Above is a link to an NPR story this morning on European trains "picking up the slack" from air travel cancellations. I look at US passenger rail, and see how far off the possible we are.
Posted by train lady (Member # 3920) on :
perhaps I misunderstand you but in Europe people can go from one country to another by train. Here we have only the choice of Mexico or Canada. Are you suggesting Amtrak is lax in the current situation? Perhaps they need to buid a bridge from here to Europe
Posted by RR4me (Member # 6052) on :
Not really thinking about cross borders as much as cross country - think of it in terms of comparable distances. Suppose that volcano had been in Alaska, and prevailing winds caused shut down from West Coast to the Mid West. There's no way Amtrak could have done even a fraction of the transport work in place of airplanes, regardless of whether or not we wanted to cross borders (a whole 'nother issue here in the US).
Posted by notelvis (Member # 3071) on :
What struck me as I listened to that NPR story while driving (43.7 miles each way) to work was the mention that in Europe they were adding as many extra trains as they could to get more stranded travelers home.
Where in the US outside the NEC and perhaps one of the California corridors would this kind of response (extra trains and extra capacity) have been possible?
THAT'S where we are lacking.
Posted by RR4me (Member # 6052) on :
Not Elvis, I caught that too. Other items of interest were the British couple who were so surprised with the comfort and speed of train travel there, and the comment that trains had pretty much eliminated the regional flights between cities.
Posted by Geoff Mayo (Member # 153) on :
I think the most amazing thing about it all was that the French weren't on strike last week. Probably lots of overtime paid to crews of the extra trains, and rolling stock resources stretched to the limit. Several extra ferries as well - including use of a brand new luxury cruise liner from Spain to the UK (and a Navy ship)!
By my calculations the longest length of the airspace closure was about 1,200 miles - but with various puddles in the way.
With the exception of RyanAir, the vast majority of reports were that the airlines treated their passengers very well. By law they have to provide suitable accommodation and food, and/or alternative means home (some friends had a 12 hour bus ride from Germany to the UK), or provide a refund (whereupon it's up to the passenger to get home). RyanAir pulled their usual dirty tricks stunt and tried to claim that somebody who only paid 30 Euro for their ticket should only be entitled to compensation up to that 30 Euro. They've since backed down - probably the threat of legal action from thousands of "I'll never fly with them again" passengers.