Hi Ole -
You actually are answering questions I didn't ask. What I asked was "which
IETF meetings did you find problematic and why"? One of the reasons I'm asking
is because of your IAOC membership. I'm just curious what your thresholds are
for travel pain (and how and maybe even why they differ from others on the
list).
Thanks for clarifying the time in Japan to Yokohama - it was a while back and
I'm not surprised I was off by a 1/2 hour.
Of what I've read so far, John Levine's note was probably the most helpful on
understanding the train pain for this trip.
To respond to your comment that this group believes that "train" == "pain" -
its not that exactly, but it is the number of changes and segments and delays
and connections for each and a general unfamiliarity with each of the
destination train systems Speaking for myself, I'm perfectly happy taking the
train if there are a) lots of schedule possibilities to match up with the
airplane - after flying for 10-24 hours the last thing I want to do is sit in
a train station waiting room for 2-3 hours and b) that (a) doesn't require me
to spend 3 hours changing trains in a system I'm not familiar with and that I
might not travel again for years if ever and c) getting there by air is either
impossible or not timely.
I know how to travel in the air system and I can figure out the connections
well in advance - the same has not always been the case for trains in the
destination countries and at least once I boarded a train that wasn't going
where I needed to go (fortunately, I realized the error in time) because of
poor signage, and local spelling that didn't match what I'd researched. This
was 10-12 years back, and the Internet has improved the availability of
information quite a bit - but still the ground truth of the train station is
not always immediately perceivable to a traveler who hasn't been there before.
For this trip the questions have mostly been "why Maastricht and not someplace
with an airport" and I still don't think we've gotten a great answer on this.
E.g. why didn't the IAOC go looking for another venue that met the "close to
airport" criteria?
Mike
At 02:58 AM 5/25/2009, Ole Jacobsen wrote:
Mike,
Why is it harder, i.e., "more problematic" to fly to Amsterdam (assume
for the sake of the argument that this is one hop) and then take ONE
train to Maastrich from the airport train station, compared to me
flying SFO-ORD wait an hour and then fly ORD-MSP?
The "3 changes" was assuming you flew to FRANKFURT which is what *I*
said *I* might do because *I* have a non-stop flight all the way from
SFO to FRA and a favorite airport hotel there. This has nothing to do
with what the average attendee will or should do. The train from
Amsterdam airport to Maastricht is a single journey.
For the record, Yokohama is at least 90 minutes from Narita (the
official Narita Express time to Tokyo is 60 minutes). Average travel
time might approach 120 minutes, which compares to the Dusseldorf
to Maastricht time mentioned by someone else.
It seems to me that the moment someone said "train" this whole
discussion descended into "problematic" when in reality train travel
is far more convenient, inexpensive etc when you're not in the US.
I've been told I can fly non-stop to Minneapolis, to which I replied
"not on our preferred carrier".
Ole
Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher, The Internet Protocol Journal
Cisco Systems
Tel: +1 408-527-8972 Mobile: +1 415-370-4628
E-mail: ole(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj
On Mon, 25 May 2009, Michael StJohns wrote:
At 04:44 PM 5/24/2009, Ole Jacobsen wrote:
I would
hardly characterize a 3-4 hour train journey as "problematic" if you
consider what other venues the IETF historically has used.
Hi Ole -
That's a 3-4 hour train journey with 3 changes (and a cab ride at
the end? not sure where the venue is relative to the train
station).
Having been to all of the IETF venues except Stockholm, I'm unclear
to which venues you might be referring. Could you clarify? As far
as I can recall, the Yokohama trip was the only one any great
distance from an airport and the train pretty much went straight
there (e.g. no "3 changes") in an hour or so with trains every 30
minutes or so. There was a reasonable length cab ride at the end.
London had a train as well, but shorter and a short walk at the end.
I literally can't think of a single venue we've been at that is
anywhere near this far from a national/international class airport.
I also can't think of any venue where the last hop from the airport
required more than one change - and that was the Yokohama train/taxi
switch.
So which ones and why did you consider them problematic?
Mike
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf