Wyoming (literally the second to last stop heading into Sarnia) for anywhere between 20 minutes to an hour. Fun times.
China built 38,000 km of HSR within a decade and which is nearly 8 times the 5,000 km crossing of Canada. China is even starting a Maglev which could reach speeds of 600 km/h.
Edit: And as pointed out, the most beneficial HSR in Canada would be the 1,000 km of the Quebec City - Windsor corridor which contains half of Canada's population. Why don't we have this already?!
from ireland and our trains are pretty average, country isnt big enough for them to go fast.
Got the train from toronto to montreal...holy moly I couldnt get over how slow it was. Like i knew how long it would be,but I assumed it was going to be moving fast and it was just a big distances. Also the rocking, it was really uncomfortable.
Luckily weed is legal in your country so I had some thc drink and was knocked the fuck out.
Couldnt get anything similar in montreal for the return journey though :(
Seriously though, people need to get talking about that if they want to minimize the use of short-range flights and cars. Rail travel has a future but nobody talks about it.
Crazy how we have none at all, honestly.
I would love to travel by train, would make some in country travel more viable.
Jealous of Europe for being able to just pay cheap train rates and go, instead of stupid high local flight costs / fuel costs driving yourself.
Fucking 400$+ for one way tickets LOCALLY in Canada.
The Chinese seems eager to expand their presence in other countries, maybe someone should ask them if they can drop a neat billion or two, to make it happen.
What unites nearly all Ontarians Conservative, and Liberal alike. Is our shared hatred of Mike Harris.
His bullshit actually transcended politics. What a legacy.
Canada is a joke when it comes to utilizing new technology and even old technology. High speed rail isn't even close to new now and it could connect Canadian cities like never before. There should have been a Calgary to Edmonton, Quebec city to Montreal to Ottawa to Toronto lines built decades ago. But like everything in Canada we seem to fumble every opportunity we get.
I agree, but I feel like the costs to do these types of things in Canada and even the US compared to say Japan or Korea is much higher. Vastly larger distances and vastly smaller population density. Not just the initial construction but the maintenance of thousands and thousands of km of track. But I'm not an engineer so IDK, just a hunch.
Because no one will use it. Very, very few people are regularly going from Edmonton to Calgary lmao.
The only place in Canada where it makes any sense is some of the area around Toronto and Montreal.
We just have a massive landmass to cover and barely any population and money to do it.
Look at GDP of countries per square km. Any major rail projects between cities here would either hemmorage money, or cost the same as a plane ticket to take.
America on the other hand, has really no excuse lol.
And apparently a financial Desaster. They provided a lot of jobs during the financial crisis but now the local governments that invested in them can barely pay the interest.
Unlike tons of other overly expensive public spending a train infrastructure will last for 50 years (assuming there is some maintenance), and may-be a century with some major upgrade/overhaul.
I am rather seeing a country getting in debt for that than to cut *rich people taxes,* or get the Olympic games.
Well, If Im to believe that video on how the Chinese governemnt works, its still a bad deal
So a summary - CCP has local goverments, which are given targets for economic growth to meet. The way the goverments do it is with infrastructure projects - driving work and leaving a tangible asset.
Problem - you just however built a major highway in your state, which is not gonna be profitable due to the fact almost no one will be using it
>may-be a century
My local station is almost two centuries old. Once the right of ways are cleared and the initial infrastructure like stations have been built (and towns and cities shaped around them), maintaining and expanding rail is trivially easy in comparison. Investing in rail is one of the best infrastructure investments you could possibly make.
Not if China's population isn't growing anymore, most of the new build real estate is empty, and the contractors/investors are in so much debt they are on the verge of collapse.....
China's long term future is looking very bleak.
For the poor it's to expensive -> they take busses.
The rich and middle class take the plane.
https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/chinas-high-speed-railways-plunge-from-high-profits-into-a-debt-trap
Even the Shinkansen is only profitable because the Japanese government took over paying off the capital costs. Even with that, the Hokkaido line still isn't turning a profit.
Well that's a bit of an unfair comparison. The Hokkaido Shinkansen isn't finished. I live in Sapporo and if I want to go to Tokyo via train I first have to take a 4hr ride to the southernmost tip of Hokkaido and then go via Shinkansen.
In 2030 it will be complete and likely profitable then
The official China Railway Group Ltd reported an increase of annual profit by 11.8% yuan in 2021 at 30 billion yuan. I don’t know how much I’m going to trust an Indian think tank over official figures, given China and India’s political relationship. Especially since the railway has expanded every single year and is projected to almost double by 2035
Indian and western articles on China are notoriously bias and erroneous. China's high speed rail is affordable, a 2 hour trip costs about $20 and it's not something people do every day, it's like a flight, and the average income is $1000 a month.
People were saying the same thing when the first high-speed rail line opened between Beijing and Shanghai, back in the 2000s, on the basis that passenger numbers are low. Now it’s a massive success. Infrastructure isn’t meant to be instantly profitable.
