This should be developed more indeed: doing anything more than 200km by road is annoying and tiring. The solution in the video seems great with cars and passengers on the same train, if the "loading" time is not long. Why don't people drive their cars themselves in and then go to the passenger spaces?

The american trains seems too high for Europe though. Would it work for vans and RVs too?

I agree with the other posters that 200 km is not very far for Americans (My trips to the dentist are 294 km each way).

So far as self-loading - for comparison, I believe the Eurostar loads cars on a single-level. The Auto Train loads cars into two-levels where the decking is open mesh and not safe for the public to walk on. The published time is a little misleading - that's when you have to check-in. Departure time is about 90 minutes after last check-in. You could have nearly completed a 200 km drive in that time, so something like the Auto Train is only useful for much longer distances (it currently runs ~1400 km)

Amtrak has two sizes of cars. The single-level cars have to be used in the Northeast because of the lower clearances of tunnels & bridges (legacy infrastructure...) The bi-level Superliners can be used everywhere else. The Auto Train cars are bi-level height and cannot operate any further north than they presently do.

Eurostars have two levels for cars actually, but they are fully enclosed and have quite some space on both sides, so it's indeed easier to load and get out (though it's not really needed because the trip is short and there is nothing to do outside of the car). Those trains are much wider than usual though and can only travel on some very special tracks, only the tunnel I think.

I think it's not as much about mesh form as passageways could be filled easily, but width on the other hand can't be changed at all.

> more than 200km by road

That’s short enough distance that most Americans would regard it as a day trip: wake up, go, do whatever, come back. And I do mean 200 km each way.

I have, at the more extreme end, done not just 400 but 1250 km in one day as a round trip. A single 200 km segment is nothing. I go 300 km each way for a weekend break!

> doing anything more than 200km by road is annoying and tiring.

Unless you are on a German Autobahn: drive on, go left lane, floor the gas pedal, and you cross that distance in an hour (or less).

Apart from the traffic causing other (slower) drivers to enter the left lane. Not to mention that you have to be way more aware of everything around you if you're going 200. The cognitive load is bigger than parking on a train and taking a nap, perhaps even overnight so you're set to continue driving in the morning.

Definitely that! Going faster is more intense: more stimulation, more reactions, but also more noise, more vibrations, ... so for the same distance, even with less time, you'll end up tired the same or more.

Clearly you have never driven on an autobahn.

They suffer from as much congestion as any other major road; you aren't easily going to achieve, let alone maintain, that speed during 'ordinary' day-to-day traffic.

> Clearly you have never driven on an autobahn.

I have, top speed I used to do was around 250 km/h... and my longest stretch was a non-stop Munich-Vienna-Munich, 24 hours on the road. I'll admit though that I was dead after that one.

There's a fair bit of NY to Florida traffic where people need to drive once they arrive and often do fairly long stays when they do. (And it's a doable drive but fairly lengthy.) Not sure you have quite the same dynamic in California.