Trains don’t have a higher failure rate than car infrastructure. Most of the rail infrastructure works just fine, at 40C. Occasionally something can get damaged. Aviation is much more fragile regarding weather but interestingly doesn’t get all that heat from transit haters and cars are way more dangerous and on top of that can overheat at extreme temperatures.
They usually advise you not to get out of your car for the exact reason they advise you not to get off the train.
I’m not sure what’s exclusive to trains about breaking down in the middle of nowhere. It’s not exactly trivial to get a replacement car either, nor is repair somehow instant.
I get what you’re saying, but it’s way less one sided than you’re trying to convey. My car once broke down on the freeway in a city. I had to wait more than an hour for a tow and then walk home, which took two hours. Had to get random coworkers or friends to take me to work while my car was repaired over the next two weeks.
Oh, and traffic jams are routine for cars.
Nothing is gained by pretending there’s no downsides to any mode of transportation. They all have them. In aggregate though, most people would be better off if we had more available than just “car”.
Have you even seen red heat alert advisory telling people to drive only if necessary and take precautions? I haven’t. Why do you think they issue those for trains but not cars?
the AC stops working, the windows don’t open and it gets real hot real fast
unless it’s some extreme situation they will not let you leave the train
That sounds to me like an extreme situation.
All trains have emergency releases on the door to allow manual opening. Practically, if it is actually getting hot to the point of danger, no conductor is going to physically stop you from leaving the train. More likely they’d be the ones to let people off.
I’d need to see a news story of this happening where they were trying to force people to stay on a dangerously hot train. This sounds like a made up scenario.
They will not open the door you dufus. They will not say “everyone can just jump out on the tracks and walk around”. There may be trains riding on other tracks and there’s no sidewalk next to the tracks. You can get a fine for using emergency exit. That’s why people stay inside, not because someone is holding them down.
They will indeed do exactly this in my experience. We even had a sort of viral video of this happening here in Hungary… train broke down, they opened the doors and walked people through the nearby woods to the nearest village.
If Hungary is managing a better train experience than Spain… I would understand your frustration, the situation must be pretty damn dire there.
But again, I doubt this has happened at all… even aside from physical, can you cite a situation where conductors would not “let people off the train” when it was getting dangerously hot during a breakdown? It’s hard to believe that Hungary would handle this better…
Walking through the woods is not what I would call “a better [train] experience”. High speed railways has fences, you can’t just walk out. Your experience in Hungary will be different than in other countries, yes. In Poland you can jump out of a moving trains, go for a walk in a forest, pick some mushroom sand catch it again. It doesn’t mean you can do it everywhere.
Walking through the woods is not what I would call “a better [train] experience”.
What are you actually wanting here? “They won’t let us off the train, we’re cooking in here” and then “Oh they let you off the train, what an awful experience”? Pick a lane here, guy. Being let off the train sounds a lot better to me than heat stroke… I’m still not sure what you really want in this scenario.
I’d still like to know when this actually happened? A breakdown, sure. But trying to keep people to stay on a clearly dangerous train? Hard to believe.
Do you not have mandatory gates every x km in Spain? We have plenty of sound barrier fencing, and all of them have gates a short distance apart exactly for safety reasons.
None of these issues is exclusive to trains. I would argue that they are more common in cars, and even more, cars take, on average, longer to repair.
You see multiple news every day about trains in Spain,Poland or Germany with broken AC or just completely failing between stations.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. Cars break down all the time, and there’s the entire car repair industry to prove that, but obviously they don’t make the news.
None of these issues is exclusive to trains. I would argue that they are more common in cars, and even more, cars take, on average, longer to repair.
You would be wrong. People absolutely can open windows in broken cars or get out of them. I had to call a tow track couple of times and it doesn’t take more than an hour. If it happens in a city you can wait in a bar or wherever. If a train breaks 10 meters from the station you will not be allowed to exit. And I don’t care about repair time, I care about the time I’m sitting in a metal box without AC.
Where do you live, that trains don’t have windows or doors that can be opened, and these incidents happen so frequently? Because this is not at all my experience in Western Europe.