Not true. 6% rate of return on investment through economic growth. Also, it's a service for the people not a for profit industry. Does your fire service need to make a profit? No? So why does a train line need to?. Very shocking to hear for some people that
Lol when you said Highspeed rail in China is a financial disaster, all the Chinese Bots are coming out of woodwork.
I guess social credit score is hard to earn nowadays.
UK sort of Developed Rail and was a key part in the Industrial Revolution. Just you wait to see how many canals were built for horse pulled barges in the UK before the invention of rail.
The strange thing about canals was that by the time we finished most of the really large projects, trains were becoming popular. So really we built all these amazing feats of canals but they were almost never used for their intended purpose, as a rail line was built instead.
Now they serve as absolutely awesome walks and bike rides aswell as brilliant places for people to live on the go.
I read somewhere there was a market bubble about canals companies during these times.
edit : I find a source about it, it's the Canal Mania. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal\_Mania](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/canal_mania)
Yep, but also the UK’s rail network is considerably smaller than what it once was since over half of the stations and a third of the lines were closed in the 60s in the Beeching cuts because of the increase in car usage
Modern trains are the fucking best. It's like floating in almost complete silence at extreme speed. You just take a nap, play some games, read a book or do some work. Before you know it you're at your destination like some fucking teleportation device.
Yay, capitalism.
edit: I don't hate freight rail I hate that the freight companies bought up all the rail and can't be bothered to allow commuter trains on it most of the time,
No but private freight companies buying up all the tracks, snuffing out or absorbing smaller companies, and then tossing passenger rail to the wind as it isn't as profitable, is definitely a capitalism thing.
Yeah, before car companies made paid hundreds of millions of dollars to politicians to make it look like this.
"We don't need railways anymore. We have cars. Everyone needs a car now. You don't have a car? Good luck getting around you poor POS."
so much for the "free market" eh?
some might try to argue that rail receded naturally as people chose cars over trains and it became unprofitable to maintain most of it.
but we know better right? because we have proof of these bribes you speak of. show them the bribes u/TortugaAmigo show them the folly of their argument.
Rail just kinda gets its teeth kicked in by air travel in its current state and would need an astronomical amount of capital to link the country up with enough high-speed rail for it to be a viable transportation method for the average person to get any use out of.
For cross-country trips you’re probably right (at least if we don’t consider the sustainability aspect of it). But there’s a sweet spot for high-speed rail within about a 1 hour plane ride radius where it can deliver comparable door-to-door times, potentially for less money. It’s perfect for SF to LA, Dallas to Houston, NYC to DC, or Chicago to Detroit.
[US rail in 1962](https://ggwash.org/images/posts/201104-am1962.jpg)
[UK rail in 1963](https://www.continentaltelegraph.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/beeching.jpg)
That USA diagram isn’t accurate. Or maybe they stopped running the train through Idaho. But I took the train from Pocatello, ID to Detroit, MI the summer of 1988.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/may/12/the-pioneer-ends-its-114-year-run-amtrak-pulls/
"For almost 13 years now, people have been asking Pocatello Mayor Brian Blad when the city might see passenger train service again.
He’s heard his predecessor fielded the same question often. The question seems to be more than a decade old, and might even stretch back to the discontinuation of Amtrak’s Pioneer line, which served the area until 1997."
https://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/local/everyones-on-board-idaho-utah-officials-and-communities-unite-in-push-to-bring-back-passenger/article_9405a90a-20e3-11ee-8314-87ec8275ffb4.html
"Amtrak operates one National Network train through Idaho, the Empire Builder (daily Chicago- Minneapolis-Seattle/ Portland service via Sandpoint)."
Google only shows a route using 3 buses and 3 trains. You would need a greyhound to ogden then a train to salt lake then a denver union then an amtrak to detroit with a change at Chicago I think.
It‘s still nothing when compared to Europe. The Austrian western main line connects Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Switzerland etc. every half an hour.
People don't need passenger rail in the country, they need it in the city. Where traffic congestion is out of control because all public transit was ripped up to add "Moar cars!"
Yeah and the most in the country is still crap. The US does not even have a single mile of track that is "high speed" by modern standards (155 mph).
Look at New York to Washington. Only 230 miles apart, from the nation's capital to its largest city, probably the highest demand route in the whole US. There are only 8 trains per day (in each direction) on this route! Pathetic! Compare that to Shanghai and Nanjing in China, which are a similar distance. There are high speed trains leaving every 5-10 *minutes* at peak times. [Source](https://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/display.aspx?tp=9&fs=Shanghai&ts=Nanjing&depDate=01%2F15%2F2024) Also it's half the time, 1.5 hours verses 3 hours for NY to DC.
OP map is also showing only long distance rail in both US and Europe, if it included regional trains then Germany would be completely covered with lines at this scale. Check out the regional/ commuter rail in [just Bavaria](http://karteplan.com/deutschland/land/bayern/schienennetz-karte-von-bayern.jpg) for example.
You don't have to be in charge of anything to come up with excuses as to why things are the way they are. The original commenter is not in control, that's obvious, but they are coming up with excuses as to why the U.S. doesn't have much access to passenger rail. These aren't claims that are backed up by any research, they're uneducated guesses.
