With air travel there's also the latent fear of a terrible death at 35k feet.
But I am also pretty comfortable picturing lethal highway or railway catastrophes.
What's with the greyed-out lines between e.g. Minneapolis/St. Paul and Seattle?
A high speed train line from Boston to Cleveland not going through New York is madness.
Also, once again I am bemused by the faith exhibited in the petition process. Surely the official response will be something like "Nice map. We'll put our best man on it.".
4: I see two routes from Boston to Cleveland, one of which goes through New York.
It's the scenery, coupled with the deep and abiding pleasure that your selected mode of travel drives the wingnuts into apoplectic fits.
One method of transporation I find oddly stressful is routes where the bus/subway shows up every 15 minutes, rather than at scheduled times. I start feeling like, at T minus [whatever], I should be doing every last little thing faster and faster, so that I can maybe make an earlier bus. Don't walk down the block to the bus stop, run! What if it's about to turn the corner! Etc.
There've been periods of my life where that's been part of my daily routine, and I never got into a habit of self-soothing myself that SHUT UP, IT'S 15 MINUTES, HEEBIE. I think I might have more perspective if it were part of my routine now.
6: Right, one is a good idea, and one is madness.
the deep and abiding pleasure that your selected mode of travel drives the wingnuts into apoplectic fits.
True. Except the times I've been on a train semi-recently, they've been completely booked full and it's not exactly the SWPL-arugula crowd doing so to be more artisanal.
Which is neither here nor there. I just mean, I'm suspicious that some of those train riders might vote Republican.
Are there any high speed train lines anywhere in the world going through anything remotely like Sacramento to Portland? It's just not sensible.
6: Right, one is a good idea, and one is madness.
Because no one would want to go from Boston to any of the places on the mad line without stopping in in Manhattan first?
routes where the bus/subway shows up every 15 minutes, rather than at scheduled times.
How is that not having scheduled times?
On the other hand Chicago to NYC but not to DC. Somebody who understands this better than me tell me how that makes sense.
Like, it's not published that the bus will sit at my stop until 1:07, then I can't plan my day to arrive at exactly 1:05 and be fine.
A train from Chicago to Memphis which doesn't stop in St. Louis, and a separate train line to St. Louis? Someone must have made a map like this that isn't stupid at some point.
I'm not exactly sure why flying feels so stressful compared to a train.
For me, it's mostly the air. I always get ridiculously dehydrated no matter how much water I drink, and I usually end up with a sinus infection, and I often seem to pick up some other germy illness as well. Air in airplanes is gross.
I'm not exactly sure why flying feels so stressful compared to a train.
The extra space is a pretty big factor, people naturally get wound up when packed into a small space. And trains aren't subject to the whims of weather like planes are. You're not getting that feeling of doom as the blizzard worsens when you're riding a train.
8: NextBus really makes a world of difference in terms of making bus travel way less stressful. I'd much rather have trains/buses come half as often but be able to locate them by GPS. This drove me crazy in New York.
Although eyeballing that legend, it looks like it would still take 20 hours to go from San Antonio to Chicago.
I believe there may be something wrong with your eyeballs, madam. Not more than 10.
I'm not exactly sure why flying feels so stressful compared to a train.
Airports. More stressful than railway stations by several orders of magnitude.
Our experience traveling by train versus airplane with kids were hardly even comparable. Space, freedom of movement, and freedom of movement. Did I mention the freedom of movement?
I'm not exactly sure why flying feels so stressful compared to a train.
For me, it's the pace, and the limited space on a plane: you know you're in for a regimented routine, hup-hup-hup-hup, bump that luggage through the narrow aisle on the plane, heave it up into the overhead compartments pronto, fit in in there, come on, people are waiting behind you, get a move on. Similarly with debarking. A train, on the other hand, can begin to move without everyone being all settled and strapped in yet. Mellow.
Relevant, although the headline writer got it wrong. The times displayed on Grand Central's departure boards are wrong -- by a full minute. This is permanent. It is also purposeful.
I hate flying because,
- I'm tall enough that if I don't get an emergency exit seat, it is really uncomfortable,
- I frequently get sick afterwards,
- there is no way to escape screaming babies,
- I'm probably irrational here, but the fake security really, truly pisses me off,
- there is something more soothing about trains, so when it isn't a rush work thing, I'd rather take the train and actually make it through a non-fluff book. The trip itself becomes something more than an unpleasant means to an end.
By comparison, here's the old Obama plan. It still has some pretty questionable routes, but it doesn't have the same batshit craziness as this map.
I'd love to see what this artist would do with a map of Europe.
Also 220mph is really really fast. In Europe it appears that only Barcelona to Madrid and Paris to Strasbourg run that fast. The idea that we're going to put in a faster train between Sacramento and Portland than exists between Amsterdam and Paris is really nutty.
Yes, I much prefer the map in 26 as a vision of what routes to invest in now. Past a certain distance, high-speed rail isn't competitive with air travel, stressful though the latter is. (The HSR Strategic Plan sees it as most practical in corridors 100-600 miles.) Even in Japan, if someone is traveling the full length of the archipelago, they're more likely to take a plane.
Maybe this would change with a carbon tax, I'm not sure. But metro-corridor HSR would be best if the goal is to displace car travel in the short-to-medium term.
The map in 26 makes it possible for me to imagine that there's only one stop between SF and Chicago, which is nice.
Although the map doesn't show the mountain ranges, nonetheless they exist and they explain many of the route choices.
The map follows current antrak lines for the most part. The Boston/Albany/Rochester/buffalo route to Chicago is basically flat from Albany forward, while the route through nyc and Philadelphia winds through the mountains of pennsylvania, so it takes much longer from boston. Also the Northern route goes through a high population area with totally shitty weather, so train service is really useful.
Similarly the route from dc to Chicago is mountainous through west virginia to Cincinnatti, and not practical for high speed service.
How many overnight high speed rail routes are there? It seems like the European ones are all same-day trips.
28. Yes, In Europe or Japan high speed rail can sensibly cover most of the continent/country because they're so densely populated the metro cities are only a few hundred miles apart. The logic for the US is completely different.
