I always liked his old videos. The ones on the development of recording music or how old TVs worked. He also included some good footage showing the concept in action (like the 3 colored lights behind the slotted shield TVs to show how the color TV worked. Or the animation of the patent sheet of the sunbeam toaster). Shame he completely sperged out. When he inserted a random comment how annexing Canada was unacceptable in the middle of the video I tried to ignore it. Just a random flareup. But, like a wife finding her husband wearing her clothes "just trying out for fun" it ended up being a sign for things to come.
Apparently, people are saying "Government should stop investing into trains, because the aren't profitable.", and the focus is on them making a profit. I'd think the criticism would be "they aren't profitable, because no one wants to use them, therefore it doesn't make sense for the government to keep operating them at a loss", but I dunno, I'm clueless on this. I do like trains, if for shorter rides.
A lot of travel is subsidized, fuel for cars, cars themselves and roads. So you can subsidize trains or metros as well.
At the one hand trains are cool. They're big and efficient. They're more comfortable than buses and are pretty fast. Lovely to just sit in one and read a book, while the train gets you to your destination. If you care about electrification, you can run lines over them. No need for massive batteries. A good train connection replaced air travel from north to south in Italy. The flight simply wasn't feasible any more once the train was in place.
At the other hand. They're horrible. Other people riding them can ruin your experience. Loud phonecalls, bothering people, people riding without ticket that cause a scuffle, overloaded trains, train delays, trains being cancelled, the next train being extra overcrowded because now two trainloads of people have to cram in. Autumn? Two leaves on the rails kill all train traffic. Winter? Some frozen switch killed your commute. Delays are announced in the worst way possible. Instead of telling you a train won't make it, they'll tell you it's delayed for 5 minutes. Then after 5 minutes it's delayed for 10 minutes, then after 10 minutes it's delayed for 20 minutes, after 15 minutes, 5 minutes past the due time, they tell you the train isn't coming. For the 5 years I rode a train (20 minute trip) I've suffered countless lengthy delays, over 2 hours once. I've never had such a problem in the car, I've had delays, even long delays, but never as bad as 2 hours+ on 20 minutes. And if I really wanted to get somewhere in time, I could leave early and always be on time. Never a moment where I just got told halfway my trip I was going to be late.
If trains are going to be good, some politically unacceptable choices will have to be made.
1) Remove the brown. Browns cannot function in civil society, as long as they exist, they make public transport hell.
2) No longer use transportation as the dumping ground of burnt ministers that need a sinecure. You need a giga autist to make trains happen.
3) Accept you're going to burn a ton of money on subsidies, it's not going to be profitable, and your benefits will be indirect (better transport for your citizens, less cars on roads)
4) Don't stop for suicides. If someone walks close to the rail, don't slow down. If someone jumped, don't stop all train traffic for an investigation. Put those cattle catches you see on old steam trains on modern trains.
5) Have train station police that can remove people from trains, you need a way to quickly and efficiently remove drunks, white trash and karens if they cause trouble. They need to be able to get into the train, pick up the troublemaker, and carry him/her out of the train, so there is no delay
6) No NIMBY/greenpeace blocking new tracks.
But as long as retards like Alec are the ones championing trains, it won't happen.