Regardless, it is a fact that cars break down more frequently and remediations take longer.
Then that’s impossible because I know for a fact that long distance trains have windows. But also, RENFE incident dataset is publicly available and updated in real time, and there is no way in hell the number of reported incidents is higher than the overall number of broken cars, not even if we were to average by number of passengers, and especially given the fact that the average car fleet age in Spain is 14 years.
But I never said trains break more often than cars, no idea where you took that from. I was saying that if your car breaks down on a highway you will be able to open a window, get out and you will wait for less time to be picked up. I really don’t think it’s difficult to understand.
Never took an Avlo before. But to be fair, they still have doors.
Also, this is not standard procedure, not in my experience. It’s the crew’s responsibility to keep passengers safe. If the controllers or the drivers refused to manually override door locks, which is a thing, then they should be admonished or charged accordingly.
I know that in your fantasy scenario people open the door when it gets worm and everyone is fine and happy but in reality being stuck in a hot train is not a nice experience. Looks like it never happened to you and you don’t know anyone who was in a situation like that (I know) so it’s like trying to explain a rainbow to a dog.
No sweetie, those emergency brakes are reality, not fantasy.
I’d waste more time trying to figure out your trauma with trains (maybe involves a bathroom experience?) but quite frankly i don’t give a shit.
Btw news bias. There are so many people dying in car accidents, that the news would be full of them, every single day, if they got the coverege that even non lethal technical issues with trains get.
It’s all a matter of control, same as with planes. People prefer to drive because they want to be in control. They imagine they will be able to handle difficult situations and will not die. Being stuck in a hot train, not being able to even open a window and not knowing how long you will have to stay there is a nightmare scenario for many people. Of course dying in a crash is worse but it’s the lack of control that freaks people out.
That is a completely irrational argument. Car drivers are not really more in control. They are stuck in traffic jams, beyond their control. I enjoy actually more flexibilty during commute than car drivers. They have to avoid rush hour or be stuck, while rush hour in my train is perfectly fine. Also in an urban environment car drivers are much less in control as you have to search ages for on street parking close to any poplar destination or pay up for a garage that may be also full during high demand. No such worries with transit. People are much more frequently stuck on clogged roads than on a train.
That we can agree on. However urban planning and transport planning should not be based on irrational arguments. You get what you build. Weirdly enough, people in transit oriented cities are using transit as their main means of transportation, people in car oriented cities don’t.
Traffic jam? Not sure how it is in Australia but where I live you are not allowed to leave the car and it can take hours. Traffic jams happen much more frequently than your scenario. Never had AC fail on me in the entire train and I use trains almost daily.
Yea once ur above 98 F or so, going faster actually makes you hotter! Like being in an air fryer lol. The air can only cool you down if it’s below body temp! Thankfully where I live even 90f is a RARE heat 🤞 for now…
Good for you then. Properly working trains are great. I will take nice train over driving any time. I’m just saying that often the reality is that trains are not that nice. Many countries in Europe struggle to found railway at the levels required to provide good service, especially with growing demand. I think recent events in Spain show that there are limits to how fast you can expand railway. Not everyone can just switch, it will be a long, difficult process.
All problems of priorities and political will, like I said previously. Plenty of rail systems show they can work just fine. They are a lot safer than driving too. Problems can occur with all means and you are just as trapped on a highway as in a defect train.
I disagree. I can see what is happening in my city right now. They want to expand the train service at one of the lines by adding a new track and you can’t do that without stopping the whole service for months. They will provide buses as a replacement which will get stuck in traffic. There’s no amount a political will that will magically expand train service without major disruption. Highway? You can make a detour or slow the traffic down. Airports? You can add entire runways without stopping the service. Trains are different. Trains are difficult.
Problems can occur with all means and you are just as trapped on a highway as in a defect train.
No one will prevent you from opening a window in a car or getting out to stand in some shade. You can’t do that in a train. It’s also way easier to tow a car than a train.
