The one thing I don't like about the Hyperloop is how impersonal it seems like it would be. Even with the delays, I actually the few times I've taken a train between Detroit and Chicago. It wasn't the luxury (though it did feel very spacious even on a full train), but it was the fact the pretty much every time I got on that train, I talked with people. People sitting around me, people in the food cart, sometimes I struck up conversation with the workers.

Maybe a culture of talking to strangers isn't as prominent elsewhere, but a train is a great place for it, as everybody is travelling for some reason that leads to a story. I was on it so that I could go to the Chinese consulate in Chicago to apply last minute for a visa, the German women who got on at the same stop as me was a visiting researcher who had the day before given a guest lecture at a university and was travelling elsewhere in the country now. On my way back I discovered, through a person who decided to sit next to me, that geography is an actual university major (make fun of me as much as you want for not knowing that), and something that people can get very passionate and excited about. I shot the shit with the guy running the food cart. I learned from a Canadian passenger that railway in his province is a lot slower, but never has such drastic delays as the approximately 8 hour one we eventually experienced due to the particularly bad winter.

This rant was more set off by the comparison the article made with trains at one point. For replacing domestic flights I suppose it's a great idea, but I want to keep my rail travel and the environment it brings.