[eertami]

Anecdotally, I frequently take day (or weekend) trips to other European cities by rail. It is usually quicker than the roads but also crucially you can be productive on the train. If I had to drive my car there then I probably wouldn't bother.

[netsharc]

This reminds me of this Swedish office on a train https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HbrI3refig , made for a company which had an hour train commute from Stockholm. It's even got 8 telephone line (4 in and 4 out)!

I guess a lot of people would use work booths/conference rooms on trains, but the price/profit has to work for both sides (the train company and users). As for trains, the old-fashioned 6 seater compartments offer more privacy for groups.

[ikawe]

This is an aside, but I’d never seen that “Beyond 2000” show before.

Retro future is a favorite topic of mine, so thanks for sharing.

Yeeesh though, re: part 2 of that episode, it’s wild to watch people in 1988 articulate the looming threat of global warming, and to hear them say on this 25 year old program “we’ve known about this for 30 years”

[dbspin]

Yeah - as someone born in 1979, I find repetitions of the idea that global warming / climate change only came into public awareness 'in the last 15 to 20 years' on TV news and in documentaries deeply troubling. Global warming was constantly discussed on (British) television during my childhood. At least as much as the hole in the ozone layer and acid rain. Perhaps this wasn't the case in America?

[Vinnl]

The funny thing is that people were calling for protecting the future of the children - and now we've just moved the goalposts to those children's children.

[intellix]

you could also work from a car if someone else is driving it like a taxi, but imagine the price difference to travel such a long distance every day over rail versus metro + rail.

Another point I haven't seen mentioned much is safety. Rail is vastly safer than cars and results in less strain on the medical system.

[beAbU]

I like your taxi idea. I hate driving myself.

We could bring down the cost of the taxi by putting more people in the car, to share the cost of the driver. That'll bring the costs down significantly.

If the car is sufficiently large, we can get, say, 50 people in a car with a single driver. That should make the extra cost of the driver split between the 50 lassengers significantly cheaper.

We could go further and link multiple cars together, with a single driver up front. They will be driving on one another's slipstream vastly improving fuel efficiency which will bring down costs even further.

Imagine if we can get them to run on some sort of rail or metal track, which makes rolling resistance of the wheels basically 0. No more expensive rubber tyres that need replacing and yet again improved fuel efficiency. This will bring down the costs even further!

[bluGill]

And if we put those rails in a tunnel or on a elevated structure we can automate the whole process and get rid of that driver. (we cannot automate anything where humans or animals might get in the way - it remains to be seen if we ever will)

[okr]

Trains are just big cars, where you stuff in a lot of people, to make it efficient. Because otherwise it is not.

And you can only work in it, because no one wants to use this monster on a daily basis, so its empty and you dont fight for space. :)

[next_xibalba]

Europe is not exactly the standard bearer for productivity though, is it? If one wants to advance an argument for emulating European style passenger rail, this is really not the right argument.