While I find air travel generally to be more stressful than train (largely because of the rigamarole before you actually get on the plane, not the flight itself), I am always incredibly anxious that I am going to miss my stop on the train. My train trip from Gatwick to my hometown a few months ago was disrupted because of a suicide, to harken back to the last train thread. Completely exhausted, I got onto my fourth train of the night, without even being sure that it was the *right* train, and then spent the next hour worrying that I was going to end up in Manchester. But I even get nervous that I'm somehow going to miss my stop on the Tube or BART because I can't understand the conductor (which is silly for many reasons). That's not really possible with flying, or at least not any of the flights I've ever taken.
I loved my cross-country solo train trip that I took when I was 13. It was fantastic.
Boston to Chicago via Montreal? Where do I sign?
Hrm, you're right, I'd forgotten that to go from NYC to Chicago by train quickly (e.g. before plane travel existed) you go through up state New York. So that's not as crazy as I'd thought.
I wish there was some indication that many of these lines are not going to run at 220mph. The reason that you'd want the upstate New York line is because it can run faster. But the map is presented under the delusion that they're running 220mph everywhere.
30.2: Yes, basically you have the two main routes from New York City west, the New York Central's "Water Level Route" which merged with the main route west from Boston in Albany, and the Pennsylvania Route which winds along rivers between the ridges and goes over the Alleghenies at the Horseshoe Curve.
The route from Chicago to Memphis is the northern half of the famous Illinois Central from New Orleans to Chicago which did not go to St. Louis. Agree that it is not a great candidate for high-speed.
Alternatively, however, on the Obama map, if you put high-speed from the East to Buffalo and Pittsburgh, don't know why you don't do the relatively short extensions to Cleveland to connect into the Midwestern system.
I think the Beijing-Guangzhou high speed line is probably the longest (about 1,200 miles I think) with some pretty long stretches between major cities.
How do the Buffalo to Chicago via Cleveland or Canada routes compare? Hamilton/Toronto seems like an actually sensible place for high speed rail.
A fast train that gets into that swaying, rocking motion? Always, always makes me think about sex.
Air travel not so much.
I'm not exactly sure why flying feels so stressful compared to a train.
It's the uncertainty that really gets to me about flying. Thanks to the airlines' policy of never telling the passengers anything, you just have no idea when you'll actually reach your destination until you get there.
If the information board says that a train will be 5 minutes late, chances are very good that it will, in fact, arrive five minutes late. If the board says that the flight is delayed by 15 minutes, you have no idea whether that really means 15 minutes or whether this is the first of a long series of delays that will end up being 5 hours.
The fact that Canada also doesn't have high speed rail makes me think the constraints really are more geographic than political.
38: They way they show it going up to Toroto does not make sense, but you might hook up at Hamilton (although the more direct Buffalo-Detroit line stays more along the northern Lake Erie shore). It is about the same distance as going via Cleveland south of the lake. I do think it was one option during the heyday of passenger rail (might have been the Grand Trunk Railway).
Canada has like a hundred and thirty people in it.
Sifu beat me to it. Canada has less people than California.
There aren't many people, but half of them live on a single line!
Sure, but trains cost a lot. France has more than double their population.
Wikipedia says the Quebec/Windsor corridor has comparable population density to the the Rhone river valley TGV line.
At any rate, I'm not saying that high speed rail in Canada makes sense, but it certainly makes more sense than all but a handful of routes in the US
Figuring out the air/train travel stress thing is interesting. I think past a certain point, so long as you're concerned with getting somehwere reasonably quickly, sheer length of traveling alone is stressful -- ie even a fast train route over long distances sucks if its like 10 hours in and you're still not at your destination. But if you really have nothing better to do and aren't immediately worried about getting somewhere train beats plane every time.
I think genuinely long distance cross country train travel in the US has no future or purpose other than as a kind of tourist attraction for enthusiasts. But figuring out the longest reasonable distance in a world constrained by higher jet fuel prices is interesting. I'd say NY to Chicago is still too far even at 220 mph unless jet fuel pricing gets completely prohibitive.
Certainly Montreal-Toronto should have high speed rail before Albany-Buffalo.
I mean, obviously at genuinely an average of 220 mph for the whole route it would be fine. But max speed of 220 mph is not that.
Are there any high speed train lines anywhere in the world going through anything remotely like Sacramento to Portland? It's just not sensible.
I'm not sure I know what specifically you're referring to with "high speed train lines", but the ICE in Germany stops in towns like Göttingen. I think you've got a weird idea about how large European cities are.
Back in the day, the 20th Century Limited (NYC Chicago express via the Water Level) was 16 hours overnight (6 PM -> 9 AM going west, you "lost" 2 more hours when going eastbound). Sort of a longish red eye. At *best* you would cut it by 2/3rds to say 6 hours, and not even that if you had to rely on aggregating passengers in Albany/Buffalo/Philly/Cleveland (depending on route) rather than going straight through. So I think you only capture a fraction of that traffic.
52: I assumed he meant the distance between them (~600 mi) without all that much population in between.
53: I mean, how long would Manhattan to the loop via LGA and Midway be? Not that much quicker.
Are there any high speed train lines anywhere in the world going through anything remotely like Sacramento to Portland?
Avignon (pop
It's also often more stressful to get to an airport than to a train station, given that airports are generally on the outskirts of cities and train stations more centrally located.
55: Maybe a traveling cube farm with breakout rooms. The Work Train.
Fucking HTML. Avignon (pop. c. 95K) has a direct high speed connection to London in summer.
As it turns out, I've recently taken the ICE to Göttingen.
First I think you're underestimating how few people there are between Sacramento and Eugene. Second, I'm not saying trains shouldn't stop at small cities that happen to be between large cities. You want some train running from Frankfurt to Hamburg, and they way they set it up in Germany is pretty reasonable. It might very well make sense for a fast train on a Chicago/Indy/Cincy line to stop at Lafayette, but that's quite different thing from a Sacto/Eugene trip.
