The Anne Frank Train

[NineBerry]

Self driving cars will actually make trains more attractive, you can use them to get to the train station and then use them to drive around at the target. Cheaper than taxis. But using the train will be cheaper and more comfortable than using self driving cars for longer distances.

[Forty Two]

Self driving cars will actually make trains more attractive, you can use them to get to the train station and then use them to drive around at the target. Cheaper than taxis. But using the train will be cheaper and more comfortable than using self driving cars for longer distances.

How is sitting on a train more comfortable than sitting in a nice roomy pod, with no strangers about?

But, there may well be such usages for trains. I won't predict them out of existence.

Here in the US, I think the days when a train system can be made financially viable are long gone. The supposed "high speed rail" system they're trying for in California is a boondoggle. It'll never be worth the cost. It'll have to be heavily subsidized by the gubmint to cover the high costs.

Face it - except where you can walk or ride a bike real quick to a train or subway station, trains are pain in the ass for daily use. The people in the northeast who take trains into New York City, for example, get up at 5am, to drive to the train station, and then they have an hour or hour and a half train ride into Manhattan. Then they have to walk or take another subway to their office - and they start their day at 8am, and leave the office at 5pm and get home at 7 or 8 pm. It's not fun. In a city like mine, where there really is no ability to have a subway, even if they had a train, it would be way too much of a pain in the ass to take. No way they can put the train station walking distance from my house. I'm a 12 km drive from the nearest retail store/gas station. It's all residential where I live. So, if they put a train station over there, I still have to drive every day. Then I have to get on the train and it's going to take me to work? Where? What are the odds it'll be walking distance to the office? Even if it is, then I don't have a car to get places I need to go during the work day. If it's not, then it's another transportation means to get to the office. I'd add at least 2 hours of travel time to my day for the pleasure of taking a train. Fuck that.

[Rum]

We dont have a state railway. NS is not owned by the state.

Like most European railways they have complex subsidies and interconnected interests with other railways. NS got into trouble a while back for trying to use Ireland as their tax base given their interests there The own a chunk of British railways in East Anglia too. They have been accused of hiking UK prices to subsidise rail fares in the Netherlands in the past too.

[Scot Dutchy]

Still not owned by the state though.

[Rum]

Still not owned by the state though.

I didn't say it was.

Of course it is a toy train company though. Tiny widdle country and all..

[NineBerry]

Germany running local buses in England?
The creeping Germanization of Europe!!!

[JimC]

This thread has been derailed...

[NineBerry]

It's just following the train of consciousness

[Strontium Dog]

Our local rail transit system is run by the Dutch state, as it happens. We're supposed to be getting some excellent new trains up here but - surprise surprise - the staff have been striking, because the new trains won't require guards.

Which company is that? Arriva?

They run the buses, and are owned by Germany. Abellio is the subsidiary of NS that runs Merseyrail. NS are actually owned by the Dutch state.

[NineBerry]

I have used both Arriva buses (between Germany and the Balcans) and Abellio trains (both in Germany and the Netherlands) and can say nothing bad about both companies.

[Brian Peacock]

Self driving cars will actually make trains more attractive, you can use them to get to the train station and then use them to drive around at the target. Cheaper than taxis. But using the train will be cheaper and more comfortable than using self driving cars for longer distances.

I too share your utopian vision. Driverless cars will render personal car ownership unnecessary, relegating driving to a hobby available only to those who can afford the extravagant maintenance and running costs.

[Rum]

Self driving cars will actually make trains more attractive, you can use them to get to the train station and then use them to drive around at the target. Cheaper than taxis. But using the train will be cheaper and more comfortable than using self driving cars for longer distances.

I too share your utopian vision. Driverless cars will render personal car ownership unnecessary, relegating driving to a hobby available only to those who can afford the extravagant maintenance and running costs.

The problem surely is the infrastructure required and the expense of developing a whole new system.. They can get cars to be safely driverless on motorways now but there are so many variables on a busy road that the technology seems a bit out of reach without some game changer being developed.

[Brian Peacock]

It's not necessarily a problem, just a challenge to the imagination.

[JimC]

Self driving cars will actually make trains more attractive, you can use them to get to the train station and then use them to drive around at the target. Cheaper than taxis. But using the train will be cheaper and more comfortable than using self driving cars for longer distances.

I too share your utopian vision. Driverless cars will render personal car ownership unnecessary, relegating driving to a hobby available only to those who can afford the extravagant maintenance and running costs.

They'll prise my 4WD Forester from my cold dead hands!

[JimC]

And I should have added this:

"When I see a thread on German trains, I reach for my Luger"