- cross-posted to:
- fuckcars@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- fuckcars@lemmy.world
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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.
It doesn’t have to be that way but it currently is, and that’s why Americans don’t take trains. Have you seen Amtrak? It’s like an 1800’s coal train; the LA Metro (light rail) is great if you want to get stabbed by a tweaker on the way to work.
I used to take Amtrak between Philly and DC. It took about 2 hours which is a bit shorter than driving if you’re lucky enough to not hit major traffic. The problem was that if it rained you had water pouring into the car from multiple spots in the ceiling. Just an amazing thing to see in 200-year-old technology. Even Amish buggies don’t leak like that.
I thought about taking the Acela on that route once. Cost 4X as much and shaved a whopping 10 minutes off the time.
I do not understand Amtrak at all. The Keystone has been the absolute best thing about moving back east for me. $25 to Manhattan, grab a bagel, see a show, $25 home. And the Keystone is the crappy commuter train, the Pennsylvanian is way nicer. I’ve done it tons of times and it’s only been late once, and no leaks on the rain.
Getting to DC costs hundreds each way and isn’t any faster than driving. I’m better off buying a ticket to Baltimore and then taking the $7 commuter to DC…
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
What’s that adjusted for income?
Somewhere between 40 and 100 USD depending on location.
But as wages increase and the market is able to bear higher prices, its unlikely to increase to those prices, since the rail network isn’t run for profit.
Prices will still go up as labor costs increase, just not as much as they could, similar to rent and food.
There are of course far cheaper options such as hard sleepers, soft seats, and hard seats, which pack 6 beds per birth, 8 seats, or ~12 seats respectively, and also a more expensive option on some trains that’s 2 beds per berth.
Intrigued by the different options. I can search images of each of the four seating option types to compare… I am curious if you might find it a good use of your time to share photos of each of the options as you remember them, maybe with little annotation wherever is relevant?
Also quickly in my defense, the soft sleeper Wikipedia article features a hallway photo instead of a bed photo. :)
Sorry, I don’t have pictures I took myself that show the layout, but the app has examples. I think the top business class pic is actually Premium Business Class.
Theres a few other layouts, but you get the gist.
spoiler
High speed from Beijing to Shanghai:
And for slow trains:
Most slow trains have a dining car in my experience.
Put a smile right on my face, a hundred pics & all better than web image search results :D asked the right alcoholicorn
So - And then there’s standing!
Great look into all those options, American Amtrak has a fraction I think
No problem, I would have taken pictures myself if I expected anyone to care. Maybe when I return in 3-4 months.
Unrelated, here’s a simulator at a train museum in Tokyo.
At least you recognize that the system is forcing you to make that choice, and not your “individual freedom”.
Its really mixed tbh. Some make sense others cost a lot.
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.
Too real. Barely avoided that trap once myself.
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.
I believe 20% of household spending in the US was for cars. So people could seriously work a day less every week, if they got rid of their car.
Really I wish I could live without one. Ive decided on harm reduction instead.
I learned something weird about cars and money and such just this last week. I got tired of working on a truck just to spend more money dumping fuel in it, and I took what I considered the nuclear option. I traded the truck in. On a used 2nd generation Nissan Leaf.
The car wasn’t expensive. I could easily afford it. But as I was working on the required financial gymnastics to fit a car payment in my budget, I saw that the truck has been using $200 of gas every month. And the auto insurance dropped by about $100 each month. The car payment is $200. It costs something like 70 cents to charge it after my commute.
The silly car isn’t cheap. It’s free. And its so quiet and smooth, no wonder people get evangelical about their EV’s.
The silly car isn’t cheap. It’s free
If you don’t count maintenance and insurance, parking, etc. Add those and it’s once again expensive.
I don’t understand your argument.
The truck I traded in had those same costs
And it got 15 mpg.
And the tires cost more.
And the insurance was twice as expensive.
And it needed oil changes
And it needed transmission fluid changes.
Sure its more expensive than owning no car at all. Owning no car at all just isn’t an option for a lot of people in the US. So instead of spending money on tires/brakes/insurance/fuel/oil/fluids/tires for an F150, I’m paying for tires/insurance for a dorky little EV. And I have an extra ~$400 in my budget.
The silly car isn’t cheap. It’s free
I don’t understand your argument.
The car is not free. The car is still expensive. Even if it is a necessary expense. Even if it’s cheaper than the truck.
So its hair splitting then.
No, it’s talking about how cars are expensive, not free.
Have you looked at a depreciation curve? For newish vehicles, the biggest “expense” is depreciation. Its higher for luxury cars and EVs than trucks.
Yeah, but I didn’t buy a new ev…
Correct, so you dodged the 25-35% cost of driving out of the lot, but unless its so old the resale value is like 5-10% of the og cost, depreciation is still going to be your greatest loss, likely 10-20% per year. Thats a few thousand dollars.