58: In some places (*cough* Pittsburgh *cough*) offset by the lack of good transfer capabilities to other modes of transportation. Urban core to urban core with good urban transit on both ends does make the most sense, and potentially extends the viable distance per Tweety's 55. In my biz, unfortunately, a lot of travel is to/from suburban office parks.
I like that plan. It would really make the common trips that everybody takes (like Pittsburgh to Omaha) easy.
Seriously people, Avignon just happens to be one stop before the second largest city in France.
Seriously people, TGV from Marseille to Paris stops at Avignon, not at Lyon. Why? God alone knows. Makes no sense, but there it is.
Beijing to Guangzhou is a good idea, but it turns out those cities in between are weirdly big.
To head off the obvious objection, certainly if you're going to have a high speed train between SF and Seattle, then it should stop in Sacramento and Portland. But that doesn't actually mean anyone's going to take that train.
Which is to say, I'm sure there's another route that goes through Lyon, but the one that goes via Avignon doesn't. The Eurostar however terminates at Avignon. Logic would dictate terminating at Lyon or going through to Marseille; it does neither.
I think the fact that this map has (so far) not been making the rounds of my planning friends on FB speaks to how unrealistic it is.
Is the planning community deeply concerned about how there is no direct Pittsburgh to Omaha connection?
Not that I know of, but I don't have a whole lot of connections in those two cities.
Isn't part of the problem that at the distances that genuinely make sense for high-speed rail -- things like Chicago to Detroit or LA to SF -- douchey governors who hate trains can foul things up? And Congress seems weirdly attached to things like the Texas Eagle and the Sunset Limited, where nobody in their right mind would ever want to take a train.
I can add nothing to comment 1.
Interesting article on Canada's situation here. Apparently they have some of the same problems with not-straight-enough tracks that the US does, though presumably that is itself a symptom of lower public willingness-to-pay.
A study on the subject. Something like a 300 km/h route from Montreal to Toronto seems to have the greatest NPV. (Interestingly, the biggest benefits other than revenue they calculated were public safety and consumer surplus, with only a little benefit in reduced atmospheric emissions.)
Ok I can add a little something, having read some comments and having spent a gazillion hours on a train, which is that as much as I like it (and not only because it saves me from imaginary horrible death), rail travel has some complete maddening stressors of its own. Overnight trips really are somewhat uncomfortable if you're in coach, and coach is the only affordable option on most routes. Um, and sometimes you're twelve hours late, not only because trains are one way to kill yourself, but also because freight lines (did we already talk about this?) own the rails and universally have right of way over passenger trains. And they never, ever tell you anything about why you are delayed or how long it is likely to last.
My worst train trips ever were:
1) the one where the outlets weren't working and everyone was huddled around the bathrooms which did have working outlets, charging their phones, and a flood made the rails impassable in Bumblefuck, Arkansas so we were put on buses after enormous delays.
2) the one where we were enormously delayed due to tornadic weather and trees across the track in the middle of the night and then hit a person trying to cross the track in Missouri and waited hours and I got home a day late
3) Yesterday, parts of which were fine and parts of which neart made me force my way off the train and spend my vacation at my parents' place in DC
Runner up: oh actually this may have been #1 again but anyway whichever trip I had the poor sense to ask the question "so what is it that makes you want to live off the grid?" Never ask anyone that. An hour later I simply walked away because he wouldn't pause long enough for me to say "I have to go stick my finger in one of those lovely working bathroom sockets now."
And Congress seems weirdly attached to things like the Texas Eagle and the Sunset Limited, where nobody in their right mind would ever want to take a train.
Yeah, I've never understood that. Maybe related to all the rural congressional districts the long routes pass through?
On the question of a high-speed Sacramento to Portland route, here's a detailed examination (from a few years back) of the challenges by a smart German amateur.
53: the Twentieth Century is the most romantic of all American train routes! The very best cocktail is named after it, as is a charming Howard Hawks film with Carole Lombard and a musical based thereon that is possibly the very best musical. (Its original cast featured John Cullum and Madeline Kahn, both musically and comically perfect.) The train itself, now the Lakeshore Limited, tends to be more or less on time, though it's now twenty hours. (Lyrics to opening number of musical notwithstanding. "New York in sixteen hours!") In both directions you pass the dreary stops, the ones where Dawn Powell's protagonists come from--Elyria, Sandusky--overnight and get to see the Hudson and, depending on the time of year, the Eerie Canal, by daylight.
Best train.
It's also the train in North by Northwest, right?
The Twentieth Century, aka the Rusty Nail.
I believe you mean the Twentieth "Brooklyn" Century.
The best part of that train was traveling by sidecar.
80 is always how I remember that was an overnight train.
So lets have some bullshitty back of the envelope calculation. NY to Chicago is what, about 800 miles? I think the Acela's average speed is about 80 mph, at best. Say you did way better on the route* and got up to 110 mph average, you're still looking at a 7.5 hour train ride instead of a 1 1/2 hour flight.
*not that I actually know anything about this, but I also recall from somewhere that passenger train travel into Chicago runs slowly because it's still a gigantic freight rail hub.
I think flights from NYC to Chicago are more like 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Add in 45 minutes to an hour to get out to the airport, and the hour+ early you have to get there before your flight, and it's no longer a 6-hour difference. Now sure, no one's going to take the train from NYC for a meeting in Chicago that day and train it back that same night (or from Boston, as my mother-in-law semi-regularly does). But if more of your travel time is actually usable (sitting in your relatively comfortable train seat, with wi-fi, instead of going through security, lining up at the gate, etc), it might even end up making sense for some travelers.
84.2: So lets have some bullshitty back of the envelope calculation
Or you could read comment 53 and Tweety's followup. But perish that thought.
I don't see a Sacramento to Portland route on that map that's not part of a longer route. If you want high speed rail continuously between California and Washington, you'll have something like a Sacramento to Portland section. Talking about it as if there's just a Sacramento to Portland route seems kind of dumb. Running high speed rail from LA to Seattle also seems dumb, so it probably doesn't matter much.
