friendlymessage

joined 4 months ago
[–] friendlymessage 3 points 2 months ago

There are definitely use cases for battery-electric trains:

  • We have these in Germany usually in areas with low traffic. E.g. if a train line is only serviced a couple of times a day, it's more cost-effective to carry the batteries with you than to electrify the line.
  • Another use case are train ferries. They are the reason why Germany also had Diesel-powered high-speed trains for a while.
  • Another challenge in Europe is the lack of harmonization of power supplies of train lines between countries. In cross-border traffic, trains have to be adapted to work with different energy supplies. Battery-electric trains can add flexibility for these scenarios. E.g. Germany uses AC 15 kV 16.7Hz, the Netherlands DC 1.5 kV on low-speed and AC 25 kV 50Hz on high-speed lines. When a train goes from the Netherlands to Germany, it disconnects from the Dutch system and reconnects to the German system on the fly. For a moment in between, the train loses power. If the train lacks momentum or has to stop unexpectedly, the train is stranded and has to be pushed over the border by another train that is independent of the power supply.
[–] friendlymessage 14 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Yeah, interesting that the supposedly left-leaning Stein sits next to an openly right-wing nationalist conspiracy nutjob whose last book title was:

Der Putsch des Establishments gegen Donald Trump

The establishment coup against Donald Trump

[–] friendlymessage 12 points 2 months ago

It's very popular, I've seen it a lot

[–] friendlymessage 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Diese verdammten Klimakleber aber auch! Was? Wie bitte?

[–] friendlymessage 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The Shinkansen is absolutely great and I love traveling in Japan by train, much better experience overall than Germany. That said, there are still so many things that are oddly outdated. Like, why is there no app to book tickets? Even when booking online, physical tickets are still needed and have to be collected at the train station.

Now with the typhoon a lot of connections were cancelled. Hundreds of people had to go to physical counters to exchange their physical tickets to cash. Because there's an emergency schedule on some lines, the ticket machines don't work and customers have to go to counters to get tickets. Even Germany is more digitized than that. Granted, Germany has a lot more experience with cancelled train connections...

It's like, Japan was ahead of everyone else and just stopped there. Still a great experience but it could be so much better with relatively little effort.

[–] friendlymessage 3 points 2 months ago

I don't quite share your sentiment. Although FDP tends to yap a lot about car infrastructure, investments into train infrastructure in Germany are at a record high. Still far too low, I agree, but it's not getting worse. And I don't see AfD joining any government on national level anytime soon. Also, cycling infrastructure is more a local topic and most cities are still center-left. Outside of cities I don't see biking infrastructure improving either, though.

[–] friendlymessage 52 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Funny how your 3 week old account only posts about Harris, never about Trump or any other topic. You seem to have a very weird obsession with her

[–] friendlymessage -4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm not gonna waste my time. Any definition I would provide you would dismiss as "western propaganda" anyway.

[–] friendlymessage -5 points 2 months ago (5 children)

That's just bullshit. Authoritarianism has a clear-cut definition that goes beyond "the government has authority on legal violence" and you know it.

[–] friendlymessage 6 points 2 months ago

Because most people have their phone on vibrate 100% of the time. I had a OnePlus and my slider got stuck. Couldn't change the setting for 2 years but as it was stuck in vibrate, it didn't matter anyway.

[–] friendlymessage 0 points 2 months ago
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