And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
That’s on a lucky day. Once in France the trains run ok, provided there are no strikes. In Germany allés ist kaput. The country is falling apart. Not enough natural gas and water to many illegal useless invaders.
That's because they stop at every ville and hamlet, and generally travel at a top speed under 60MPH when they're actually moving, which is why you can outdrive them, let alone outfly them. The trains there also offer one the advantage of being robbed by pickpockets and such, while jostling alongside every dirka dirka who could afford fare.
Unless you're traveling Istanbul to Paris on Wagon Liege, in 1st class, hard pass.
It isn't that you cannot; it's that you're not permitted to do so by TPTB. There's a difference between those two things.
You've told me more about Euro-weenie road speed limits, poor roads, and artificially high gasoline prices than you have about travel times of autos versus trains.
I've only driven completely across this country twice, Pacific Ocean to Atlantic and back, and each time in about 3 days and change, none of them driving over 12 hours/day, not 18, and averaging >750+ miles/day. And much like during 12 hour shifts at work, I didn't (and still don't) require bathroom breaks every 5 minutes.
"Multiple" stops for gas were called filling up once at breakfast, and again halfway each day. 5 minutes each, max. Phoenix to Midland TX. was one such day, at a leisurely pace (+/- 61MPH), and including a stop for sit-down lunch, and right around 400 mi. between fillings.
LA to Reno via Sacramento was barely 8 hours for 500+ miles, with dozens of such trips when I had relatives in NV. It was routine to leave after breakfast here and get there well before dinner time, same day. I know people who shoot matches in SoCal, and come down from Salt Lake City (about 700 miles), and routinely make that trip in under 10 hours.
When Eurostan makes driving even slower, more inconvenient, and more expensive than taking a cattle car, it isn't because "trains are faster and cheaper" innately. It's because they like keeping the peasants beholden to official whims, since pretty much ever. (It's also why they subsidize train ticket prices. Tell me how much of your taxes go to paying to subsidize train tickets, and then let's factor the actual train ticket price, and we can compare apples to apples.) Hence 6 hours longer to go the same distance there than here.
FWIW, Google notes London to Vienna is 913 mi., and 16.75 hrs drive time, with an average speed 10-15MPH slower (<54mph) than I'd routinely travel hereabouts (the average traffic speed on major surface street around here is faster than highway speeds in Eurostan), with gas prices at $7.68/gallon, IOW almost double what I'm paying in the most highly-taxed state in this country.
It compares with what TPTB in this country have done to make air travel so horrendous an experience that driving 3000 miles in three days is preferable to all the current negatives of air travel over the same distance, to anywhere in this country except Hawaii.
Are you ok Aesop? You seem way to upset about how long it takes to drive, fuel price and speed limits in a place where you don't live and have no interest in visiting!
Not upset at all. Just amused at what gymnastics some people will get up to, to prove worse is really better. I guess they gotta lipstick up that pig a whole lot to feel better about it.
"Madrid to Barcelona is a 6+ hour drive or a 2.5 hour train ride or a 1+ hour flight. The flight is shorter but when you factor into your trip the drive to the Madrid airport, the time you spend going through security and the drive from the Barcelona airport back into the city, the train ends up being faster."
Silly me, but I think that you have to factor into the trip the drive to the Madrid train station and the drive from the Barcelona train station to your destination, too.
For a number of reasons airports tend to be far from the city (noise, space, dangerous,e tc). Trains go across the city and have multiple stops within a city. Most people will have a shorter drive to one of the many train stations than to the local airport.
You also have to take a ferry across the channel. I do the trip quite regularly. The ferry takes 90 minutes and you have to calculate around another hour for buying tickets and loading. You then have a stretch of very small roads where you will be down to something like 40 mph. I generally need about 20 - 24 hours from home (near Vienna) to Derby (East Midlands).
Houston to Dallas is over 9 hours. Europe is so small.
ReplyDeleteAre you walking?
DeleteYou barely make it out of the Reich. On the other hand, you do cross the English Channel which more than the Germans did.
