To be frank, this seems veeeery american. I am in Ukraine, and even with the war, you can drive for more than a 1k km... BUT NOONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND DOES THAT USE A GODDAMN TRAIN U MORON or something like that.
Replies
Tell me you haven't been to the US without ever being to the US.
aug 31, 2025, 11:29 pm • 52 0 • view
It is very American, because we have shit mass transit. I take trains whenever possible, but it’s rarely possible and, outside of the Acela corridor (basically DC to Boston), not dependable. I live in St. Louis, which is a five-hour drive to Chicago. The train takes longer, often MUCH longer.
aug 31, 2025, 11:50 pm • 8 0 • view
Also, the tracks are slightly different (narrower, I think) in the Northeast Corridor from NY to Boston. Even the faster Acela trains must go the same speed limit as the older commuter trains, or they risk derailment.
sep 1, 2025, 12:08 am • 4 0 • view
We use standard gauge like most of Europe, Japan, China, etc. but UA does use the less common (and wider) old Soviet gauge. So do the Baltic and Finland. Our trains are slower because of curves, diesel power, and a bunch of other reasons - but not because of the gauge (TGV uses the same gauge)
sep 1, 2025, 12:17 am • 3 0 • view
A train? Why not take the stage coach, or ride your own horse, since we're thinking back to the 1800s.
aug 31, 2025, 11:38 pm • 3 0 • view
Have you ever heard of the "wide open spaces"?
sep 1, 2025, 5:22 am • 0 0 • view
Okay, now get back to us when your nation isn't the size of one of our states, child.
sep 1, 2025, 1:25 am • 4 0 • view
That's why I do not get it! Driving instead of laying up tracks, getting on the train, and relaxing during the trip! It's long and boring, but for sure beats up days and days of driving!
sep 1, 2025, 9:20 am • 0 0 • view
sep 1, 2025, 1:23 am • 5 0 • view
What train? Have you used an American train before?
aug 31, 2025, 11:21 pm • 83 0 • view
Укрзалізниця набагато краще, ніж Amtrak
aug 31, 2025, 11:50 pm • 3 0 • view
Не маю персонального досвіду, тому не можу порівняти! Наскільки близько до верхнього бокового біля туалету?
sep 1, 2025, 10:47 am • 0 0 • view
There is a train line that goes through my local communities but it no longer takes passengers at all. There also used to be train from Spokane to Nelson, the Galloping Goose, but they took the rails out long ago.
sep 1, 2025, 3:23 pm • 3 0 • view
thetruesize.com#?borders=1~!...
aug 31, 2025, 11:40 pm • 4 1 • view
I'm always a bit amazed when I remember how comparatively tiny European countries are when you look at the North American triplets. I took geography, but I just can't make my brain combine all that important history into countries smaller than some states.
sep 1, 2025, 9:59 am • 0 0 • view
Let me just put on my train hat and my train clothes and get in my train cannon and fire myself to train land
sep 1, 2025, 6:39 am • 1 0 • view
Ah yes, the United States, well known worldwide as a leader in intercity passenger rail. 🙃
aug 31, 2025, 11:40 pm • 7 0 • view
Even if you live somewhere that does have intercity passenger rail, it's usually the same price as flying, lol And we have no such thing as "high-speed" rail, so it's also slower than driving, while being as expensive as flying.
aug 31, 2025, 11:43 pm • 10 0 • view
Or frankly more expensive and slower. I took a train once that was overbooked, and had to stand for half, then sit on a round slippery stool in the snack car.
sep 1, 2025, 12:01 am • 9 0 • view
European provincialism is just as real and limiting as the American version. Some things we do not have here in the US: - a robust public transportation network - passenger trains that reach every necessary destination - short travel distances like 1000 km.
sep 1, 2025, 12:18 am • 20 1 • view
Also, I have experience with the SD <-> LA train, and both: It isn't faster than driving (even with an hour traffic delay outside Carlsbad); and now you're in the center of LA without a car.
sep 1, 2025, 4:06 pm • 1 0 • view
But why would you need a car in the city? You have tram, trolley, bus, subway, light rail, right? Right?..
sep 1, 2025, 4:18 pm • 0 0 • view
I regret to inform you... But seriously, half the problem is discoverability. I know LA has one subway line somewhere, but I don't even know how to find a bus there, assuming it came even close to on time. The one time I took a train, a friend picked me up at the station.
sep 1, 2025, 9:25 pm • 1 0 • view
Sometimes even the railway guys don't take a train bsky.app/profile/abov...
sep 1, 2025, 10:17 pm • 0 0 • view
Wrong. Many places have only a few bus routes that don't even go everywhere. Many places have no buses at all, and no subway or light rail. It. Is. Not. Like. Europe.
sep 1, 2025, 6:54 pm • 2 0 • view
So much of the service being only ONE TRAIN A DAY is a huge problem too.
sep 1, 2025, 1:50 am • 7 0 • view
Those trains are often overbooked. Huge line of people waiting in Penn Station, maybe two thirds actually allowed to board!
sep 1, 2025, 1:59 am • 5 0 • view
And, since people who don't live in the western US forget just how BIG and EMPTY it is, and putting it in the OP's Ukranian context: One of those routes, Chicago to Reno, is just about exactly the same distance as Lviv to Madrid. And the only "major" cities on that route are already marked.
sep 1, 2025, 12:11 am • 26 0 • view
Yes! Which is wild, confusing, and very american, isn't it? What i was trying to say "why would you think of driving that distance here, in Ukraine, when you have an option of taking a train?" Seems many thought I was being mean. I was not, and apologies for that!
sep 1, 2025, 10:20 am • 8 0 • view
Everyone has something to learn. Mass transit requires a lot of money, and where there are not enough people to use it, there are also not enough people voting to spend money on it. Much of the train activity away from the East Coast is freight, and if not for that, there would be no train at all.
sep 1, 2025, 6:59 pm • 0 0 • view
The US is almost 10x the size of Ukraine in population but also in area. The majority of the people live around the major cities. The maps below show Ukraine in green superimposed over US, and the other shows dots relative to the number of voters and where they live. US has a lot of open land.
aug 31, 2025, 11:56 pm • 6 0 • view
...yeeees, so why not build railroads all over the place instead of driving cars for days? This seems very "american" to me! Forgive me if I seem to be mean, I am not trying that. Just an observation from here, where it would be silly not to take the train. If you have that option.