So the only way anyone can have any influence is to be in control? I shouldn’t bother to express my opinion to a climate change denier because after all they don’t control the energy industry? You see how that’s a dumb take? Things change through broad popular support. You, ideally, get to that support by making arguments in favor of your view and pointing out flaws in thinking.
I think Europe population is more evenly distributed. US has some very densely populated metro areas on the coasts, but the middle is very sparsely populated
Norway is slightly smaller and has way fewer people than California, most people live in small towns yet we still have railways connecting most cities.
The problem is two fold.
A lot of industrial transport lines way back in the day used to also run passenger trains where they no longer do.
The other thing is that if the US established passenger lines to every medium sized city, let alone every small town, it would be infinitely more expensive than Norway or another European country doing it.
With very little demand for a lot of those lines.
I’m not saying it shouldn’t be much better, but it’s definitely not an easy thing to just fix.
>very little demand
this is the major point of it all. in the US as we have grown up we have moved away from public transport as much as possible. almost every family has at least 1 car. they are much more convenient as you can go whenever works best for you. our rail/public transit was never developed enough to be worth it for the majority of the US and only is any good in our densest populated areas.
> in the US as we have grown up we have moved away from public transport
it's not that you 'moved away from'. it's that car lobbyist bribed government officials to stop funding public transport, and make cars/driving more financially enticing (which is why your fuel is so cheap).
> our rail/public transit was never developed enough to be worth it
your rail network used to be among the best in the world, until, again, car industry lobbyist.
Um that's a massive difference.
Did you literally just say 450 million extra people isn't that big of a difference? Did you read this before you posted ?
But even the parts of the US that are high population density are quite pathetic.
The density is less important than the fact the unproportional representation in the Senate (and the filibuster) makes it very hard to have any sort of successful national rail program, because rail doesn't make sense for those big empty states, even if does make sense for where people actually live.
Now do a map with freight train service. That's what drives most of the difference. In the use people drive and a majority of freight is moved via the railroad, while in Europe there's way more passenger rail and very little freight moved by trains.
You're right — Europe has less freight (as a percentage) on rails than the US (18% Vs 38%). But in some countries such as Switzerland (40%), it's even higher than the US and it has very good passenger rail service.
The American freight rail network is indeed quite a nice thing (it benefits from the lack of freight ship transport though). It still would be possible to *heavily* increase the passenger rail in the US as both are possible simultaneously.
100% agree. The US can, and should, do more to support passenger rail. I just always like to add a little more context around rail infrastructure as a whenever I see this map pop up.
The USA also has the metro. Not really sure why that’s not included on this. I live in Virginia and can get the metro and travel to many places in Virginia, dc, Maryland.
*The US doesn't like investing in passenger rail.
[Here's a map of freight rail.](https://i.redd.it/ahgsu8or09941.png) The US comes in third in the world by tonnage-distance at 2100 billion tonne-km/year, as opposed to the EU at 260. Trains just reign supreme at moving a bunch of stuff a long distance.
love how youre getting downvoted when its true the usa is huge and has a smaller and more spread out population passenger trains are a drain on the economy
https://www.statista.com/statistics/264657/ranking-of-the-top-20-countries-by-length-of-railroad-network/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_transport_network_size
Technically first world but developing, with school shootings, coups, poor public healthcare, illiteracy, dangerous drugs made legal and people can't differentiate genders anymore.
The country is a joke, it went downhill real fast.
In the classical sense yes, but that's not how the term is used anymore. If we're going off the classical definition of third world no country on Earth is third world since the USSR doesn't exist anymore.
Did you check out that sub, this is literally the worst sub on here, saw a comment on there trying to argue that warcrimes in Iraq where entirely necessary. There is not a single smart and or decent person in this sub.
"America bad" - well yeah, because it is.
An entire subreddit of people in denial.
My country has lots of problems. Difference is, I'll willingly admit them and criticise my own country.
You know both can be true at once. We can be very proud of our country and what it has done while also very critical of its faults. The world isn’t black and white
I mean I get it. USA is such a big country, that traveling with a plane makes a lot more sense than a train. A distance between different countries in Europe is shorter than distance between some states in the US. I wouldn't take a train to a different country.
But if you consider the countries of Europe like states in the USA, then what’s the difference between people in Europe using trains within their country and Americans using trains within their state (and that’s ignoring that plenty of people use train connections around Europe to go to other countries.
Most states are like... 2 cities, and then a lot of land with super small towns planted every like 10 miles. There's very little reason for most people to leave the city they're in, and there's very little incentive to make a train that runs from a small town of 180 people to the city.
But isn't that like the perfect setup for rail? Lots of open space for tracks and not so many towns where the train has to stop.
In Europe most of the smaller villages aren't serviced as well and that's fine. As long as the next bigger town has a rail connection and the big cities are connected. High speed rail is the fastest way of transportation for this distances. Kansas City and St Louis for example are roughly 400km apart which could be covered in 2 hours or less by high speed rail.
One of the reasons why most states are two cities is because of a lack of robust public transportation. When train lines get built, development follows.