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I have now been asked by one lady and one gentleman to show my dick for beads. I did not enter into this informal contract, but was pleased to be asked.
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68 to 87
The web says its between a 90 and 110 minute flight, which is consistent with my memory.
Also, when I've worked in NY with lawyers from Chicago, they often did it as a day trip -- leaving from Chicago to get in for a 10 am meeting, leaving to go home to Chicago at 6. They'd presumably be the core audience for a high speed rail trip (busy people going from one downtown to another) but I don't think you could possibly arrange high speed rail travel to maintain the Chicago to NY business day trip. Maybe that's wrong.
88: The snowstorm brings out the strangest things in New Yorkers.
92: Their dicks are their strangest things?
There's also lots of talk about an LA to Vegas high speed train, which is a good idea in theory but current plans have it starting in California in Victorville (aka the desert) which seems like ... an incredibly bad idea. Also it will be the party train in one direction and the crushing hangover/venereal disease train in the other.
So, wait, how did we get off on this idea that business day travel is terribly important to the case for high speed rail? The Acela to NYC from Boston is probably too long for business day travel (and not even all that fast) but it's pretty solidly booked pretty much constantly.
... and it siphons off plenty of business travel, at that, just people who stay a night.
94: and it's past the biggest traffic chokepoint. That is very stupid indeed. Is there some last mile plan where people will rent burros to take them over the mountains into LA proper or something?
the Eerie Canal, by daylight
... mist rising from the weirs, the shades of the laborers congregating in industrial ghost towns ...
I know people who take the Acela to NYC for business day trips.
This riding the train essay just popped up in my Twitter feed this afternoon.
It's also often more stressful to get to an airport than to a train station,
is very true. Also I love the extra room on a train, and being able to get up and walk around without feeling like I'm getting in other people's way.
On the other hand, I'm not afraid of flying, but I am slightly afraid of high speed rail. Moving at >150mph at ground level just *looks* dangerous.
Well, for a NY to Chicago high speed train to make sense, you have to have some reason why people would take it over flying, and downtown-to-downtown business people convenience (since business people are generally the ones who are (a) downtown and (b) doing a lot of inter-city travel). If a train route is substantially slower and also doesn't provide a basic convenience to those travelers, and also isn't cheaper, it's going to be basically just a tourist attraction for enthusiasts (as most long distance rail in the US is now). The question is whether NY to Chicago is at a distance where high speed rail could be competitive in anything like the current environment, and the answer seems to be probably not. Also whatever but you're wrong about the NY/Boston day trip (it's about a 3 hour 45 minute trip, which is just long enough for a day trip and one people fairly regularly do). The difference between a 4.5 hour NY-Chicago total (1.5 hour travel time, 1 hour waiting at the airport, 1 hour trip to the airport, 1 hour trip from the airport) and a 8.5 hour trip (7.5 hour travel time, 30 minutes to and from train station including waiting time) is pretty severe.
102: not all business trips are day trips. Not only business travelers want to go to city centers (in NYC?? In Chicago??). Tell me what the advantage of the NY/Boston Acela route (flight takes about 45 minutes, I think?) has over flying, by your calculation? Flying is definitely faster, and is no more expensive.
P.S. your travel time I think does not account for traveling at rush hour? Or is assuming O'Hare on one side, Kennedy and easy access to a cab, maybe? I don't buy it at busy travel times, is what I'm saying.
Also, a fast train that starts swaying and rocking? Makes me think of death, not sex.
20: I was thinking that all the stops would keep the legend from functioning properly, and also that it'd end up being bendier. But 10 hours from San Antonio to Chicago? Yes please.
Honestly I tend to agree that routes over six hours or so are not going to get a huge amount of business, just because six hours seems like sort of a psychological barrier as far as the amount of demostic travel time that people think of as reasonable (since you can get cross country in an airplane). N.B. I definitely have facts in mind here and am not just making this up no honest.
The thing is, and I know this point was made upthread, that we leave for the airport three hours before our flight, and we live 45 min away from the airport. (Granted, we're not the business travellers/our dollars don't matter.) On the destination side, we'll never arrive sooner than 1-1.5 hours after our flight lands. Everywhere we go requires a connection. So door-to-door, we're always looking at 10+ hours.
I know, we're not representative of squat.
108: I was in the middle of constructing a clever antiquity-based joke alluding to it plausibly being a mix of 'demotic' and 'gnostic' and then masterfully linking it to Tweety's declaration of "facts". But now it's ruint.
No, please do share your Folk Joke.
I am interested in this joke, JP, even though I know you'll disappoint me.
With support like that how can I refuse?
I would have gone with "roont" over "ruint" but that's just me.
114 gives the manner of your refusal, but I'm more interested in the "how" asking after your method.
Answer: like Teo. Be persistent, nosflow.
What does winning look like in this encounter? Must try to think.
You win by coming over and baby-sitting for the night. We love Unca Stormcwow.
That's why God created playpens, but I think they put you in jail if you use one now. Maybe just in Prospect Heights.
120: Deeply spiritual, yet redemptively common.
I let myself out of time-out to cook dinner but I'm still heavily dependent on the Dora-sedation.
122 is *not* the joke. It was much, much better.
Porn tumblr comment spam for the win: I have read a few just right stuff here. Definitely value bookmarking for revisiting. I surprise how much attempt you set to make the sort of wonderful informative website.
Also, a fast train that starts swaying and rocking? Makes me think of death, not sex.
Assuming a rational level of swaying and rocking, I end up asleep, and there's no thinking involved - that's automatic.
That can be helpful if I can plan for it, but normally it's not - I'd prefer a stimulative effect.
126.1 should have been italicized - that's YK, responding to jackmormon.
... and 127 was me correcting myself, not an anonymous nudnik.
Although Anonymous Nudnik would be a good pseud.
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Good god, I hate myself. I'm being so short-tempered and overreacting and not a good parent at all. This may be the worst single day of parenting behavior I've ever performed.
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130 Just explain to them that Mommy is feeling a little cranky because she's really tired. Of all people, they should understand tired and cranky.
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HTML tag lossage writ large (literally).