sep 1, 2025, 10:29 am • 1 0 • view
I think the reason is that in post-WWII US, the idea was that cars would be the future, so the last massive nationwide infrastructure build-out was for cars. We had 130M people then now 340M, so we painted ourselves into this corner and it is super expensive to correct infrastructure 70 years later.
sep 1, 2025, 5:57 pm • 0 0 • view
Feel like we should be discussing Settlers of Catan which would be about as useful as current train infrastructure in the US.
sep 1, 2025, 5:04 am • 2 0 • view
And you can do that in many places, but in the United States the train network was strangled in its crib, so, you know. We can’t. And we don’t appreciate being called morons because we grasp the systemic issues.
aug 31, 2025, 11:26 pm • 140 0 • view
No, it was murdered in its prime We had, after Britain, the best train network in the world (and given the size of Britain that’s arguable) Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans” was about its death. People used to eat fresh Pacific salmon in New York… which had been shipped on the train they rode
sep 1, 2025, 4:07 am • 12 0 • view
The little Colorado town I live in once had 12 daily train departures to Denver on the narrow gauge system, and that trip took less time than it takes to drive now. But the service was murdered by the freight companies and the auto manufacturers. We had trains. Detroit destroyed them.
sep 1, 2025, 3:53 am • 27 2 • view
The uber-plot of Who Framed Rodger Rabbit is non-fiction.
sep 1, 2025, 3:55 am • 22 0 • view
YEP!
sep 1, 2025, 3:57 am • 4 0 • view
And then these types of European Internet Twits wonder why Americans don't like them. "Fufufu! We're so superior! You could do this if you were just as smart as us!" And let's just ignore over a hundred years of corruption, propaganda and businesses rampantly running towards profit at any cost.
sep 1, 2025, 12:49 am • 8 0 • view
And the fact that we're working with a very, VERY broken system that resists any and every attempt to fix it.
sep 1, 2025, 12:50 am • 8 0 • view
No! Our passenger train network was fully grown and used to be the envy of the world! Japan modeled their system on ours when they started to build out. Car manufacturers and car culture destroyed one of our crown jewels (sound familiar?)
aug 31, 2025, 11:43 pm • 63 1 • view
The (subsidized) interstates created a more convenient system for most people living between the coasts. We're realizing the environmental impacts of a car-centric culture, though, and increasingly, younger generations are delaying buying a car. We just need political impetus to subsidize trains.
sep 1, 2025, 12:27 am • 10 0 • view
Reading Wyoming newspapers from the 1890s, I'm constantly amazed how much people traveled from Wyoming to Chicago or Minneapolis, or out to California. The trips were probably not quite as pleasant as the papers make it sound, but it sure seems like people were very mobile and connected.
aug 31, 2025, 11:57 pm • 47 1 • view
Some of them were more pleasant than others, and of course it depended on what class (economic, not rail) you were, you could in some cases just hook up your own car and travel in style. But there was also a LOT of graft in the early train monopolies, and some corners cut.
sep 1, 2025, 12:04 am • 17 0 • view
There’s also tons of graft in automotives. The predatory speed traps operated by police are much like brigands in the West. And then there’s the parking authority in cities like Philly. I like public transportation tons. Sorry, Europeans, it isn’t the same here. For better or worse.
sep 1, 2025, 3:17 am • 17 0 • view
There used to be commuter rail from Galveston to Houston until like the 1970s or something. A tragedy to get rid of it.
sep 1, 2025, 5:22 am • 6 0 • view
In my mother's lifetime, we went from regular reliable train service from where she grew up to where she raised me, to reliable Greyhound service, to 'you'll have to drive to the big city anyway to catch the bus so it's easier to just get in the interstate', to 'destination Greyhound stop closed'.
sep 1, 2025, 4:21 am • 12 1 • view
Even back in the 70s, my choices for getting home from college were either drive/ ride with friends, or take a bus to another city and wait three hours for a bus that went to Philly, and have my dad pick me up at a mall a couple stops before Philly. Or a 4-hop airplane puddlejump to Philly.
sep 2, 2025, 12:22 am • 1 0 • view
My mom grew up outside DC and she remembers driving on a brand new, EMPTY, beltway and my Nonie saying, "People don't want to use this." Well. Ahem. Also, yes to buses and the trains and the prop planes!!
sep 2, 2025, 12:41 am • 2 0 • view
Did you go to Kenyon? 🤪😁
sep 2, 2025, 12:37 am • 0 0 • view
Cornell. "Centrally isolated" in the Finger Lakes area of NY :-)
sep 2, 2025, 12:40 am • 1 0 • view
Awwww, beastly!!! Worse than Kenyon. Did you have any friends with access to a prop plane? My Pop Pop was a pilot & there's a story him transporting a pack of kids home to the Eastern Shore MD for the holidays... Ah, family lore 😂
sep 2, 2025, 12:49 am • 1 0 • view
My Eastern Shore time was boy scout camp, and the memorable transportation event was my friend's dad driving us home from there, backwards, because the pushbutton transmission on his early-60s Ford stuck in reverse.
sep 2, 2025, 12:53 am • 1 0 • view
Baaaaahhhhh!!! 😂 oh my god those were the days when there were no signs or street names & people navigated by landmarks. wooow. they'd killed the train a decade before, i think.
sep 2, 2025, 12:58 am • 1 0 • view
I think I-95 had been built by then, but we mostly took I-40 after getting off the local roads. Dave and I sat in the back seat looking out the back window giving directions.
sep 2, 2025, 1:03 am • 1 0 • view
When I was in school, no. My first job after graduation, one of the supervisors in my department DID have a plane, and had gone to Cornell, and I had a few friends in rec.aviation. But I had friends with cars by sophomore year, so I could at least get a fairly direct ride to Philly.
sep 2, 2025, 12:52 am • 2 0 • view
You have a functioning passenger rail network. The USA, despite everything, has a something that could only be called a network if the country was hit with a shrink ray and reduced to 1/10th of its current size. The USA built out a huge road network, while starving rail. It sucks.
aug 31, 2025, 11:40 pm • 16 0 • view
lmao what train. Where? Passenger rail is not common here, and even regions that have light rail/subway systems aren't always a good substitute for driving
aug 31, 2025, 11:38 pm • 9 0 • view
It is “veeeery American”, because sometimes we want to go places other than where these lines are.
