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Sometimes when people who don’t like trains say ‘what? 18h? You can drive it in 8’, I say yes but that’s 10h of not riding a train; which sucks.
That confuses them.
That’s actually 18h of not being in a train, and 8h of being in a car, so no
@skinnylatte Everyone loves the sound of a train in the distance, but there is nothing better than hearing the train you're on.
@skinnylatte I was riding a section of the old Oregon Electric Railroad right of way this afternoon.
(photo un momento)
@skinnylatte apparently the mastodon android client has a bug that prevents adding alt text to photos and voids the post. It looks like the tap is propagating to the second layer so you click the back arrow to add the alt text and the message is also passed to the next screen where the X close action is.
AFAICT this only happens during replies.
(Fwiw, I've found the Tusky Android client less buggy & more usable)
Oregon electric?
@BRicker @skinnylatte
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Electric_Railway
Some of the old cars are part of a restaurant near the Amtrak station. Sadly that restaurant is now the old spaghetti factory.
@laprice
Fun! Thanks.
@laprice
The one gotcha w/ Tusky is having to pull-down to refresh a tab. (But that also lets one manage the bandwidth used by not checking continually.)
@skinnylatte Totally unrelated, but in the Peter F. Hamilton scifi novel Pandora's Star, humanity uses stable wormholes to travel between worlds, and the main method of interstellar travel is a train network that runs through all those wormhole gates.
I always loved the idea of riding trains between planets.
@skinnylatte YES! Whenever people give me a shorter bus option I say "Just no".
@skinnylatte I wish we had high speed rail in America (more lines than the Northeast Corridor and Florida) 
@skinnylatte
Plus it's never a straight 8 hours. Between gas, restroom and little breaks it is always more.
@skinnylatte That’s losing twice
@skinnylatte Yeah, in a train I can read, I can write, I can stretch my legs, and I can go to the lavatory. None of these are possible in a car.
@skinnylatte Also, trains have WLAN!
@skinnylatte After I took a bus to Chiangmai for about 8 hours, I thought I would prefer taking a train instead. 
Also I'm glad that I'm still alive after taking a car to Udonthani.
@skinnylatte I enjoy driving. But we took the train back and forth from Emeryville to Glenwood Springs, CO, which took like 28 hrs or even more (there was a delay). We had a private roommette with a bathroom (so important). And it was absolutely lovely. Would do again.
@consumablejoy California Zephyr? Yeah I’d love to try a roomette sometime!
@skinnylatte And the only reason it takes 18 hours is because driving has been prioritized.
In Europe they literally have RailJet where it's faster than flying when you consider all the waiting, check-in, baggage claim, traveling to and from the airport, etc.
@soviut @skinnylatte yes that's kind of the whole point of trains to me - they (should) go much faster and in straighter lines than cars
@sarajw @soviut @skinnylatte yes with high speed lines, taking the plane is (much longer) up to 400/500 miles.
On the Paris to London trip, the train has an 80% market share.
This said, even without being an absolute rail fanatic, I'd much rather spend 6h in a train than taking a 1.5h flight (which will anyway take up to 5h and be much less relaxing and productive).
@skinnylatte 18h of happiness vs 8h of dread
@skinnylatte have you gone to ride the trains in Santa Cruz yet? We rode on the steam engine a month or two ago.
There was also the Swanton Pacific Railroad in Davenport (approximately 15 miles North of Santa Cruz) which was really neat, if only open to the public approximately one day a year. Essentially small gauge rail that I think used to be from the "from the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition" (Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanton_Pacific_Railroad ) ? Unfortunately, apparently much of the property was decimated during the 2020 fires (some more details about that aftermath here):
https://sprr.calpoly.edu/
Historically, there used to be the Del Monte (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Del_Monte_(train) ), which ran between Monterey and San Francisco, but that closed in 1971. Supposedly passengers could see a show in SF and be back in Monterey before the end of the night. They ripped out most of that old rail line long ago (though there was still a diner in Seaside that commemorated its existence called Del Monte Express, it looks as if it no longer exists either? It was kind of near the bowling alley on Fremont street.).
CC: @skinnylatte@hachyderm.io
@teajaygrey @skinnylatte we rode the roaring camp tourist train. The big trees and Pacific tourist train should be starting up again next month. The Swanton Pacific is now being reassembled down towards Paso Robles after the big fire up in Swanton.
There will be commuter rail (or maybe it's already started) from Salinas to the bay area! 
The Monterey peninsula is getting ready to rip out the remaining tracks to put in a bus lane instead 
The line to Santa Cruz might be repaired soon.
