<story><title>We&apos;re Too Cheap to Fly Faster</title><url>https://medium.com/we-live-in-the-future/7885a299bca2</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pyre</author><text>Trains have degraded security though. Once a plane leaves, someone has to be &lt;i&gt;on&lt;/i&gt; the plane or have had access to it beforehand to affect the flight. You can defend against this through security at those specific points. On a train, the entire trip is over miles of tracks which &amp;#x27;anyone&amp;#x27; can access. Security at boarding doesn&amp;#x27;t affect the attack surface area as much.&lt;p&gt;That said, I might prefer train travel to flying.</text></item><item><author>GhotiFish</author><text>this is my position. If I have internet and a power outlet, one place is as good as another, why take the hit on degrading security, exorbitant fee&amp;#x27;s, and cramped conditions for a few extra hours? Trains are efficient. We need to use them more.</text></item><item><author>bergie</author><text>Exactly the reason why the (much slower) train often makes more sense. Sure, the train from Amsterdam to Berlin is six hours. But you only have to be at the station to catch it before it leaves, and it both leaves and arrives right in the center.&lt;p&gt;We tried this returning from a conference there last fall, and the hotel-door-to-home-door advantage of flying was less than 30 minutes. And on train there was more space, better food, and a bar. Not to mention that there was power and nobody told me to shut down my laptop at any point :-)</text></item><item><author>TheAnimus</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not just a case of being too cheap, but also it having negligable effect.&lt;p&gt;If I have to be at Heathrow 90 min before departure, and it takes me 45 min to drive there, or 90 min on public transport, then at the other end it takes 30 mins for my bag to get on the belt, clear port control, and another 30-60 min to get to the city.  I have a good 4 hours of fixed time involved with my flight.  If the flight is just 8 hours, making it 7 hours isn&amp;#x27;t really going to change things, I&amp;#x27;ve still lost the most of the day.&lt;p&gt;So I&amp;#x27;d sooner be able to sleep comfortably (ie space!) or be able to do some work (11 vaio Pro, 22 hours battery).&lt;p&gt;Then we have the issue that even going supersonic, we can&amp;#x27;t just upsticks and do it.  We have to get out to see.  Climbing to FL390 takes a lot of time, descending from it does as well, otherwise people generally find it rather un-appealing.  Add in busy hub airport traffic and we&amp;#x27;ve got at least 2 hours that we can&amp;#x27;t really speed up.&lt;p&gt;So our 12 hour total journy (4 hours travelling too &amp;#x2F; waiting at airports, 6 hours of cruise, 2 hours of holding an NDB) speeding up that 6 hours, doesn&amp;#x27;t have much effect.  Hell go nuts, make it take 2 hours, go for mach 3.  It is still going to take me, door to door, 8 hours.  8 vs 12 for the cost of that just isn&amp;#x27;t going to be worth it.  Because ultimately I&amp;#x27;ll have my own work schedule, I&amp;#x27;m not rich enough to have a private jet, and the stuff I fly you wouldn&amp;#x27;t want to be in for more than 4 hours anyway (well the fuel would run out too).  So that means I want a regular, frequent service.  I don&amp;#x27;t care that superfastjet leaves everyday at 1pm.  I need to be around till 5pm.  Obviously the geek in me would take the fast one, but I couldn&amp;#x27;t do that everytime.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;TLDR&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt; It isn&amp;#x27;t just about being cheaper.  It is recognising the deminishing impact speed is having on being the deciding factor.  We look at door to door time, not cruise performance.  We want a frequent schedule, not one speedbird a day.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>snogglethorpe</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;On a train, the entire trip is over miles of tracks which &amp;#x27;anyone&amp;#x27; can access&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Indeed, but trains, even high speed ones, are also very robust compared to airplanes.&lt;p&gt;Even if somebody does manage to get access to the track (not so trivial in many cases), and trigger an explosion on the track with good enough timing to catch the train as it goes by, and manage to derail it, there&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;still&lt;/i&gt; a good chance that all or most passengers would survive the crash.&lt;p&gt;Similarly, with the size of bomb one might smuggle on board a train, the likely effect would be to just kill a few passengers in the immediate vicinity of the explosion; the train itself would probably be just fine.  So basically not much different than setting off an explosion at a random restaurant...&lt;p&gt;For a terrorist, the odds just aren&amp;#x27;t all that great with trains, which presumably is why there have been so few attempts at doing such a thing.  One of the reasons terrorism is so scary on airplanes is that they feel (and are) so fragile that it magnifies the effect of any attack greatly.</text></comment>
