I don't know about Amazon. On the one hand they are continuing the American tradition of destroying small businesses. On the other hand I have a lot more stuff than previous generations.
Hate to break it to you, but trains are in fact amazing for intercity freight. They're not for the last mile, of course, but trucking or airlifting your Amazon shit into your city is plain dumb.
I live a couple blocks from train tracks that are used for freight, they pass every 2 hours most of the time, and run 24/7. They shake my building when they pass, and I can hear them blast their horn for road crossings with the windows closed. All this to say trains themselves are nothing special to me as a thing that exists.
I got to ride a subway (in Boston) for the first time back on like 2018-2019 or so, as a very much mid 30s woman, and even I got super excited for it. Like visibly, kid-seeing-train-for-first-time excited. My partner took a pic and titled it excitement. Dick.
Then last year I took a train to Chicago and wouldn't you know, exactly as excited the entire time. Only half of that was because I didn't have to drive in a big city.
I want trains!!! I want them to be fast and plentiful. I want to see trains all over the place, stopping in every single town. And I want them to do more than freight! Freight is good, don't get me wrong, but we could do so much more, we used to do so much more!! The freight lines still have all the old passenger stops along them, most of them are still in decent shape but have been converted to storage or businesses, but that could be fixed pretty damn easily.
I’m sad that we used to have trains but now I have to drive everywhere because rich people fucking suck.
As someone who lives near trains, this just gave me an idea. Why don't we have speakers located at each stop? Then, the conductor can trigger those directional speakers as needed. If those aren't working, then they can hit the "wake up the whole neighborhood" horns.
They sort of already do that with the rail crossing dingy bells and lights, but both usually happen if the crossing apparatus is present. I think its required here?
On a side note, I had to take a weird back way home the other day, due to highway closure, and found a house that has its own small scale private rail crossing with the drop bars and dingy bells and lights and everything, due to the rail hugging the road on the wrong side for them. It was very cute.
Humans are idiots, and the whole point is to keep them alive anyway. They can’t claim they didn’t hear a blast from the train horn.
A few years back they were trying to improve train safety after idiots in Florida kept ignoring the gates and getting run over, so they started using horns again in my town
But the interesting part was the compromise. They decided a better safety option was to build medians at every grade crossing, so idiots can’t drive around the gates. No more horns again permanent infrastructure, nothing active or clever needed
Do kids in european countries get as excited about trains given they are super common? I feel like my kids get excited because they rarely see trains, they’re kinda special.
Not sure if Portugal is the type of European country you imagine, but last month on a train I sat one row ahead of a child that would excidetly exclaim "another train!" (in Portuguese) every time one passed outside the window. Adorable!
Oh man, I think it's the other way around. In Japan, the country with the highest rate of passenger train usage in the world, rail fans are a well-known category of nerd.
At one station, there was a mini museum and display of children's train artwork. Saw kids proudly posing in front of it for their parents to take pictures plenty.
I think kids are always excited by new stuff, and if it's big or complex stuff the excitement generally increases accordingly. Buses, trams, excavators, trains, planes, firetrucks, road rollers, cranes. And then as they get used to them the excitement either subsides, or it just keeps getting more and more specific.
So for a European kid who at some point starts traveling by train regularly, it either subsides quicker, or it has more of a chance to get specific, because they start noticing the differences between the trains they use, and possibly the tracks if they use multiple kinds. This eventually results in lots of train nerds among grown ups.
By the way, now I'm wondering, is the hobby of building and maintaining and running model trains on model tracks in a fixed installation at home common in the USA? I know at least three people who do that here in Switzerland, it's not like sports or something, but for the large effort it still seems relatively common to me.
One colleague at work has all the train models ever used by Rhätische Bahn in his collection now. That's a regional train company that only serves mountainous regions by way of narrow (1m) tracks in one corner of Switzerland, but it's still a big collection.
Ironically, I think a lot of people expect the allure of “Oh wow, you have an F-150! What a beast! What an American icon! You are so big and strong.” Yet they’re so common now, it often gives a distorted inverse image.
I understand what they are trying to say, but maybe listening to children when it comes to complex issues isn't maybe a good move. No child ever looked and said: wow Brokkoli, they would just eat some garbo from McDonald's
Uuh, 1) kids regularly love vegetables if they're prepared right, and pretty often if they're prepared wrong because kids are weird and will eat a bowl of corn and rice. 2) do you actually think they're making the assertion we should let kids decide policy initiatives? Or that a billboard can't make a joke when saying you should ride the train?
62 Comments
DudleyMason@lemmy.ml · 161 pts · 126d
Conversely, no train has ever been speeding in a schools zone, jumped a curb and killed a bunch of kids.
Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world · 39 pts · 126d
Yet. There's still more juice to squeeze in the exciting world of trains.
