politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
What's not fun about it? I admit most of my idea of the romance of crossing the country on a train is from 1930s and 1940s movies, so I'm sure things are quite different.
The beds are too short if you're 6' or above. The food is not good. And there's really nothing to see when you're passing through the never ending nothingness of Middle America. It's not like you get to hop out and walk around any of the cool looking towns you may come across. You don't really experience anything except a mediocre, slow ass train ride.
Believe it or not, none of that bothers me. I've crossed America by car 3 times, so the Middle America part is fine with me and I'm under 5'10", so the bed would be okay, and I've had train food before on Amtrak trips from southern Illinois to Chicago and yeah, it's not great, but it's not terrible to me either. I guess after being raised on 12 years of school-made lunches, I can eat anything. I could also bring my own food.
Now I don't know that I could convince my wife or daughter to come along, but you haven't actually deterred me from the idea. I guess your mileage may vary.
Here in Europe sleeper trains went through quite a slump, DB even got rid of their whole fleet, then ÖBB started to conceptualise sleeper trains not as trains with beds but as hotels on wheels and their most expensive tickets sell so well that they increased the number of expensive seats erm cots on their train. You can also get what's essentially capsules and a seat, no more of that "four person cabin or bust" type of attitude of ole.
Yes, you could take high-speed rail and arrive the same day, then sleep in a hotel, then do what you came to do. Or you can spend actually less and stay in a maybe modest, but definitely nice hotel for one night and arrive in the morning.
And the little things matter. If your breakfast buns aren't crisp (plenty of room on a train for an oven) and your coffee is as bad as what Starbucks calls coffee don't even start.
As to distance: In principle a high-speed sleeper train could do NY to LA in one night, something like 12-14 hours. Certainly not with the current rail infrastructure, though.