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The latest trend are the "mobile friendly" websites that companies also use as their main site. While they may work on a small smartphone screen, on a laptop or desktop they are pure wastes of space. As an example, our bank recently changed their online interface. Where I used to be able to see 20-30 transactions on the screen, I can now see 5. It becomes a scroll-fest. And, really, who is going to pay bills, or reconcile a month's worth of transactions on their phone? Really?

Or the Swiss trains: they have a wonderful new website, mobile friendly, with big pictures and all stuff that moves and wiggles. Of course, the menus pop up and cover the screen when you accidentally mouse over them, it loses your selections from one screen to the next, forgets you are logged in when you want to pay - in fact, it's almost impossible to actually purchase a ticket. But it's modern! And mobile friendly! Crap.

Designers have a disease: They feel a need to "make their mark" by changing things, even when changing means making them worse.

Are we talking passenger trains, freight trains, or both?

Both, but with emphasis on freight.

Will this (presumably) be an electrified train system [...] ?

Of course.

Any word on where the power is expected to come from if electrified (nuclear, coal, gas, hydro)?

Switzerland's electricity is about 60% hydro/40% nuclear, with all "other" combined in the single digits.
The Swiss train company runs it's own hydro plants, but no nuclear ones, and they generate 80% of their
electricity needs themselves [PDF, page 22], so the ratio is even higher in this specific case.

The electricity question is a hard one. Electricity production is a long-term planned (by government or huge corporations) economy. They took the decision to build the tunnel in 1993. What you'd really want to know is what kind of power plants they have been building since that decision. I don't know.

According to SBB Infrastructure over 70% of the energy required comes from hydroelectric sources, and the remaining 30% from nuclear power.

And the swiss federal train company is doing that for a few months as well. If you want to see how the ticket looks like, you also have the product page.

BTW, it's not an SMS, but a MMS (image).

And the swiss federal train company is doing that for a few months as well. If you want to see how the ticket looks like, you also have the product page.

BTW, it's not an SMS, but a MMS (image).

A: Obviously mms since its a picture.

B: It looks a bit like the white ants on a (analog) tv screen, when its not tuned to a channel. Its a bitfield with crypto/checksum.

The system is in use at the swiss federal railyway.

you will find a sample image here on this page:
http://mct.sbb.ch/mct/en/reisemarkt/billette/mobil e-ticket/mobile-ticket-testbillett.htm

you can also buy your ticket online and print it. This looks then a little more elaborate:
https://www.sbb.ch/mct/wi/shop/testticket_en.pdf

Some background info:
http://mct.sbb.ch/mct/en/reisemarkt/billette/mobil e-ticket.htm

I find this quite a well thought-thru system. Personally I don't use it as I have a railpass, but even that one can be printed online.

Wikipedia also has some reference to these "QR-Codes" and abuses them for real-world hyperlinks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_internet_of_things

A: Obviously mms since its a picture.

B: It looks a bit like the white ants on a (analog) tv screen, when its not tuned to a channel. Its a bitfield with crypto/checksum.

The system is in use at the swiss federal railyway.

you will find a sample image here on this page:
http://mct.sbb.ch/mct/en/reisemarkt/billette/mobil e-ticket/mobile-ticket-testbillett.htm

you can also buy your ticket online and print it. This looks then a little more elaborate:
https://www.sbb.ch/mct/wi/shop/testticket_en.pdf

Some background info:
http://mct.sbb.ch/mct/en/reisemarkt/billette/mobil e-ticket.htm

I find this quite a well thought-thru system. Personally I don't use it as I have a railpass, but even that one can be printed online.

Wikipedia also has some reference to these "QR-Codes" and abuses them for real-world hyperlinks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_internet_of_things

A: Obviously mms since its a picture.

B: It looks a bit like the white ants on a (analog) tv screen, when its not tuned to a channel. Its a bitfield with crypto/checksum.

The system is in use at the swiss federal railyway.

you will find a sample image here on this page:
http://mct.sbb.ch/mct/en/reisemarkt/billette/mobil e-ticket/mobile-ticket-testbillett.htm

you can also buy your ticket online and print it. This looks then a little more elaborate:
https://www.sbb.ch/mct/wi/shop/testticket_en.pdf

Some background info:
http://mct.sbb.ch/mct/en/reisemarkt/billette/mobil e-ticket.htm

I find this quite a well thought-thru system. Personally I don't use it as I have a railpass, but even that one can be printed online.

Wikipedia also has some reference to these "QR-Codes" and abuses them for real-world hyperlinks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_internet_of_things

Well, I guess the value is that google will have a collection of many transit systems from all the world* as most public transport agencies offer that (e.g. bernmobil for Bern).

Moreover, it's far from implmenting very useful things such as :
- real-time delay (e.g. STIB "synchro") :
- SMS (e.g. the '222' service for all local & national public transport in Switzerland)

* the world.google.com being USA, CA & UK, of course.

So, I suggest a modest investment of a fraction of the proposed cost in: CargoLifter. A decently large fleet wouldn't cost tens of billions, and would provide cheep fast enough cargo service. We could scrap the alaska-siberia issue (being close is not as nescesary), and concentrate on moving stuff between the pacific coastal areas (like San Francisco up to Vancouver (is it?) over to Japan, Hong Kong and some of China). See also: a summary of the cargolifter project.

Now I am a fan of both trains and airships, so ultimately I should like to see both come to pass. But before the bearing-tunnel is a good idea, I should like to see capable, speedy, regular, and affordable rail travel instituted between North American cities at least, then central america and south america too. By regular, I mean Boston to Chicago or Washington at least four times daily (one way), and close locations like Worcester to New York (or even just Boston), or Houston to Dallas, hourly or if they're really close (like an hour appart) then half hourly.

-Daniel

Ahhh. The Swiss Rail