So your argument against trains is that expansion can’t be done without temporary closures and restrictions? Just like with any road project? The problems with cars are just as bad, detours and closures kead to traffic infarcts, and are at least as much of a hassle like transit replacement services.
Expanding airports can be better acommodated but is in many cases close to impossible. Having aviation carry the capacity of an HSR because national infrastructure is underdeveloped is a major issue and limits development.
If you leave your car in my country on the highway, without being involved directly in an accident or such, you have a good chance of losing your drivers license. Opening the windows in a car grilled by the sun, does no good either. Anyone can open the door in a standing train in case of emergency btw. If staff doesn’t allow passanger evacuation in case of danger to passenger health, that is an issue with badly run train services. Tunnels have to have an evacuation plan, at least in decently run systems.
It’s not an argument against trains. Trains are great. I’m just saying trains are difficult to expand. EU is trying to promote trains recently but you simply can’t expand the infrastructure that fast. And doing it too fast is dangerous as we’ve seen recently in Spain. If you have a good service that’s great for you. For many people it’s not that simple and it’s not just about political will. It will take a lot of time to change it.
All major infrastructure programs take a lot of time. Rail isn’t really harder or slower to build than highways, given an equally strong political will.
That’s nice and all but I was not talking about Fox News at all. Maybe have a look at who is posting what?
Also, you where responding to a rhetorical question. I think you did not get the point I was trying to make there.
Many issues are inherent of trains. It’s easier to move people to another bus or tow a car. When trains failed in Spain last year on some occasions people got stack in totally inaccessible places and had to wait all night sitting next to the tracks (it was to hot to stay inside the trains without AC). You can’t pull up another train easily or walk people to a bus. Towing the trains was complicated for some reasons. And that were brand new trains failing because of some manufacturing issues.
International trains from Poland have issues with AC because when they are in Germany, German technicians can’t/don’t want to fix them. Mixing operators like that is also an issue inherent to trains. You have different companies responsible for operating the train, the tracks and providing services inside the train. Planes are similar but international services are common and better organized.
Many recent issues in Spain were due to people stealing electric cables. Another problem inherent of trains. You have thousands of kilometers of infrastructure that is difficult to secure but an issue in single place quickly spreads throughout the network.
You have different companies responsible for operating the train, the tracks and providing services inside the train. Planes are similar but international services are common and better organized.
I’m not sure what you are trying to say here, because you imply that this isn’t an issue inherent to trains since the solution in the aviation world is to contract ground crew where airlines have none of their own, which could very well be done by train operators as well.
Also, being stuck inside an airliner while taxiing, with no A/C, just because the systems malfunction slightly and tower don’t agree on which gate they could assign to the flight since it is very early, is a thing I’ve gone through a few times. So, again, not exclusive to trains.
Ok, so it’s not exclusive. Does it make the problem any less real? EU did a study on it recently and it’s way more difficult to travel internationally by train than by plane. It’s just a fact.
There aren’t many transnational train routes, even in Europe, compared to transnational flights. But that’s not inherent to trains as a means of transportation, but a bureaucracy issue.
That’s… exactly what I said: this is not an issue inherent to trains, it’s just bureaucracy. In other words, there is nothing preventing these operators from collaborating and setting up these routes, they just refuse to agree on them.
Trains don’t have a higher failure rate than car infrastructure. Most of the rail infrastructure works just fine, at 40C. Occasionally something can get damaged. Aviation is much more fragile regarding weather but interestingly doesn’t get all that heat from transit haters and cars are way more dangerous and on top of that can overheat at extreme temperatures.
Yes, most of it works fine but when it doesn’t:
With a car:
You see multiple news every day about trains in Spain,Poland or Germany with broken AC or just completely failing between stations.
They usually advise you not to get out of your car for the exact reason they advise you not to get off the train.
I’m not sure what’s exclusive to trains about breaking down in the middle of nowhere. It’s not exactly trivial to get a replacement car either, nor is repair somehow instant.
I get what you’re saying, but it’s way less one sided than you’re trying to convey. My car once broke down on the freeway in a city. I had to wait more than an hour for a tow and then walk home, which took two hours. Had to get random coworkers or friends to take me to work while my car was repaired over the next two weeks.
