If you saw how expensive and shitty our trains are you’d pick the accord too
It doesn’t have to be that way. Soft Sleeper trains in China are quite nice and like 10USD/100 miles.
Yes it does, sadly. Our trains are basically set up to fail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN7e38Q7e1U
Wait you just posted a video about how the system was intentionally designed to fail.
If it can intentionally be designed to fail then it can be redesigned to succeed. There is no reason it has to be the way it is
There are billions of dollars aligned against fixing the problem though so its going to look bad on paper to start fixing things, at least at first. You’d need to fix the political system to allow that kind of multi election cycle thinking to exist.
Yeah, but money has lost elections before.
It’s not money controlling the issues. It’s hatred of minorities and mistrust of the government (that people voted in), as well as of course a slew of other issues. But it starts with mentalities, not dollars.
Wait 'til you hear about the ice cream machines at McDonald’s
Probably an intenet myth. But I have somewhere in my memory, that the machines are hard to clean. So enployees mark them out of order to not have to clean them.
Urban Legend. Probably.
It doesn’t happen to ice cream machines at other fast food franchises nearly as frequently, and the machines at McDonald’s give unhelpful error codes and are generally designed to require pricey field technician visits (that are helpfully provided by the manufacturer) to resolve.
There was a third party device that was created to get around the error code issue, providing actual details of what was wrong and saving franchise owners thousands of dollars. So naturally the manufacturer sued the creator and petitioned McD’s corporate to disallow its use.
TIL. Thanks for the reply.
In theory yes, but there’s far too much vested interest in seeing that our trains fail.
Omg, the soft sleepers. Took them all over China. Hangzhou, yinchuan, chengdu, kunming. Once completely fucked up with language and took a slow train hard seat to Xian from Beijing. More than 24hrs over May Day/labor week. People were crawling in the windows in the middle of a field. Cannot recommend that.
Was it just absolutely packed and the window was the only way to make it inside? Maybe you ended up spending hours pressed against other people? Not sure if folks would be motivated to try to board without a ticket
Yes. Climbing in the windows and sitting in the aisle. I went to the bathroom once. It was like those puzzles with one piece missing, including those standing in the bathroom.
It was like those puzzles with one piece missing, including those standing in the bathroom.
Perfect visual :D
At least you recognize that the system is forcing you to make that choice, and not your “individual freedom”.
Expensive? Sure. Shitty? Not so much. I like our trains, at least the major lines.
No… No I wouldn’t. At least if you’re from Europe. Been a lot of places and theyre all nice.
I drive my car to work so I can afford a car so I can drive to work so I can afford a car
That’s nearly a line in Metric - Handshake
Buy this car to drive to work, drive to work to pay for this car.
There’s also some great movies about American poverty, and it feels like there’s always a scene where car trouble of some kind tips their life into an immediate downward spiral. They need it to get to work to sustain everything else, making one traffic stop the moment of despair.
The one I really appreciated, as heart wrenching as it was, is called Straw.
The worst part is that scenario you mention is a real thing that can happen and does happen to a lot of people in the US. You should see some of the cars in my deep red no-vehicle-inspection state. I once witnessed a car running on four donut spares, one headlight, and one taillight. And probably no insurance. The alternative is possibly losing a job and becoming homeless.
This is why rednecks are always shadetree mechanics of some stripe or another. Me too. I grew up poor, so I got real good at working on cars.
While that’s an excellent life skill, in Straw, the “car trouble” amounted to being harassed by a racist cop and having her license suspended.
In many cases the penalty is genuinely the driver’s fault, but it’s easy to happen when they’re always driving and always stressed.
This reminds me of when my parents made me get a job to pay for auto insurance at 16, though I didn’t have a car or plan to get one right away. Their rates would go way up unless I had a separate plan, so I had to get one. And then I needed to get a car to get to a job, so I had to spend everything I had saved up as a kid to get a barely functioning car and insure it. I will say that it was sadly a good intro into life as soon to be adult in America.