sep 1, 2025, 1:06 am • 42 0 • view
And sometimes we don't want an 8-hour layover in Chicago that puts us at our destination at midnight.
sep 1, 2025, 2:00 am • 20 0 • view
Or what was supposed to be a three hour layover in Charlotte so we could have time to clear customs from vacation & recheck our bags, so we could visit nieces and nephew in Chicago, only to board two hours late, get halfway to ORD, turn around, and find a rental car and hotel at 1 am in Charlotte.
sep 1, 2025, 2:41 am • 7 0 • view
I live on one of those lines, but the train station is 20 miles away and the train only comes once a day. Oh it's also one of the ones in the western half of the US so good luck getting to where you're going without taking a really long side trip.
sep 1, 2025, 12:22 pm • 6 0 • view
Oh, there is also no parking at the train station, so I have to have someone *else* drive me there. As much as I love train travel, I've taken the train 3 times in my entire life because it doesn't go where I need it to go.
sep 1, 2025, 12:35 pm • 1 0 • view
This (and replies) bsky.app/profile/nilo...
sep 1, 2025, 10:51 am • 5 0 • view
It’s a very chicken and egg problem - the US rail network is terrible because no one takes it, and no one takes it because it’s terrible. (And it’s terrible for a host of reasons, including enormous distances, old/slow trains, car culture/car company lobbying, etc., etc.)
sep 1, 2025, 12:11 pm • 4 0 • view
The biggest reason behind all of those is that passenger rail rides the same tracks as freight and freight always gets priority.
sep 1, 2025, 12:32 pm • 0 0 • view
That's a later development. The downfall started when it was the private railroads who operated the long-distance trains and gave them all the priority they could. (I know a bit of history and context and a long time ago, I rode an Amtrak train myself :))
sep 1, 2025, 12:52 pm • 2 0 • view
I live directly outside of nyc, probably the densest public transit center in the county. I can SEE the city from my roof. In order to get to another city by train I would have to: Walk 20 minutes to the light rail (fine. But I am able-bodied and pack light)…
sep 1, 2025, 3:30 am • 4 0 • view
…Take light rail 40 mins to another train (sure) Take 2nd train 30 mins to big train station (ok) So we’re up to an hour and a half before I get to the inter-city train. BTW, none of these transit systems talk to one another, so I need three different passes or tickets. But we’re doing great!…
sep 1, 2025, 3:37 am • 6 0 • view
…Let’s hope the schedules all work out and I don’t have to wait too long, because there are very few benches where a traveler can rest their weary legs, often none at all. Because god forbid a homeless person sit down!…
sep 1, 2025, 3:41 am • 4 0 • view
…Anyway, we’ve made it, and have also already spent hundreds of dollars. Here are some sample fares to Boston. But we don’t so much have high speed rail here. There’s a faster train that costs closer to $350, but it usually has to go the same speed as all the other trains. …
sep 1, 2025, 3:54 am • 4 0 • view
…As you can see, this train takes about four hours. Bringing our total travel time, if there are no long waits in between (a pipe dream), to roughly 5 1/2 hours to go 225 miles, and we have spent ~$300. …
sep 1, 2025, 4:08 am • 2 0 • view
…That’s a best case scenario in the relatively compact Northeast. And we’ll have limited transit options in the other end. The car ride is 3 1/2 hours and takes a bit more than half a tank of gas. Even at higher prices, ~$25 worth. That’s why.
sep 1, 2025, 4:14 am • 4 0 • view
And freight often has priority on the lines in many places, so if you get stuck behind a freight train, you're SOL.
sep 1, 2025, 6:00 am • 1 0 • view
They don’t actually have priority, it’s much worse. Freight are supposed to give preference to passenger rail but freight lines are now so long (and sidings haven’t been increased) such that passenger rail is forced to wait even though it has priority. media.amtrak.com/wp-content/u...
sep 1, 2025, 7:00 am • 2 0 • view
Look, my intent was an observation of amercan-nes, maybe with a little jab about taking a train instead of driving for a day or two. Sorry, and apologies if that was insulting.
sep 1, 2025, 8:39 am • 1 0 • view
Appreciated. As you can probably tell, we are very frustrated! We would v much like to sit on a train for a couple of hours and find an interconnected public transportation option when we get to our destination. I would love to read a book instead of fighting my way through traffic!
sep 1, 2025, 1:43 pm • 2 0 • view
Exactly! Train is boring, but at least if you fall asleep there you are stil getting somewhere, and not flying off the road. But if you have no other option... what can you do? I can also you horror stories about train system here! Still better than a car or a bus though.
sep 1, 2025, 2:07 pm • 0 0 • view
JUST USE THE GODDAMN WINGS ON YOUR BACK U MORON Oh wait you don't have those? Hmm...
aug 31, 2025, 11:33 pm • 15 0 • view
aug 31, 2025, 11:34 pm • 1 0 • view
My area (pop~450k) was a major hub 150 years ago, and still has an extensive track system in place, with freight trains through multiple times a day. The nearest passenger hub? Is small town an hour's drive away, w limited bus transport. Why don't we ride the train? Bc most don't have that option.
aug 31, 2025, 11:37 pm • 23 0 • view
Seriously, what even is this nonsense? Amtrak bypasses multiple cities in Illinois and Iowa, including college towns with students from Chicago who don't own cars, in favor of low pop towns. And then they wonder why they don't get business? www.amtrak.com/plan-your-tr...
sep 1, 2025, 12:48 am • 4 1 • view
Ahahaha I included the wrong Burlington in the alt-text. Burlington, IA, is a whole whopping 24k, making their route inclusion just as ridiculous as the rest of the small towns Amtrak decided needed a train station, while bypassing college towns and cities.
sep 1, 2025, 1:59 am • 0 0 • view
Yep, I was getting at that this very american, and not that this is the holy grail. There are reasons why it is silly here and why it is not silly there, but many of those still ... bizarre to other parts of the world!
sep 1, 2025, 9:11 am • 1 0 • view
Ah, I think I see. I think maybe there was misinterpretation of your use of capitalization/punctuation to infer you were deriding non-use of trains, rather than describing that position. If so, apologies! Language is imperfect (and yet the best we generally have).