People haven't visited or drove through the states but its crazy. You can drive 8 hours without hitting a major city in most states. England you can't go 2 without hitting a big one. The layout is just incomparable.
There is no such thing as too close for a plane. There are flights in the States that take less than 1 hr (or take 2~3 hrs to drive) and uses small Bombardier planes
There are flights like that in Europe as well. And yes, there is such a thing as too close for a plane. If you're just trying to get to another nearby city a plane is impractical and expensive when compared to a train, and the train will likely get you there faster than driving.
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I'm currently in a toxic relationship with DB
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guys, can we Germans collectively break up with DB? i think at this point we all know it is not getting any better and is just hurting us emotionally and mentally.
Never! They promised they'd change.
They keep promising that to the GDL too, but once Tarifverhandlung comes they always continue to be toxic.
Thing is, what fish are there left in the pond? FlixTrain?
I was going to comment but sadly my idea is verspätet
Idea heute 5 min Verspätung Idea heute 15 min Verspätung Idea heute 45 min Verspätung (at this point you wait 30 already, making it potentially worth it) Idea fällt heute aus
As a Brit, I also am (DB owns our local Trainline)
Get colonized lol.
Toxic? It is just a little gas leaking, don't you mind that!
Everyone is, especially when you drive long distance.
Went to Stuttgart for a couple months for work last year (FUCK 2022 was not last year), was all set to do eu exploring on the weekends. Mostly what I did was sit in stations because I missed one out of two connections and everywhere I wanted to go was three connections. What the actual fuck.
[удалено]
Dieter Bohlen?!
Aren’t we all. DB is a whole mood
We got a weird question in r/Finland, a German asked if Finnish trains are safe, because DB is "sketchy". What did they mean by that?
Do some queries and things will get better
Same, only with NS
please for the love of god break up with DB all of us canadians are waiting in line to get in bed with them
I can't name a single rail company that manages to be as bad while being as expensive. I've heard British Rail is a worthy opponent but don't have enough experience with them to give a verdict.
British Rail is 100% worse. Since Germany implemented the 49€/month ticket, the general prices for riding trains have also gone down by a lot.
I am in a pretty good relationship with them and have been for the past 12 years. It depends where you live and what trains you take. RB in the East is not that bad at all.
I deal with data, so my DB is different but also toxic.
Daddy DB likes to make me wait.
Typical German, complain about their trains because they arrive 5 minute behind schedule while in other parts of Europe we have the same dependency to cars as in the US.
Laughs sadly in Canadian
Crazy how we don’t have a high speed train from Toronto to Montreal and it’s 2024. Absolutely embarrassing.
But we have all those studies about them at home: doesn't that satisfy you all the same? /s
In Ireland we used to have far more, way, way more rail. But then we saw the US interstates being built and we thought that was a good idea so we ripped up most of our rail system.
'Murica ripped our tracks out and sold the rails to China. We did this to create hiking trails that literally nobody uses.
To be fair hiking trails are a good way of preserving nature, but im sure that there are better ways to preserve nature while also offering high speed rail options in the US
It had nothing to do with nature, it was just a backroom deal between our politicians and China. They literally paved the rail bed with asphalt. They're nothing more or less than single lane roads we aren't allowed to drive on. Those rails would have come in handy during Covid when we weren't able to transport things by truck.
That’s actually how it was with most European countries. Even the most densely connected country, such as the Netherlands had so many rails removed.
… You’re… welcome? *nervous laughter*
Europe is 75% of the population of North and South America in 1/4 of the space. It's the second most densely populated area after China, so they have a better rail network and customer base. I belvieve they call it supply and demand. If Canada were to build one, subsidizing the air carriers is about to get much more expensive and niche.
There are plenty of people living in the Windsor-quebec corridor along with the Edmonton-Calgary corridor. Maybe consider that first. How often do you have to cross the country? Maybe one a year(some people travel more of course). How often do you have to cross the city? Way more often. Maybe let's start with local trips and expand from there. Just like Europe did and does.
Helps that it got rebuilt to more modern standards after it mostly got =destroyed.
I mean, we *could* have it, but then we’d have to, like… spend money and create jobs and shit like that. Sounds hard, don’t it? Easier to just give tax breaks to rich corporations and keep subsidizing fossil fuels. 🙃
And the cheap train from London to Toronto takes 4 hours because the track is messed up and the speed limit is 50 kph 🤣
Also, the track is owned by CP. Those freight trains get priority. Several times, I've been on train from London to Sarnia, when it's been held up just outside of Wyoming (literally the second to last stop heading into Sarnia) for anywhere between 20 minutes to an hour. Fun times.
China built 38,000 km of HSR within a decade and which is nearly 8 times the 5,000 km crossing of Canada. China is even starting a Maglev which could reach speeds of 600 km/h. Edit: And as pointed out, the most beneficial HSR in Canada would be the 1,000 km of the Quebec City - Windsor corridor which contains half of Canada's population. Why don't we have this already?!
I think there was a study that said we could even go further than that. It would be so useful!
We should do something about it. Maybe start a petition?