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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
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.
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.
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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
I like four-bangers, I like short shifters, I like si’s, subarus, lancers, pop pop pop on the downshift, stomp click click vrooom.
Do I get stuck in traffic sometimes? Ehh, once a week maybe.
Would I give it all up for the betterment of humanity as a whole, and hang my childhood on the memory rack forever?
…yeah. The irony of that, though is that being American and living in the rural south gotta throw the glowies a bone every now and then It’s barely even considerable, at all. There is no bus route. There is no train. There’s no carpool, I work third with one other person who lives on the other side of the city.
So, if I have to drive, and my preferance is 32mpg little cars, and for now… I have to, and I enjoy it,…
then I’m gonna.
Would I give it all up for the betterment of humanity as a whole, and hang my childhood on the memory rack forever? …yeah.
Unsarcastically, the world needs more people like you.
There’s a few on this board who would disagree, lmao, but thanks. Man’s gotta live in the world he’s given, not stamp his foot and demand it bend for him. I wasn’t the first here, I won’t be the last.
I read this entire post as if it was country music and I regret nothing.
Making superior options for long distance travel, commuting, and random short-distance trips doesn’t mean cars go away, it means the 98% of people who aren’t into cars get off the road for the rest of us.
Depends on who you talk to. Seems the more rabid members of fuckcars want to ban cars completely, and jail anyone who resists lol
I, unfortunately, have to commute 35 miles one way, usually on my Honda motorcycle. I wish we had any semblence of mass transit at all. But we do not.
I am not brave enough to ride
Riding is best learned with the appropriate amount of respect, a motorcycle safety foundation certified riding course, and lots and lots and lots of practice.
Or you can just hop on a bike for the first time in SEA, where even children and grandmas ride, and its treated with the same cultural reverence as a minivan.
Honestly, traffic in most India and SEA makes me really really not want to get anything that can fall over.
India is tough, but everyone goes slow in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Indonesia so most accidents are relatively minor. Lotta people texting with phone in hand while riding. They’re cracking down on drunk driving at least.
I see the fun in it but man do I not trust other vehicles on the road even in my own car half the time
I don’t blame you. I hope I didn’t sound like I was minimizing your concerns. Motorcycles are absolutely more inherently dangerous, especially for the rider, than cars. Not only are motorcycles harder to see, but sometimes just being around them seems to [occasionally] make other drivers act dumber for some reason. You have no cushion around you like you would with a car. You have to put a lot more effort into being visible, thinking ahead, and anticipating danger zones. If you’re in an accident, you don’t have the luxury of four walls, a seatbelt, and airbags.
Then there’s the “physics” which are very different from the physics of a four wheeled vehicle. You not only have to understand those, you also have to basically beat your own instincts out of yourself so you automatically respond correctly when you do inevitabely find yourself in an emergency situation.
Statistically, the majority of motorcycle wrecks occur at speeds under 30 mph (~48 kph). Usually because someone didn’t see the rider and/or the rider either wasn’t aware of or didn’t know how to apply the appropriate technique. As a rider, you will be much safer with proper training and safety gear. But you will never be as safe as in a passenger vehicle. I don’t blame people who look at motorcycles and go “Nope. Hard pass.” at all.
random gravel patch on an otherwise perfect road at 3AM
“oh fu-”
I’ve had my spills on mopeds as a teenager, having them at 55mph – ehhhh.
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 feel you friend, I’m the same way. I’ve told so many people that and they are so carbrained that they refuse to understand anything beyond time to get there. Yes my bus takes about 10-20% longer, and they immediately augh at me for being a fool, such a fooly fool.
But my ride is mine. I read a book, I think about other things, my time is mine. It’s not worried if the asshole will cut me off, the heightened blood pressure, the anger, the worried if I’m in an okay parking spot. None of that exists. I’ll gladly take 45 minutes on the bus over 30 minutes of stressful driving.
god, I wish. bus routes here are generally 3x longer at minimum
last route I checked against a 22min drive was 90min by bus
Yeah, I can tolerate up to 2x the length of the drive, above that is where I start to get annoyed. I know transfers happen, and they are unavoidable, but a well oiled system keeps them to a minimum and keeps bus routes direct.
Where I live, and for the places I want to go, typical travel times are:
- car: 15 minutes
- bike: 25 minutes
- walk: 1.5 hours
- transit: 45 minutes
Or:
- car: 20 minutes
- bike: 35 minutes
- walk: 2 hours
- transit: 1 hour
And, that’s if it’s a good time of day for transit. If I’m coming back home near 11pm the transit option can be essentially the same as walking. If I have the option to leave at 11:15 so I can arrive 5 minutes before the bus instead of leaving at 11:00 and waiting 20 minutes for the bus, and the bus is on time, and the bus I’m supposed to connect to is on time, then the bus option can be noticeably faster than walking. But, if the first bus is running late (which happens all the time) it can mean missing the next connection, and walking is actually faster than taking the bus, even if it’s a walk of more than an hour.