Oh, and traffic jams are routine for cars.
Nothing is gained by pretending there’s no downsides to any mode of transportation. They all have them. In aggregate though, most people would be better off if we had more available than just “car”.
I’m not comparing the inconvenience of both situation from the breakdown to the cost of repair.
I’m talking specifically about getting stuck in train on a hot day. Is that really so difficult to understand?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/22/rail-passengers-travel-heatwave-train-services-chiltern
Have you even seen red heat alert advisory telling people to drive only if necessary and take precautions? I haven’t. Why do you think they issue those for trains but not cars?
That sounds to me like an extreme situation.
All trains have emergency releases on the door to allow manual opening. Practically, if it is actually getting hot to the point of danger, no conductor is going to physically stop you from leaving the train. More likely they’d be the ones to let people off.
I’d need to see a news story of this happening where they were trying to force people to stay on a dangerously hot train. This sounds like a made up scenario.
I never said they will physically stop you from leaving the train so I’m not going to prove it happened.
?
They will not open the door you dufus. They will not say “everyone can just jump out on the tracks and walk around”. There may be trains riding on other tracks and there’s no sidewalk next to the tracks. You can get a fine for using emergency exit. That’s why people stay inside, not because someone is holding them down.
No need to be prickly :).
They will indeed do exactly this in my experience. We even had a sort of viral video of this happening here in Hungary… train broke down, they opened the doors and walked people through the nearby woods to the nearest village.
If Hungary is managing a better train experience than Spain… I would understand your frustration, the situation must be pretty damn dire there.
But again, I doubt this has happened at all… even aside from physical, can you cite a situation where conductors would not “let people off the train” when it was getting dangerously hot during a breakdown? It’s hard to believe that Hungary would handle this better…
In a non emergency, of course.
Walking through the woods is not what I would call “a better [train] experience”. High speed railways has fences, you can’t just walk out. Your experience in Hungary will be different than in other countries, yes. In Poland you can jump out of a moving trains, go for a walk in a forest, pick some mushroom sand catch it again. It doesn’t mean you can do it everywhere.
What are you actually wanting here? “They won’t let us off the train, we’re cooking in here” and then “Oh they let you off the train, what an awful experience”? Pick a lane here, guy. Being let off the train sounds a lot better to me than heat stroke… I’m still not sure what you really want in this scenario.
I’d still like to know when this actually happened? A breakdown, sure. But trying to keep people to stay on a clearly dangerous train? Hard to believe.
Do you not have mandatory gates every x km in Spain? We have plenty of sound barrier fencing, and all of them have gates a short distance apart exactly for safety reasons.
None of these issues is exclusive to trains. I would argue that they are more common in cars, and even more, cars take, on average, longer to repair.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. Cars break down all the time, and there’s the entire car repair industry to prove that, but obviously they don’t make the news.
You would be wrong. People absolutely can open windows in broken cars or get out of them. I had to call a tow track couple of times and it doesn’t take more than an hour. If it happens in a city you can wait in a bar or wherever. If a train breaks 10 meters from the station you will not be allowed to exit. And I don’t care about repair time, I care about the time I’m sitting in a metal box without AC.
Where do you live, that trains don’t have windows or doors that can be opened, and these incidents happen so frequently? Because this is not at all my experience in Western Europe.
Regardless, it is a fact that cars break down more frequently and remediations take longer.
In Spain.
Then that’s impossible because I know for a fact that long distance trains have windows. But also, RENFE incident dataset is publicly available and updated in real time, and there is no way in hell the number of reported incidents is higher than the overall number of broken cars, not even if we were to average by number of passengers, and especially given the fact that the average car fleet age in Spain is 14 years.
You’re right. You can totally open windows in long distance trains:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XewmQjcY3Rc
But I never said trains break more often than cars, no idea where you took that from. I was saying that if your car breaks down on a highway you will be able to open a window, get out and you will wait for less time to be picked up. I really don’t think it’s difficult to understand.
Never took an Avlo before. But to be fair, they still have doors.
