From: Huge@nowhere.much.invalid   
      
   On 2019-11-27, met@ph.or  wrote:   
   >>On 2019-11-23, met@ph.or  wrote:   
   >>> Imagine the groupthink/grouprationalizing that went into the american rail   
   assoc.   
   >>> deciding to join the climate denialist club.  Ironically, a rational   
   response   
   >>> to climate change and a future with more expensive energy in general would   
   >>> mean a return to passenger rail.   
   >>   
   >>Passenger rail is presently an irrelevance, verging on inconvenience,   
   >>in the USA.  Freight is everything. Americans drive if they can, fly if   
   >>they can't; rail doesn't even enter into the equation.   
   >   
   > Yup, though it does seem that Amtrak has synced their schedules up a bit   
   > recently.  I checked on what would be entailed for a Denver to Baltimore trip   
   > recently and it wasn't terrible with respect to layovers (2, Chicago and DC).   
   > Price was comparable to flying but of course it takes 36 hours instead of 4.   
      
   About the only "real" (*) rail travel I've done in the USA is between NYC   
   and Philadelphia, which was ... OK, I guess, but the hop from Philly   
   to Thorndale, where my parents lived, was on a commuter route whose   
   rolling stock was antique, stations something from history, and which on   
   long downhill sections managed to accelerate to a brisk walking pace. It   
   made me marginally more grateful for UK commuter trains.   
      
   (* As opposed to on heritage and tourist trains.)   
      
   > If the fracking revolution turns out to have been merely a 10 year reprieve   
   > from peak oil as many are saying   
      
   The oil *will* run out at some point (or we'll have to stop burning it   
   as fuel because of GW). The only uncertainties are when and what we do   
   about it.   
      
   > then we soon be riding more trains soon.   
      
   You'd have thought the USA was an ideal place for long-distance high-   
   speed rail travel. So much easier than driving and more civilised than   
   flying. I've used the shinkansen in Japan and that's an excellent   
   experience.   
      
   --   
   Today is Sweetmorn, the 39th day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 3185   
          Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)