So, needless to say, I bike whenever the weather permits. But, unfortunately, winter is awful here, the bike lanes and trails aren’t plowed in the winter, so biking for roughly half the year isn’t a real option.
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…
I, European, have temporarily moved further away from work and I’m close to a train station… I’d like to take the train, but it turns a 50 minute motorbike ride to a 1h40 train+bus one. I wouldn’t be driving but that’s almost 2 hours more of commute per day…
It depends on how comfortable the transit is. If you can use the time in transit to do organizational stuff or relax, it might still be worth the additional time investment in comparison to a nerve-wracking experience on the average road.
It’s time away from home though, the place most people best relax after work. Commuting on public transit can be pleasant at times but it’s still two hours less time for other stuff
Not just that but I also have shit to do
That too, I’m on the same boat
I’d much rather spend 30 minutes on public transport than in a car. This is a real tradeoff many places I’ve lived in Europe, particularly when considering you need to find parking for the car.
I’ve had commutes in the US where it was either 30 minutes by car or 90 minutes by public transport. At that point it’s not really a choice, you’re going to go by car.
This can easily be the case in Europe as well.
I live about an hour south of Stockholm. A lot of companies I’d commute to would be in Stockholm. Thus, the times I’ve gone to my office in Stockholm, my commute looks something like this
- 20 minute walk to station
- 5-15 minute wait for train
- 50-60 minute train ride
- 5 minute walk from commuter train to tubes
- ~0-5 minute wait for tube
- 10 minute walk to office
That’s usually between 1:30 to 1:50 commute, one way. All in all, 3-3½ hours of commute round-trip. It’s stressful, with a lot of moving parts. I’m glad I can work from home for now, because my commute is however long it takes me to drag myself into clothes and get in my chair.
It’s a lot more environmentally friendly, and most importantly to me, something I can handle without breaking down mentally. I’m ostensibly a functioning member of society because of the ability to work from home, and I’ll fight for the ability to continue to do so.
If I had the same time and worked a different job, it would be a no brainer
Which is why all commuting should be paid. I’m not travelling to work just for funsies, it’s purely for the sake of work, and so it should be compensated.
Plenty of jobs can also be done remotely, and not offering that as an option to workers should be penalised, particularly if a commuter has to take transit to get there. In a day and age where we should be minimising our emissions, forcing people to commute just isn’t right.
The issue here is that paying for commute incentivized longer commutes. I’d rather prioritize chaper living conditions in the area where workers are needed.
It’s not like the company doesn’t have a say in this. They hire people closer to them, or offer WFH where a commute isn’t part of it. My company does pay for my commute. I’m WFH, but when I have to travel for work, it goes on the company credit card.
Yes, there will be cases where a commute is absolutely necessary, but you can always evaluate these things on a case by case basis.
Plus it’s ultimately time that the worker is giving up. I’ll take my current no commute over commute with reimbursement any day.
I agree, but there are countries (like Austria where i live) which incentivizes long commutes by financial benefits - its called “Pendlerpauschale”, meaning a general payment for people having to drive a longer commute.
In my opinion, the only thing they are paying for is a more dispersed suburbian area and a big load of CO2 emissions, while sealing a shitton of earth in the suburbs.
Company housing it is!
To be fair, company housing can be beneficial to both sides IF IT IS PLANNED AND EXECUTED AS SUCH.
in reality, companies use such arrangements to abuse their workers even more.
I’d advocate for anyone pushing for controlled company housing, when they don’t get away with cutting corners everywhere and if our society ever realizes that this arrangement might be beneficial for both sides if stringently regulated.
Then you don’t want company housing. You want government housing. Which can have its own issues.
I get compensation in taxes and as a paid sum by the company. It’s based on kilometers. The taxation thing is based on kilometers and the cheapest available option
I’ve a friend who works as a truck driver, and does get compensation for how long he has to drive to get to work. It’s also tax credits. As someone who doesn’t drive but instead would rely on public transport, I wouldn’t get compensated.
Honestly I think that’s pretty bunk, why does the public fund people having to commute by car? It’s something the company should pay the worker for because it’s technically work they’re doing for the sake of the company.
I fully agree, it’s one of the small pieces where profits get privatized but costs get socialized.
Here you gotta fill out specific criteria to be compensated (in taxes) for driving your own car. Otherwise you’ll be compensated based on the cheapest possible mode of transport (train and bus, almost always)
Making more living space available in the city where you don’t need a car would be more beneficial. it would prevent sealing land in the suburbs, prevent CO2 emissions for travel, and in general improve efficiency of public transport.
