[Edward64]

Originally Posted by CrescentMoonie

If you get a chance to see the trains in Europe, especially in Germany, in use then you would see the difference. Much more efficient, much easier and cheaper to maintain, and much less hassle than flying. You don't need nearly as much customer service for train systems, especially when they're designed well.

I spent the summer of 2014 in Europe. Went to an academic conference in norther Finland and then a bunch of us decided to just travel for the next 6+ weeks before going back to Hawaii for the fall semester. We went across Scandinavia (skipping Norway), down through Denmark into Germany, Czechia, and Austria, then wrapped around and came back up through Eastern Europe finishing in Estonia before taking a ferry back over to Helsinki to start the eternal flight back to Honolulu. I honestly don't remember a single time that a train required more than a 15 minute wait and the information about schedules/routes/price was so clear that I don't think any of us spoke to a customer service person a single time after getting our passes at the very beginning.

Of course, that's the rub, hoping that it would be designed and implemented properly in the first place.

This is really cool. I would love to travel around Europe like this one day.