Not Just about the Destination: Travel and Transport!

[TheRedStranger]

Planes, trains, automobiles, boats and blimps; everything in and under and above, that takes us to point A to B, this is the place to talk the past, present, and future of traveling and transportation. 

[TheRedStranger]

@SallyAcornLover

 You said earlier you like the USA, you should really consider someday riding a train across the country. It's a real safe way to travel and you get to see all over America:

 

@Akessel92is from the Dakotas and is now a Kentuckian. He actually has German heritage, many people in Kentucky do.
 

 

 

[SallyAcornLover]

@TheRedStranger

I just watched the whole video.

Thank you very much for the lovely hint. 😇
I would really love to travel to the USA, but at the moment unfortunately there are several things that prevent me from doing so.

I've heard that you have to be vaccinated against Covid19 in order to be able to travel from Europe to the USA, which I am not and, to be honest, I refuse to be injected with this poison.
I really hope this stupid pandemic will be over soon, because it sucks and has ruined all of my travel plans for 2020 and 2021 so far.

I would very much like to travel to your beautiful country, but I would very much like to have one or more very good friends with me.
I must confess that I'm afraid to go on such a huge trip alone.
Please don't hold it against me, but your country is so huge that I would be afraid of losing my orientations alone, really no offence.
I can communicate in English, but I would be very worried about doing something wrong and getting lost somewhere.
In addition, it is always much nicer to travel together with good friends than just alone.

However, I have to say that for my first trip to America I would like to explore a whole place like Texas and / or Arizona for instance better than just sniffing everything, but nowhere really have the opportunity to take a closer look.
So far, Texas and Arizona are my two favorites which I would love to see more accurate.

You have really beautiful places in the USA. 💙 😍

I could cry that so many obstacles are in a person's path that one cannot even travel where one wants to, because on the one hand it is expensive and on the other hand other things aggravate the situation.

The poor guy in the video is almost frozen in the shower.
Still don't know if he was sitting on the toilet while showering or not. ^^

I still have one question because I didn't quite understand it from the video alone.
What exactly does Zephyr stand for?
Is that a proper name or does the word have any specific meaning or is this just a name of a place?

[Akessel92]

1 hour ago, SallyAcornLover said:

@TheRedStranger

I just watched the whole video.

Thank you very much for the lovely hint. 😇
I would really love to travel to the USA, but at the moment unfortunately there are several things that prevent me from doing so.

I've heard that you have to be vaccinated against Covid19 in order to be able to travel from Europe to the USA, which I am not and, to be honest, I refuse to be injected with this poison.
I really hope this stupid pandemic will be over soon, because it sucks and has ruined all of my travel plans for 2020 and 2021 so far.

I would very much like to travel to your beautiful country, but I would very much like to have one or more very good friends with me.
I must confess that I'm afraid to go on such a huge trip alone.
Please don't hold it against me, but your country is so huge that I would be afraid of losing my orientations alone, really no offence.
I can communicate in English, but I would be very worried about doing something wrong and getting lost somewhere.
In addition, it is always much nicer to travel together with good friends than just alone.

However, I have to say that for my first trip to America I would like to explore a whole place like Texas and / or Arizona for instance better than just sniffing everything, but nowhere really have the opportunity to take a closer look.
So far, Texas and Arizona are my two favorites which I would love to see more accurate.

You have really beautiful places in the USA. 💙 😍

I could cry that so many obstacles are in a person's path that one cannot even travel where one wants to, because on the one hand it is expensive and on the other hand other things aggravate the situation.

The poor guy in the video is almost frozen in the shower.
Still don't know if he was sitting on the toilet while showering or not. ^^

I still have one question because I didn't quite understand it from the video alone.
What exactly does Zephyr stand for?
Is that a proper name or does the word have any specific meaning or is this just a name of a place?

Zephyr in the dictionary means “a gentle breeze” rooted in the denotation for the Greek God of the western wind, Zephorus. 
 

The Zephyr trains referred to some of the first streamlined diesel trains that operated on the Chicago, Burlington, & Quicy Railroad during the 1930s, 40s and fifties. This was an initiative made by American railroads to compete with the growing automobile industry. 

 

[MoKat]

5 hours ago, TheRedStranger said:

He actually has German heritage, many people in Kentucky do

*raises hands*

I do too ^.^

{Edit: There's was a small Amtrak station in Fulton, KY; it's about an hour's drive from where I am. I don't know if it's still in opperation or if they still have thruway services to get peolpe to it. I've never been on an Amtrak train tho', just a few short rides on smaller railways. Fun way to travel }

Edited October 21, 2021 by MoKat
added a comment

[MoKat]

Long read, but worth it. Basically, it's the history of the Amtrak dining car and the possibility of its return to the two lines from which it was removed

The Return of the American Rail Dining Car [Eater.com]

[TheRedStranger]

On 10/21/2021 at 5:13 PM, MoKat said:

I do too ^.^

My puppy Jack might as well. XP 

 

—-

I really do wish we could get our crap together and do a good infrastructure bill. But the monopolization of rail and years of tricky subsidies really messed things up compared to more private automobiles. I really am excited to see any growth or revival of rail transit through. Seeing the traditional dining plan just come back after this Covid garbage is cause for celebration. 

[MoKat]

A better name for this video would be "A brief History of the Electric Vehicle"

 

[MoKat]

 

First Class Bus "The JET" from Washington, DC to New York City

 

[MoKat]

Amtrak California Zephyr from Chicago to San Francisco

 

 

[MoKat]

Amtrak cancels train area train service Wednesday, Thursday [West KY Star]

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Because of the threat of the approaching winter storm,  Amtrak has canceled train service in our region for Wednesday and Thursday.

