
What it’s like to ship yourself overnight on Cabin’s sleep pod bus - thelinuxkid
https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/22/cabin-sleep-pod-bus-review
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anotheryou
You americans don't have any trains, eh? :)

Not exactly the ritz, but does the job:
[https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=sleeping+train](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=sleeping+train)

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fruitcake
There is a sleeper train up the coast from Los Angeles to San Francisco:

[https://www.amtrak.com/coast-starlight-train](https://www.amtrak.com/coast-
starlight-train)

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exDM69
Someone in the comments mentioned that Amtrak's sleeper train travels daytime
on the SF to LA stint and the terminals are some way away from the city. So
the travel by night advantage is gone.

Amtrak's sleeper cars are also quite expensive when I last looked at it as an
option for getting from Colorado to San Francisco. The price compared to a
seat on the train was 2..3x or more (but it includes food).

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ubernostrum
In the case of San Francisco it's a bit unfair to knock Amtrak for the
location of the terminal, because it's not their fault, it's the fault of
geography. San Francisco sits at the tip of a peninsula; for a train to stop
in SF -- actually in SF and not Oakland or San Jose -- and also continue on to
other locations would require the train to come up the peninsula, make its San
Francisco stop, then turn around and go back down the peninsula in order to
continue north (up the east side of the Bay) or south to other destinations.

Since that would be wasteful, Amtrak doesn't do it; instead they stop in San
Jose (where you can switch to Caltrain to run up the peninsula into SF) and
Oakland (where you can hop on BART or a ferry to cross the Bay into SF).

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nkoren
Engineering can easily trump Geography in this case: you could just tunnel
under the Golden Gate and keep going north. This would be a _utterly_ trivial
compared to something like the Seikan Tunnel[1].

Just to be clear: not knocking Amtrak here. They're virtually budget-less, for
the most part disallowed from owning or even maintaining their own
infrastructure, so building new infrastructure would be completely beyond the
Pale. Not knocking Amtrak at all -- it's America's collective ability to get
its infrastructure act together that is just sad.

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seikan_Tunnel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seikan_Tunnel)

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icebraining
You could also just use the bridge itself. My country has a copy of the Golden
Gate (built by the same company) and we've retrofitted it to run trains
underneath the deck:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=ponte+25+de+abril+comboio&tb...](https://www.google.com/search?q=ponte+25+de+abril+comboio&tbm=isch)

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kingofpandora
Never heard of this bridge until today. However, according to Wikipedia:

> Because it is a suspension bridge and has similar coloring, it is often
> compared to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, US. It was built by the
> American Bridge Company which constructed the San Francisco–Oakland Bay
> Bridge, but not the Golden Gate.

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icebraining
Oh. My life is a lie :| Thanks, I don't even know where I've heard that.
Still, same style of bridge.

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toomanybeersies
That's a very expensive sleeper bus. I took an 8 hour sleeper bus here in New
Zealand, including free wifi (which you don't even need, you're sleeping), and
it cost me NZ$30 (US$22), including luggage. The same thing in Vietnam cost me
about $10, but had the problem that the beds were Vietnamese sized, which for
a European wasn't super comfortable.

Sure, they weren't quite as fancy, but it really doesn't matter if you're
sleeping, you're asleep. I guess that's the SV markup on everything that's
been common in the rest of the world for a long time.

They are super convenient though, pick up and drop off in the middle of the
city, and accommodation included. Go to sleep, and you wake up at your
destination.

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apendleton
Not sure I'd really want to get where I was going with bed-head and no access
to a shower. Other than that, seems like a great idea. Maybe they could work
out a cross-promotion or voucher or something that would let people use the
showers/locker room at a gym at the destination?

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calbear81
Actually, you wouldn't need any of that at the destination which is Santa
Monica pier. You get out in the LA sunshine, walk down the steps to the beach
and take a dip in the Pacific. When you're done, rinse off in one of the
public beach showers and you'll be dry in a jiffy.