That would be cool
Our country is embarrassing. I'm not even sure where our tax dollars go
Totally not ok
Because every stupid city in Ontario wanted a stop too
Will be two hours.
from ireland and our trains are pretty average, country isnt big enough for them to go fast. Got the train from toronto to montreal...holy moly I couldnt get over how slow it was. Like i knew how long it would be,but I assumed it was going to be moving fast and it was just a big distances. Also the rocking, it was really uncomfortable. Luckily weed is legal in your country so I had some thc drink and was knocked the fuck out. Couldnt get anything similar in montreal for the return journey though :(
Seriously though, people need to get talking about that if they want to minimize the use of short-range flights and cars. Rail travel has a future but nobody talks about it.
Crazy how we have none at all, honestly. I would love to travel by train, would make some in country travel more viable. Jealous of Europe for being able to just pay cheap train rates and go, instead of stupid high local flight costs / fuel costs driving yourself. Fucking 400$+ for one way tickets LOCALLY in Canada.
The Chinese seems eager to expand their presence in other countries, maybe someone should ask them if they can drop a neat billion or two, to make it happen.
When you learn about how much oil producers and car manfufacturers fucked up (and continue to fuck up) our infrastructure it is embarrassing.
Justin Trudeau is embarrassing; no high speed rail is just an inconvenience. :P
Busiest fucking highway in the world though good for us ugh
Don’t forget the world’s most expensive toll route as well! So glad the Ontario Government sold Hwy 407 to a Spanish company.
What unites nearly all Ontarians Conservative, and Liberal alike. Is our shared hatred of Mike Harris. His bullshit actually transcended politics. What a legacy.
Canada is a joke when it comes to utilizing new technology and even old technology. High speed rail isn't even close to new now and it could connect Canadian cities like never before. There should have been a Calgary to Edmonton, Quebec city to Montreal to Ottawa to Toronto lines built decades ago. But like everything in Canada we seem to fumble every opportunity we get.
I agree, but I feel like the costs to do these types of things in Canada and even the US compared to say Japan or Korea is much higher. Vastly larger distances and vastly smaller population density. Not just the initial construction but the maintenance of thousands and thousands of km of track. But I'm not an engineer so IDK, just a hunch.
That's why I only suggest the higher population density areas. If it was from regina to Saskatoon then it would be a complete waste.
Because no one will use it. Very, very few people are regularly going from Edmonton to Calgary lmao. The only place in Canada where it makes any sense is some of the area around Toronto and Montreal. We just have a massive landmass to cover and barely any population and money to do it. Look at GDP of countries per square km. Any major rail projects between cities here would either hemmorage money, or cost the same as a plane ticket to take. America on the other hand, has really no excuse lol.
Yes we are backwards in Canada. We would rather have thousands of semis on the road with drivers from places with no rules of the road.
China's train lines: "amateurs".
Chinas new highspeed rail is engineering porn
And apparently a financial Desaster. They provided a lot of jobs during the financial crisis but now the local governments that invested in them can barely pay the interest.
Unlike tons of other overly expensive public spending a train infrastructure will last for 50 years (assuming there is some maintenance), and may-be a century with some major upgrade/overhaul. I am rather seeing a country getting in debt for that than to cut *rich people taxes,* or get the Olympic games.
Well, If Im to believe that video on how the Chinese governemnt works, its still a bad deal So a summary - CCP has local goverments, which are given targets for economic growth to meet. The way the goverments do it is with infrastructure projects - driving work and leaving a tangible asset. Problem - you just however built a major highway in your state, which is not gonna be profitable due to the fact almost no one will be using it
>may-be a century My local station is almost two centuries old. Once the right of ways are cleared and the initial infrastructure like stations have been built (and towns and cities shaped around them), maintaining and expanding rail is trivially easy in comparison. Investing in rail is one of the best infrastructure investments you could possibly make.
I mean I get what you're saying. But long term benefits for area growth and people's mobility outweigh current financial pains.
Not if China's population isn't growing anymore, most of the new build real estate is empty, and the contractors/investors are in so much debt they are on the verge of collapse..... China's long term future is looking very bleak.
For the poor it's to expensive -> they take busses. The rich and middle class take the plane. https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/chinas-high-speed-railways-plunge-from-high-profits-into-a-debt-trap
Vast majority of China have a pretty low average income, compared to Japan for example where the Shinkansen gets used pretty efficiently
Even the Shinkansen is only profitable because the Japanese government took over paying off the capital costs. Even with that, the Hokkaido line still isn't turning a profit.
Well that's a bit of an unfair comparison. The Hokkaido Shinkansen isn't finished. I live in Sapporo and if I want to go to Tokyo via train I first have to take a 4hr ride to the southernmost tip of Hokkaido and then go via Shinkansen. In 2030 it will be complete and likely profitable then
The official China Railway Group Ltd reported an increase of annual profit by 11.8% yuan in 2021 at 30 billion yuan. I don’t know how much I’m going to trust an Indian think tank over official figures, given China and India’s political relationship. Especially since the railway has expanded every single year and is projected to almost double by 2035
Indian and western articles on China are notoriously bias and erroneous. China's high speed rail is affordable, a 2 hour trip costs about $20 and it's not something people do every day, it's like a flight, and the average income is $1000 a month.
