IngaLovinde

IngaLovinde, 7 days ago

@futurebird this is the most normal cat

IngaLovinde, 11 days ago

@moritzkraehe @jon why did they close it to international (Estonia - Latvia) traffic?

IngaLovinde, 11 days ago

@jon @moritzkraehe but Tallinn to Riga sounds like a potentially popular connection, even more so in 1992...

IngaLovinde, 10 days ago

@Island_Martha @jon @moritzkraehe but this is about connection between two major Baltic cities, not between any of them and RU or BY...

IngaLovinde, 9 days ago

@Island_Martha @jon @moritzkraehe I know this very well (also wasn't it until 1991?).
What I don't understand is why would they sever rail links between each other after restoring independence. Especially since there still was a rail connection between Tallinn and St. Petersburg at least (and iirc there was one between Riga and Moscow too).
"Because independence" is not an answer to "why did they cancel rail connection between Tallinn and Riga, while trains connecting Russia with both of them continued to run", and that's why I was surprised.

IngaLovinde, 9 days ago

@Island_Martha @moritzkraehe @jon I know that the buses are doing really well. I know that rail connections have been spotty. I know what Rail Baltica is for. What I didn't know was that there was a brand new railroad connecting Tallinn to Riga via Pärnu, opened in 70s/80s, and then closed in 1992.
I was very curious why would anybody close such a railroad offering direct and fast connection between Tallinn and Riga (especially in 1992 when the population of these cities was much larger than it is now). But since the only answer seems to be "because they finally threw the Soviet occupiers out" (which by itself has nothing to do with intra-baltic connections), this conversation is clearly pointless.

IngaLovinde, 9 days ago

@jon @Island_Martha @moritzkraehe tried to find some information on the speed online, and apparently it wasn't fully electrified (parts of it were, and the work continued until 1991 but by 1991 it only got electrified from Riga to Skulte (and probably from Rujiena to Tallinn, or to Pärnu? Difficult to find out)).
So the direct trains between Riga and Tallinn were all DMUs (with some electrified parts of the route apparently also served by typical "ER2" EMUs).
According to this https://forum.tr.ru/read.php?15,1051241,page=all , in 1983 (two years after Rujiena got connected to Pärnu by that new railroad) the DMU took 6:24 (departing Tallinn 16:23, arriving Riga 22:47), which is not even that bad, and would probably get much better once electrification would be finished. Apparently it was quite a decent track. Tallinn to Riga via Valga took much longer, so that one was served by a night train.
Still not sure why they cancelled the passenger train. But according to what I've found (which might not be true), independent Latvia and Estonia didn't maintain the tracks at all, so by mid-90s they fell into disrepair, with max allowed speed for remaining cargo traffic limited by 60-80km/h. And then some years later some flood or something made a part of the (unmaintained) line unusable, and by then, with only a little cargo traffic on it, they decided that it's easier to finally close and dismantle it than to repair it.

IngaLovinde, 12 days ago

@jon "the trains are full" because if some trains aren't full, SNCF removes them? 🙃

IngaLovinde, 19 days ago

@charlotte destructive proof: destroy all examples, therefore making the conjecture false

IngaLovinde, 20 days ago

please don't be late (so that we will get to Basel just one hour later than originally planned) (@ ICE 593 ➜ Mannheim Hbf) #NowTräwelling https://traewelling.de/status/2658352

IngaLovinde, 20 days ago

It's a silent carriage, is 4:53 in the morning now, and yet the lights are on full blast.

Also: ICE with the average speed around 105km/h... :blobfoxfacepalm:

IngaLovinde, 20 days ago

We didn't even leave Berlin yet, and it's already 5 minutes late.
Really hope it will catch up by Mannheim where we have 8 minute interchange.

IngaLovinde, 19 days ago

+7 ;(

IngaLovinde, 19 days ago

Local trains from Fulda to Frankfurt: take 1:12.
This ICE, according to schedule: 1:39... and yet it's still late!
(Also regional trains take a reasonable route via Salmünster and Hanau, but this ICE, despite not having any intermediate stops, was going via Gemünden am Main.)
Looks like we'll miss our connecting train and won't get to Basel "in time" (which is already full one hour later than planned arrival was before we got DBed)...