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130: Don't worry. You'll have worse days.
133 is great.
Also, be gentle with yourself. One evening of short-tempered does not make you history's greatest monster.
133: AIEEE I'M GOING INTO THE COMPUTER TRON WAS RIGHT
The web says its between a 90 and 110 minute flight, which is consistent with my memory.
Are you just subtracting departure from arrival time? Because you cross a time zone there. 2h 37 min is the shortest nonstop JFK-ORD that Expedia will find you.
Today I was short tempered with adults whom I don't know who cut me off intently. I would have followed except the family was in the car.
107: Three hours before! You're spending too much time in airports.
Possibly, I was inordinately irate because of negative associations with BMWs.
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And I think this shows that heebie was right about fashion. Or maybe not. But for some reason I find it kind of mesmerizing.
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139: I dunno. With parking, sometimes a shuttle ride, always checking luggage, security, diaper/potty/snacks, and not wanting to feel stressed, we end up having maybe 20 minutes at the gate before they start boarding, which is admittedly 30 minutes before scheduled take-off.
I'm about certain I'm going to take Amtrak up and back for the DC shindig. At $50 bucks each way, it's cheaper than gas+parking.
142: the guy on the far left is something special.
143: My childless brother used to give me pointless travel advice also.
135: "one evening" s/b "all week" but your larger point stands.
(not quite true. I was tired during the week but not taking it out on the kids until today.)
Belatedly, 62.1 As it turns out, I've recently taken the ICE to Göttingen. kind of cracks me up for some reason.
141: Just trying to see what I might have in my neglectful parent bag of tricks that would be age appropriate. That is kind of a useless age. A little young to ignore them while you play absorbing online computer games. Going out in the car, for sure. Wendy's! Lie on the floor like a lump and let them crawl on you unless that is uncomfortable at this stage. Videos are probably best (I guess they call them "discs" these days), however. Movies, so you don't have to change them very often. I think we had them hooked on Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and Peter Pan at that age. Maybe those stupid dinosaurs, too.
148: I saw Gauss's tomb!
AIEEE I'M GOING INTO THE COMPUTER TRON WAS RIGHT
At least you have instructions about what to do in case the thread breaks.
Lie on the floor like a lump and let them crawl on you unless that is uncomfortable at this stage.
That was my go-to when I just couldn't cope with amusing them. Just sit or lie on the floor in a room with toys out, and let them do whatever they were going to do. Didn't happen all that much, but there are definitely times when nothing you can actively do makes much of a difference, they just want you there.
Rory has so much experience with tired/cranky Mom that anytime I try to yell at her, she just says sweetly, "You seem tired. Do you need a hug?"
I guess Halford has been straightened out by now but yeah, 4.5 hour downtown NY to downtown Chicago by plane is just nonsense, for any of the NY airports and either of the Chicago airports. The flight is 2.5 hours, as Blume said. Even arriving 45 minutes before, to cut it a bit close (but could be okay if you're not checking a bag), that leaves only about an hour of ground transportation time for the two ends of the trip together. If you're fast and/or lucky with ground transportation, I could imagine it being marginally doable in 5.5 hours.
Despite it being a fast train, the trip was kind of a pain because unless you're coming/going to Frankfurt or Hannover you have to go way out of your way and also transfer. One direction the transfer was screwed up. Driving would have been faster, if I'd had a car.
155: Who said theoretical physics isn't useful?
Tomorrow shouldn't be as lethal. I've got an all day playdate at a friend's house, and then the baby-sitter is coming so that I can go to an interview candidate's dinner. I asked the baby-sitter to come a little early, too, so I could go to the library and play online grade papers.
But yeah, lying on the ground and being climbed on sounds totally awful at the moment.
137: you're right. That said, I'm not sure why Halford's wrong -- I think maybe he's thinking of time in the air? maybe? Regardless, I've done that flight more times than I care to remember, and not just because I try not to think about flying at all, and it's 2+ hours.
Going out in the car, for sure. Wendy's!
But also, there is something so great about fast food places, similar to Disney vacations: they're just designed to make your parenting super, super easy. We're lucky because we have the most awesome fast food chain ever, Taco Cabana's, but even a McDonald's with a playscape is sometimes a lifesaver.
And of course I'm pwned. I probably should have kept reading. Anyway, essear is also right in 155. Even assuming LGA to MDW, it's still 5+ hours of travel time if everything goes perfectly, which it never does on that route.
Anyway, the little stinkers are in bed for the night. Bust out the desserts!
Glad you have a break coming up. And there's no shame in extending the time with the babysitter so you can go eat ice cream.
This place has a potentially more feasible phased approach (at least the early stages might be more feasible). But I just don't really know how well it work between the "car cities". Don;t think you get enough pure downtown to downtown traffic, so you need parking and rentals.
I have to fly a week from tomorrow, then a week after that, and then three days after that. I've already begun not sleeping in honor of the upcoming occasion. Irrational fears are so fucking annoying.
I don't agree with this six hour cut-off business, either, because the "easily drivable" cut-off in the midwest is much longer than six hours.
Nobody would fly to New Orleans, for example, and that's an eight hour drive. Plenty of people go skiing in New Mexico because they can drive there, and I've never been but I'm guessing the drive is in the 12 hour range. Etc.
I'm glad that my irrational fear -- that spiders rain down from the sky -- is impossible.
167: fair enough. People drive to Mammoth from LA all the time and that's a good seven hours at least, so what the hell am I talking about anyhow.
Plenty of people go skiing in New Mexico because they can drive there, and I've never been but I'm guessing the drive is in the 12 hour range.
Albuquerque to Houston is 18 hours (and we used to drive it regularly when I was a kid), so 12 hours sounds reasonable for Austin to Santa Fe. Google Maps estimates about 11.5 using the most direct route.
In general, yeah, we used to do seven- or eight-hour drives all the time. In the West you sort of have to because so many places are far from major airports.
I hate Upworthy (the site where the map in the original post is hosted). They always have a pop-up to try to get you to sign some petition or other, and it's phrased in the most annoying language possible. "Puppies should be petted instead of kicked -- I agree/I disagree". I always disagree so I don't have to see a petition, so the Upworthy version of me is a moral monster.
