Switzerland begins tests on the longest train tunnel in the world

Re:Switzerland begins tests on the longest train tunnel in t... by batiste on Thursday January 21, 2016 @08:48AM (#10945087)

Also to be fair Switzerland is a very compact country although quite mountainous. The length of the train rides, even with very fast trains would have an hard time competing against airplanes in the US. In Switzerland a 3h hour direct, comfortable, Zurich-Geneva train ride isn't much worse than a Zurich-Geneva flight (30 min flight + security and transfer to the city is about 2 hours)

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Re:Switzerland begins tests on the longest train tunnel in t... by m_mueller on Thursday January 21, 2016 @08:53AM (#10945113)

Fun fact: 8M Swiss do 1.8x the passenger kilometers of all of the US combined [1]. I'm pretty sure you have enough densely populated areas in the US that are larger than Switzerland, especially in the East coast.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_usage_statistics_by_count...

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Re:Switzerland begins tests on the longest train tunnel in t... by saiya-jin on Friday January 22, 2016 @05:02AM (#10951835)

There is a bit of mentality too - for Swiss, railroads are part of culture, train stations are always at the heart of a city, and even small places are connected. Train infrastructure is dense.

but it is bloody expensive, plain ticket for 20 km ride costs as much as 5 hour ride on fast train back home. everybody here buys early "ticket" that halves the prices of all tickets for 180 usd

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