sep 1, 2025, 9:41 am • 1 0 • view
One of the same factors kneecapping California highspeed rail.
sep 1, 2025, 12:56 am • 2 0 • view
The annoying thing is that our towns grew up along the rail lines, and we are very familiar with trains blocking traffic. [I live in the QCA: river barges can pause bridge traffic (with signage so people know to head towards a different bridge)], but trains seem to override barges. We've got this.
sep 1, 2025, 1:02 am • 2 0 • view
But somehow preserving and reviving our historic depots would be bad? I don't even understand it.
sep 1, 2025, 1:04 am • 3 0 • view
I've loved visiting countries with high speed passenger rail. And I wish it was an option here, because I hate flying (I also have airline envy. Unfettered capitalism sucks). Part of the difficulty is it'd need to be subsidized. And the US is getting worse at funding public benefits.
aug 31, 2025, 11:40 pm • 18 0 • view
The entire train system in Japan could fit inside California. The U.S. is huge, and much of it is desolate. We should have invested in more trains 50-60 years ago, but now we get more immediate carbon reduction putting light rail in our cities.
sep 1, 2025, 3:48 pm • 5 0 • view
Your kitty is very handsome.
sep 1, 2025, 4:00 pm • 2 0 • view
Those are epic paws.
sep 1, 2025, 4:21 pm • 0 0 • view
Excellent dental health.
sep 1, 2025, 4:20 pm • 0 0 • view
I think before you go calling other people morons you should familiarize yourself with the subject in question. Ukraine comparison for scale.
aug 31, 2025, 11:27 pm • 82 0 • view
Looks like about 1 & 1/4 Texases
aug 31, 2025, 11:39 pm • 12 0 • view
It's actually about .9 of one Texas. Ukraine - 604 km² Texas - 696k km²
sep 1, 2025, 12:03 am • 10 0 • view
✨math✨
sep 1, 2025, 12:44 am • 1 0 • view
I think we should throw this person onto an Amtrak train and let them experience that... Joy
sep 1, 2025, 12:13 am • 8 0 • view
I adore the NE regional. It is also, maybe, Amtrak's only functional route. It also costs as much, and often more, than flying.
sep 1, 2025, 12:15 am • 12 0 • view
St. Louis to Chicago is an awesome route. I can leave multiple times during the day and it seems to have good ridership. The price is decent too. I wish there were more lines that connected Midwest cities laterally
sep 1, 2025, 2:09 pm • 2 0 • view
I used to ride between D.C. and Springfield in college, which at the time was relatively affordable and not much slower than flying (in part because the nearest airport was an hour away by bus). But that’s about the only place it was feasible.
sep 1, 2025, 3:51 am • 3 0 • view
I remember being 5 years old, hot and tired and thirsty while my mom was crying on the train platform in Florida. The train was hours late. No food in the terminal and the water fountain was broken. My sister was only 2 years old. No cell phones. The train finally came...4 hrs late.
sep 1, 2025, 12:18 am • 10 0 • view
seriously. I used the train for 3 years to and from school for breaks. it was cheaper than airfare or maintaining a car, but the absolute dead last priority meant it was ALWAYS slow and late. at some point 7 hours minimum from Eugene to Tacoma is just not worth it when the drive is 4.5-5 hours
sep 1, 2025, 2:06 am • 8 0 • view
We desperately need a few high speed rail lines to connect major cities/regions, but there's just too much empty space to build out cross country passenger rail. cities would be better served by investing in local rail/subway/ bus and then easy hub access to high speed rail and airports
sep 1, 2025, 2:11 am • 3 0 • view
I am sorry about that. I also was not trying to be mean and bring up bad memories. Apologies! I had some horrible experiences with trains as well, but compared to a long bus or car drives - maybe not the same level of bad.
sep 1, 2025, 10:09 am • 1 0 • view
👋AMTRAK👋
sep 1, 2025, 12:19 am • 2 0 • view
Yeah we always flew or drove after that for some reason.
sep 1, 2025, 12:20 am • 2 0 • view
And South Dakota. So neglected I even forgot them.
sep 1, 2025, 4:58 am • 1 0 • view
Sorry mate, gl in next life! In all seriousness, I wanted to point out that it is very American. Here, your first and second choice is the train. You can drive if you need it, but why would you want it as a first option?!
sep 1, 2025, 8:17 am • 1 0 • view
I’ve also been on roads in Ukraine. They are adequate, but not as overengineered as in the US. Part of that is seasons are less extreme (in most of the US) but they are also much smaller roads. Doing 1000 KM in a day (which I’ve been doing for most of a month) is a much less pleasant experience
sep 1, 2025, 5:55 am • 6 0 • view
Well, yeah. Again, to me, this seems very american, isn't it? In most cases, here you would go by train, and you can drive if needed. It's just that most people would not. Making roads bigger and better helps, but is not going to change that.
sep 1, 2025, 6:36 am • 0 0 • view
As one who has traveled in both countries… The scale is such that trains (even if we had better than we do; even if they were as good as when we had the best in the world) can’t cover the functional distances. Esp not if what you need is ten bales of hay at 50KG each, to your door.
sep 1, 2025, 6:52 am • 8 0 • view
Something I notice as a regular train-user... places *not* serviced by the network tend to drop out of my sight, because the threshold to change modes is quite high. While for regular car-users, the mysteries of schedules and ticket-acquisition need their own learning.
sep 1, 2025, 8:13 am • 3 0 • view
The former is a tale as old as main routes of travel. My travelling companion recalls when the village she lived in was given a bypass. Village life didn’t change much, but a lot of the motorway support services between “here and there” went away.
sep 1, 2025, 1:59 pm • 2 0 • view
Rte 66 has the same problem, each time I travel the length of 40 (this is the 4th time) the number of places which used to be there because of traffic is fewer; and yet there are new nodes of support; based on how much less often travellers need such support.
sep 1, 2025, 1:59 pm • 1 0 • view
And places like Winslow have managed to find ways to mine nostalgia to create a minor economy in tourism. Which isn’t what it was when I-40 wasn’t limiting where folks could/did stop, but keeps it from becoming a ghost town.