<story><title>We&apos;re Too Cheap to Fly Faster</title><url>https://medium.com/we-live-in-the-future/7885a299bca2</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pyre</author><text>Trains have degraded security though. Once a plane leaves, someone has to be &lt;i&gt;on&lt;/i&gt; the plane or have had access to it beforehand to affect the flight. You can defend against this through security at those specific points. On a train, the entire trip is over miles of tracks which &amp;#x27;anyone&amp;#x27; can access. Security at boarding doesn&amp;#x27;t affect the attack surface area as much.&lt;p&gt;That said, I might prefer train travel to flying.</text></item><item><author>GhotiFish</author><text>this is my position. If I have internet and a power outlet, one place is as good as another, why take the hit on degrading security, exorbitant fee&amp;#x27;s, and cramped conditions for a few extra hours? Trains are efficient. We need to use them more.</text></item><item><author>bergie</author><text>Exactly the reason why the (much slower) train often makes more sense. Sure, the train from Amsterdam to Berlin is six hours. But you only have to be at the station to catch it before it leaves, and it both leaves and arrives right in the center.&lt;p&gt;We tried this returning from a conference there last fall, and the hotel-door-to-home-door advantage of flying was less than 30 minutes. And on train there was more space, better food, and a bar. Not to mention that there was power and nobody told me to shut down my laptop at any point :-)</text></item><item><author>TheAnimus</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not just a case of being too cheap, but also it having negligable effect.&lt;p&gt;If I have to be at Heathrow 90 min before departure, and it takes me 45 min to drive there, or 90 min on public transport, then at the other end it takes 30 mins for my bag to get on the belt, clear port control, and another 30-60 min to get to the city.  I have a good 4 hours of fixed time involved with my flight.  If the flight is just 8 hours, making it 7 hours isn&amp;#x27;t really going to change things, I&amp;#x27;ve still lost the most of the day.&lt;p&gt;So I&amp;#x27;d sooner be able to sleep comfortably (ie space!) or be able to do some work (11 vaio Pro, 22 hours battery).&lt;p&gt;Then we have the issue that even going supersonic, we can&amp;#x27;t just upsticks and do it.  We have to get out to see.  Climbing to FL390 takes a lot of time, descending from it does as well, otherwise people generally find it rather un-appealing.  Add in busy hub airport traffic and we&amp;#x27;ve got at least 2 hours that we can&amp;#x27;t really speed up.&lt;p&gt;So our 12 hour total journy (4 hours travelling too &amp;#x2F; waiting at airports, 6 hours of cruise, 2 hours of holding an NDB) speeding up that 6 hours, doesn&amp;#x27;t have much effect.  Hell go nuts, make it take 2 hours, go for mach 3.  It is still going to take me, door to door, 8 hours.  8 vs 12 for the cost of that just isn&amp;#x27;t going to be worth it.  Because ultimately I&amp;#x27;ll have my own work schedule, I&amp;#x27;m not rich enough to have a private jet, and the stuff I fly you wouldn&amp;#x27;t want to be in for more than 4 hours anyway (well the fuel would run out too).  So that means I want a regular, frequent service.  I don&amp;#x27;t care that superfastjet leaves everyday at 1pm.  I need to be around till 5pm.  Obviously the geek in me would take the fast one, but I couldn&amp;#x27;t do that everytime.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;TLDR&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt; It isn&amp;#x27;t just about being cheaper.  It is recognising the deminishing impact speed is having on being the deciding factor.  We look at door to door time, not cruise performance.  We want a frequent schedule, not one speedbird a day.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>PanMan</author><text>On the other hand, if there is an issue with a train, it can break. Stopping a plane when there is an issue is a lot more hassle.</text></comment>