Local Train Rides?

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>>975944
>make me jealous
HSR across Europe
>dem speeds
Why cant Merika?

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>make me jealous
Melbourne commuter train network
to and through suburbia from city centre terminal, lines are 30-50km
high frequency every few minutes morning and evening peaks
20-30 minutes off peak :\

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>>975995
in the city centre and surrounding urban area and oldest inner most suburbs there is the largest tram network in the world

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>>975994
>hurr durr france is only the size of texas thats why merika dont need not hsr

And yet there is no HSR linking the cities of Texas but there is HSR linking the cities of France

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>>975996
several vintage trams have been rebuilt into restaurants for tourist operation

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>>976010
Can you feel the jelly rising?

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>>975996
There is an unfinished and never used streetcar tunnel under Cincinnati
They began building it in the 1910s, then WWI/post war inflation/Great Depression/WWII all conspired to deprive them of the funds and manpower to finish it and finally they boarded it up in the 1950s
Several hundred thousand dollars is still spent every year maintaining it

Cincinnati has otherwise zero public transit
Really makes you think

>>975997
But they're building a shinkansen in texas

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sG-UwjlrX4

>>975944
Foamers are just people who don't have trains as part of their everyday lives, aren't they

It's like being a weeaboo but for an inanimate object

>>976081
Oh, you have a bunch of people working for railroads too who still carry the torch. It's a joy talking to someone like that because they know literally everything.

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About the same population as Phoenix, but more than 100km of subway, plus 30km of tram line. Also hundreds of km of commuter trains (not pictured).

>subway has been expanded a bit too much and the trams a bit too little, but it's perfect to make some burger jelly.

in all seriousness tho, I feel for you, burgerfriend, since you're clearly not of the
>hurr durr muh freedumz
sort. Sucks for your cities having lost their streetcar systems, shit could've been pretty cash if you kept those.

>>976106
Quite a few US cities still have streetcars. Some have built new systems. Cheaper than heavy rail.

>>976113
>Quite a few US cities still have streetcars.
San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh. Am I missing one? Those have 1st gen lines, fractions of the former system.

I think on the whole of the american continent only Toronto has truly kept its streetcar system.

>>976166
Newark and Cleveland, possibly some others that have a light rail line or two that can trace their heritage to some interurban that never got closed.

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Haven't been on a train for ages desu.

Live basically on the WCML so get trains like this to London, and the line goes all the way up to Glasgow.

One day when I've got my touring bike and all that stuff sorted I'll go on a bike tour in Scotland and I'll get the train up, easier than flying with a bike.

>>976166
Portland, San Diego, Seattle & Tacoma, Salt Lake City, Tucson, Atlanta, Dallas, Washington DC, Kansas City. Arguably others as well.

>>976242
>1st gen lines
>1st gen lines
>1st gen lines
>1st gen lines
>1st gen lines
>1st gen lines

>>976030
Why even bother? There is no rail inside Houston or Dallas so how would you get to the Shinkansen and how would you get about when you arrive?

>>976113
Theyhave a dinky little lightrail in the downtown
One route
3-5 miles long
Whole city still auto dependent

>>976280
Who fucking cares whether it's 1st or 2nd gen? They're still streetcars.

>>976314
Because I was specifically asking which cities had somehow kept lines or systems instead of having them scrapped. It was more of a historically-oriented question.

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>>976012
>Several hundred thousand dollars is still spent every year maintaining it
Does that imply that there are plans to eventually complete it? It could be the longest-built underground system in the world kek

>otherwise zero public transit
>zero
picrelated


>>975994
Whoever has made this map in 2015 hasn't done his research well. There are no passenger trains between Vilnius and Riga since 2008. I'd assume that some other lines in Eastern Europe pictured in this map don't exist anymore as well.

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Right down the road from me...

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>>980617
Also this...

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>>980626
This, too...

>>978347
>one line at 12 minutes
>3 lines under 15 minutes
That's pretty much zero anyways

>>980626
What is the name of that? It looks cool

>>980868
Mt. Washington Cog Railway.

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>will never know the comfyness of a competent and useful train system
how'd we fuck up so bad, ameribros?

>>976312
Car rental, taxi, ridesharing, transit...

>>976166
new orleans

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>>975997
>What are population densities

Metropolitan France is roughly three times as dense as Texas. That's three times as many people to potentially ride the railways.

