And those of us in Japan
/ Though the winds are so high that our line partially will shut down a few times a year. It was elevated after the tsunami which led to a new issue.
Yeah, how the fuck am I gonna get my kid to school and then to work on the other side of town using a fucking public train? I would have to wake up four hours in advance. These ideal euro dreams are for 20 year old bachelors with no kids.
Do you not have school buses?
In Japan, kindergarteners are required to get to school using public transit, alone. They wear bright yellow hats so everyone can see them/knows where they’re going if they look like they need help.
I live in the poor part of town and there’s no bus to my kids school. That’s great for Japan. I live here in America where that’s not possible because my school and work are on opposite sides of town.
Op, and this thread isn’t mocking the person imprisoned by a Honda Accord for not simply taking a 200mph train through the Alps while sipping a glass of wine to get to work, its mocking them and you for not understanding how bad things are and defending such a terrible system. Better things are possible, but it requires systemic change, nobody expects tragicinfo to personally build a high-speed rail network.
Yes, I think mocking working-class parents is a great way to get the point across. Bravo.
Working class parents can have ignorant, crab-bucket mentalities too.
So can uninformed brave keyboard warriors, squabbling for internet likes. Put your child on your motorcycle and take them to school if you’re so anti-car.
I see children on motorbikes every day here in vietnam, its how people get their kids to school.
Under 14-16 the parents or older brother drops the kids off, sometimes you see a mom with 2 kids between her legs and 1 one the back. Around that age they tend to get electric scooters and drive themselves and maybe 1-2 friends. At 16 they can get a 49cc bike, but a lot illegally ride a 110cc.
Its not possible in America because we designed everything around cars. Look outside your bubble, things don’t have to be so bad.
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Unless you’re being transported somewhere as cattle, traveling for work is a choice.
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.
A gas station that does not sell beer and ammunition is not some place I will buy gas from!
and gas station dick pills
I’ll take the backroads in my dumb little fartbox. It will take twice as long and I’ll hear banjos the entire time but at least I’ll have fun.
Oh, and my car won’t leave without me.
If you miss your train just catch the next one, it’ll be here in like 10 minutes.
I wish that would be true
How does the situation in farm country Japan matter to me when I miss my train and have to wait 1 or 2 hours for the next one?
Happy for those that get to use those trains, but thats just not a universal train experience
The point is that things don’t have to be so bad; places with probably less demand run more trains, you just have to force the train companies to invest in infrastructure instead of stock buybacks.
I’m not gonna try and take any of that away from you, but I’m pretty sure fartbox is slang for butthole?
Or hoopty, a junky vehicle.
I drive a Ford Fiesta thank you very much. 😉
Yeah, no. None of us making that argument (except, you guessed it… conservatives) aren’t comparing ourselves to Europe. Obviously they win. We should be implementing the brilliant socialist policies of especially northern Europe.
Meanwhile I could be in Beijing teleporting around in my BYD hoping the transporter trace doesn’t pattern-recognize the pooh bear meme I just made. Unless, of course, I want to make my family disappear.
Sorry boss I don’t think Americans can really throw any shade on China for authoritarian overreach anymore.
Your guy just fired the people looking after postal vote rolls. I wonder how many of those families might get disappeared, memes or not.
He just launched his own personal brand of gas stations selling fuel he stole or extorted from whomever he’s picked on recently.
You Europeans aren’t very far behind with the amount of population surveillance you are adding to. What surveillance bill just got passed this week?
I don’t think any of us can be throwing rocks around about freedom anymore.
Actually im in Australia but I acknowledge we are also heavily surveilled.
However, we do have free elections, we embrace, we respect bodily autonomy, and we don’t have a tinpot dictator.
Until you don’t. And surveillance is often a first step.
My original comment was, American’s don’t have much credibility when calling others authoritarian shit holes.
That applies just as well to your comment as the original commenter I responded to.
Consider it a warning that is probably too late.
Do people in the US really get disappeared?
Where have you been for the last year? Trump is absolutely going to use ICE to discourage people on the postal voter list from voting.
I’m been in my country I guess? I’m just surprised if ICE is used against those officials
You might have misunderstood my comment.
Trump has fired the officials who were looking after the list of postal voters. They will appoint replacements who will hand over the list.
They will use ICE to intimidate people on the list into not voting.
Yes. All the time. That’s what ICE does.
Are ICE used against officials like that too?
Disappearing officials who use their positions to get rich would actually be pretty cool. Maybe we could disappear billionaires who get political too.
Yes.
Oops I used the B-word and the PB-words and summoned the repress-o-bots and local stochastic parrots. We’re not there yet and we haven’t been for the past 10 years. So why has anyone who actually cares been cheering on our downfall like it’s a forgone conclusion? Accelerationist scum.
I’m not cheering on your downfall, I’m challenging you to engage in some introspection rather than whataboutism.
What a bullshit lie. There is no debate or discussion happening online. You’re here to fight, inflame, and enrage.
Sorry mate did you reply to the wrong comment? Not making much sense there.
Please don’t breed
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
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.
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 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.
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.
If you saw how expensive and shitty our trains are you’d pick the accord too
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.
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
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 for 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.
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.
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
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.
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
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…
Expensive? Sure. Shitty? Not so much. I like our trains, at least the major lines.
What train goes 200 mph in Europe?
Not our Swiss trains in the alps, that’s for sure. It’s too curvy in our rail network. Swiss trains are somewhat famous for going slow relative to neighboring countries’ trains.
But I can’t speak with confidence for the trains going through French, Italian, German and Austrian areas of the Alps (the Alps stretch further that one might expect).
In Spain, for example, AVEs
That’s not a theoretical vmax, its regular speed day to day
Yeah, vmax on record is 574 km/h.
None, they only go 322 km/h
Americans will be shocked by the infrastructure when they to go to China.
Not that they ever will because according to US propaganda news, it’s a total third world country hell hole, worse than North Korea.
Who wouldn’t be shocked?
How about Shanghai Songjiang railway station?
Impressive, but not very warm.
If anyone’s wondering that’s Guangzhou South.
Looks very impressive, but also pretty airport-like. I think I prefer the look of Frankfurt or Zürich, which operate on a similar scale (all three at around 170 million passengers a year).
Of course there is way different railway history behind those. Making it look retro would also have been weird for Guangzhou South I would think.
There are some amazing airports in China. Chengdu Tianfu International Airport or Beijing Facing are state of art and great design.
I edited it to include locations.
I do find Chinese architecture and design is often a little less inviting or more sterile than I’d like.
Ah I thought it was all the same location and stopped searching after the first 😁 thanks for the edit!
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Not just that but I also have shit to do
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.
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!
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.
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 :(
I can tell you I’m not imprisoned by my powerful, responsive Acura.
thanks for reminding me of this gem
Lol I love The Onion.
You can tell some people either didn’t get the joke or watch the vid.
Except at least a third of us are sick of that hell, but we still have to endure the same “find out” phase of the fafo cycle.
Also, why do lol use X and act like there not feeding the troll king
