To reciprocate the naming of Wine, maybe it could have been named Line. Also, both have this positive clang, being associated with "having a good time".
Maybe some trains could be more redneck coded somehow? Steam trains with sweaty stokers and buffalo shooting from the windows of course had plenty of that, but how to bring something from that aesthetic to the present? Bar carriage with sports screens still sounds still a bit passive and cliche. Maybe a gym car? There are already kid and pet cars after all at least here. In German trains you get a real glass pint for your beer, I think that's a big plus.
Riding the the train daily is the norm in the eastern United States. The urban density and shorter distances between metros allows it to be affordable.
The US is massive... riding the train between most cities is dramatically more expensive than flying and takes most of a day if not multiple days between cities.
I used to commute weekly between two cities in Texas and it was a 2 hour flight. (Houston - Lubbock)
As do some European high speed trains. I make it a point to book first class (or equivalent) tickets as that often comes with lounge access at the stations - which lets you mostly avoid the rampant pickpocketing and other petty crime that absolutely infests many European train stations.
One of my relatives used to be a psychologist who did work in psychiatric facilities. He told me about a woman who was rather petite with multiple personalities. One of her personalities was a bug & burly type with anger management issues. When this personality got physical, it took several orderlies of notable size to restrain her.
If they are in sun synchronous orbit, I assume it would show up as a south-north string near the terminator (sunset / sunrise). Not visible at midnight.
But wouldn't it be cheaper for them to just hire more people to do the same amount of hours so that no overtime was used? And they would get better work output as well, since people would be rested.
Yes, but it's a local maximum since hiring more people is going to be expensive/difficult until overtime is fixed.
Some state prisons have escaped the overtime pit by offering huge sign-on bonuses and doing a hiring surge. But it takes longer to train ATC than a CO.
It would, yes. There's large worker/union pressure in many of these fields to not take away overtime by reducing hours, though, since it is such a huge part of total compensation.
Maybe a bit far forward looking but I think the idea has merit from first principles. It makes sense to analyze things from power perspective. Of course there are other limitations as well.
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