My Train

Today I left Lisbon for a small little fast weekend with family in my hometown, Évora. I have no idea if my city has a translation to its name and not knowing that and writing it as in Portuguese makes me wonder why did I wrote Lisbon in the first line and not Lisboa. Some tiny adjustments I need to make in this dichotomy of Portuguese thinker and English writer. Maybe just the major cities have translation to other languages because translating every single town is just unnecessary and a pure waste of time. Anyway I left the Portuguese capital towards my hometown and for the first time I took the train for this route. I had never made it since a decent connection was established in 2006 between both cities. Not even before I must say because its use was not really enhanced due to a long time connection and necessary train changes. Bus was then a preferable alternative. Now both choices are competitive solutions having their own interesting features in all the marketing. In travel time it's basically the same, less than 2 hours, and while train is a bit cheaper, bus offers more travels by day. Just adjust your needs.

My personal opinion, despite all costs and all the number of travels by day, if the travel time is placed in the same range I definitely choose the train. Is more roomy, wider, comfortable, and feet space is included. I am totally in favour of trains and even more when they are not directly pollutant, because not even all trains have electrical traction. Maybe it is becoming rare the use of combustion motors in trains, and that example is even more found in the so called wealthier countries, because in Croatia during my inter-rail I definitely remember trains chimneys smoking. Above I mentioned 'directly pollutant' because the production of electricity is still dependent on fuel despite the pleasant and necessary use of 'green electricity'. Hurray for Obama and his will to make a massive bet in renewable energies since he is the President of (once again) the so called number one country in the World. So for this country: with your great power comes a great responsibility (Yes is adapted from Spiderman which is being broadcasted in TVI right now). At least be a decent model.

Not turning this post into political issues but yet making reference to an open discussion in Portugal which is related to TGV I state my humble, simple and non-economical opinion with a bit of a doubt. I stated non-economical because this also could lead to another kinds of discussion due to the huge investment necessary and from where the money should come and comes from... Shorting, I am totally in favour to the TGV construction to place Portugal nearer central Europe or at least Spain, as a non (once again) directly pollutant transporter being a suitable alternative to airline companies (can't talk about low cost which already conquered a nice slice of the airline cake and probably will not be bothered) since a decent comproved study assures a good amount of people flux using such connection to Madrid. Currently only one train leaves Lisbon towards Madrid and I confess it was full when I used it in the summer but it is a night train which took all night, and let's face it, there is only one by day. Today I took my Lisbon-Évora train, and is pretty great. I don't think I necessarily need a TGV to stop in my hometown...