Wait, Google Maps gives 14 hours for ABQ-Houston using the route we would take. I think I must have been misremembering. Anyway, it generally took two days.
Texans, the scourge of the southern Rockies.
Austin to Gainesville and Ann Arbor to Gainesville are the exact same distance drives, about 17 hours. That always seemed weird to me.
I'm pretty sure that if I lived in Chicago (which is in the midwest), and I wanted to get to New Orleans, I would fly, even if, unlike the last time I lived in Chicago, I owned a car.
Texans, the scourge of the southern Rockies.
Jammies spent about ten years in New Mexico saying he'd never live in Texas, because Texans are so goddamn obnoxious when they're there.
Or maybe I was just factoring in stops for meals and stuff.
179: I'm going to let you stew over the enigma of the implied qualifier in 167.
It's only fourteen hours, you fool.
Jammies spent about ten years in New Mexico saying he'd never live in Texas, because Texans are so goddamn obnoxious when they're there.
A common sentiment in the state.
I've been driven from Nebraska to Gainesville and back. I think we took three days, but we stopped at attractions and the like.
182: Neb doesn't understand demostic travel much, does he?
186: Tour of towns known primarily for their football teams?
In fact, the part of NM where Jammies lived is particularly overrun with particularly obnoxious Texans.
He went to high school there. He went to college down in Las Cruces.
179: I'm going to let you stew over the enigma of the implied qualifier in 167.
What, actually, is the implied qualifier? "Little bitches excepted"? It seems as if you're talking about the midwest and travel to New Orleans.
In fact these detached masculine pronouns are going to confuse the hell out of him I fear.
194: I guess I must have known that at one point. I'm not as familiar with Cruces, but I expect it also has a lot of Texans. They're probably not quite as obnoxious, though.
Do you want me to explain "let you stew"?
190: Visiting an uncle with seven of us in a van.
Oh, I guess there's a transition wherein you are talking about only places in the midwest that are eight hours or fewer from New Orleans.
Do you want me to explain "let you stew"?
I want you to be happy, heebs.
You may have to use your pre-existing knowledge of me as a non-precise writer to navigate these waters, young Neb.
I want you to be happy, heebs.
You're hitting on me, right?
202 is just. "Eight hours or less", or "eight or fewer hours", but never "eight hours or fewer". Good catch, JP. Strong work.
If my hitting on you will make you happy, then I'll hit on you.
But I won't like it.
I'd much rather have you babysit.
From each according to his ability, to each according to her need.
He low stew babyfew cruces, hit. Ability non-precise uncle van! Chicago overrun demostic attraction sentiment? Scourge!
145: the guy on the far left is something special
Coo, ducks, I didn't know you cared!
||
Seriously, a terrible superhero.
|>
My math ed friend just outlined a current thing going on somewhere - maybe NJ? - which struck me as interesting. The company that puts out the AP test apparently made a statement or something that they do not want any de facto rules keeping any students from being able to take AP classes.
Apparently high schools each make up their own rules about who takes AP classes, and some of them get extremely rigid: you can't take this class unless you've gotten all As in the subject, or gotten at least X on the PSAT, et.
The AP company doesn't like this because they make money off of students taking the test, so they want to be as inclusive as possible. The schools don't like that because their rankings are (at least partly) based on the ratio of students getting 4s and 5s out of the total number of students attempting the tests. And if their rankings fall, home values/taxes/less prestige/etc cascade could be set in motion.
So everybody is an money-motivated asshole! WHEE!
Clearly the solution is just to eliminate under-performing students. WIN-WIN!
I had this momentary surge of excitement when I thought 212 would lead to a story of Cory Booker, engaged in some absurd rescue attempt, accidentally stabbing a group of senior citizens to death with a single icicle.
She just tacked on a funny coda via text. Some of the principals cite protecting the students' self-esteem as a reason to exclude students who are expected to score a 3 or lower. How thoughtful of them.
I've done the same-day out-and-back thing from 91 in reverse a bunch of times. I used to do it regularly in under 5 hours when there was a flight from LGA's tiny and line-free Marine Air Terminal to Midway. Unfortunately now you can't fly nonstop from NYC to Midway at all, and O'Hare is of course a time-sucking nightmare (both at and to/from).
The same-day thing sucks, though. When I can, I get a nice dinner in Chicago and a hotel room, but then I still have to deal with an airport in the morning. I would totally get a nice dinner and an overnight train instead were that an alternative.
You can get a nice dinner on the train!
You can do your homework on the boat!
You can catch a fish with a car!
You can fool some of the people all the time!
And all of the people fewer the time!
Please. People or fewer, the time.
Things that I like better about trains:
1. Better air. Way, way better.
2. Space. Freedom of movement. Freedom to repeatedly change seats with others in my party (especially nice if there are small children around). Freedom to move away from loud/annoying/troublesome/creepy people.
3. I can read/work the entire time. No worrying about lights. No being told to shut my computer down. No interruptions for water/pretzels/etc. etc.
4. A bathroom that it is humanly possible to get a small child and an adult human being in at the same time.
5. Guaranteed no turbulance.
6. Effortless connection to other forms of transportation (and highly convenient to my home/office).
7. I can bring scissors, hand lotion, water, food, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, my Swiss Army knife, and other implements of destruction in any quantities I like.
8. No chance ever that I will be unwillingly bumped.
9. Total freedom to refund/exchange my ticket at any time. Predictable discounts for advance purchases. Plus, if I show up at the station early and get an earlier train, I can exchange my ticket and get an immediate refund (!!) for the price difference if the new ticket is lower cost.
10. Can book tickets for other people without knowing their birthdates.
11. No danger that I will have to put my luggage far away from me because the overhead compartment is jamemd with other people's luggage.
12. No danger that the conductor will force me to "gate check" my bag at the last minute, even though I have packed the most minimal amount possible, because other people have overpacked and filled up the plane.
