Posted on 05/22/2007 5:29:05 AM PDT by iowamark
Ahhh..... It all becomes clear now. It's as true now as it ever was with the French: when in doubt: cherchez l'argent...
I didn't want to know that.
ICE trains rule. They’re comfortable, clean and fast, and you just hop right on without having to go through an hour-long bureaucratic nightmare at the airport.
I’ve driven in fast cars on the Autobahn between the same cities as I took ICE, and I’ve never come close to the ICE’s time. That includes the ICE stopping a few times for passengers (they don’t stop at every little station, just the big ones).
That's because you didn't drive fast enough.
The reason France and Germany have high-speed trains while we don't is that they are Socialist countries. The TGV has never made money and never will.
Because the state owns both the railroads and the national airlines, airline ticket prices are higher than they should be - to help keep the trains competitive.
SNCF workers are among the most radical communists existing in any Western country today. Their union, the CGT, received money from the KGB right up until 1989. They believe that the trains actually belong to them (rather than the taxpayers), and have no qualms about going on random work stoppages, or using the trains to block stations, highway crossings or whatever.
They have almost single-handedly kept France from modernizing.
Be careful what you wish for...
How many years has our FAA made a profit?
You are certainly correct about the unions, but that is a separate issue.
I don’t understand your point. The FAA isn’t a business, it’s a regulatory agency.
Where the US has the right distance/population density mix, we have high-speed rail - Acela - Boston/New York/Washington.
Elsewhere in the country, it just doesn’t make sense. They’ve been talking about a high-speed link from LA to Vegas for almost 20 years now, but no one can crunch the numbers in such a way as to make monetary sense.
You can't normally consistently drive fast enough on the Autobahn to beat the average time of an ICE straight-shot, even when traffic is good. I normally did well over 100mph when traffic allowed.
Sorry, I forgot to put a :^) after my comment. With gas on it’s way to $4.00/gallon, I’m all for mass transit of any kind.
Verdammt amerikanische ... stay out of the fast lane, OK then?
Sorry I didn't catch it. Gas is over $7 a gallon in Germany, and don't forget that driving high-speed can use over twice the gas as going around 60.
100mph will generally have you passing far more people than pass you. Most people stay below 100mph. But I have had a Porsche magically appear in my rear-view mirror when I was already going 120.
I would do it just to avoid having to practically strip during the security checkpoints, sitting with my knees in my chin for hours (I'm 6'3), and the biggest benefit of all, no longer having to deal with a 50 yr old stewardess who's only ambition in life is to make your life as miserable as hers.
Count two hours just getting to your plane and another hour waiting for your luggage, plus the usual flight delays and being stacked for landing, and a 200mph train would have a rather large distance that it could effectively cover faster than a plane if stops are infrequent and/or quick.
Let's say our 200mph train gets to average 100mph including stops. That's a 300-mile head start on the plane counting only the three hours above. Then the 600mph plane would cover that in 30 minutes, by which time the train would be another 50 miles out. The plane catches up again in a few minutes. So our train has at least a 350-mile radius for being faster than a plane. That's about Los Angeles to San Francisco.
Add to that the fact that it's easy to put a train station in the middle of the city (the usual destination) rather than way out where the airports usually are.
Cross-country wouldn't be bad either. Sure, it's three thousand miles, but you could go 200mph most of the time, especially in the Southwest. I'd give around 20 hours coast-to-coast.
During those hours, the ICE is comfy even in second class, and the dining cars are superb, with real, edible food, seating and real dishes (as mentioned) and metal utensils. You can get a cabin or row seats. You can walk around all you like without being too crowded. And it's fun to pass the time watching the scenery go by really fast. There are even displays at the front of the car to show you the current speed and computer kiosks where you can get a bunch of information.
That's how I'd travel if they had it here. More time in some cases, but a lot less stress.
Same general concept as here. But while the speed is less restricted, getting a license is harder (mandatory professional training) and the rules are much stricter. You can do 100 on an unrestricted Autobahn, but don't pass on the right a guy who's just sitting in the left lane. You can get a ticket for passing on the right, while he can get a ticket for not being in the right lane (thus eliminating the need for you to pass on the right).
And don't give the guy who cut you off the finger. He can get a ticket for doing it, but you can also get a ticket for that gesture.
Oh, and those idiots here who drive around all day with their fog lights on and neons blazing to look cool? Ticket for both, and you will be ordered to remove the neons.
I like that kind of ticketing!
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