ReplyDeleteThat’s on a lucky day. Once in France the trains run ok, provided there are no strikes. In Germany allés ist kaput. The country is falling apart. Not enough natural gas and water to many illegal useless invaders.
ReplyDeleteThat's because they stop at every ville and hamlet, and generally travel at a top speed under 60MPH when they're actually moving, which is why you can outdrive them, let alone outfly them.
ReplyDeleteThe trains there also offer one the advantage of being robbed by pickpockets and such, while jostling alongside every dirka dirka who could afford fare.
Unless you're traveling Istanbul to Paris on Wagon Liege, in 1st class, hard pass.
It isn't that you cannot; it's that you're not permitted to do so by TPTB. There's a difference between those two things.
DeleteYou've told me more about Euro-weenie road speed limits, poor roads, and artificially high gasoline prices than you have about travel times of autos versus trains.
I've only driven completely across this country twice, Pacific Ocean to Atlantic and back, and each time in about 3 days and change, none of them driving over 12 hours/day, not 18, and averaging >750+ miles/day. And much like during 12 hour shifts at work, I didn't (and still don't) require bathroom breaks every 5 minutes.
"Multiple" stops for gas were called filling up once at breakfast, and again halfway each day. 5 minutes each, max.
Phoenix to Midland TX. was one such day, at a leisurely pace (+/- 61MPH), and including a stop for sit-down lunch, and right around 400 mi. between fillings.
LA to Reno via Sacramento was barely 8 hours for 500+ miles, with dozens of such trips when I had relatives in NV. It was routine to leave after breakfast here and get there well before dinner time, same day. I know people who shoot matches in SoCal, and come down from Salt Lake City (about 700 miles), and routinely make that trip in under 10 hours.
When Eurostan makes driving even slower, more inconvenient, and more expensive than taking a cattle car, it isn't because "trains are faster and cheaper" innately. It's because they like keeping the peasants beholden to official whims, since pretty much ever. (It's also why they subsidize train ticket prices. Tell me how much of your taxes go to paying to subsidize train tickets, and then let's factor the actual train ticket price, and we can compare apples to apples.) Hence 6 hours longer to go the same distance there than here.
FWIW, Google notes London to Vienna is 913 mi., and 16.75 hrs drive time, with an average speed 10-15MPH slower (<54mph) than I'd routinely travel hereabouts (the average traffic speed on major surface street around here is faster than highway speeds in Eurostan), with gas prices at $7.68/gallon, IOW almost double what I'm paying in the most highly-taxed state in this country.
It compares with what TPTB in this country have done to make air travel so horrendous an experience that driving 3000 miles in three days is preferable to all the current negatives of air travel over the same distance, to anywhere in this country except Hawaii.
Thanks for confirming that. :)
Are you ok Aesop?
DeleteYou seem way to upset about how long it takes to drive, fuel price and speed limits in a place where you don't live and have no interest in visiting!
Take it easy. You will give yourself a stroke!
Not upset at all.
DeleteJust amused at what gymnastics some people will get up to, to prove worse is really better.
I guess they gotta lipstick up that pig a whole lot to feel better about it.
"Madrid to Barcelona is a 6+ hour drive or a 2.5 hour train ride or a 1+ hour flight. The flight is shorter but when you factor into your trip the drive to the Madrid airport, the time you spend going through security and the drive from the Barcelona airport back into the city, the train ends up being faster."
ReplyDeleteSilly me, but I think that you have to factor into the trip the drive to the Madrid train station and the drive from the Barcelona train station to your destination, too.
For a number of reasons airports tend to be far from the city (noise, space, dangerous,e tc). Trains go across the city and have multiple stops within a city. Most people will have a shorter drive to one of the many train stations than to the local airport.
DeleteYou also have to take a ferry across the channel. I do the trip quite regularly. The ferry takes 90 minutes and you have to calculate around another hour for buying tickets and loading. You then have a stretch of very small roads where you will be down to something like 40 mph. I generally need about 20 - 24 hours from home (near Vienna) to Derby (East Midlands).
ReplyDelete