It’s a Long Way to Tipperary

The best way to describe the Russian transportation system is to describe my upcoming trip to America—after almost one month in Russia we are returning home. We will make this trip today. 

We will catch the train for Moscow at about 1 AM. We will either go by taxi or our nephew will take us to the station. If we take a taxi it will cost at most 90 rubles—about $3. There are several reason for the price. First is that the Russia wage rate is much lower than the corresponding American wage rate. Another reason is that it is not that far to the train station. Russian cities have a much higher density than the USA, so for a medium-sized city (115,000 or so) like Murom the trip is not long. 

I hope we do not meet any spies! Once on the train we will go to our beds. We decided not to spend the extra money for a private bedroom, but we did decide to spend the extra money for an extra seat so we have our own alcove. There are three of us and an alcove normally seats 4. There is bedding available for a few dollars. Our biggest suitcase will not fit under the bed, so it will be a little crowded. Since I will not have my breathing machine, I will snore. Hopefully not too loudly. In the morning the attendant will provide us, for a price, with chai, hot tea. 

The service is similar to what one can get in America, if the train actually stops in your city (unlikely), and if you decide to pay the extra money and time for traveling by train. In Russia it is cheaper, a lot cheaper than flying. Most Americans have not traveled by train for any distance. My son Drew did for a scouting trip, but he had to be driven 3 hours to the train station and did not have a bed but slept in a seat. Part of the reason the troop went this way was to give the guys the experience. You may have seen the 1930 equivalent in old movies, or movies set in that era like "Some Like It Hot." 

BTW, Russian trains tracks are in pairs of two, so there is constant traffic in both directions.

When we arrive in Moscow we will walk through a tunnel to the metro. The trip to Murom was my first experience with mass transit. I did not like it much, but it was tolerable and much superior to trying to make the same trip by car. We will change subway cars once. Then we take an intermediate train to the new Moscow Airport. 

After a three hour wait, and breakfast!, we will leave Moscow for Los Angeles. The flight will be 13 hours long. As we are crossing 11 time zones the flight will take 2 hours. The movie selection was reasonable and each seat had its own TV. (Those traveling with iDevices, even though it says it is not charging from the USB port, it is. Just slowly. If you charge while you are using it you will not lose any battery life at all.) What can you say about sleeping in a chair? It is uncomfortable. 

IdyllwildBased on past experience it should take about 1 to 2 hours to get through American Customs. In Russia, unless you had something to declare, you just went. There was Passport control of course, but that takes 15 minutes. I will blog later about the odd phenomenon of Russia heading in the direction of freedom, while the US is headed in the other direction. In some ways Russia is already more free than America. After that we will drive to Idyllwild. Unfortunately we will hit the freeways at the beginning of rush hour. All together the trip will take 26 hours. 

I do not know that I would have any objections to instituting such a system in America. There would be big problems as, through the big government subsidies, we Americans live by the car. As oil prices increase we may also die by it. The bullet trains that Obama wants are a dumb idea unless you put a mass transit infrastructure to service it. If you have to drive your car for several hours to the train station and then park it for the trip, how much does one really gain? And the expense of such a system would be hideous. So if you want such a system, cut government expenditures elsewhere to pay for it. Since we need to cut government expenditures by 42% just to balance our current deficit, I do not see this as likely. 

Of course all of the above about our trip is the “plan.” But I must remember what James 4 tells us:

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

So if the Lord is willing, and the creeks don't rise, we should be home today.

Comments

[Henrik Kibak]

The convenience in the US really has a lot to do with what town you're in. The five years I lived in Davis I used to ride the train a lot. I especially liked riding the freight trains up to Central Oregon. Got on them at midnight, straight shot up to Klammath Falls then had to switch from SP to Burlington Northern to get up to Bend. I could also ride Amtrak to Richmond then BART to Berkeley or San Francisco. But I had to pay for those trips.

The Jewish version of James 4: "If you want to make the Lord laugh, make plans."