Art / Trains

Sleeping late and then playing tourist with Kössi.

Art

We visited the Ateneum art museum and checked out the big Edelfelt-exhibition. I have never been too much a fan of Edelft, Gallen-Gallela, and others, but the exhibition was good and I began to appreciate the art of Edelfelt. He has been really talented portrait-painter and also a documentarist: he painted many scenes of rural Finland. One of the main reasons was that pictures of rural Finland sold very well in Paris in late 19th century. Just like (or then not) some art from the Southern hemisphere sells rather well now. We were savages back then here in Finland.

Trains

We took the Pendolino-train to Tampere. It is 30 minutes faster than normal IC-trains, but it could well be even faster. It is a pity that the Finnish state cannot afford keeping the railways in good enough shape for fast trains. There is also something else peculiar with the railway company, the "Railways of the State", or VR. Since it does not face any direct competition, its marketing and trains are a bit amateurish. It seems that VR does not so much care what the customers think. But privatising railways is not (always) good: in Britain privatization caused total loss of safety and even service. In US, the railways have only marginal role in public transport.

In continental Europe, the sitution is also strange. Busses are always cheaper to use than trains. I cannot understand why this is the case. It must have something to do with externalizing some expenses.

All this a great pity, since when the price of oil will continue to rise, the need to use public transport becomes greater. Trains are the most energy efficient way of tranporting both humans and goods.

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs from September to October 2004".