Trivial Thoughts: Trains & Planes

I cannot believe trains are not a thing in America. The US is as vast in land area as Europe, and consists of states larger than some countries in Europe, yet somehow the colonials have infinitely more world-class trains running through their international borders than over here. Not fair. My research* indicates that long time ago some lobbying by US airline companies, car manufacturers & oil tycoons made the government build interstate highways, and pushed for people buying cars and ride on planes rather than take other forms of public transport. What the hell? I have to say this again: lobbying sounds awfully similar to bribery. America did however half-hardheartedly make trains a thing, but it is painful to even think about taking them anywhere. Like, a train from Chicago to New York makes 3 million stops along the way. Some of them even make you CHANGE trains in between even though you are travelling between two metropolises. And they also cost you an arm and a leg plus taxes. Time-wise, you'd be lucky to reach in the same decade you left. That brings me to air-travel. Trains are so restrictive, that I have to take planes everywhere. It is baffling to me that somehow it is better for me - to drive 40 minutes to the airport, pay to leave my car there, drop off my bag, get violated at the security check and then either sit like an idiot for an hour at the gate before taking off; or run to the gate like an idiot before taking off, depending on my time-management skills that day. Then you have to repeat the whole ordeal two days later on the return flight. An honorable mention goes out to those awesome baggage claims. It is generally considered a privilege if you leave the airport with the same number of bags you came in with. This stressful one-way journey just cost me hundreds of dollars, 5 hours of total travel time and three years in life expectancy. Instead, why can’t I just walk or take a taxi to a nearby train station and travel overnight in a relatively comfortable chair/bed at a fraction of the cost and have other kinds of petty things to complain about? Note: I am being extremely unreasonable. Because I agree with Louis C.K. when he says that people have no right to complain about air-travel. In fact we should be amazed by it every single minute of every day because it is the pinnacle of human achievement: You are sitting in a chair in the air going at about a 1000 km per hour watching a stupid Adam Sandler movie. No amount of inconveniences in the lead-up to that should be discouraging. However the rule should be: long distances - airplanes; medium distances - trains; & shorter distances - buses/cars. But no one ever lobbies for logic around here.

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* My research = Wikipedia ¯\_(ツ)_/¯