sep 1, 2025, 1:59 pm • 1 0 • view
Maybe to put it this way: wanting an option to be able to drive 4000 miles and needing it are very different things. Wanting it daily(ish) is strange, and the reasons for it seem very "american". Also - I do not think you can fit more than a bail into the car the original topic mentioned!
sep 1, 2025, 11:42 am • 0 0 • view
The original post to which I replied said nothing about why one travelled 1000km by car, only that no one in their right mind did it by car, because there should be trains. To which I still say the scale of the US makes that not true; even if all one is doing is moving oneself.
sep 1, 2025, 2:08 pm • 2 0 • view
I think that post hit all the wrong buttons, and I apologise for that! What I meant was something that I would tell a friend here, in UA, like "just take the bloody train and stop this nonsense about driving". Should have worded that differently, my bad!
sep 1, 2025, 2:55 pm • 0 0 • view
I still think this is very "american", and it does not make sense to me there are basically no trains roaming this vastness. I get it there are reasons, and challenges, but at least some of them seem... cultural? Denial? "We do not need trains! This is the way!".
sep 1, 2025, 2:58 pm • 0 0 • view
Again, there are reasons why you may need to haul hay bails through the sticks. They are valid here as well! What is not sensible though is to look at extreme ranges for general use. Like daily or weekly commute, that kind of thing, because you have that covered.
sep 1, 2025, 3:01 pm • 0 0 • view
And better trains won’t fix that if you live 300 miles from a practical location for a train station. Which tens of millions of Americans do. In short, your viewpoint is at least as parochial as you think Americans who say, “scale matters” is.
sep 1, 2025, 6:53 am • 6 0 • view
And that is the problem. The US train network has been in decline since the 50s, to the point where it's now largely ineffective as a comprehensive transportation system. In Europe, there has been a resurgence in rail use, with freight now realising the cost benefits of shifting from road to rail.
sep 1, 2025, 8:06 am • 3 0 • view
None of which I denied; but I also know that the sheer scale of the US, and need for people and goods to reach places sparsely populated, means even if the rails were as good as they were at their best, people and goods would still need roads. Wells Fargo didn’t start with banks.
sep 1, 2025, 1:53 pm • 3 0 • view
Wells Fargo started because trains, in their heyday, weren’t able to meet the need to get people/goods everywhere they needed to be; by hundreds of miles. That need still exists; and cars made it affordable for smaller than companies to do.
sep 1, 2025, 1:53 pm • 2 0 • view
Most people in the US live near the coast or the Great Lakes; connect them up, as that is all you need.
sep 1, 2025, 2:22 pm • 0 0 • view
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that maybe "500KG of hay 300 miles" is not a sufficiently common use case to be worth discarding passenger rail for
sep 1, 2025, 1:09 pm • 1 0 • view
Oddly, giant trucks suited to this task are so popular that the big 3 US makers don't bother making sedans anymore.
sep 1, 2025, 3:00 pm • 2 0 • view
Very american! BTW, do these trucks transfer people? In vertical or horizontal stacks? I jest! Please do not take offense. My initial post was about americann-nes of the thing and about personal transport, not the trucking hauling and other heavy weight transporting. Which trains are good at as well
sep 1, 2025, 3:07 pm • 0 0 • view
1: We need more rail. 2: We esp need rail to nodes in the interior, but 3: The population density is such that most people will not be well served, because McAlester OK, (pop 18,000) is not going to generate enough traffic, on it’s own, to justify having regular local rail.
sep 1, 2025, 11:22 pm • 1 0 • view
And the surrounding couple of hundred square miles don’t have more than another 18,000 people, all in. And that’s the case for most of the US interior.
sep 1, 2025, 11:22 pm • 0 0 • view
Because the population is 500-20,000 people towns… and they are 40-50 miles between them. With a very evenly distributed family unit every 2-5 miles in all the rest of the space.
sep 1, 2025, 11:22 pm • 1 0 • view
Regretfully most of those trucks *can’t*. The frames are not made any stronger when the cabs are made larger, so the amount which can go in the bed is often no more than 750 lbs, and no passengers.
sep 1, 2025, 10:50 pm • 2 0 • view
I never said it was, and perhaps it wasn’t the best response to “no one in their right mind travels 1000km in a car” but the fact of the matter is US population is spread out enough that there is no practical way that everyone will be able to use passenger trains.
sep 1, 2025, 2:13 pm • 4 0 • view
And always has been. Which is why we had stagecoach lines, right up until we had automobiles; and why, even when rail service was still a thing (in the 1930) and roads were poor, there were people making those long drives, such that we had a Rte 66, and a US 101.
sep 1, 2025, 2:13 pm • 3 0 • view
“Some people are too spread out for rail to be practical” is something which is true of every place on earth, at every scale. Nonetheless: it would be quite feasible to build a US passenger rail network such that “why would you drive that?? Take a train!” was a normal response to most 1000km trips.
sep 1, 2025, 3:19 pm • 1 0 • view
China and the US are similar sizes. China has high-speed rail crossing the country. Technology isn't the problem. Political and public will is.
sep 1, 2025, 9:13 am • 9 0 • view
I didn’t say we couldn’t have high speed rail. I said competing needs matter. The other thing China has is density of population. You will note that there is large part of China which doesn’t have rail; and it’s the part which has the pop-density of all but the Coastal US.
sep 1, 2025, 2:04 pm • 4 0 • view
Should the US have a better rail network? Yes. Would that change the way people move about? Yes. Would it do away with US car culture? Probably not, if one is well away from the coasts; because Wyoming, or Oklahoma, are “thin on the ground” and would look more like Wester China, then central.
sep 1, 2025, 2:04 pm • 4 0 • view
You make it sound like people routinely transport bales of hay from Florida to Montana, and that's what the transport network should be designed around.
sep 1, 2025, 7:54 am • 1 0 • view
No. I know that people need things like hay, and that the distances across which they need it are non-trivial (having been one of those people), and pretending a network addressing that is inferior, a priori; is a form of ignorance.
sep 1, 2025, 1:49 pm • 4 0 • view
I was lucky enough to have a train station about 30-40min drive away from home (Portland, ME) and a stop in my college town (central PA). Taxi from Boston No. To So. Station bc they're not connected, change trains again in Philly, get ride to school. It was like a 16 hr day and $$. (8hr drive)
sep 1, 2025, 12:34 am • 5 0 • view
I live in walking distance of a different train station. Passenger train comes thru 1x/day each direction, I believe. So a day trip to Burlington for example wouldn't really work on the train anyway. Its a ~1.5 hr drive, straight shot up an open highway, and it's a GORGEOUS drive too.
