French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights

Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by closeparen on Sunday April 11, 2021 @04:41PM (#26773217)

Tying up capital equipment and personnel for much less time to serve the same journey. Consider San Francisco to Chicago, a route I have done both ways. The flight is 5 hours, the train ride 50 hours. A 737 is more expensive than the California Zephyr trainset, but not by 10x.

I'm not sure what noise has to do with efficiency - I doubt that the energy expended on vibrating the air is physically or economically significant - but it is worth noting that trains are loud. Particularly because regulations written in blood require that they blow their horns three times at every level crossing at all hours.

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Re:French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights by Symbiote on Tuesday April 13, 2021 @03:55AM (#26789354)

(Among developed countries I'm familiar with) it's only the USA that has the excessively loud train horns at level crossings, and a lot of crossings. In Europe, lights, bells (or a beeper thing) and automatic barriers are used instead, sometimes with automatic or manual infrared/visible cameras to confirm the crossing is clear of road vehicles.

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