@teajaygrey @skinnylatte there's been talk of connecting Santa Cruz to Watsonville Junction with commuter rail so someone could transfer there onto the new commuter rail to the Bay.
I think for the Monterey area the people in power don't like trains so we will likely lose the rail line forever and will be stuck with buses. It's a real shame.
I also used to be a Network Security Specialist for Graniterock Company (headquartered out of Watsonville but operating the “largest granite extraction facility West of the Mississippi” aka the Aromas quarry which had active rail (non commuter, industrial operated by Union Pacific IIRC? We had some decrepit OpenVMS systems running DECNet on our network to support that). And spread across five counties, a good rubric for finding a Graniterock branch was finding out where there used to be a rail line. ;)
Amtrak has serviced Salinas for decades, but they’re awful. The last time I bought a train ticket between Salinas and San Jose it was so delayed they put us on a bus instead which is even worse.
Maybe someday Amtrak will get their it.sh together? But my understanding is they mostly seem to provide mid 20th century level service on the East Coast where politicians sometimes make use of it and when funding is threatened, the interrupt service to “send a message “ to those politicians about how much worse things can get. On the West Coast? They mostly don’t seem to give a.f.
CC: @skinnylatte@hachyderm.io
@teajaygrey @skinnylatte for what it's worth, this is the commuter rail they're planning for Salinas: https://www.tamcmonterey.org/monterey-county-rail-extension
I know people who ride from Gilroy to the bay every day in CalTrain. It seems that service is pretty efficient.
This is the plan for Santa Cruz but I'm doubtful it'll happen for another decade.
https://www.sccrtc.org/projects/rail/zeprt/
Once the Surf bus line is built, the light rail line to Monterey will almost certainly never happen.
I've read in some of the local to Santa Cruz papers (basically the "free" advertising laden things such as Good Times) that there are hopes by some of the locals to take the old rail lines and turn them into running trails (similar to the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail I guess?) but I don't know how much traction such ideas have either.
I'm of the mindset that rail lines should maintained and expanded and interconnected, but we live in the USA where the GM Streetcar conspiracy was a conviction, not a theory. ;-/
Also, the population density for some of those areas is rather low; which is nice as someone who appreciates more greenery than urban sprawl, but in terms of the resources needed to "justify" rail lines, it's challenging too. I'm really struggling to imagine how the Castroville extension in TAMC's plans will be realized in a meaningful way, even though I am an advocate for rail. Makes sense that would be their third priority, but I kind of wonder if other ideas might be wiser to supersede it even then?
It could be worse I suppose? Marin NIMBYs long since rejected BARTs plans to extend to that area, and while yes, it is beautiful and green, it's also full of commuters and traffic and awful ever increasing bridge tolls (at least the toll plazas are not the point of congestion they once were post COVID effectively mandating FasTrak paradigms).
I know better can exist with sufficient thought and planning (having seen such things in places I've traveled to such as Japan for example) but Muricans seem to be almost forced into buying bigger and bigger cars and building roads with more and more lanes, because that is more profitable for those who already have the most money and power who would rather not have rail as an alternative (estimates I've seen are that conservatively, rail lines are approximately 6X cheaper to build and maintain than roads, with higher estimates being close to 24X cheaper to build and maintain).
But regardless of those numbers, acknowledging the efficiencies of rail, requires a societal buy in and appropriate permits and funding and particularly in California where voters passed Prop 1A in 2008 and all funds have been allocated and not a single mile of track has been laid? It requires a government that functions and builds what its voters demanded.
The "Not Just Bikes" YouTuber sometimes points out how rail is often viewed as antithetical to right wing politicians, even in places such as Canada (which was the butt of jokes in the recent video on bike trails and trams in Bergen, Norway) and it can feel even more hopeless given the USA's present administration challenges.
But small, local changes are still good approaches that hopefully will build up more momentum and utility, despite larger state run projects which seem to be stalled.
CC: @skinnylatte@hachyderm.io
@teajaygrey @skinnylatte for what it's worth, the Castroville bit of that project is easy because the rail line between Gilroy and Salinas goes through Castroville.
In Santa Cruz, the plan is to put a multi-use path next to the rail line so both can co-exist.
At least up to the old Monterey station, for the most part the multi use path and the rail line do not occupy the same space. But Monterey to Pacific Grove it was paved over.