Also, this is not standard procedure, not in my experience. It’s the crew’s responsibility to keep passengers safe. If the controllers or the drivers refused to manually override door locks, which is a thing, then they should be admonished or charged accordingly.
Stop FUDing, trains have had emergency release systems for decades.
Using emergency release without justification will get you a fine. It sounds like you’ve never been on a train.
Of course it will. I doubt anyone would fine you if you were to use it in an overheated stopped train - although you would probably applaud the fine.
I know that in your fantasy scenario people open the door when it gets worm and everyone is fine and happy but in reality being stuck in a hot train is not a nice experience. Looks like it never happened to you and you don’t know anyone who was in a situation like that (I know) so it’s like trying to explain a rainbow to a dog.
No sweetie, those emergency brakes are reality, not fantasy.
I’d waste more time trying to figure out your trauma with trains (maybe involves a bathroom experience?) but quite frankly i don’t give a shit.
Adios
Btw news bias. There are so many people dying in car accidents, that the news would be full of them, every single day, if they got the coverege that even non lethal technical issues with trains get.
It’s all a matter of control, same as with planes. People prefer to drive because they want to be in control. They imagine they will be able to handle difficult situations and will not die. Being stuck in a hot train, not being able to even open a window and not knowing how long you will have to stay there is a nightmare scenario for many people. Of course dying in a crash is worse but it’s the lack of control that freaks people out.
That is a completely irrational argument. Car drivers are not really more in control. They are stuck in traffic jams, beyond their control. I enjoy actually more flexibilty during commute than car drivers. They have to avoid rush hour or be stuck, while rush hour in my train is perfectly fine. Also in an urban environment car drivers are much less in control as you have to search ages for on street parking close to any poplar destination or pay up for a garage that may be also full during high demand. No such worries with transit. People are much more frequently stuck on clogged roads than on a train.
Driving is also much more likely to kill you.
Yes, people very often are not rational.
That we can agree on. However urban planning and transport planning should not be based on irrational arguments. You get what you build. Weirdly enough, people in transit oriented cities are using transit as their main means of transportation, people in car oriented cities don’t.
Traffic jam? Not sure how it is in Australia but where I live you are not allowed to leave the car and it can take hours. Traffic jams happen much more frequently than your scenario. Never had AC fail on me in the entire train and I use trains almost daily.
I just lane filter in my motorcycle, I don’t believe in traffic 😎🤘
Opening your helmet in this kind of weather feels like someone is using a hairdryer on your face.
Still more comfortable than than being stuck in traffic, but it’s not great.
Yea once ur above 98 F or so, going faster actually makes you hotter! Like being in an air fryer lol. The air can only cool you down if it’s below body temp! Thankfully where I live even 90f is a RARE heat 🤞 for now…
Good for you then. Properly working trains are great. I will take nice train over driving any time. I’m just saying that often the reality is that trains are not that nice. Many countries in Europe struggle to found railway at the levels required to provide good service, especially with growing demand. I think recent events in Spain show that there are limits to how fast you can expand railway. Not everyone can just switch, it will be a long, difficult process.
that’s not due to the technology but rather politics and privatization agendas.
All problems of priorities and political will, like I said previously. Plenty of rail systems show they can work just fine. They are a lot safer than driving too. Problems can occur with all means and you are just as trapped on a highway as in a defect train.
I disagree. I can see what is happening in my city right now. They want to expand the train service at one of the lines by adding a new track and you can’t do that without stopping the whole service for months. They will provide buses as a replacement which will get stuck in traffic. There’s no amount a political will that will magically expand train service without major disruption. Highway? You can make a detour or slow the traffic down. Airports? You can add entire runways without stopping the service. Trains are different. Trains are difficult.
No one will prevent you from opening a window in a car or getting out to stand in some shade. You can’t do that in a train. It’s also way easier to tow a car than a train.
So your argument against trains is that expansion can’t be done without temporary closures and restrictions? Just like with any road project? The problems with cars are just as bad, detours and closures kead to traffic infarcts, and are at least as much of a hassle like transit replacement services.
