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   goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Tuesday, 02-Jul-2024 22:20:30 JST goatsarah

   In my near future I see multiple one hour flights around the UK, France, Spain and Portugal.

   This is because the rail service, while the track exists, is not fit for purpose.

   Dear Europe, stop fucking about with fascism and sort the bloody trains out. euronews.com/green/2024/07/02/…

   • Embed this notice
     goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Tuesday, 02-Jul-2024 22:38:10 JST goatsarah

     in reply to

     • Rachel Greenham
     @StrangeNoises Yeah. My GCSE history teacher explained that when we were covering the period, nearly 4 decades ago. More people should have good history teachers.
   • Embed this notice
     Rachel Greenham (strangenoises@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 02-Jul-2024 22:38:11 JST Rachel Greenham

     in reply to

     @goatsarah (and a reminder that mussolini making the trains run on time was a myth)

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     goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Tuesday, 02-Jul-2024 22:43:00 JST goatsarah

     in reply to

     • FeralRobots
     @FeralRobots Spoiler: They're actually shit, and the experience is slow, byzantine, and about ten times as expensive as "just buying some carbon offsets (which may be a scam) and fucking taking Ryanair"
   • Embed this notice
     FeralRobots (feralrobots@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 02-Jul-2024 22:43:01 JST FeralRobots

     in reply to

     @goatsarah
     this makes me sad, as one category of things I've had on my retirement list was using some of the extensive European rail networks I've been reading about my whole life.

   • Embed this notice
     Rachel Greenham (strangenoises@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 02-Jul-2024 22:55:52 JST Rachel Greenham

     in reply to

     @goatsarah was just an unquestioned aphorism for me until recently, and then only heard the opposite in passing, so vague enough i still had to check with a few sources before posting that reply just now :-)

   • Embed this notice
     goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Tuesday, 02-Jul-2024 22:55:52 JST goatsarah

     in reply to

     • Rachel Greenham
     @StrangeNoises The way it was explained to me was that it was so unremittingly shit that they had to create fake nostalgia about SOMETHING to erase the trauma.
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     FeralRobots (feralrobots@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 02-Jul-2024 23:05:19 JST FeralRobots

     in reply to

     @goatsarah have they always been that way, & just had better PR in the past?

     (My token experience is that at least British rail service has gone downhill in recent years. We were in England/Scotland for our honeymoon c2007, then again for a conference in 2019, & took a train north from London both times (Edinburgh in '07, York in '09, so same line). In just those 12 years, the experience degraded really strikingly.)

   • Embed this notice
     goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Tuesday, 02-Jul-2024 23:05:19 JST goatsarah

     in reply to

     • FeralRobots

     @FeralRobots I think it’s that the comparison people often make is with North America, which is the lowest of low bars.

     The comparison they should make is China.

   • Embed this notice
     goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Tuesday, 02-Jul-2024 23:06:30 JST goatsarah

     in reply to

     Here’s what I would regard as a minimum viable standard to even start to be some sort of competitor for air travel: low season, if I can travel from Faro to London, including a sleeper berth, for 150 euros, and buy the ticket on Trainline dot com in 10 minutes.

     It doesn’t even start to come close, and is never projected to.

   • Embed this notice
     goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Tuesday, 02-Jul-2024 23:08:23 JST goatsarah

     in reply to
     By the way, Faro to London off season on Ryanair is 20 euros and takes 2 minutes to book, so I’m already lowering my expectations a LOT.
   • Embed this notice
     goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Tuesday, 02-Jul-2024 23:09:47 JST goatsarah

     in reply to

     And here’s how the experience by rail currently starts:

     From Faro: take a bus to Seville. Book a hotel.

     Faro is connected to the European rail network, but there are no tickets available to any other country.

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     goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Tuesday, 02-Jul-2024 23:42:24 JST goatsarah

     in reply to

     • Sasha
     @sashabilton And that's the tragedy. You want to do the right thing, but the people who are supposed to be managing our infrastructure aren't interested in facilitating that.
   • Embed this notice
     Sasha (sashabilton@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Tuesday, 02-Jul-2024 23:42:25 JST Sasha

     in reply to

     @goatsarah I have To travel regularly to Copenhagen. Bed to office chair is about 6 hrs by plane and 18 hrs overnight by train or driving, and a lot more expensive.