“On a warm summers eve, on a train bound for nowhere…”<\/p>\n
The Gambler — Kenny Rogers<\/p>\n
I love traveling by train. It’s more “real” than flying. It’s
\narguably less scenic, but clouds quickly get boring to watch, and
\ntrains travel through all sorts of areas. I’ve always felt safer
\nnever felt at all crowded (which is, in a way, a problem, in that it
\nmeans that the train is virtually unoccupied, which means it’s not
\ndoing so well fiscally.) <\/p>\n
There are no security hassles, and I always feel safe on a train.
\nWhile, even before 9-11-01 planes made me nervous, now they make me
\neven more so. Being on rails seriously reduces the risk of accidents,
\nas does being on the ground. Also, it’s comparatively difficult to
\nhijack something dependent on rails. <\/p>\n
I just wish that trains had gotten a fair shake in this country. Cars
\nare subsidized by taxpayer money, if by no other way, then by the
\nmaintainence on the highway and local road network. Yet the rail
\nnetwork is privately owned and maintained. And this not merely raises
\ncosts for rail travel, but slows it down as well, because it has to
\nwait for the freight trains to go past at various points on a trip.<\/p>\n
Looking at this car, it holds 62 seats. the equivalent of more than
\n12 standard vehicles. It’s probably 40-60 feet long. Much shorter
\nthan 12 cars put bumper to bumper, regardless. I’d be completely
\nshocked if this thing was less fuel efficient than a car, per person
\nmoved, even if at only one quarter occupancy (fairly standard for
\ncars, too if you consider the solo commuters driving cars with seating
\nfor 5)<\/p>\n
I wonder what the cost for maintaining railroads are compared to
\nmaintaining a single lane of a road of equivalent length. My bets are
\non way, way lower. If we diverted a tenth of the budget for roadwork
\ntowards funding the construction of a real rail network, you have to
\nwonder where we’d be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“On a warm summers eve, on a train bound for nowhere…” The Gambler — Kenny Rogers I love traveling by train. It’s more “real” than flying. It’s arguably less scenic, but clouds quickly get boring to watch, and trains travel through all sorts of areas. I’ve always felt safer never felt at all crowded (which … Continue reading “Thoughts on traveling by train”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}