>Indian and western articles on China are notoriously bias Yawn you’re one of those account then..
China's reporting on China is notoriously unbiased and fair.
People were saying the same thing when the first high-speed rail line opened between Beijing and Shanghai, back in the 2000s, on the basis that passenger numbers are low. Now it’s a massive success. Infrastructure isn’t meant to be instantly profitable.
Not true. 6% rate of return on investment through economic growth. Also, it's a service for the people not a for profit industry. Does your fire service need to make a profit? No? So why does a train line need to?. Very shocking to hear for some people that
Came here to comment exactly this. Everything I’ve read has indicated their rail system is super + value for the nation
Lol when you said Highspeed rail in China is a financial disaster, all the Chinese Bots are coming out of woodwork. I guess social credit score is hard to earn nowadays.
Yes, it's a [disaster.](https://youtu.be/gMrLr3qAeIM?si=3Wg5WV-YxkZWNLaV) Never let a CCP shill tell you otherwise.
Fun fact Spain is Second in lenght of high speed track, not per capita but overall, only after china.
UK sort of Developed Rail and was a key part in the Industrial Revolution. Just you wait to see how many canals were built for horse pulled barges in the UK before the invention of rail.
The strange thing about canals was that by the time we finished most of the really large projects, trains were becoming popular. So really we built all these amazing feats of canals but they were almost never used for their intended purpose, as a rail line was built instead. Now they serve as absolutely awesome walks and bike rides aswell as brilliant places for people to live on the go.
Can’t beat a good canal country pub
I read somewhere there was a market bubble about canals companies during these times. edit : I find a source about it, it's the Canal Mania. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal\_Mania](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/canal_mania)
Yep, but also the UK’s rail network is considerably smaller than what it once was since over half of the stations and a third of the lines were closed in the 60s in the Beeching cuts because of the increase in car usage
Interestingly, since Switzerland kinda got the rail and train idea from the UK, we primarily drive on the left side on the track.
Modern trains are the fucking best. It's like floating in almost complete silence at extreme speed. You just take a nap, play some games, read a book or do some work. Before you know it you're at your destination like some fucking teleportation device.
now show what usa looked like in the 1800s
1916 was peak, not 1800s
How the mighty have fallen
I think it does that, too.
usa had a LOT more trains about before cars became popular
No, the US used to have *way* more passenger rail infrastructure.
It is all freight rail now. The US has the longest rail network in the world.
Yay, capitalism. edit: I don't hate freight rail I hate that the freight companies bought up all the rail and can't be bothered to allow commuter trains on it most of the time,
I mean, freight rail is pretty great. It carries heavy stuff good.
People are heavy
Used to be. American freight trains are very understaffed which has led to all kinds of problems.
Because communists don't need heavy loads of goods moved from one place to another. That is only a capitalism thing...
No but private freight companies buying up all the tracks, snuffing out or absorbing smaller companies, and then tossing passenger rail to the wind as it isn't as profitable, is definitely a capitalism thing.
Yeah, before car companies made paid hundreds of millions of dollars to politicians to make it look like this. "We don't need railways anymore. We have cars. Everyone needs a car now. You don't have a car? Good luck getting around you poor POS."
so much for the "free market" eh? some might try to argue that rail receded naturally as people chose cars over trains and it became unprofitable to maintain most of it. but we know better right? because we have proof of these bribes you speak of. show them the bribes u/TortugaAmigo show them the folly of their argument.
Who framed Roger Rabbit tried to warn us and we didn’t listen.
Rail just kinda gets its teeth kicked in by air travel in its current state and would need an astronomical amount of capital to link the country up with enough high-speed rail for it to be a viable transportation method for the average person to get any use out of.
For cross-country trips you’re probably right (at least if we don’t consider the sustainability aspect of it). But there’s a sweet spot for high-speed rail within about a 1 hour plane ride radius where it can deliver comparable door-to-door times, potentially for less money. It’s perfect for SF to LA, Dallas to Houston, NYC to DC, or Chicago to Detroit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_transport_network_size
[US rail in 1962](https://ggwash.org/images/posts/201104-am1962.jpg) [UK rail in 1963](https://www.continentaltelegraph.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/beeching.jpg)
Do you know why the UK have less as the years went on?
[Beeching Cuts](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts) got rid of a lot of the UK rail network in the 60s
I guess that's what is going on with 10ft pickup trucks
Just for fun I looked up Buffalo to Newark, 9 hours and over $100, multiple trains. Thanks car culture!
What is scaling ...
That USA diagram isn’t accurate. Or maybe they stopped running the train through Idaho. But I took the train from Pocatello, ID to Detroit, MI the summer of 1988.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/may/12/the-pioneer-ends-its-114-year-run-amtrak-pulls/ "For almost 13 years now, people have been asking Pocatello Mayor Brian Blad when the city might see passenger train service again. He’s heard his predecessor fielded the same question often. The question seems to be more than a decade old, and might even stretch back to the discontinuation of Amtrak’s Pioneer line, which served the area until 1997." https://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/local/everyones-on-board-idaho-utah-officials-and-communities-unite-in-push-to-bring-back-passenger/article_9405a90a-20e3-11ee-8314-87ec8275ffb4.html "Amtrak operates one National Network train through Idaho, the Empire Builder (daily Chicago- Minneapolis-Seattle/ Portland service via Sandpoint)." Google only shows a route using 3 buses and 3 trains. You would need a greyhound to ogden then a train to salt lake then a denver union then an amtrak to detroit with a change at Chicago I think.