New Jersey - 1210.10/sq mi (467.2/sq km)
Rhode Island - 1,021.6/sq mi (394.4/sq km)
Netherlands - (393/sq km)
Belgium - (337/sq km)
Massachusetts - 871.1/sq mi (336.3/sq km)
Connecticut - 741.6/sq mi (286.3/sq km)
United Kingdom - (269/sq km)
Maryland - 618.7/sq mi (238.9/sq km)
Germany - (233/sq km)
Italy - (192/sq km)
Delaware - 485.3/sq mi (187.4/sq km)
Luxembourg - (173/sq km)
New York - 420.1/sq mi (162.2/sq km)
Florida - 378.0/sq mi (145.9/sq km)
Czech Republic - (130/sq km)
France - (116/sq km)
Pennsylvania - 286.1/sq mi (110.5 /sq km)
Ohio - 284.2/sq mi (109.7/sq km)
Portugal - (109/sq km)

California - 251.3/sq mi (97.0/sq km)
Austria - (97/sq km)
Spain - (92/sq km)
Illinois - 231.6/sq mi (89.4/sq km)
Romania - (80/sq km)

Lithuania - (44/sq km)
Texas - 105.2/sq mi (40.6/sq km)
Latvia - (37/sq km)
United States - 89.5/sq mi (34.6/sq km)
Estonia - (28/sq km)
Colorado - 52.6/sq mi (20.3/sq km)
Sweden - (20/sq km)
Oregon - 42.0/sq mi (16.2/sq km)
Finland - (16/sq km)
Russia - (8/sq km)
Idaho - 20.0/sq mi (7.7/sq km)

>>975994
High Speed Rail needs to at least partially justify the cost of construction through ridership (or at least projected future ridership). If we can't even get the line where all the big cities and people are running at high speed, what hope is there for the rest of the country?

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>>984244
No, Anon, America's longest-running streetcar line doesn't count. Everyone knows the South is just rednecks in pickup trucks. Look, they're even so poor they have to run original equipment from the 1930s.

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>>984295
>>What are population densities
>Russia - (8/sq km)
>United States - 89.5/sq mi (34.6/sq km)

Russia got HSR

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There are lots of steam locomotive day trips in the UK which is nice. For £99 you can go from London to Exeter return service. It's a pretty good price considering your journey begins at 7 am and you arrive back in London at 11 pm, you get about 6 hours to explore Exeter too.

Pic related is the loco, Duchess of Sutherland. Princess Coronation Class Pacific.

>>984295
>what hope is there for the rest of the country?
Why the fuck would you build HSR everywhere? Answer that first.

The density argument is BS. Rail lines -- ESPECIALLY HSR LINES -- serve particular points (stations, goods yards) and their hinterlands. They don't serve random places in between. If you build HSR between Houston and Dallas, it makes NO difference to people in the panhandle. Where do you build HSR? WHERE IT ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE! The hurrdurr "my state isn't dense" argument doesn't cut any sort of ice at all; it only shows that the density is there in the mind of the arguer.

Look, it's simple: the states are not clustered around rail routes, not even in the NEC. They're totally the wrong statistical area tool for this task. And remember this about Europe: population density or not, we don't run HSR for everything or to everywhere because that would be expensive and dumb.

We've upped our argument skills. Up yours.

>>981330
By not taxing gasoline and diesel enough

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Don't really want to make my own thread and this is the nearest I'm going to get.

I've never been on a train before, live in the UK (north east) but not London so it's never been mandatory for me to know anything about them, but I want to visit down South at some point and the train is probably the cheapest method, besides driving myself, and I also want to start getting into backpacking at some point and all the national parks are a good couple of hours drive away (and I'm not leaving my car unattended overnight) or a train journey away.

How the fuck do I go about getting on a train?

Is it all handled through automatic ticket machines now? Does it walk you through?

What happens if you get a return and miss it? Is it like a bus ticket where your return can be used at any point through the day?

What are peak hours? I assume that's going to affect the price and probably my return? (Non-peak return can only be used on non-peak hours?)

How much would I save booking in advance? If it's not a massive amount, I'd rather not be worried about it and just show up on the day I want to go camping and get a single or return.

How rude are the customer service people, if I needed help with actually getting my ticket? (I'll be getting a ticket at a 'main' train station, Durham)

I've got really bad anxiety, which isn't helping me use trains for the first time (guess I was this way with buses as well until I started and now I use them 2-4 times a day). I also find trains kind of offputting, although my fear of them only really applies to long-haul trains in places like America for some reason, there's just something very offputting about them, rolling up to empty train stops in the middle of nowhere, combined with rural towns it's almost lovecraftian.

Anyway, feel free to shitpost and call me a baby, but if I just get a partially helpful reply I'll be content.

>>976312
uber

>>976166
Los Angeles still has its streetcars, the PC routes are the Metro routes that were left in the 1960s.

>>987345
Russian HSR connects the two largest cities, so saying Russia somehow is an exception to the density trend is fucking retarded.
It's like saying "durrr tajikistan has HSR!!!"
Yeah, between two cities which make up something like 20% of the entire country's population.

Arizona? Do the grand canyon railroad bruh.

>>991207
I wish I could help, hut as an amerifat who's never ridden a train for purposes of transit, I have no idea either. I wish you good luck, though. Anxiety can be a bitch, I know, but you just gotta push past it.

>>991207
It all depends on the train line, you can look this up on the website which will also calculate your route, tell you the fare, give you schedules, etc

Internet is an amazing thing, anon

>>978347
>Whoever has made this map in 2015 hasn't done his research well. There are no passenger trains between Vilnius and Riga since 2008.
That's a shame, had a bit of a fascination with the Baltic states since childhood, it would be nice to travel them by rail rather than by bus.