sep 1, 2025, 12:38 am • 3 0 • view
I'm in France, and my local station, serving a town of 25,000 people, has a fast TGV train (300km/h) to central Paris every two hours and many local trains to neighbours larger towns. The US train system needs to be redeveloped.
sep 1, 2025, 8:09 am • 3 0 • view
I took a TGV Paris to/from Lille in college. If I remember correctly, the train station is essentially connected to de Gaulle, right? Quick and easy, and when the cities you are traveling between are walkable or have a metro it works really well. But the rural parts here are just SO vast and/or wild
sep 1, 2025, 12:16 pm • 3 0 • view
I don't think many Americans would disagree with that, Peter, but please bear in mind that Sara's trip was approximately the breadth of your entire country. She could have taken the Orange Line to Downtown Crossing, to the Red Line to South Station in Boston, but that would only help with cost.
sep 1, 2025, 11:28 am • 2 0 • view
My parents and I felt it would be safer and easier for me to take a cab, since I was young and traveling alone and not familiar with the T at the time, with some big luggage. The Boston transfer was the biggest pain in the ass of the trip, but train from Bos to Philly was a tight squeeze & uncomfy
sep 1, 2025, 12:09 pm • 2 0 • view
The *whole thing* sounds like a giant pain Would've been loads easier to just drive it, if you could've at the time
sep 1, 2025, 12:13 pm • 0 0 • view
I drove it many times. I flew a couple times too from a tiny airport in Harrisburg, but it was expensive. Maybe I took plane/train for spring break, I dont remember now. Mostly I stayed with my girlfriends on holiday weekends and only drove home on semester breaks. Nice to be passenger sometimes
sep 1, 2025, 12:21 pm • 2 0 • view
Oh okay. That's very different. It sounded like something you had to do. Any road, happy holiday today!
sep 1, 2025, 12:25 pm • 0 0 • view
Im sure whatever the circumstances were, it made more sense to take the train at the time. I did it maybe 2-3times round trip. But it was almost as expensive as flying and took twice the time of driving, so all of that factors in. I took a bus once or twice too but got into hairy situations w/ it.
sep 1, 2025, 12:31 pm • 0 0 • view
In Europe fast trains go beyond international boundaries. With the current huge infrastructure builds for the Trans-European Networks going ahead with base tunnels through the Alps, Rail Baltica and the Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link things are going to get faster here. As Sam said, it's an American thing
sep 1, 2025, 1:28 pm • 1 0 • view
*stares in western Canadian* what train?
sep 1, 2025, 4:57 pm • 33 1 • view
But wait, I've watched "Festival Express", I thought there was a good train line across most of Canada, hitting the big cities? Or is that faded into memory like the US passenger train business?
sep 2, 2025, 12:17 am • 1 0 • view
Mulroney basically destroyed using trains to travel. I used to take the train to Vancouver from Edmonton because it was cheaper than flying, a bit, but also because I loved 27 hours of safe independence. I think it was $75 for a berth?
sep 2, 2025, 8:33 am • 1 0 • view
A friend with a TBI after her car was t-boned can no longer drive so 2 or 3 times a year she rides Via from Edmonton to Saskatoon and then a brother picks her up to drive her to Melfort so she can see her mom. I guess she doesn't mind it, but those are two of the worse train stations in the world.
sep 1, 2025, 7:44 pm • 4 0 • view
I remember when Regina closed its central train station and turned it into a casino. In the most Saskatchewan thing ever, I remember the government saying “no downsides” while also publishing job listings for addiction counsellors.
sep 1, 2025, 5:29 pm • 9 0 • view
The nearest passenger rail station to me (that isn’t for a commuter line that ends without connecting to anything else) is… 250 miles—350km—away. Explain to me how this works without driving.
sep 1, 2025, 12:29 am • 5 1 • view
A combination of errors led to me having the right kilometers in this. I misestimated the miles and used the wrong rule of thumb to convert, and wound up with the right answer in metric anyway.
sep 1, 2025, 1:01 am • 2 0 • view
Easy! You build a station nearby! Sorry, I am being silly here. Still, this is what I was getting at - very "american"! Lack of trains seems a part of the package. But what makes sense here might not make sense there, and I am not trying to judge, just to observe. Maaaaybe with a bit of irony.
sep 1, 2025, 9:45 am • 0 0 • view
It's completely out of the question for long trips in the US. The trains don't exist.
sep 1, 2025, 2:19 am • 4 0 • view
it's a yikes from me
sep 1, 2025, 12:06 pm • 0 0 • view
Sympathies about the war, but you are telling folks who don’t have that kind of systemic infrastructure in place to use the one you are used to. Many USians would LOVE to travel vs train but it’s not connected up very well, and takes aeons. SEA > SF = 23 hours.
sep 1, 2025, 12:48 am • 16 0 • view
Sorry it went out that way! I was meaning here, not there. Of course, it does not make sense when you do not have a well maintained railway. There is a jab there, but I see I've miscalculated how much it will hurt. Was not trying to be mean there, apologies!
sep 1, 2025, 9:50 am • 3 0 • view
Only very few of our major cities are connected by passenger trains. In just a few regions. Unfortunate reality. Taking buses is harder now too.
aug 31, 2025, 11:25 pm • 37 0 • view
The Cinci bus station is now a trailer sitting behind a chain-link fence in one of the inner suburbs, near the interstate. We had a downtown bus station, but for reasons I don't know, this, which looks like an abandoned construction site, is now it. The service is poor and getting poorer.
sep 1, 2025, 12:54 am • 13 0 • view
The reason for the closing of inner-city bus stations is that a private equity firm bought Greyhound and then asset-stripped it by selling off the bus stations.
sep 1, 2025, 1:40 am • 54 13 • view
Yes, and it sucks. Private equity is a freaking plague. It's why we can't have even adequate things, never mind nice things. BUSES ARE GOOD.
sep 1, 2025, 1:46 am • 24 0 • view
Ah. That explains why service local to me got much thinner. ><
sep 1, 2025, 9:54 am • 1 0 • view
Well, now I know. damn.
