ohhh all the pictures i looked up of the inside of the train had those slatted benches! this is not butt pinching at all
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Ohhhh you probably saw pictures of the special antique sight seeing train cars which do have benches inside. They dont run every weekend so I didnt get to ride one but theyre so fucking cute and they bring out a steam engine to pull them
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omg i thought that was a toy at first
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There really is something to watching genius at work
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i wonder if hed like my SHINKANSEN FOOD TIME FOR YOU/PLEASE SIT DOWN AND LET ME THROUGH/DO DO DO DO-DO DO DOOOO/SANDWICHES AND COFFEE TOO theme song i made for the cart ladies on the train when i rode it. i would hope itd at least get a condescending smile
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they built an entire damn train for the new mission impossible movie because no one would let them destroy one that already existed
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weekend train journey with @digs! took the MARC Brunswick Line from Rockville MD (RKV) to Harpers Ferry WV (HFY), and Amtrak’s Capitol Limited line back. Round trip $11 + $15 = $26 per person
(click to zoom)
thoughts and feelings…
negatives
- MARC really needs to drop this ‘commuter rail’ bullshit and become a proper regional rail service. only three trains go HFY-RKV in the early morning, and three trains go the other way RKV-HFY in the evening, from around 4:50-6:30pm. and no weekend service! by all rights this should have been an all-MARC round trip, they should do weekday and weekend service both ways
- MARC has the same coach cars that NJ Transit does - wiki says they’re Bombardier Multilevels - and it comes with the same bullshit, i.e. only 2 out of 4 doors per car are designed for low-level platform access, and you never know which car’s doors are going to be open at which stops. Most stations on our line were low-level and didn’t have long enough platforms to board from every car. So you have to sprint across the platform / the train looking for your doors while the train pulls in, then climb the cramped stairs. very stressful!
- the right-of-way between RKV and HFY belongs to CSX, and anecdotally people report up to 5-hour delays because of freight train bullshit. NATIONALIZE RAIL RIGHT-OF-WAY or at the very least levy millions in fines for passenger rail delays (legal priority for passenger rail is already on the books!)
- amtrak assigned seats at boarding time (the conductor writes you a little slip with seat numbers) which posed a problem when there was someone in our seats, but they said there was someone in their seats, but that person said… and so on down the line. the musical chairs ended when the conductor reassigned us new seats. the upside is assigned seating ensures you are near the exit that will be open at your stop, meaning no running across the train for amtrak
positives
- super cheap and short journey to feel like we completely left the DMV area
- we got lucky and trains were on time
- amtrak seats are v comfy and the ride was really smooth, much moreso than MARC. fast and nonstop too! saved 15 minutes over the MARC. (on this line Amtrak uses P42DC diesel locomotives and Superliner coach cars)
- no door sprinting on amtrak, see above
- harpers ferry was beautiful and i took a bunch of pix. (the town proper has
no transitno intra-city transit, there is a cross county EPTA bus; a lot of walking up and down hills, there’s technically an NPS shuttle but it only goes to/from the visitor’s center parking) - back in time for lunch on sunday
- TRAINS!
pics and videos in future post
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oo la la…
coming soon to northeast corridor :0
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oh yeah apparently this is killing a shocking amount of people in Florida who are trying to outrun or out drive a high speed train at crossings
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I meant the passenger cars themselves to be clear but yeah brightline is there. it’s messed up that every random state will have high speed rail before the northeast corridor will bc of NIMBYs
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I rode brightline in November, it’s really impressive, ridership is low but not scary low
but I also call it the doomtrain that cannot slake its thirst for blood because people keep crashing into it
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also when I rode Denver’s airport train in September it played a video on a tape loop for the whole 35 minutes about how to not walk into the train so it’s safe to say Americans may not be the best at this
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It’s not pedestrians’ or drivers’ fault. In an ideal world, it just shouldn’t be possible for people to drive or walk over rail tracks.
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As is typical of me, I am willing to assign blame to drivers but not pedestrians
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Uh yeah my grandma got herself killed trying to do just that, I just don’t understand the motivation…just wait jesus christ. But the situation shouldn’t even be possible anyway yeah.
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Wellll, if you want to keep your trains seperate from railroad crossings streets/bikes/pedestrians, there are limited options how to do this:
Go higher or lower.
If you raise the tracks, you have to consider boring things like trains can only cover a certain incline and if something happens, you have to ensure people do not fall down in case they have to leave the train, and with the track record (pun unintentional) of triggerhappy lawyers in the US of A, I’d go “nope” on that option.
So, option 2: Let’s dig ourselve a grav— let’s run our trains underground, so we just have to build metros, everywhere, except — its effin expensive.
Option 3:
Build bridges for every crossing there is — see option 2.
Option 4:
Have a railroad crossing with simple rules (You Shall Not Pass When The Light Is On) and offload the responsibility on the individual, costs a bit of energy to have fancy lights and some moving bits, but overall pretty lean compared to digging or building. And, you’ve guessed it — we puny citizens are responsible if we don’t oblige!
Guess why this solution has generally caught on 
(btw did you know that even the most sophisticated highspeed rail network in the world has a railroad crossing? Yes, even the Shinkansen has to share the road… rails … with mere humans, and it is all over youtube because of that. And I confess that I would love to be there and watch a Shinkansen cross that bit of road, they managed to make it cool!)
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Oh yeah rereading my post and my response to her death comes across as pretty callous but i really just wish the people who run this place considered those better options instead of offloading responsibility onto us atomized little people, it’s sad but par for the course
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The most aggravating thing is, the whole thing has been designed from a standpoint that you can see where you have to stop, i.e. blind people seemingly weren’t even considered when the solution to this problem (roads and trains being cross w/ each other) has been developed. Yeah, they added sound and a crossbar that shall provide some-ish protection, but tbh — it never felt like they meant it, really.
(Also kinda interesting - I’ve mentioned that raising the tracks is expensive today, but just consider this for a second:
Like, how the hell did the loco get up there to fall from grace so gracefully?
Turns out, if you really wanted to, you could indeed build elevated train stations even in the 1920ies++, even if accessability design wise, this also doesn’t look like it was barrier-free first and foremost. Still, 100 years on, some parts of ze S-Bahn still is in use, so spending some $$$ back then went a long, long way after all.
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