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12. THERE'S THIS THING CALLED RAIL (Sept. 2002)
A few years ago I was in Belgium and decided to take a day trip to
Paris. Brussels to Paris is about 160 miles, around the driving distance between
Atlanta and Birmingham. If an American wishes to travel between downtown Atlanta
and downtown Birmingham he generally gets in his car for a 3 hour drive. There
are also 40-minute flights between the cities, but add in a 45-minute taxi ride
one way and a 30-minute taxi ride the other way plus getting there early plus
maybe luggage it's still 3 to 4 hours.
Yes, you might also take some pathetic Amtrak train from Atlanta to
Birmingham, your typical excrutiatingly slow Amtrak diesel that makes the trip
in 4 hours and 6 minutes. Except it may leave and arrive hours later.
The bullet-nosed Thalys supertrain I was on pulled out of Brussel's
Midi Station at 8:40 AM and at 10:05 I was in Paris. We reached a top speed of
almost 190 mph. The ride was so soft and smooth it was like the train floated
the whole distance. Returning, I recall the train beat the schedule. I think we
went downtown to downtown in 78 or 80 minutes flat.
In all the complaints about the wretchedness of air travel in America,
or the unpleasantness of traffic, you almost never read peep about the
alternative. Americans, I guess, are no more capable of adding rail to the mix
than those monkeys are capable of writing "Hamlet". It is simply beyond us as a
country, and isn't that amazing?
But at least I experienced it.
And it appears that you never will.
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