I got a shiny car. I like shiny things lol. That’s all it’s got going for it. I would rather be drunk on a train haha
Yes but at least Trump is saving me money with the Freedom Fuel Network™
proceeds to pay >$100 to fill up the emotional support truck
/S massive giant /s since there are idiots who really think this, even after the Iran war erupted
emotional support truck
I’m going to start calling them this now. It’s perfect. Thank you. I usually call them Compensators or “Ferd F-Teen Thousands”
You just grew a 3rd ball.
I love picnicface.
does your truck have chest hair upholstery and an extra beard on deck?
You just grew yourself a 4th ball.
it’s wild to me that americans don’t use propane as a car fuel
It’s wilder that we don’t use gasoline in our barbecue grills.
Hank, you use real charcoal or it’s off to jail with you!
We tried it pretty well back in the 1970s. It was not uncommon to see LP powered conversions on the road. People even experimented with wood gas systems. The problem with LP, at least where I lived, was those engines didn’t start well in cold weather. And the second issue was regulations required fueling stations to have someone(s) trained and dedicated to doing those refills. It was deemed not safe to let the common man, (you know morons), do that. That added to the cost. And finally, with an LP tank in your car, you could be driving around with a possible bomb or at least a BLVE under your ass. Which is not safe for those around you.
Sometimes to day you will still see LP powered delivery vans rolling down the road. So it hasn’t totally gone away.
if liquid lpg is injected, not gas then it can start on lpg only no problem. this kind of thing appeared later so maybe it was not available at that time, and there are cars that use lpg as only fuel. most of cars just carry extra container for lpg and leave gasoline tank as is, and it works as backup
Could have sworn I remembered a video of a sedan, maybe in Russia, that had allegedly been converted to run on something like propane and the tanks were stored in the trunk. Sure this was more affordable than regular vehicle fuel, but when it got rear-ended… it exploded!
YouTube isn’t full of these videos by any means so maybe it’s safer than I thought?
it’s very common in turkey italy mexico and a couple other countries that sell lpg (propane-butane mix) at lower prices than gasoline, nothing explodes these tanks need to be certified (varies by country) and gasoline is already flammable so nbd
in a city where i live most of taxis are hybrids modified to run on lpg so it has to be both safe and durable
Propane-butane, interesting!
Oh good
its a mix that varies by season because in winter higher pressure at the same temperature is needed, and in summer the opposite. and also in winter gasoline has a little butane dissolved, because it’s cheaper and has high octane number, and makes engine startup easier. its a bit complicated but it works
Ah!
Are you familiar with the way California has winter and summer blends? I think it’s a slightly different principle, focused on being environmentally friendly in the summer when it shouldn’t be too hard for engines to start.
every country has these seasonal changes (except those near equator) both for gasoline diesel and lpg and this is before we get into renewable components
gasoline and lpg are changed for the same reason, it is to keep vapor pressure at the same temperature lower in summer and higher in winter. too low and it’s hard to start, too high and volatile components bubble out = gasoline degrades and makes smog in the city. diesel is more complicated because it gels out at lower temperatures but how exactly this happens depending on several things, and mitigations are different
We use bald eagle urine instead
Some of those Americans are washing their gas station sandwiches down with gas station wine too.
You might be joking but I saw a guy a few years back in an old SUV drinking the last remnant of wine out of the bag from some box wine on the highway.
and gas station dick pills
A gas station that does not sell beer and ammunition is not some place I will buy gas from!
gas station NACHOs.
like an american would drive a vehicle as small as an accord
This made me laugh because I do indeed drive an Accord. I hate that sedan’s seem like they’re dying.
think about how I feel, with wagons pretty much already dead for the past decade
I’m still grieving horsedrawn carriages. 😔
They’re still popular here in Europe. My last car was a wagon.
Plenty of Accords in the US. It’s a pretty popular car over here.
for the poors, maybe /s
Having taken the bus to work for two years now, I have to say… The complete and utter lack of responsibility has been liberating. Like, sure… There’s still some stigma there where I feel kind of poor or something standing in my uniform at the bus stop while cars whiz past me, but I only spend $70 CAD /mo on my commute, and it I want, I can travel anywhere in the city using that same pass. That’s pretty reasonable.