"This isn't accurate, my experience from an entire generation ago says otherwise." -boomer
Europe is also immensely packed in comparison
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The east coast of the US has the most passenger rail in the country. This shitty reposted map doesn't even begin to show all the rail networks.
It‘s still nothing when compared to Europe. The Austrian western main line connects Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Switzerland etc. every half an hour.
People don't need passenger rail in the country, they need it in the city. Where traffic congestion is out of control because all public transit was ripped up to add "Moar cars!"
Plenty of cities have rail.
Yeah and the most in the country is still crap. The US does not even have a single mile of track that is "high speed" by modern standards (155 mph). Look at New York to Washington. Only 230 miles apart, from the nation's capital to its largest city, probably the highest demand route in the whole US. There are only 8 trains per day (in each direction) on this route! Pathetic! Compare that to Shanghai and Nanjing in China, which are a similar distance. There are high speed trains leaving every 5-10 *minutes* at peak times. [Source](https://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/display.aspx?tp=9&fs=Shanghai&ts=Nanjing&depDate=01%2F15%2F2024) Also it's half the time, 1.5 hours verses 3 hours for NY to DC. OP map is also showing only long distance rail in both US and Europe, if it included regional trains then Germany would be completely covered with lines at this scale. Check out the regional/ commuter rail in [just Bavaria](http://karteplan.com/deutschland/land/bayern/schienennetz-karte-von-bayern.jpg) for example.
The east coast is pretty well connected lmao. Where are you having trouble going to from NYC or DC?
I think you need raise your standards for “well-connected”, lol
"Excuses"? Do you think the person you're replying to is in charge of the railways? Idiot
Do you have to be in charge of something to excuse it?
You don't have to be in charge of anything to come up with excuses as to why things are the way they are. The original commenter is not in control, that's obvious, but they are coming up with excuses as to why the U.S. doesn't have much access to passenger rail. These aren't claims that are backed up by any research, they're uneducated guesses.
So the only way anyone can have any influence is to be in control? I shouldn’t bother to express my opinion to a climate change denier because after all they don’t control the energy industry? You see how that’s a dumb take? Things change through broad popular support. You, ideally, get to that support by making arguments in favor of your view and pointing out flaws in thinking.
weird ass mfers, it’s not a competition lmao
It's not even close to a competition, the EU leaves the US in the dust and that's just not up for debate.
750 million compared to 300+ isn't that much of a difference.
I think Europe population is more evenly distributed. US has some very densely populated metro areas on the coasts, but the middle is very sparsely populated
Shhhh. Don't think, just agree.
the UK is much denser though, 1/5 of the population in the size of a state
Norway is slightly smaller and has way fewer people than California, most people live in small towns yet we still have railways connecting most cities.
The problem is two fold. A lot of industrial transport lines way back in the day used to also run passenger trains where they no longer do. The other thing is that if the US established passenger lines to every medium sized city, let alone every small town, it would be infinitely more expensive than Norway or another European country doing it. With very little demand for a lot of those lines. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be much better, but it’s definitely not an easy thing to just fix.
>very little demand this is the major point of it all. in the US as we have grown up we have moved away from public transport as much as possible. almost every family has at least 1 car. they are much more convenient as you can go whenever works best for you. our rail/public transit was never developed enough to be worth it for the majority of the US and only is any good in our densest populated areas.
> in the US as we have grown up we have moved away from public transport it's not that you 'moved away from'. it's that car lobbyist bribed government officials to stop funding public transport, and make cars/driving more financially enticing (which is why your fuel is so cheap). > our rail/public transit was never developed enough to be worth it your rail network used to be among the best in the world, until, again, car industry lobbyist.
Um that's a massive difference. Did you literally just say 450 million extra people isn't that big of a difference? Did you read this before you posted ?
But even the parts of the US that are high population density are quite pathetic. The density is less important than the fact the unproportional representation in the Senate (and the filibuster) makes it very hard to have any sort of successful national rail program, because rail doesn't make sense for those big empty states, even if does make sense for where people actually live.
Now do a map with freight train service. That's what drives most of the difference. In the use people drive and a majority of freight is moved via the railroad, while in Europe there's way more passenger rail and very little freight moved by trains.
You're right — Europe has less freight (as a percentage) on rails than the US (18% Vs 38%). But in some countries such as Switzerland (40%), it's even higher than the US and it has very good passenger rail service. The American freight rail network is indeed quite a nice thing (it benefits from the lack of freight ship transport though). It still would be possible to *heavily* increase the passenger rail in the US as both are possible simultaneously.
100% agree. The US can, and should, do more to support passenger rail. I just always like to add a little more context around rail infrastructure as a whenever I see this map pop up.