Downsides of trains:
1. Sometimes you have to stand up. Not often, though.
2. Sometimes they are delayed (though not nearly as often as airlines, IME).
3. They take longer (most of the time).
4. They don't go as many places.
There's no contest. You might as well ask "Internet or television?"
219: I figured it would be "nice dinner and" or "dinner on", but sure, high-speed train service between NYC and Chicago and fine dining on the trains and a pony.
A pony would take fucking forever to get from Chicago to New York dinner or no dinner.
Another upside of trains over planes, is that you can bring your own good booze rather than paying too much for crappy stuff on a plane.
I don't think much of dining on trains, but that may be overly influenced by trips my wife and I have (separately) taken when they mostly or completely ran out of food. The one time when there was nothing left in the cafe car but Sam Adams and oatmeal cookies wasn't so bad, though.
A pony would take fucking forever to get from Chicago to New York dinner or no dinner.
It's about half the distance between St. Joseph and Sacramento, which the Pony Express covered in 10 days. So probably 5 days by pony.
230: Amtrak dining sucks. I have had sandwiches made with some pretty good ingredients on trains in Italy and Spain, though.
231: I thought they used regular-sized horses, despite the name.
230: the Surfliner in California is generally stocked with 22s of some kind of Stone beer, which is hard to argue with.
Don't argue with beers. Let beers argue for you.
I thought they used regular-sized horses, despite the name.
Yeah, probably. I don't actually know much about the Pony Express.
Or contrariwise maybe they found particularly tiny riders.
Of course you answered this one, internet. Of course you did.
It's not like they couldn't use ponies.
236: That's The Night of the Hunter
I... just don't even know what to think about this.
Or contrariwise maybe they found particularly tiny riders.
Yup.
WANTED. YOUNG, SKINNY, WIRY FELLOWS. NOT OVER 18. MUST BE EXPERT RIDERS. WILLING TO RISK DEATH DAILY. ORPHANS PREFERRED." -California newspaper help wanted ad, 1860.
Why yes, I am procrastinating on a grant proposal, now that you ask.
That site really captures the sensation of trying to read while somebody's hitting you in the face with a barber pole.
(Btw, for those of you who didn't click through, the ad is a hoax.)
But that said, I am happy to now imagine the Pony Express as essentially Rodeo Newsies.
Can you smoke on amtrak? Like between the cars or something?
Wikipedia's tooltips are not willing to just accept the ad as a hoax just like that.
251: you can just stick your head in those toilets they have.
Apparently you can only smoke on Amtrak if you bring your car.
How do I keep messing my links up?
If the site in 243 isn't weird enough for you, try this one (NSFW).
I should have known that was bronies.
I traveled a lot by Amtrak in grad school, but never further west than Pittsburgh. I liked that it was much less expensive than flying, that I didn't have to get there two hours before the train departed in order to depart, that I could move around on the train, that there was space and that I could get work done, that I could pack my bags how I liked and no one took them away and lost them for days, and that it went all up and down the Eastern seaboard and connected nicely in the center of cities where all the stuff is, including light rail lines to go to other places.
And one time a gay couple shared some vodka with me because I had some orange juice to share, which made Altoona-Pittsburgh go much faster.
Ponies, weird, and NSFW. Those were pretty big clues.
I have to travel to Philadelphia for business in April. Amtrak isn't even being presented as an option.
The only points-bearing credit card I have is Amtrak-based; trains are a clear winner for me. The oddest relevant fact is that the local station isn't consistently conveniently accessible by municipal bus - despite being operated by the transit authority that runs the bus system, whose HQ is in the train station.
232: It depends on the train.
The snack bar on the NE Regional is pretty bad, but I enjoyed the dining car on the lakeshore limited. (An overnight roomette for 2 cost about as much as 2 plane tickets, so we decided to end our vacation on a high note. The one time I rode Acela first class (I think I bought an upgrade voucher on eBay), the food was pretty nice, and the unlimited free drinks were nice too.
You can only smoke at longer stops on Amtrak. There used to be smoking rooms that looked horrific.
The dining situation is baddish. On the other hand they will make you a whiskey and soda for $7, a bargain by NYC standards and, as noted above, you can also sneak liquor on. I did it this week!
5. Guaranteed no turbulance.
I think it was going through Iowa at night where I had to take my wallet out of my back pocket because the train shook so much it was causing me actual pain. Some time later I remember hearing that Iowa (or whatever state) didn't do as much track maintenance as neighboring states and indeed the state we went into next had a much smoother ride.
Well, in the long long ago Amtrak used to have entire smoking passenger cars, which were the same as the other passenger cars, except you could smoke in them. Then they moved to the dedicated smoking room on the lower level of the scenery car, which made absolutely no sense to me since of course the smoke seeped up and the scenery car ended up being pretty smoky too if you're sensitive at all. Also there always seemed to be creepy guys camped out in them waiting for temporarily captive female audiences to appear. Now Amtrak is indeed completely non-smoking, and the last time I checked (which is at least four years ago) they would not tell you in advance which stops were long enough for you to get off the car for a smoke, you just had to wait and see which ones were announced as smoking stops.
Quitting smoking makes travel much, much more pleasant. It turns out I hate air travel almost as much without as with nic fits though.
Quitting smoking makes travel much, much more pleasant.
Very true.
Is joyslinger new? Has anyone sent a fruit basket?
Delurked in the Boston meet up thread last month. LB can send the fruit basket, since she's here.
The original fruit basket is now a 404 error.
Joyslinger, enjoy your fruit basket.
I had an awesome time riding the Empire Builder from NYC to Portland, OR in 1993. I hung out in the smoking car with a stripper and a gay couple who invited us back to their compartment to get hammered on cheap whiskey (or maybe it was vodka). Sadly (or maybe not) the stripper was on a quest to win back her ex-boyfriend so was not available, which is too bad since we got along famously and flirted the whole trip.
Has anybody used Megabus? I was only vaguely aware of them, but they have multiple daily routes between Durham and DC that would be cheaper and faster than the train.
275: Yes. They are a very good alternative in my view. Discussed here several times in the recent past (and specifically with regard to the meetup). Book early and get one of the super-low teaser fares (or 2 or 3 of them, although ethics questionable).
