Need some positive news? .Around the world, a passenger rail renaissance is well under way. I document the train-love, as well as the latest in sustainable urban transport, in my weekly newsletter HIGH SPEED. 🚅🧵

If you don't even know what's out there, and how it works, how are you going to demand it of policymakers? . I take a look at the state of speed in North America (putt-putt. ) and the rest of the world (vwoooosh!) in this HIGH SPEED dispatch:.

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High-speed rail ain't ocket science. We solved all the technological problems long ago. (Fuck Musk's hyperloop and robocars. We want AM, not FM: Actual Machines, not Fucking Magic.) The main problem is that only 2 percent of Americans has even set foot on an intercity train.

. and they still don't get to work on time.

High-speed rail isn't a boondoggle. *Highways* are a boondoggle. Americans pay thru the nose for the world's most expensive transport system. Highways are publicly funded. But people still pay for their own cars—$12k a year on average—for privilege of driving on them.

RT @grescoe: You can sign up for regular dispatches here:.

RT @grescoe: Need some positive news? .Around the world, a passenger rail renaissance is well under way. I document the train-love, as….

"In a quality city, a person should be able to live their entire life without a car, and not feel deprived." . —Paul Bedford.

You can sign up for regular dispatches here:.

RT @Lactualite: Tout ce qui brille n’est pas or, a constaté notre chroniqueur Taras Grescoe en se rendant en Floride pour vérifier si ce tr….

RT @grescoe: Here's the feature in The Times. (The hed is, er, hyperbolic; the body of the article less so!) . http….

RT @grescoe: . though I was mostly content to succumb to hypnosis-by-scenery.

RT @grescoe: The dining and lounge cars were where we spent a lot of our time.

RT @grescoe: The locomotive is diesel-electric, the coaches are stainless-steel Budd cars from mid-century, and the sleepers are from the….

RT @grescoe: The Ocean is North America's oldest named passenger rail service. Since 1904, it's linked #Halifax to #Montreal, via the old….

RT @grescoe: Not to worry: Straphanger is alive + well! I'll continue to post about transit, bicycles, and alternatives to car-based urban….

RT @grescoe: High-speed rail, which has already transformed Europe + Asia, is coming to North America. But the newsletter's about more tha….

RT @grescoe: Welcome to HIGH SPEED! . Today I'm launching the newsletter of the global passenger rail renaissance. 🚅🧵 .

For more accounts of my travels by train, as well as dispatches on transit and passenger rail, sign up for my weekly newsletter: . #trains

Here's the feature in The Times. (The hed is, er, hyperbolic; the body of the article less so!) .