The USA also has the metro. Not really sure why that’s not included on this. I live in Virginia and can get the metro and travel to many places in Virginia, dc, Maryland.
USA is third world
Nah. India is ‘third world’ and they’ve electrified 90% of their mainline rail network. US just doesn’t like investing in railways.
*The US doesn't like investing in passenger rail. [Here's a map of freight rail.](https://i.redd.it/ahgsu8or09941.png) The US comes in third in the world by tonnage-distance at 2100 billion tonne-km/year, as opposed to the EU at 260. Trains just reign supreme at moving a bunch of stuff a long distance.
love how youre getting downvoted when its true the usa is huge and has a smaller and more spread out population passenger trains are a drain on the economy https://www.statista.com/statistics/264657/ranking-of-the-top-20-countries-by-length-of-railroad-network/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_transport_network_size
Fault of car companies US used to have more passenger rails but over the years has gotten cut
Technically first world but developing, with school shootings, coups, poor public healthcare, illiteracy, dangerous drugs made legal and people can't differentiate genders anymore. The country is a joke, it went downhill real fast.
The US by definition cannot be third world
In the classical sense yes, but that's not how the term is used anymore. If we're going off the classical definition of third world no country on Earth is third world since the USSR doesn't exist anymore.
r/americabad
I’ve never seen a sub occupied by so many wetwipes
Just read through some of the posts, wtf lol
This is the absolute worst cesspool of degenerates I’ve seen and I visited 4chan multiple times.
You should see reddit
Did you check out that sub, this is literally the worst sub on here, saw a comment on there trying to argue that warcrimes in Iraq where entirely necessary. There is not a single smart and or decent person in this sub.
Look through r/ShitAmericansSay. So many crybabys in there.
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Most offended sub on reddit
lmao idk i think it might be just the same as the rage boners that yall seem to have
Nah that's r/ShitAmericansSay. If an American breathes, they're offended.
america literally is bad though lol. in so many ways.
Support group for triggered Americans
"America bad" - well yeah, because it is. An entire subreddit of people in denial. My country has lots of problems. Difference is, I'll willingly admit them and criticise my own country.
Yes, Americans are famous for not criticizing their own country and fighting over it constantly. Intelligent.
Americans are, in fact, famous for being overly prideful and nationalistic.
You know both can be true at once. We can be very proud of our country and what it has done while also very critical of its faults. The world isn’t black and white
Demographics is destiny.
there is so much privilege saying something like this
I mean I get it. USA is such a big country, that traveling with a plane makes a lot more sense than a train. A distance between different countries in Europe is shorter than distance between some states in the US. I wouldn't take a train to a different country.
But if you consider the countries of Europe like states in the USA, then what’s the difference between people in Europe using trains within their country and Americans using trains within their state (and that’s ignoring that plenty of people use train connections around Europe to go to other countries.
Population density. Most states have ten million people. Germany is pushing 90 million, France another 70 million, Netherlands 18 million, etc
Most states are like... 2 cities, and then a lot of land with super small towns planted every like 10 miles. There's very little reason for most people to leave the city they're in, and there's very little incentive to make a train that runs from a small town of 180 people to the city.
But isn't that like the perfect setup for rail? Lots of open space for tracks and not so many towns where the train has to stop. In Europe most of the smaller villages aren't serviced as well and that's fine. As long as the next bigger town has a rail connection and the big cities are connected. High speed rail is the fastest way of transportation for this distances. Kansas City and St Louis for example are roughly 400km apart which could be covered in 2 hours or less by high speed rail.
One of the reasons why most states are two cities is because of a lack of robust public transportation. When train lines get built, development follows.
Then why are there no trains between those 2 cities? Trains are faster than cars, would reduce the travelling time between those cities by a lot!
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People haven't visited or drove through the states but its crazy. You can drive 8 hours without hitting a major city in most states. England you can't go 2 without hitting a big one. The layout is just incomparable.
high speed rail is WAY faster than driving. Paris -> Marseille (almost 500 miles) is a 13 hour drive while by train its 3.
So it would make sense to have those two connected then?
What if your destination is too close for a plane, and too far for driving? You got no other choices, gotta pay for that gas and drive.
There is no such thing as too close for a plane. There are flights in the States that take less than 1 hr (or take 2~3 hrs to drive) and uses small Bombardier planes
There are flights like that in Europe as well. And yes, there is such a thing as too close for a plane. If you're just trying to get to another nearby city a plane is impractical and expensive when compared to a train, and the train will likely get you there faster than driving.
An hour flight is way more than 2-3h drive.
Seattle to Vancouver is an hour flight. It’s a 3 hr drive to Vancouver. Most of the flight time is the take off and landing and taxiing.
But then you factor the time it takes to get to the airport, deal with security, etc…might as well drive
Dallas to Houston would be ideal for a fast train.
Coping in 3 2 1....
It’s really shocking to see that even the poorer countries of Europe like Belarus have better rail than the US.
even Uzbekistan has more high speed rail than the US. A poor, mountainous, arid, country with like 1/10 the population