I don’t think I will ever fly again
At least not to Toronto, Montréal, Québec or anywhere that’s within a day’s train travel.
See, I’m typing this while I’m sitting on a train bound for Toronto. On my laptop. Plugged into an electrical outlet with a normal plug.
I’m sipping a glass of surprisingly good red wine, and if I’d been less ignorant about the evolution of train travel, I could have had a vegetarian meal.
The WiFi (still not available at any price on any airline in Canada) is going to cost me $9.00 for 24 hours. It’s a bit of a weak link up, I have to say, via satellite, and lots of hops and much latency, but, ah it’s better than what you get on Air Canada or WestJet, which is nothing. Though I may have mentionned that.
Download speed seems to be about 300KB per second. When it works.
I hasten to add I’m travelling Via 1. The car is empty but for half a dozen people, sort of like the rest of train.
But I suspect even at this haughty high class rate, it’s still cheaper than flying.
Mind you, you do get this a lot:
An outstanding acknowledge pdu was not received in time (probably high udp data loss)
The enhancement client proxy could not communicate with the server proxy.
If you contact your satellite service provider because of this message, please include a copy of your Log File.
Message generated by enhancement client proxy on host VIA_3470 at 2007-10-10 22:39:24 UTC.
And they appear to block SSH.
October 10th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
I much prefer the train (especially first class) to flying, especially if going to downtown TO (or Kingston, Montreal, Quebec City, etc.) – first class on the train is great for these trips and really ends up to be about the same length of time when you factor in getting to the airport two hours ahead of time, etc.
Train service on Vancouver Island is wonkey! From Nanaimo, one cannot go to Victoria in the morning and come back later in the day. A shame as there are people who commute, there would be Nanaimoites that would go to Victoria for the day, if this was possible – apparently it is a beautiful trip. I always envy Europeans and Japanese for their efficient rail systems.
And the BC government sold off their railway holdings under Campbell – an efficient rail system from Vancouver to Whistler would have been great. But what has happened is the Sea to Sky Highway development was sold to Australia’s MacQuarrie Bank! Grrr ….