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g00n
Trying to think if this would work for me. I don't live there and haven't
commuted that type of distance regular enough to warrant this type of expense.
But, on trips, I tend to stay alert enough to know what's going on regardless
of how hard to try to sleep. I tend to try to drive on trips because I don't
trust other people driving. They mention wanting autonomous buses to run that
route, but I just got my class B CDL and could see myself making this run
every weekend as a job which would be cool.

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Tepix
I can't wait until we get autonomous driving and can convert our cars into
sleep pods. When you're going across the country at a slow pace, the MPG (or
MPGe for electric cars) is also going to be fantastic. You'd still need
autonomous recharging for an electric car but apparently that's a solved
problem as well.

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dewey
I haven't used Cabin but a lot of other bus companies (Megabus, Greyhound,
Flixbux,...) and trains with sleeping compartments and I imagine the bus to be
a lot harder to sleep on (vibrations, breaking, highway noise,...) than a
train on fixed tracks.

~~~
nkoren
Have you _ridden_ trains in America? I've travelled almost every Amtrak route
across the country. In a country that properly maintains its rail
infrastructure, Cabin will definitely lose much of its competitive advantage.
In America, however...

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dewey
Only used trains in Europe so far hence why my impression of trains is
probably a bit biased...

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InitialLastName
Not biased, you just have an impression of trains _in systems that are well-
funded as a public service_. Come to America to experience the opposite.

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atemerev
If only we'd had similar capsules on transcontinental flights — now, _that_
would be something. Otherwise, it is just a bus serving two points, no more
exciting than a sleeping car in a train.

Properly sleeping on a flight, on the other hand, feels like luxury.

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toomanybeersies
They do, if you fly first class. You just have to spend several thousand
dollars on a ticket. Air New Zealand also offers skycouch
([https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/economy-
skycouch](https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/economy-skycouch)), which is similar
and cheaper, but really is only worth it if you're traveling with your partner
or someone else you feel comfortable spooning for an entire flight.

~~~
atemerev
Capsules are arranged differently — they can be stacked together vertically,
and probably be offered at least for the price of business class seats.

(If the weight is a great concern, and it is, and capsules are too heavy —
hammocks can also be an option).

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gargravarr
I've thought about exactly this. Take a cue from Japanese honeycomb hotels and
stack them three high in the place of the current seats - you could get
equivalent passenger numbers on the plane, while giving people a safe way to
stretch out on a long flight. Correctly designed, they would be safe, possibly
safer than seats, during an emergency landing, although I can see getting out
in a hurry being a major setback for implementation.

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chippy
The major thing about beds on planes is international safety regulations. Two
that I can remember when working for an airline which were introducing beds:

1) The aisle has to be a set width, so you cant stack cabins across the plane.

2) Passengers need to seated and have a seat belt on upon take off and
landing.

I think theres another about being able to be belted in if turbulence happens,
and be inspectable by attendants. In short, its not as easy as one may think,
and its these regulations which complicate things.

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gargravarr
In a sleeping capsule, passenger's ranges of movement up/down and
forward/backward would inherently be more restricted than in a seat. If
necessary, a belt could be provided, although it might not be as comfortable
because there's no guarantee on where the person's waist will be when lying
down.

The way I picture it is replacing seats as they are currently laid out in e.g.
a 747 - 3 seats become stacked capsules -> aisle -> 3/4 seats become stacked
capsules -> aisle -> 3 seats become stacked capsule. I don't deny that getting
into these capsules would be awkward for people with limited mobility, but I
do imagine it is within the realms of possibility while meeting safety
regulations.

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baybal2
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ooldezaZgU0](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ooldezaZgU0)
...

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romanovcode
I'm not sure why would someone do this if flying takes way less time and is
cheaper.

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josefwasinski
Cost of travel + accomodation.

If you are flying there is a need to book a hotel to deliver the same
experience of being in LA/SF at 7am refreshed.

That is the "free money" in the model, people can exchange sleep in a hotel
for a sleep on a bus with pretty much the same outcome.

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Tepix
Ideally there'd be a place to take a shower where you arrive.

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nvahalik
Looks like the cabins don't have sound barriers... better hope you don't get a
snorer on the trip!

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mike-cardwell
Ear plugs?