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 125d
I mean, they do that sometimes. Particularly in countries with poorly maintained tracks.
psud@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 122d
They don't do it by the driver fixating on something on the side of the (rail)road and steering toward it/them
modus@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 126d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Train_Wreck_of_1856
Burninator05@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 125d
If anything it reads like the train with all of the kids was likely traveling below the speed limit.
modus@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 125d
Yeah, I wasn't posting it to say I'm anti-train or something. It's just a horrible, but interesting story.
psud@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 122d
Interesting disaster story but no one off the trains was injured, though school kids died
vivalapivo@lemmy.today · -12 pts · 125d
No train delivered amazon shit to my door
balsoft@lemmy.ml · 25 pts · 125d
We're already convinced that trains were better, but thanks for yet another pro-train argument
GandalftheBlack@feddit.org · 18 pts · 125d
Good. The future is better without cars and Amazon.
BygoneNeutrino@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 125d
I don't know about Amazon. On the one hand they are continuing the American tradition of destroying small businesses. On the other hand I have a lot more stuff than previous generations.
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 125d
Hate to break it to you, but trains are in fact amazing for intercity freight. They're not for the last mile, of course, but trucking or airlifting your Amazon shit into your city is plain dumb.
dansemacabreingalone@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 125d
They genuinely used to do this.
mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 125d
they delivered Amazon shit to your door in the same way somebody in a vehicle did (the last mile )
neither of them did the whole process
did you think you were making a good point?
ButteryMonkey@piefed.social · 54 pts · 126d
I live a couple blocks from train tracks that are used for freight, they pass every 2 hours most of the time, and run 24/7. They shake my building when they pass, and I can hear them blast their horn for road crossings with the windows closed. All this to say trains themselves are nothing special to me as a thing that exists.
I got to ride a subway (in Boston) for the first time back on like 2018-2019 or so, as a very much mid 30s woman, and even I got super excited for it. Like visibly, kid-seeing-train-for-first-time excited. My partner took a pic and titled it excitement. Dick.
Then last year I took a train to Chicago and wouldn't you know, exactly as excited the entire time. Only half of that was because I didn't have to drive in a big city.
I want trains!!! I want them to be fast and plentiful. I want to see trains all over the place, stopping in every single town. And I want them to do more than freight! Freight is good, don't get me wrong, but we could do so much more, we used to do so much more!! The freight lines still have all the old passenger stops along them, most of them are still in decent shape but have been converted to storage or businesses, but that could be fixed pretty damn easily.
I’m sad that we used to have trains but now I have to drive everywhere because rich people fucking suck.
Witchfire@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 126d
I'm gonna be taking a 4hr train with a friend tomorrow, it'll be fun :D
dansemacabreingalone@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 125d
Kill the rich and we can make trains again.
madkins@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 126d
As someone who lives near trains, this just gave me an idea. Why don't we have speakers located at each stop? Then, the conductor can trigger those directional speakers as needed. If those aren't working, then they can hit the "wake up the whole neighborhood" horns.
kunaltyagi@programming.dev · 7 pts · 125d
Most railway crossings should be grade separated. It's more infra but removes chance for any human error (and horns)
ButteryMonkey@piefed.social · 5 pts · 125d
They sort of already do that with the rail crossing dingy bells and lights, but both usually happen if the crossing apparatus is present. I think its required here?
On a side note, I had to take a weird back way home the other day, due to highway closure, and found a house that has its own small scale private rail crossing with the drop bars and dingy bells and lights and everything, due to the rail hugging the road on the wrong side for them. It was very cute.
AA5B@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 125d
Humans are idiots, and the whole point is to keep them alive anyway. They can’t claim they didn’t hear a blast from the train horn.
A few years back they were trying to improve train safety after idiots in Florida kept ignoring the gates and getting run over, so they started using horns again in my town
But the interesting part was the compromise. They decided a better safety option was to build medians at every grade crossing, so idiots can’t drive around the gates. No more horns again permanent infrastructure, nothing active or clever needed
errer@lemmy.world · 36 pts · 126d
Do kids in european countries get as excited about trains given they are super common? I feel like my kids get excited because they rarely see trains, they’re kinda special.
MrKurteous@feddit.nu · 65 pts · 126d
Not sure if Portugal is the type of European country you imagine, but last month on a train I sat one row ahead of a child that would excidetly exclaim "another train!" (in Portuguese) every time one passed outside the window. Adorable!
Get_Off_My_WLAN@fedia.io · 48 pts · 126d
Oh man, I think it's the other way around. In Japan, the country with the highest rate of passenger train usage in the world, rail fans are a well-known category of nerd.
At one station, there was a mini museum and display of children's train artwork. Saw kids proudly posing in front of it for their parents to take pictures plenty.
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de · 9 pts · 125d
Thanks for that link, that's so cool. I know of otaku in general, but densha otaku are new to me.
By the way the perfect kiss, that's referenced in the first paragraph there, looks like this:
NovaTheFluf@piefed.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 125d
Train boop
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 125d
There's also a long-running series of train simulator games, of Japanese origin, that had specially produced controllers for PlayStation 2.
Just like Japan has the ‘Air Traffic Controller’ series, when Western titles seem to have ended in the nineties.