The City of New Orleans train 59 is canceled both days. It makes stops in Memphis, Carbondale, and it also stops in Fulton when there are ticketed customers for that station.

Also, the Illini/Saluki 393 run between Carbondale and Chicago is canceled both days.

Amtrak will allow customers to change their reservation during the modified schedule without any additional fees.

You can change reservations by calling 1-800-USA-RAIL.

Confirmed: the Fulton station still in operation; just not for those 2 days.

[TheRedStranger]

On 1/30/2022 at 5:37 PM, MoKat said:

Amtrak California Zephyr from Chicago to San Francisco

 

 

I love the Zephyr. I am probably going to go on it this Summer with @Senior Bobbert to see an old friend from FUS.

[MoKat]

The Sanction-Fueled Destruction of the Russian Aviation Industry [Wendover Productions ~22 min.]

There's some good examples of how the aviation industry works in general in this video.

And here are some comments that made me laugh:

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when in a war, you can count on Wendover to make a video about the Logistics and Aviation about it.

Quote

If aliens invaded Earth, Wendover would come out with a video about how it affected airline logistics.

Quote

What’s insane is all these planes leased by Russia are all up for repossession and one was even repossessed in Mexico. I’d have loved to see that live-streamed.

 

[TheRedStranger]

On 3/26/2022 at 1:08 PM, MoKat said:

The Sanction-Fueled Destruction of the Russian Aviation Industry [Wendover Productions ~22 min.]

There's some good examples of how the aviation industry works in general in this video.

And here are some comments that made me laugh:

 

This will make Juno rich. And eventually those planes won’t be able to fly.  We have a frankly wasteful president who is totally beholden to his handlers. But he won’t be around forever. And eventually we will be the major world petrostate (and EV state) again. In general, like World War Two, we will have come out the economic victors in this, regardless of dumb politicians. Juno for example was the main hub during the isolationist time of the Soviet Union. All that traffic, and the economic activity that comes with it, is now ours for the taking. 
 

Needless to say, America has something to gain with Russia isolated. When we truly tap into our superior gas reserves, Russia will go from economically flaccid to economically nothing. Sanctions take time, a death by a thousand cuts. Even if they manage to keep Crimea and it’s oil, no one will buy it, and Ukraine just needs to damn their rivers, and hang them out to dry. That area is naturally arid…eventually shipping water to constantly sustain life there, rebuilding destroyed  infrastructure, dealing with a violently jaded population, damage controling the bad human rights PR, while no one buys their oil, will destroy them. The price of innocent civilian life always makes the checks you cash for a war cold ones.

When you zoom out and look at this in decades rather than daily sound bytes , America is just winning the third wave of cold war. Communism was just the peak flaccidity of Russia’s long time autocratic inclinations. NATO has swallowed up the majority of the land of the old Warsaw pack. Japan and South Korea and Alaska buffer them from the Arctic and pacific. And Putin has now galvanized the Nordic states to join it as well.  Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Georgia, Armenia, etcetera, have fully embraced their own national and economic identity, and they want western investment, tourism, and diplomatic clout. At the end of the day, 0.001% of the population own more cash in Russia than bottom 80%. The politburo never gave up “seizure of the means of production” they are still commies, they just threw their “seized production” on a global stock market, serfdom 3.0 for Yeltzin’s post-Soviet pension plan.  Their people are poor and their human capital frankly underinvested, aging, and non-replacing. That makes most their money come with bloody  strings, while getting it from the west and their more robust middle-class and less nationalized upper class comes with less diplomatic baggage.  And no one, even the most cynical elitists, do not want to deal with the guy who poisons his enemies, and who is not brave enough to even stab them in the back. They do not want to be a back-stabbed rump state with a double-tongued power-monger.
 

Even Russia’s best ally, Belarus is not even keeping up with their version of Article 5 and the Chechen’s frankly warmonger on both sides. Lukanhesko even betrayed Putin’s war plans on live TV. He needs the UN’s support with radiation clean up post Chernobyl and a has spent years trying to nurse the Belarusian ethnic identity and language outside of Russia, and is dealing with a lot of hate in his nation. To keep power, he may go the way of Yugoslavia under Tito. He will middle man Putin, but China will take that same strategy to eleven.
 

China never has had a solid friendship with Russia since Stalin. They just want them to be the white-man’s hermit kingdom. They finally are the big player and out ran Stalin’s early Modern infrastructure advantages. They lust after Vladivostok and have even sabre rattled on Twitter for its return to these Chinese people. Their is frankly ethnic tension between them, and they want to drive a wedge between the west and them to get a cut, even if it’s lean. It will be more about denying Russia power than getting something out of them directly. Russia is the Sick-man of Eurasia and their army has literally been decimated according to NATO estimates by a bunch of Ukrainian sunflower farmers. It lets China know they can use that salami-slicing technique they use with India (another nuclear power) and slowly gain concessions. With Taiwan becoming less viable due to an American-backed Ukraine being successful in repelling invasion, it will be safer to just hate on Russia. If they back Russia in a direct way, and try to normalize their relations fully with the west, they stand to loose face and loose all the benefits of being a middle man. It’s looking more and more that Putin has been Mussolinied by Xi-tler. 
 

 Russia has frankly not been this vulnerable since World War 2. I highly recommend no one try and travel there or invest anything there in the slightest, not just out of logistical difficulty, but because it’s not an ethical thing to do, and it’s not a safe thing to do. Think instead about who is going to get all their tourism and general economic attention in a post-global world.