Dave Millar Shania Train: *looks at a car* “that don’t impress me much”
@skinnylatte I couldn't agree more. You might enjoy this humorous article about taking Amtrak from NYC to LA, which only affirmed my love of train travel.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/20/magazine/train-across-america-amtrak.html My favorite bit:
"Kansas shares a border with Colorado. I never could have imagined that I would one day say this, and I know many people will be disconcerted by the statement. They will wonder if, this whole time, they have been reading an avant-garde work of science fiction, or perhaps a Mad Lib. “Is magical realism always this scary?” they will ask themselves. Some will claim I am lying. Many will assume I am wrong, demented or a clumsy typist."
8 hours of driving sucks.
18 hours on a train is practically a vacation.
@skinnylatte I know, you doze, read, write, crochet, have a beer and lunch contemplate the meaning of your life...
@skinnylatte There's a train I used to take on weekends, when I worked, leaves Eugene at 5 in the afternoon, you end up in San Francisco at 8 AM, depending, then leave at 10 PM and get back at noon. Kind of exhausting, but why not spend a day in San Francisco and snake through the Cascades. Sunrise over Shasta on the way back is amazing.
@skinnylatte yes, but…
It is an absolute crime that DC to Chicago by train takes 24 hours. We should be able to have nicer things 
@skinnylatte your train are too damn slow. Also, you can do stuff in a train like reading a book or playing video game. All you can do while driving is getting tired due to the constant need to focus on the road
@skinnylatte It’s 8 hours wasted vs. 18 hours to read, learn, relax.
@skinnylatte also, how cooked are you from.focusing on traffic for 8 hours, and how many hours do you need afterwards to get back to peak productivity? While a comfortable train can have you feeling refreshed as soon as you arrive at your destination. If you plan accordingly when you have to travel such distances, you can sleep on your train, and arrive in the morning, ready for a full day at your destination. 
@skinnylatte You're in the US, aren't you? The only country in the world where trains are slower than cars.
@simon_brooke I'm sure that it is not "only" US. @skinnylatte
(By Reversemos.sapanaht
License: CC-BY-SA 4.0
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Local_train_no.421_at_Surin_station.jpg)
Antonius Marie 
@skinnylatte We don't have a car, but the few times we've had to take a bus (and when picked up from the train station), our cat has made it *very* clear that she loathes bus/car more than train.
And I prefer trains too
@skinnylatte Our eldest sprog attends UC Davis, while we live on the SF peninsula.
We love love LOVE the Capital Corridor Amtrak. Just sit back and let someone else bring us to and fro, and never an urgent stop to find a bathroom along the way.
We only drive at the start and end of the school year, when the amount of cargo is a bit much to schlep onto the train.
@skinnylatte Give me a 10h overnight ferry trip during which I'm mostly either eating or sleeping over a 1.5h flight plus associated queuing and hanging out in airport terminals any day
️
@skinnylatte It may be only 8 hours, but it's 8 hours of having to do nothing but drive a fscking car in heavy traffic, maintaining perfect attention all the way so you don't die or kill anyone else.
Not to mention the $10K+ yearly cost of owning and maintaining a car in operable condition
@skinnylatte I truly, deeply miss long train journeys. By long I mean 36+ hrs, some even 2 nights.
@SRDas haha I once did the kanyakumari to Assam one. 50+?
@skinnylatte oh wow - awesome. I've done many Kolkata to Chennai and then to Salem, Coimbatore. East West trips in the north and South too but those were much shorter just overnights
@skinnylatte @corbden Oh that's amazing. Trains rock. Love having time to muself.
@skinnylatte
For journeys that are a bit too far to reasonably drive in one day, a train is fantastic. A 15 hour drive (plus rest breaks) versus 25 hours of enjoying a train is an absolute no-brainer. The train was cheaper, too.
@skinnylatte I took an 8 hour train to a conference. It might have been a 6 hour drive in good weather, 1.5 hour flight except all the other BS involved with airports including lots of driving anyway. Colleague told me "I guess that's fine if you don't mind wasting time" and like what did *you* do with the extra hour you got, maybe? My business class tickets cost about the same as a flight and came with real food served with actual metal flatware. Never mind driving for 6 hours!
@skinnylatte
I've always had people scandalized at the train adding maybe(?) an hour to the trip to Chicago from Michigan and I also found it baffling that being on a train wasn't a plus.
I don't even drive, and I would still rather pay for the train than deal with almost anyone I know being in "driver mode" for three hours.
Farah 
@thecrushedviolet @skinnylatte Driving on the interstate is boring af. I wanna chew my arm off after every trip
@skinnylatte i'd only do amtrak if I went business class because I wouldn't want anything less than the highest comfort if I'm traveling for 18 hours when I can easily just fly in 4.
@skinnylatte or the third option: 4 of the worst hours you can imagine interacting with air travel