Expanding airports can be better acommodated but is in many cases close to impossible. Having aviation carry the capacity of an HSR because national infrastructure is underdeveloped is a major issue and limits development.
If you leave your car in my country on the highway, without being involved directly in an accident or such, you have a good chance of losing your drivers license. Opening the windows in a car grilled by the sun, does no good either. Anyone can open the door in a standing train in case of emergency btw. If staff doesn’t allow passanger evacuation in case of danger to passenger health, that is an issue with badly run train services. Tunnels have to have an evacuation plan, at least in decently run systems.
It’s not an argument against trains. Trains are great. I’m just saying trains are difficult to expand. EU is trying to promote trains recently but you simply can’t expand the infrastructure that fast. And doing it too fast is dangerous as we’ve seen recently in Spain. If you have a good service that’s great for you. For many people it’s not that simple and it’s not just about political will. It will take a lot of time to change it.
All major infrastructure programs take a lot of time. Rail isn’t really harder or slower to build than highways, given an equally strong political will.
Really? FoxNews?
Is that the only source you know? I have plenty others. You want links?
Yes, actually, It would really help prove your claims.
https://www.tvp.info/94009036/-pociag-berlin-gdynia-bez-klimatyzacji-ludzie-mdleja-nie-dostali-nawet-wody
https://www.tvp.info/93975322/niemcy-awaria-pociagow-w-calym-kraju-wszystkie-pociagi-deutsche-bahn-stoja-z-powodu-problemow-z-lacznoscia
https://www.diariosur.es/economia/interrumpida-circulacion-alta-velocidad-varias-lineas-falta-20260623215103-ntrc.html
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/22/rail-passengers-travel-heatwave-train-services-chiltern
And now check for news about limit road access, bridge closures etc in all of Europe. There are plenty of those too? Indeed.
deleted by creator
That’s nice and all but I was not talking about Fox News at all. Maybe have a look at who is posting what? Also, you where responding to a rhetorical question. I think you did not get the point I was trying to make there.
Is that an inherent problem of trains or are the trains too old? Genuinely asking
We don’t have such problems in Austria. We also don’t have 40 degrees but I dare say it’s not inherent of trains.
Many issues are inherent of trains. It’s easier to move people to another bus or tow a car. When trains failed in Spain last year on some occasions people got stack in totally inaccessible places and had to wait all night sitting next to the tracks (it was to hot to stay inside the trains without AC). You can’t pull up another train easily or walk people to a bus. Towing the trains was complicated for some reasons. And that were brand new trains failing because of some manufacturing issues.
International trains from Poland have issues with AC because when they are in Germany, German technicians can’t/don’t want to fix them. Mixing operators like that is also an issue inherent to trains. You have different companies responsible for operating the train, the tracks and providing services inside the train. Planes are similar but international services are common and better organized.
Many recent issues in Spain were due to people stealing electric cables. Another problem inherent of trains. You have thousands of kilometers of infrastructure that is difficult to secure but an issue in single place quickly spreads throughout the network.
I’m not sure what you are trying to say here, because you imply that this isn’t an issue inherent to trains since the solution in the aviation world is to contract ground crew where airlines have none of their own, which could very well be done by train operators as well.
Also, being stuck inside an airliner while taxiing, with no A/C, just because the systems malfunction slightly and tower don’t agree on which gate they could assign to the flight since it is very early, is a thing I’ve gone through a few times. So, again, not exclusive to trains.
Ok, so it’s not exclusive. Does it make the problem any less real? EU did a study on it recently and it’s way more difficult to travel internationally by train than by plane. It’s just a fact.
Difficult, how? Be specific.
There aren’t many transnational train routes, even in Europe, compared to transnational flights. But that’s not inherent to trains as a means of transportation, but a bureaucracy issue.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/21/almost-half-of-eus-busiest-flight-routes-are-hard-or-impossible-to-book-on-trains-report
That’s… exactly what I said: this is not an issue inherent to trains, it’s just bureaucracy. In other words, there is nothing preventing these operators from collaborating and setting up these routes, they just refuse to agree on them.