transcription: two girls on opposite sides of the country: "hey girl, come on over" "omg id love to"

You might want to add they are in the US in the description.

At least they are in the same country, some couples aren't even in the same continent.

Meet up in Minnesota!!! It's in the middle

This is me with nearly every trans friend I have (am trans)

Me in Europe and my gfs in Brazil and the US :(

I too, wish there were cross-country high speed trains.

$80 for the overnight nationalized bullet train

Oh wait, yea

yeah airplanes are typically faster above a range of 300 miles or sth

the problem with long-distance trains isn't ideology, it's just an issue of physics/engineering. Airplanes typically travel around 800 km/h (~ 600 mph), which means you can make the 3000 km (2000 miles) distance from seattle to new york in roughly 4 hours.

good luck trying to achieve these speeds with a train.

Yeah but you can get a pleasant experience overnight in a cubbyhole bed on a train. Functionally speaking, the time spent traveling while getting good sleep doesn't really count, does it? You were gonna have to sleep anyway. Good luck doing that on a plane. Plus then trains can be built to go right into the heart of downtown, meaning a much shorter "last mile," which planes can't really do. Then you got the airport vs train station experience, the café car on the train, the larger seats, etc etc etc

Ain't everything about the advertised speed.

I used to work remote in Brooklyn and occasionally have to report to the office in Baltimore. HR would always offer plane tickets and I would decline in favor of having them pay for cheaper business-class Acela tickets. It was better in every possible way: I could walk to and from the stations at both ends, didn't have the TSA porno-scanner hassle, had more personal space in transit, and ironically when the entire door to door trip was considered the train was actually 40 minutes faster. Regional trips are that sweet spot where even a slower train beats flying.

My math was Portland to NYC = 2500 miles / 200 mph = 12.5 hours, thus the overnight. The $80 came from a certain other country's nationalized high speed rail price tiering. I don't care that planes are faster, they're a miserable experience and an ecological travesty, rock me to sleep on the coast to coast redeye.

btw the reason why airplanes always travel at that speed is because it's slightly below the sound barrier, which would make things a whole lot more difficult. speed of sound is 1200 km/h (800 mph).

Looks like NYC to Portland, Oregon. 70.6 hours is high speed right? Only $540 for coach ($3876 for a private room).

That train would have to go at least 300 miles per hour.

The TGV has a top speed of 360 mph. Just hire some French engineers hon hon hon.

Dang I always thought you had to go maglev to beat 300 mph. I guess the US really does have a shot at the world's fastest bullet train network.

200 mph, 12.5 hours and you're alseep for most of it.

Only if there are no stops in between.

It's called the coast to coast redeye, not the layover in Denver redeye!

yeah, once you get to the other coast you take a regional train to your final destination

Portland and NYC are both major cities that would terminate a transcontinental service. The Oregon Trail actually terminated right outside of Portland, though it's certainly the least-major of the 4 major west coast metros, one day it'll be subsumed into Sea/Tac.

Ain't no red-eye if your got a cubbyhole bed!

I'm seeing nothing but positives.

Wheeeeeeeeee!

This is what VR and internet-capable vibrators were invented for.

Nothing beats physical touch though.

It helps to be able to communicate and have some intimacy even far away, still.

Hugs are awesome. :3

Hugs are awesome

I'm afraid that I can not confirm that, due to absence of evidences.

Honestly I was never really hugged nor did I hug someone until I was 23. It felt really weird at first and I was so ticklish 😄

Hope you'll find friends or more that would do that.

I am sorry for both of the girls.

Cannot imagine to live in a country where they are ruled by an living orange and no good train system exists...

I dont now how people manage to like the united stupid of america, or believe there is freedom

I mean, it's home. I have many many criticisms and want to get the ability to leave if necessary. But it's where I've always lived, it's where my family is, where most of my friends live, where I met my wife, where I buried my mom. It has natural beauty that I've been fortunate enough to see a lot of and a history of preserving it for future generations. I love a lot of the rights we used to have and I fought for years to make the place better.

But yeah freedom, that was always more of a slogan and an ideal, not something we actually have or can agree on what it is.

Mostly because of Hollywood

And dumb Social Media feeds, created by and feeding back into their irrecoverable stupidity.

Plot twist, their both in Salem.

Oregon doesn't really do original place names. Best they can do is a mispelling or mispronouciation of another place's name.

This is to make up for the fact that the name "Oregon" is so original that nobody is certain of it's origin.

Or Portland

both trapped ;(

At least y'all are in the same hemisphere, I'm next to Antarctica

I'm currently working manual labor at 36°C and envy you.

Well then you should move to Alice Springs, it's on the continent next to Antarctica, should be breezy!

yeah centralization would mitigate these issues, i.e. there should be a central location where we all meet up. the difficulty is figuring out where to place this center.

in fact, if you look at population maps, you can easily see that most people are concentrated on the east or west coast. this is largely already because it reduces average travel times between one person and the next. (it also helps the economy, shorter transport -> cheaper transport).

Reject metropolitan centralization, embrace ubiquitous urbanized small towns and local ecological stewardship.

You don't need to find a literal center on the map geometrically though, you need proper mass transit and high speed rail to make places centers and not empty strip malls.

Even across countries 🥲

And that's just the nearest one!

Just hop on the transcontinental high-speed train and...

Is 70.6 hours high speed?

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