The Washington Post looks at the genre of cab ride train videos: long, uninterrupted videos of complete train journeys as seen from the locomotive’s cab. (See Jalopnik’s post if you can’t get past the Post’s registration wall.) There are more than 8,000 such videos listed at Rail Cab Rides, and they’re all over YouTube: they range from scenic mountain railways to the fastest of high-speed trains. (For example, this channel, which I follow, focuses on French trains; it’s hard to call this subgenre “slow TV” when you’re watching TGVs at full speed.) I find them oddly addictive: some people use them as background, but I can’t stop paying attention.
trains
Could Sleeper Trains Replace International Air Travel?
The case for sleeper trains replacing air travel is very much a European thing.1 Flight shame (flygskam) is reducing demand for air travel, and European distances are such that overnight trains are feasible. At one point it looked like the combination of high-speed rail and budget airlines would doom European night trains, but that trend seems to be reversing itself: ÖBB’s Nightjet service is expanding in the face of soaring demand, and other operators are planning to reintroduce sleeper trains.
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