Mostly agree with 276, but the bus has some disadvantages:
1. Much less comfortable than Amtrak
2. Almost always late, especially to and from New York. NC to DC might be better.
3. Megabus often boards on the street, so that you have no shelter from rain or heat. Not sure if Durham and DC have real bus stations.
Some of Megabus's routes are actually just "code shares" with Coach USA, in which case there's no difference from what they were before. I like megabus, because the double-decker is nice and the plugs and wifi are great when they work (the latter maybe two thirds of the time), and their loading-unloading systems are better than BoltBus.
277: Does Megabus still load on the street in New York? As of a year ago, they'd moved to a different spot that I thought had coverings for at least the front half of lines. So you get shelter from rain, if not heat/cold. But they may have moved again since then.
Yes, the bus I took last month in NYC boarded on the street.
Oh yeah, it is firmly in the "you get what you pay for camp" (unless you get one of the teasers). And I am viewing it mostly through the eyes of my kids and their friends for whom it has been a godsend.
In Boston they all load at the station.
FWIW, I've found Megabus more comfortable than Greyhound, mainly because the double-decker means you're more likely to get two seats to yourself if you're traveling alone. Also, the clientele isn't quite as dire, presumably because you must book online in advance, which at least eliminates individuals who just escaped from prison.
I like Bolt Bus a lot more than MegaBus. Bolt seems to have more professional and competent drivers.
It's a poor second to the train, IMO. You can't count on arriving on time and you can't count on a smooth enough ride to be able to actually enjoy the wireless. I've gotten very carsick trying to work on my laptop.
Where I am, they all load on the street. No shelter at all.
Discussed here several times in the recent past
Now I have two fruit baskets - truly, this is the high life!
(The trip home from the Mead-up, via a friend's place in Queens, was the last time I was on intercity transit. That was 100% Greyhound, since it runs more frequently and I'm never buying early enough to get actual discounts from the discount lines.)
Way up thread -- I guess I was remembering and looking up wheels up to wheels down.
I think we can all agree that if we had wifi and teleconferencing equipped private rail cars that were decked out like a motherfucking nineteenth century robber baron's with a Michelin five star chef on board and that could travel at speeds far faster than those obtainable on any US high speed system, then train travel would be preferable to air travel -- mostly.
I'd guess Paris-Berlin is probably the closest NY-Chicago high speed rail analogue (though they are about 100 miles closer than NY-Chicago). Apparently from a quick Google search it's about an 8-9 hour travel time. I wonder how much business travel that route picks up.
What we really need is a Top Gear episode where each of the three tries to get from NY to Chicago by plane, train, and Pagani Huayra, respectively.
288: I was sure a friend at Facebook had posted about something real on those lines, but it turned out to be restricted to Manhattan and alluded strictly to an episode of How I Met Your Mother. Not what I wanted!
BTW, the Pennsy equivalent of the 20th Century Limited was the Broadway Limited which also was a 16 hour run (but am pretty sure it did stop in Philly). When we first started using its Amtrack equivalent it had a real dining car that was quite good.
Amtrak dining sucks.
referring to it as 'dining' seems misguided.
Those double-decker buses scare me...they wobble alarmingly at highway speeds. And the drivers are always borderline speeding, because they're always late.
Latest nickname for the LA cop killer: 'Rambro'.
London-Barcelona might be another comparable pair.
Oh, there's Beijing-Shanghai at 819 miles and just under 5 hours.
I had a pretty awful experience, back in December waiting, an hour and a half in the bitter cold on the streets of NYC for the Megabus to arrive (with, yes, no shelter from the elements). But as others have said, this may be specific to NYC.
But all of those have genuinely major stops in between. There's nothing between New York and Chicago comparable to the Rhein-Ruhr metro region.
The problem with the Amtrak long distance trains is the tracks suck. We've taken the train to Atlanta. The cost of a sleeper for two is comparable to air fare. The timing is good: you board a bit before dinner and alight a bit after breakfast. And a thunderstorm doesn't mean you'll be diverted to Birmingham. But it isn't easy to sleep. When Mr. Claytor was running the Southern Railway, the tracks were maintained to a passenger comfort standard. Norfolk Southern doesn't have the same attitude. Two things are worse on an Amtrak sleeper. One of them is sleep. Jackmormon said the swaying made her think of sex. But the bunks are very narrow: sex is more a matter of avoiding falling out as the train sways.
I had a nice meal while fleeing Eyjafjallajökull on a train from, I think, Hamburg to Köln. Much better than a tuna salad sandwich or whatever it is that constitutes the pinnacle of Acela cuisine.
I am taking megabus tomorrow. I am really really really hoping it is not one of those megabi with non-working outlets because for reasons I don't understand, I can't read a book on a bus but I can do stuff like the crossword and reading blogs on my phone. Also, today I ate turtles.
300: How did the turtles taste?
The turtle soup is people!
302: Right, it's people all the way down.
I've taken trains to Edinburgh from London (about 4.5 hours), and London to Paris (2.5 hours) in preference to flying. It's a no brainer. If I had to travel anywhere for work that was in mainland UK and on a mainline rail route, or in Europe and it was a Eurostar terminus, I'd get the train if I possibly could.
None of the interminable security shit, or the need to be at the airport an hour or even two before you fly. You can get up and walk about, the seat is more comfortable, you can look at the scenery out the window.
I hold out hope still for the vactrain.
You're not getting that feeling of doom as the blizzard worsens when you're riding a train.
Er.... I've been held up on the Coast Starlight and, I think, the Empire Builder by snow and associated slides in the mountains. That's the downside of going through hundreds of miles of steep mountains with no other human works visible.
I am on the 'peaceful, sexy, Tantric' Team Rocking, so feel pretty cheerful and affectionate towards trains. If the Dwarf Lord and I can spare the money and time, a sleeper to & from family over the holidays is gloriously relaxing. (The CS stops in Portland almost, but not quite, long enough to sweep through Powell's. Now THAT would be PERFECT.)
