if light rail is so good then why isn't there Dark Rail. i want trains operated by vampires featuring totally incomprehensible fare structures and system maps

@tris I think that exists but I'd have to ask my relatives in New York to be sure.

@tris isn't that the MTA?

@tris isn’t that Amtrak?

@tris and furthermore, where’s the Heavy Rail?!

@tris is this Caltrain

@tris "incomprehensible fare structures" - could I introduce you to the UK rail network?

@tris

@tris Welcome to dark rail express, I Profossor Fate will be your pilot for this evening. *sad brass instruments start playing*

Alt (because app is broken): Professor Fate and Max from The Great Race in front of a rocket sled on rails. It is painted in a sinister manner.

@tris @maxbvrn we don't have vampires but have you tried the SNCF (French national railway) for incomprehensible fares and system map?

@tris Hopping freight trains?

Run by literal capitalist vampires, check.

Totally incomprehensible system maps, check, you're basically just getting on trains and hoping they're the right one.

The fare is totally arbitrary -- free unless you get caught and heavily fined and/or sent to jail.

@tris Dark rail exists, and it's exactly as you describe, weird fare structure and bizarre time table included.

It's called: the IDF Mobilités (Paris) network delivered by RATP, SNCF Transilien, Veolia, Keolis and the members of the Optile alliance

@tris I thought dark rail was like dark fibre, where the rails are there but just not connected to anything…

@tris There's an Emett cartoon in his typical sinister spindly style showing the inside of a cavernous Tube station. One one platform a train is running through, INNER CIRCLE LINE, a demonic figure in the cab, sparks flying from the wheels. "To be honest, sir, we don't know quite _where_ that one goes."

@tris Most scientists insist that dark rail exists, we just can't see the train cars because they never turn their headlights on. But some fringe theorists think we just don't fully understand rush hour schedule distortion

@tris rails appear in the street one night and are gone the next

@flamingspork @tris I mean we have that here in Philadelphia. Almost all potholes have trolley tracks underneath them, because we used to have a real public transit system

@tris I thought Dark Rail was just trains that run at night? I’d like more of those, too.

@tris@social.tris.fyi thats literally just the s-bahn
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hehe silly string

@tris @ipg *Deutsche Bahn has entered the chat*