Plus, as someone actively engaged in nature-based spirituality, it feels kind of nice knowing that I’m traveling a bit more responsibly than I would have with our vehicle.
I would love to have this opportunity because I fucking hate maintenance on my car. As soon as my car senses my bank account reaching a certain threshold it decides that the starter should die the next weekend.
As a german: Are those 200mph trains in a room with me?
No they got delayed, then cancelled
Pendolino is an Italian family of high-speed tilting trains (and non-tilting) used in Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia (Czech railways are operating), the UK, the US, Switzerland, China, and Greece.
they can go up to 250km/h
according to wikipedia even the americans have a few! thought with their infrastructure i doubt they get used much
German made Siemens and French made Alstom can reach 400 and routinely go 300.
“can”
In my experience in both Portugal and the UK is that they never do.
Only train I know of in the UK that actually goes that fast in practice is the Eurostar service (that goes through the Channel Tunnel) and that’s not a pendolino. A number of long distance trains services in the UK are done by pendolino trains, but the rail track is not good enough for them to go at 250km/h.
In Portugal the Alfa train that goes between Lisbon and Porto and which is a pendolino train does up to 220km/h, but the average speed between both cities is a lot less than that (around 180km/h, if I remember it correctly). No other train there goes even that fast.
Only time I ever went that fast (faster, even) in a train in Europe was with the Thalys (basically the Belgian TGV) from Brussels to Paris and back and that’s not a pendolino train.
You see, whilst that tech is indeed capable of a top speed of 250km/h, actual stretches of rail line capable of safely supporting it are pretty rare.
They said Alps, they meant the Swiss, maybe the French.
Definitely French, the Swiss trains are very reliable but generally not fast.
Sometimes they go that speed around Mannheim/Frankfurt/Köln… If they go at all… And they don’t get stuck behind another train… Or surprise bauarbeiten…
some of us live 5 min from the beach
but who has real time when working 5 jobs
beach hobo looks better every year
I live in Germany currently and am from the US.
I love train travel. Even the delays people always rag on DB is really not that bad. It could be better yes, but not having to drive everywhere is so nice.
However I do often miss the small conviences of a car. Going to the store and traveling in bad weather were much easier, and yes I’m aware you can have a car here too I just won’t be getting one.
Although I must admit I do miss a good road trip too. Where the journey is part of the trip. It’s much easier to find something spontaneously while driving and stop to enjoy it.
Overall though not having to drive and being able to relax makes train travel the best
Even the delays people always rag on DB is really not that bad
No, it is. Go to the UK or Spain and try their trains there. Miles better. Delays of maybe a few minutes on average.
It spills over too. People avoid getting the Eurostar to Germany because although the UK-France connection is solid, anything after that is just a big fat question mark.
Hell even getting a train to the airport in Germany comes with a huge time risk. You just don’t get that stress-inducing level of planning uncertainty in other developed countries with train systems as you do with the DB
The best way to get from the Netherlands to Germany by train is to take the train to the border, taxi/über across the border, then back on the train.
I thought the UK trains were trash and over priced because Thatcher privatized them?
they are trash and they are over priced, but they run predictably. You can bank on making a flight at the airport by taking the train
Even the delays people always rag on DB is really not that bad. It could be better yes, but not having to drive everywhere is so nice.
Lmao.
Try going on a inter-metro train (usually designated as MEX) and have it not be delayed by >10min during day time.
My best record was 1h30min.
Meanwhile the DB navigator app says nothing about delays or cancelled trains and marks the route as done.
It’s can’t be that hard to get the GPS location of a train, can it?I won’t disagree with you on the DB app. Absolute dumpster fire. If they could accurately display their delays it would be so much better. They have so many trains running at major hubs people would find the next best train if they were honest and reported accurately. Nothing like watching an alternative train leave and then the app adds 10 more minutes to your delay.