sep 1, 2025, 1:42 am • 10 0 • view
I am lucky enough to live in Chicago right now, which is a hub city. But if i go visit my parents, I can go to Milwaukee for $25 one way (1.5 hrs from their home) or to Columbus which is $40 or $61 and leaves twice a day. Which is still an hour's drive from them. Our trains suck.
sep 1, 2025, 12:06 am • 8 0 • view
and the Columbus option is new! It used to be Milwaukee or nothing before! we finally got a train from Chicago to Minneapolis and it makes several stops in Wisconsin along the way, thank god. But we had to fight so hard just to get that.
sep 1, 2025, 12:40 am • 6 0 • view
Agree to a point. But some counterpoints (many sarcastic/tongue-in-cheek) 1) brown people 2) poor people 3) we didn’t have train / other infrastructure blown up during the War so it’s old 4) hobos (see 1 and 2) 5) airplanes (pre-9/11) 6) trains are a little bumpy 7) cheap gas 8) land yachts as cars
sep 1, 2025, 2:33 am • 2 0 • view
At least someone gets that I was jabbing a bit! What I was pointing at was this is very american to me (because other countries have trains for long travels), but a lot of people got really upset about that. I'm not sure if It was unfortunate wording or mention of trains.
sep 1, 2025, 9:07 am • 0 0 • view
from thetruesize.com trust me, a LOT of people wish the US had chosen "train" instead of "car" after WWII, but here we are
aug 31, 2025, 11:56 pm • 11 0 • view
Yep, and that is why I say it is very american! I wanted to point out that this would be silly to do here - why drive all that distance when you can hop on a train? Sorry if that came out mean, it was not my intention!
sep 1, 2025, 10:42 am • 0 0 • view
Americans are more likely to fly than take a train if we're going long distances, and the tradeoff is flying vs driving, not train vs driving. And if you can't afford flying, you'd take a bus, not a train. There are a few exceptions - Boston-NYC-Philly-Washington is connected by good trains.
sep 2, 2025, 12:15 am • 1 0 • view
This is absolutely silly as a suggestion for almost everywhere in the U.S. My nearest passenger rail station is further away 85 minutes than almost everywhere I need to get to regularly and that’s quite common here.
aug 31, 2025, 11:54 pm • 18 0 • view
Right? I have a 25 mile commute, and work is on the way to the train station.
sep 1, 2025, 12:52 am • 2 0 • view
I love trains, but US rail infrastructure isn't designed for passenger travel. I can drive to DC from here in 10 hours, but a train would take me two and a half days.
sep 1, 2025, 12:54 am • 9 0 • view
I have driven from Ternopil to Stavky and it fucking sucked.
aug 31, 2025, 11:23 pm • 2 0 • view
I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehatchapi to Tonopah.
aug 31, 2025, 11:55 pm • 6 0 • view
Same. Did Tehachapi to Tucumcari this week (that is a very defined square), and I’m still willing to do the rest.
sep 1, 2025, 5:53 am • 2 0 • view
🎶 Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me Other times I can barely see Lately it occurs to me What a long, strange trip it's been 🎶
sep 1, 2025, 12:26 am • 4 0 • view
"I've been warped by the rain, driven by the snow / I'm drunk and dirty, don't you know / And I'm still willin'"
sep 1, 2025, 3:43 am • 1 0 • view
My husband *works for the train*. We would LOVE to take a train. But we're driving to Atlanta this week because there is no train that will get us where we need to be in the time frame we need.
sep 1, 2025, 12:18 am • 5 0 • view
It is impossible to express to anyone from Europe or Asia how sprawling North America is, and how crappy our transportation infrastructure is. The nearest train station for me is 45 minutes away by car, and I’m in a fairly built up region.
aug 31, 2025, 11:41 pm • 48 0 • view
Whereas I live in a rural UK village half an hour’s walk (through woods) to the station.
aug 31, 2025, 11:56 pm • 13 0 • view
Yeah that just, like, doesn’t exist here. In the northeast the rails were all destroyed by major floods in the fifties and then never rebuilt since the interstate highways were all being built.
sep 1, 2025, 12:20 am • 16 0 • view
To be fair, a lot of our local rural branch lines were axed in the sixties but some rural areas got lucky. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechin...
sep 1, 2025, 2:50 am • 2 0 • view
That is why I was saying this is very american! I sure do not get it, but hey, what silly here might not be silly there and vice versa? And the other very american thing is that many people took it too close to the heart and as an insult to them (and not to my fellow ukrainians, who do have trains)
sep 1, 2025, 8:52 am • 1 0 • view
It's hard to have this conversation when most Americans read it and assume the rest of the world is telling them to IMMEDIATELY sell their cars, walk to get groceries (from a non-existent local store), take a (non-existent) bus to work and a (non-existent) train to visit friends in another city.
sep 1, 2025, 8:12 am • 3 0 • view
We KNOW your infrastructure sucks NOW. We're just telling you that a lot of this is absolutely solvable, if you actually want to solve it. And we know it because not only did we do it, but YOU did it before us, and then broke it on purpose.
sep 1, 2025, 8:12 am • 2 0 • view
And a whole lot of you are focusing entirely on "but how do I get from Miami to Seattle?" when most trips you regularly take are within 200-300 miles tops. So you're refusing to consider the obvious solution, because it is not perfect for a couple of edge cases, which YES, need a different approach.
sep 1, 2025, 8:14 am • 1 0 • view
The average American is not refusing to consider the obvious solutions - we don't have any power to implement those solutions. We (the majority of us) know what needs changing but our government doesn't actually want to change it. Average citizens can't replace aging infrastructure.
sep 1, 2025, 5:17 pm • 2 0 • view
I live in central IL. There's a triangle of cities that the rural areas all commute to for work and recreation. There's even rail track. Perfect for an hourly service UK style. But the rail isn't certified for passengers, the freight companies that own the rail would never allow it. 1/2
sep 1, 2025, 12:13 am • 5 0 • view
And once there the bus services to actually get where you want to go are pretty sketchy. 2/2
sep 1, 2025, 12:13 am • 5 0 • view
Dude, I can’t even take a train around the Atlanta metro area because by the time I drive to a station I could have just driven to my destination. It is very American in that our train system is, apart from, like, the northeastern corner, non-existent for passengers. I wish that weren’t the case.