Another point is that they mentioned motorbike.
Presumably, if done by car the trip would take much longer due to traffic, and be a lot more expensive because of gas+tolls.
Also, come winter, a nearly 2h drive in piss poor weather is a miserable experience.
On a train, you can sleep all that time!
Unless you live in a densely populated area and the trains are packed to the max during commute hours … not too uncommon having to stand, unfortunately :(
even when standing, my noise cancelling headphones and my steam deck are helping me to blend out the insanity of society lol
The same route by car takes between 10 and 30 minutes longer, depending on traffic, it’s a road where overtakes can be difficult in a car.
The train trip can be fairly comfortable, the bus part is… Bad.
Yeah, lucked out there unfortunately, even a car is the better option it seems.
For years I had the luxury of train + subway to work, it was bliss because the train was the long part of the commute and it was quite good, and the subway was crowded but fairly short and very frequent.
Long urban bus routes suck in general, especially if there are no dedicated bus lanes.
Science says that time is the deciding factor of what you find an acceptable commute, and not the level of comfort: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marchetti’s_constant
This doesn’t exclude the possibility of using the commute time for things that are good for you, which is very much more likely in public transport in comparison to driving yourself. I use every commute for playing on my steam deck, which keeps me calm even if the transport is fully stacked.
some of us live 5 min from the beach
but who has real time when working 5 jobs
beach hobo looks better every year
My commute: cycle down an old railway line, occasionally going through a tree tunnel.
Not sure how a car loan would give me any freedom I don’t already have.
You could get a nicer bike?
I could but its already a pretty good bike. Got some nice tyres and pannier bags for it recently, probably getting close to the point of accessories costing more than the bike.
A small bag for phone and keys could be a nice thing to get next. Also slowly acquiring more bike maintenance tools too.
You could always get more bikes for different purposes. You can never have too many bikes
Maybe, but I have limited space and don’t really want to work more hours just to pay for more space to store things. I could use that time to ride my bike to the beach instead.
the car loan wouldnt be freedom, it would be like a ball and chain.
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?Conspiracy theory: Germany is surrounded by countries doing quite well with their trains. Germany has the strongest car industry in Europe. Thus Deutsche bahn executives must be payed off by the German car industry to keep the trains run bad.
No conspiracy.
The car lobby heavily subsidizes the politicians to not inveat into railway. I am quite sure about that.No it is the politicians. Germany used to have a reliable train system. There are a number of issues though. First of all Germany uses trains for freight in a significant way. Then since the 90s they gave some control over regional trains to the states, who then increased the number of trains, because that was popular. They also added high speed trains to the system, which is great but when they are run alongside slower regional and freight trains, they need to overtake them, which lowers a railways capacity.
That all combines to Germany having way too many trains on its tracks, which creates traffic jams. The solution is pretty obviously to build more tracks and at best more high speed lines to add capacity. However that is blocked by the car lobby.
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 ;-;
Just a side note here: MEX trains are a product for Baden-Württemberg (often designed with the bwegt brand in mind), which is not used anywhere else as far as I’m aware. They replaced the older RB trains that have become a rarer sight in BW.
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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.
You can always just don’t plan and go from train to train and travel around europe, ofc this will not leave you easy access to smaller towns and villages, maybe if you also take your bike with you
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
Hamburg main stations is the second busiest in the EU…
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.
Me, as a European having to drive 55 minutes to work, with our fuel prices: 😭
Luckily my work isn’t so far away now, it’s only 10 minute drive. Could use public transit but it’s not a very feasible option for me
Dunno about safety on your roads, but a 16 km commute is an e-bike no brainer in the NL.
Idk where do you see 16 km, because 55 minutes by car is (at least in Europe) 60-70 km…
I think they meant the 10 minute commute I have now. Makes more sense that way
My commute was around 65-70 kilometers
E: If you mean the 10 minute one then yes I could easily do that with a bike (electric doubly so ) and the public transit there is great (usually, now there’s a train stoppage) but I work in heavy construction and need a car to not only get to work but to move around equipment, go to this and that construction site during the day etc.
Otherwise I’d do the commute by train/bike for sure
Yeah i meant the short commute. Ofc, with more context a car does make most sense in your position. I struggle with the multiple sites of my job aswel, making it hard to go by bike everytime. Luckily that doesnt happen every day for me and it is planned so i know when i need to go by car and when i can go by bike. But getting a cargobike did mean many less car rides. Because i get to drop off the kids by bike on my way to work. And i enjoy those commutes so much more.
Me, as a European having to drive 55 minutes to work
Luckily my work isn’t so far away now, it’s only 10 minute drive
I’m confused, how far is your work?
It used to be 55 minutes (65-70 kilometers) but now it’s 10 minutes (dunno about the distance)