Get_Off_My_WLAN@fedia.io · 1 pts · 125d
At arcades, I always see someone playing the train simulator game where they try to stop the train perfectly at a station. Only in Japan.
Damage@slrpnk.net · 32 pts · 126d
Tractors are ultra common and yet kids go bonkers for them
SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social · 29 pts · 126d
A large part of humanities has breasts and men still party hard if they get to see some unexpectedly. Probably some women as well.
Trains are cool because they're trains, not because they're rare.
nkat2112@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 125d
What a lovely analogy - provided by someone so aptly named. Your alias rocks, as do you. Thank you for this insightful comment.
SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social · 4 pts · 125d
Oh you!
Gloomy@mander.xyz · 21 pts · 126d
Trains, Traktors, Excavators, Bicycles, streetcars, wheel loaders, trucks, dump trucks, street sweepers, garbage trucks...
Regardless of how common those are, my toddlers will loose their shit every single time.
judgyweevil@feddit.it · 8 pts · 126d
There is always a first train and the same first reaction
Obi@sopuli.xyz · 8 pts · 126d
Yes, my 4yo will point it out excitedly every time he sees a train.
MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 126d
Croatian here, and yes (at least speaking for myself).
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de · 6 pts · 125d
I think kids are always excited by new stuff, and if it's big or complex stuff the excitement generally increases accordingly. Buses, trams, excavators, trains, planes, firetrucks, road rollers, cranes. And then as they get used to them the excitement either subsides, or it just keeps getting more and more specific.
So for a European kid who at some point starts traveling by train regularly, it either subsides quicker, or it has more of a chance to get specific, because they start noticing the differences between the trains they use, and possibly the tracks if they use multiple kinds. This eventually results in lots of train nerds among grown ups.
By the way, now I'm wondering, is the hobby of building and maintaining and running model trains on model tracks in a fixed installation at home common in the USA? I know at least three people who do that here in Switzerland, it's not like sports or something, but for the large effort it still seems relatively common to me.
One colleague at work has all the train models ever used by Rhätische Bahn in his collection now. That's a regional train company that only serves mountainous regions by way of narrow (1m) tracks in one corner of Switzerland, but it's still a big collection.
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 125d
Check this out: Children's railway.
Katana314@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 125d
Ironically, I think a lot of people expect the allure of “Oh wow, you have an F-150! What a beast! What an American icon! You are so big and strong.” Yet they’re so common now, it often gives a distorted inverse image.
Jaybird@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 125d
dustyData@lemmy.world · 40 pts · 125d
A rideshare is the name of app summoned taxis, like Uber.
The point is precisely that trains, trams and busses are infinitely more exciting than a plain car.
Jaybird@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 125d
FatVegan@leminal.space · -9 pts · 125d
I understand what they are trying to say, but maybe listening to children when it comes to complex issues isn't maybe a good move. No child ever looked and said: wow Brokkoli, they would just eat some garbo from McDonald's
epicshepich@programming.dev · 4 pts · 125d
My almost 2-year old son loves zucchini. When he sees it come out of the oven, he screams "KINI!!!! KINNIHHHHHH!!!!!"
Ibuthyr@lemmy.wtf · 4 pts · 125d
I liked broccoli as a kid. Still do. My 10yo daughter loves broccoli and despises McDonald's.
OldChicoAle@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 125d
Lol wut
ricecake@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 125d
Uuh, 1) kids regularly love vegetables if they're prepared right, and pretty often if they're prepared wrong because kids are weird and will eat a bowl of corn and rice. 2) do you actually think they're making the assertion we should let kids decide policy initiatives? Or that a billboard can't make a joke when saying you should ride the train?
mcv@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 125d
chattre@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 15 pts · 126d
teach em young, railfan makes for a happy life
arcine@jlai.lu · 10 pts · 125d
Bad arguments. Kids love Ferraris and all sorts of show-off, asshole cars, that doesn't make them a good solution for transport.
(I am aware I'm taking this too seriously)
brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 125d
When was the last time you got a Ferrari for a ride share though?
plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 126d
My kid points out freight trains, but not the LRT, so what point is this trying to make?
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world · 53 pts · 126d
We're all still reeling from the plague that killed off every child except for yours.
Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 126d
my kid has told me he wishes to ride a city bus one day, and a train, and a plane, idk how he feels about boats though.
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 125d
Your child yearns for the simple hobo life.
NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 125d
Sounds like your kid might like The Boxcar Children series
MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 125d
However, as a middle aged guy that took his first Waymo... I did point and say: "Holy shit, my first robotaxi!"
xSikes@feddit.online · 5 pts · 126d
So true
generic_computers@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 125d
I like trains.
pigup@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 125d
Lee Morgan - C.T.A.
DFX4509B@lemmy.wtf · 2 pts · 113d
That quote reads perfectly in NJB's voice.
nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 125d
Jarix@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 126d
Absolutely Shameless
invertedspear@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 126d
I dunno, kids get really excited when they see Waymos.
mjr@infosec.pub · 3 pts · 125d
Especially if coned.