sep 1, 2025, 1:03 am • 5 0 • view
Yeah, passenger trains are just barely a thing here. The vast majority of the time, it's travel by car or nothing.
aug 31, 2025, 11:33 pm • 10 0 • view
Which train, the one that will take me to about 100 miles from where I am actually going at twice the time and no cost savings? I'd love to have good mass transit in the US but right now such things are limited to very small areas (usually more populated cities). As a non-driver, it's not great :( .
sep 1, 2025, 9:53 am • 3 0 • view
What train? It's a serious question. If I want to travel from Tulsa to western Kansas to see my grandma these are my options. Or I could drive 500 miles direct and not start 80 miles from where I live and end 80 miles from where I want to go.
aug 31, 2025, 11:40 pm • 27 0 • view
I do this drive at least once a year.
aug 31, 2025, 11:42 pm • 5 0 • view
Tell your grandma the Internet says hello and that we hope she's having a great day!
sep 1, 2025, 1:32 am • 3 0 • view
I could in theory do this by bus but the schedule sucks and it's cheaper to drive if anyone comes with me.
aug 31, 2025, 11:44 pm • 6 0 • view
No one should go by bus. It is a form of torture and should be banned. I do think that driving a car for hours and hours is almost as bad, though.
sep 1, 2025, 10:56 am • 0 0 • view
This says a hell of a lot more about you than us. You seem to think the United States is like all of Europe. With a sophisticated, efficient rail network. And, if wishing made it so, we would. In the meantime, our actual knowledge of nonexistent rail service trumps your name-calling.
sep 1, 2025, 4:35 am • 4 0 • view
My intent was an observation that this is very american. What is silly here is not silly there, and while there is a jab about trains, I thought it was not actually insulting. For this, I apologise, as I did not mean it that way.
sep 1, 2025, 8:32 am • 6 0 • view
😄 Ukraine is approximately the size of Texas Now, that's a big state, but it's only one of 50! I don't think you understand how spread out we are
sep 1, 2025, 12:05 am • 12 0 • view
I mean, of course not, but that's the point of it being american, isn't it? Driving even 200+ km makes me screaming internally, and i do not get why you would want to do it for days non stop, unless you have no other option.
sep 1, 2025, 10:23 am • 0 0 • view
We often do not have any other option, except to not get where we're going. As a great many people, I see, have explained to you. That does not make us "goddamn morons." We can attain that status rightfully for plenty of other reasons! 😄
sep 1, 2025, 11:07 am • 3 0 • view
Sorry it came out that way, and apologies! I meant that as something I would say to someone here, where there is almost always such an option. My bad!
sep 1, 2025, 11:32 am • 2 0 • view
Ooohhh! I get you now. Heh, that's all good. 😊
sep 1, 2025, 11:35 am • 0 0 • view
If I wanted to take a train to visit my grandgirls, I’d have to drive 338 kilometers to get to the nearest train station that has a train going to Arizona. The train would leave at 2:20 AM (there’s only one per day) and the ride would take 23 hours. Then I’d be stuck there with no transportation.
sep 1, 2025, 1:18 am • 8 0 • view
The alternate route would be a 173k drive to a train station in Oklahoma City. There, I’d take a train to Fort Worth, Texas. There, I’d take another train north to St. Louis, Missouri. Then I’d take a 3rd train west to Kansas City, Missouri. There, I’d take a 4th train to my daughter’s town in
sep 1, 2025, 1:45 am • 5 0 • view
Arizona. Total trip = 63 hours. That’s a whole day more than driving to Arizona. The cost for a coach seat would be more than round trip air fare. And I’d still need to rent a car to get around my daughter’s town.
sep 1, 2025, 1:45 am • 6 0 • view
He was talking about the US? So what's the issue?
aug 31, 2025, 11:38 pm • 3 0 • view
Public transit in America writ large is terrible.
sep 1, 2025, 12:08 am • 3 0 • view
That is not an option in the states *or* Canada if you aren't in a major city. It takes me about 15 minutes to drive to the mall. It would take me an hour and 16 minutes to go that same 15km via bus. There is no train. There has never been a train/tube/subway anywhere I've ever lived. Only bus.
sep 1, 2025, 5:18 am • 3 0 • view
Yeah North American trains take forever and the coast to coast coverage is not there. Some metro regions have decent commuter trains but if you want to get across Canada on the ground you have to drive
sep 1, 2025, 12:26 am • 4 0 • view
A lot of people here dunking on the Ukrainian for the US shortcomings in rail but can I recommend you TURN YOUR ATTENTION TO THOSE RESPONSIBLE rather than upbraid the European.
sep 1, 2025, 11:03 pm • 2 0 • view
Seems lotta folks thought ive calling them morons for not using what they do not have and got upset. Which is also very american! I was just observing that this would be really silly to do _here_, as we have trains everywhere.
sep 2, 2025, 6:58 am • 1 0 • view
Try that in Canada, see how far you get 😂
aug 31, 2025, 11:40 pm • 3 0 • view
I swear the only place in Canada that rail travel is functional at all (for certain definitions) is the southern Ontario commuter network, and it’s still better to stay inside the GTA on that
sep 1, 2025, 12:28 am • 5 0 • view
New Yorkers are rightly proud of their trains, but this is London’s map of stuff on rails, they just don’t have that level of service And European trains, a normal German long distance high speed has a bar where they serve beer from kegs, into actual glasses, restaurant cars they don’t have this
sep 1, 2025, 12:22 am • 4 0 • view
Sure, but the original post was about long-range vehicles. I do not mean that it is always a good option or even a good one - there is no one size fits everyone - but if you have to drive 200km+ every day, that sounds... sad? And very american! "Drive a tin can for days instead of relaxing in one!"
sep 1, 2025, 10:03 am • 1 0 • view
If they don’t have trains they can’t go by train and I feel bad for them When he was nine my son tried to go to Switzerland from London by train but he was foiled by not having enough money I used to have nightmares where I dreamed the police rang me up from some random place he had travelled to
sep 1, 2025, 4:15 pm • 1 0 • view
They have a completely different rail situation in the US A lot of freight moves by rail but passenger services are rubbish long distance and their high speed is 50 years behind other countries Also
aug 31, 2025, 11:51 pm • 17 0 • view