IngaLovinde, 19 days ago

And now this ICE, the express train with highest priority over everything else, is just standing still at Aschaffenburg, waiting for who knows what, even though even passing through Aschaffenburg doesn't make any sense for this route (non-stop stretch from Fulda to Frankfurt)...

IngaLovinde, 19 days ago

@jon it is projected to have 10 minute delay even despite the generous schedule (it also only sped up above 100km/h on one short stretch, and often was only doing 50km/h).
But what I don't understand is that regional trains between Fulda and Hanau still seem to run? And it's not like Berlin S-Bahn; the track they take should be compatible with ICEs?

IngaLovinde, 21 days ago

@lanodan @siina well where do you think shit from sewage plants goes? :blobcatgiggle:

IngaLovinde, 21 days ago

@futurebird one more way to thing about it: imagine a half-line of points / vectors with non-negative integer coordinates. There is a zero, and there is a "smallest" (cannot be represented as sum of two others) vector, 1.
Now imagine a quarter-plane, there will be two "smallest" vectors besides zero. They're interesting because we can represent any other vector in our quarter-plane as a sum of these "smallest" vectors (and not just sum but an unique sum). Of course we're interested in smallest non-zero vectors, otherwise zero vector would be the only smallest one. What we're interested in are "generating" vectors, those that define a shape of that quarter-plane and its content, and zero vector doesn't define anything.
We can then do the same exercise with 1/8th of 3-dimensional space, etc.
Now extend this to the space with countably many dimensions (and vectors with finite number of non-zero coordinates). And define the mapping between this space and positive integers: vector with a_i coordinate at ith place is converted to the product of ith prime numbers to the a_ith degree. Then vector addition turns into integer multiplication, "smallest" vectors turn into their respective primes, and origin / zero vector is converted to 1.
1 is a prime in the same sense as zero is the smallest vectors, but this doesn't get is anywhere, we're interested in smallest non-zero vectors, those that generate everything else.

IngaLovinde, 1 month ago

For comparison, if DB website is to be believed, emissions on direct Berlin to Basel route for ICE is 0.09 kg CO2 equivalent.
Sure it's a couple of times shorter... but the difference between 0.09kg and 73.15kg is not just a couple of times!
How do you get your train to emit almost as much CO2 as an airplane on the same route...

IngaLovinde, 1 month ago

Huh, apparently typical energy consumption of a train is around 30-50 Wh per passenger-km in seats (while electric cars with two people have around 125 Wh, didn't expect the difference to be so small), which means 10-25g CO2 per passenger km just for electric traction at typical energy mix in Germany or Italy (300-500 gm CO2 per kWh).
Sleepers will naturally have twice as much (because there are basically only 24 beds per car)
While airplanes have allegedly total emissions around 100g per passenger-km for short-haul flights, a bit over 50g for long haul. (And electric cars, 60g in operational energy consumption, thank to power consumption just a bit over trains (how?).)

So the trains are not really that efficient? What the fuck.

IngaLovinde, 1 month ago

So basically at the current energy mix in Germany or Italy, electric trains (which are promoted as the greenest mode of travel) apparently do actually have emissions not very much lower than airplanes (which are considered to be the worst), even for short-haul (1k km) flights? With sleepers being almost the same as airplanes.
(While being much slower and much more expensive and generally terrible to book on distances over 1k km.)
Of course in the future all electricity should be green, but still

IngaLovinde, 30 days ago

...and here I am, having gone through so much effort and pain to plan a long-distance rail trip through the countries with dirty electricity (Germany, Italy), and foolishly thinking that is going to have negligible emissions compared to flying :blobcat_googly_notlikethis:
While in reality it seems that emissions are pretty close, and taking even one sleeper along the route is enough to bring them over the airplane's.

Fooled once again by personal carbon footprint scam.

IngaLovinde, 30 days ago

(trains are still much better for short trips (like, way under 1k km), even with Polish energy mix 500km in a train seat is going to emit less than just one hop from Tallinn to Helsinki (100km) in an airplane.
But for long-distance trips, there is basically no significant difference. Definitely not one that would be worth the pain of booking and the price of train tickets. At least not until our electricity becomes much cleaner.)