Don’t even get me started on trying to find a bus with DB navigator. Would it kill them to put the fucking stieg info on there? I’ve missed so many bused because of this.
Wouldnt kill them to put a direction triangle for viewing direction in the damn map like on google maps.
Fucking google maps is more accurate and better to navigate the routes than DB navigator. How??? They have literally all the data for the trains but google maps manages to make a better product ;-;
Can’t you still rent a car for a trip?
Yes, but it’s much harder to justify the cost with the significantly cheaper train travel.
Plus driving here feels different. My guess is it’s the population density.
Are you in Bavaria?
In Northern Germany I heard that you need a car and no one takes trains because they’re always late.
BW, but I’ve traveled Berlin to Munich to Stuttgart with stops in between via regional rail with a D-ticket. So I’m most unfamiliar with the Northwestern parts of the country.
Trains were mostly on time, if late they seemed to average 10 minutes late, and a few times there were some very late trains. But between the major hubs it was usually possible to just take a different train. I feel like people don’t give Germany enough credit for the sheer number of trains it has. You’re running trains on lines every hour that other European countries would only have a train every 2 or 3 hours.
Although I’ll admit the first place I lived was a small village and my daily commute relied on one train that was nearly 15 minutes late every day. I learned to adjust for it.
No train delay has ever compared to getting stuck in Atlanta traffic for 4 hours. It should on average take 1 hour to drive through Atlanta. I’ve yet to have a train delayed by 3 hrs
Man, I tried to do public transport to work. I was in the best situation. I lived walking distance to the light rail, my office was on the other side of town, within walking disance to the light rail.
leave at 7:30, walk to the rail by 7:50, not bad buy a ticket on the automated machine and wait, assuming 1 of the 3 machines was working. 50:50 honestly. trains come every 15, except they don’t.
On a good day, the train would be there by 8, on a bad day, maybe 8:30 Ride it for 20 minutes, 4 stops, until I need to switch trains. Get off train 1, buy a ticket if the machines there work, god forbid there’s no ticket on the first run and a train already there, i’ll be waiting for another train. train 2 shows, on a good day, 30 more minutes to my work stop, on a bad day, 45. i hop off at my stop, walk 15m to the office. I’m at the office between 9:30 and 9:45. If it’s hot i’m covered in sweat. If it’s cold i’m freezing. Luckily my job DGAF what time we show up.2h there, 2h back.
except after 7:30pm, trains go to every 30 minutes, which means maybe every 45.
If there’s an accident, a bus bridge will easily make that one way trip 4 hours.
If I drive, I’m there in 27 minutes.
3.5 hours a day to take public transport here for a 30m drive.
We’re not clusters of towns with jobs where everything is near transport and even when things are close our trains are slow an full of homeless trying to stay warm in the winter. I would have loved to hell to get rid of one of the cars. but giving up 1/4 of my family time on a job that already wants 10 hours a day wasn’t negotiable.
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I really wish it was a reasonable option. The only wine on the train near me is in a paper bag and the guy drinking it smells like old cheese :)
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My metro bus isn’t as bad, but i’m 5 miles from the nearest station and there’s no place to lock up a bike. and I’m suburbs, still not rural.
Mine is only 15-20 minutes. But recently leadership gave an employee at a different office an award for something else. The guy had to give an impromptu speech about it. He mentioned the usual stuff but then commented on how his commute was an extra hour compared to his previous job, but “so worth it”. I wanted to reach through the screen.
If the Honda accord is good enough for Jesus it’s good enough for me
fun fact: the Honda accord was named after the Bible verse.
Okay it didn’t, but it does come from PIE word for heart:
Etymology
Except at least a third of us are sick of that hell, but we still have to endure the same “find out” phase of the fafo cycle.
Also, why do lol use X and act like there not feeding the troll king
Yeah but can they do it while knowing that one tenth of a percent of their population has increased their wealth at a rate ten times more than the top 90% of earners in their society? Didn’t think so. Take that, losers!
