Subject: Re: [78attendees] flying into Brussels?

From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 19:23:02 -0700

It
looks like the train connections from Brussels are straight forward
and easy to manage.

I admit to being easily confused, but it doesn't appear quite so
straightforward and easy to manage.

The page http://www.ietf78.nl/travel/airport-brussels.html says
it is an easy 90 minute train ride from BRU to Maastricht, which
sounds terrific.  But that page doesn't give details on how to
achieve this.  It does have links to http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/
and http://www.ietf78.nl/travel/maastricht-brussels-express.html and
these two have different information, plus lots of footnotes about
when to transfer at one station versus another.

My guess is that there are two very different trains one could
take for the main part of the journey, but it's not clear to me
exactly how to plan the trip, knowing only scheduled flight
arrival.

According to http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/, it looks like,
depending on time, one can take a train from BRU to Midi or to
Louvain, then transfer to Liege, and then transfer to Maastricht.
I assume this would be a central station in Maastricht?  And then
a taxi to the hotel I suppose.

Per http://www.maastrichtbrusselexpress.nl/?doc_id=5&m=files,
one takes a train from BRU to your choice of Brussels-Midi,
Brussels-Central, or Brussels-Nord, and then transfers to Maastricht,
although some trains require an extra transfer at Liège-Guillemins.
The train timetable is from Midi, Central, or Nord, so to be able to
buy a ticket it seems one must work backwards to try and figure out
when one will arrive there, based on an estimate of how long
formalities will take, plus the train from BRU to Midi, Central, or
Nord.

--

Randall Gellens

Opinions are personal;    facts are
suspect;    I speak for myself only

-------------- Randomly selected tag: ---------------

Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than at

each other.

--Ann Landers

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 23:06:49 -0400

In Brussels, the trains from the airport and towards Liege (for Maastricht) both enter the city from the north, so Brussels Nord is the preferred station to change at.  The info I have from the Belgian Railways web site is that the direct trains between Brussels and Maastricht are not running during the period when the IETF meets, so an additional change at Liege Guillemins is required.  Use this link to find the actual Belgian Railways schedules: http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/.   According to that web site, both Brussels Nord and Louvain are places to change to the same trains to Liege Guillemins - changing at Louvain is more direct and probably faster (in other words, your choice is whether to take a train from the airport to Brussels vs. Louvain - the other two trains will usually be the same).

Maastricht (nl) is the central station in Maastricht.  Maastricht Randwyck is the station near the MECC (IETF venue), but trains to/from Belgium don't stop at Maastricht Randwyck.

Thanks,
--David

From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Randall Gellens
Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2010 10:23 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [78attendees] flying into Brussels?

	It looks like the train connections from Brussels are straight forward and easy to manage.

I admit to being easily confused, but it doesn't appear quite so straightforward and easy to manage. 

The page http://www.ietf78.nl/travel/airport-brussels.html says it is an easy 90 minute train ride from BRU to Maastricht, which sounds terrific.  But that page doesn't give details on how to achieve this.  It does have links to http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/ and http://www.ietf78.nl/travel/maastricht-brussels-express.html and these two have different information, plus lots of footnotes about when to transfer at one station versus another.

My guess is that there are two very different trains one could take for the main part of the journey, but it's not clear to me exactly how to plan the trip, knowing only scheduled flight arrival.

According to http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/, it looks like, depending on time, one can take a train from BRU to Midi or to Louvain, then transfer to Liege, and then transfer to Maastricht.  I assume this would be a central station in Maastricht?  And then a taxi to the hotel I suppose.

Per http://www.maastrichtbrusselexpress.nl/?doc_id=5&m=files, one takes a train from BRU to your choice of Brussels-Midi, Brussels-Central, or Brussels-Nord, and then transfers to Maastricht, although some trains require an extra transfer at Liège-Guillemins.  The train timetable is from Midi, Central, or Nord, so to be able to buy a ticket it seems one must work backwards to try and figure out when one will arrive there, based on an estimate of how long formalities will take, plus the train from BRU to Midi, Central, or Nord.

-- 

Randall Gellens
Opinions are personal;    facts are suspect;    I speak for myself only

---

From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 05:19:09 +0200

> I admit to being easily confused, but it doesn't appear quite so straightforward and easy to manage.

The good thing is that at BRU, when you come down to floor -2 where the trains are, you also have some human beings that sell tickets that you can talk with. They can most certainly give you the best connection possible for trains to Maastricht given when you happen to be there.

I am pretty sure I have seen signs on the platform at BRU that said "Maastricht", but when redoing the searches you have done, I also see exactly what you see. Maybe the direct trains are few, only leaving in mornings/evenings, and only weekdays?

   Patrik

---

From: Derek Atkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 23:21:02 -0400

On 07/18/2010 11:19 PM, Patrik Fältström wrote:
> * PGP Signed by an unknown key
> 

I can certainly find a direct train from Maastricht back to Brussels on
Friday, July 30.

-derek

-- 
Derek Atkins
Senior Principal Software Engineer
PGP Corporation
Now part of Symantec

+1 617 623 3745 | [email-masked]

PGP Fingerprint:
0FEE 5EA1 FF22 E0C9 4FFE
631A 9232 FF93 1C80 1DB7

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:57:42 +0600

i just figured out why all the americans are in a tizzy about how to
catch the trains.  there are effectively no trains in the states.

maybe it's best if folk think of them as commuter airplanes that don't
take off, but just taxi.

randy

---

From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 08:06:32 +0200

> maybe it's best if folk think of them as commuter airplanes that don't

The most interesting thing is the amount of questions that arise in general just before an IETF meeting. I so much remember when we in Scandinavia got the question before the IETF in Oslo whether Oslo was safe or whether one should bring a gun. Answer: "In Oslo, the policemen does not carry guns". (Today some are...)

There are questions about air conditioning, how to buy tickets to a train and what not.

Fully understandable of course.

But at the same time, the people travelling to the IETF should be a bunch of engineers that are very used to travel. My neighbors are different that had been outside of Sweden once, and then went to Egypt.

The coolest thing though are the local host people that sort of never give up, but just continue to answer all of these questions about just anything the IETF participants believe is different from home.

Personally, I think it is way cool we now come back to .NL as I just missed the first IETF in Amsterdam (#27, in 1993) when if I remember correctly the social event was a train ride.

This time, the train ride is before and after the event, and we have to do it on our own. But it might still be as interesting, new, confusing and fun!

Except for the ones of us (like me) that just drives over to Maastricht.

   Patrik

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 02:06:57 -0400

> maybe it's best if folk think of them as commuter airplanes that don't

It's bad manners to gloat.   :)

---

From: "Jiankang YAO" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:08:07 +0800

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Randy Bush" <[email-masked]>
To: "Patrik Fältström" <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2010 1:57 PM
Subject: Re: [78attendees] flying into Brussels?

> maybe it's best if folk think of them as commuter airplanes that don't

+1

:)

> 
> randy
> _______________________________________________
> 78attendees mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/78attendees

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 02:13:52 -0400

On Jul 19, 2010, at 2:06 AM, Patrik Fältström wrote:
> But at the same time, the people travelling to the IETF should be a bunch of engineers that are very used to travel.

I.e., control freaks.   I had my train reservations near the beginning of June.   Of course, I'm taking the Eurostar from St. Pancras because I'm a train geek (and it was cheaper), so it's a bit different...

---

From: "Jiankang YAO" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:19:40 +0800

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ted Lemon" <[email-masked]>
To: "Randy Bush" <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2010 2:06 PM
Subject: Re: [78attendees] flying into Brussels?

> It's bad manners to gloat.   :)

the core problem is that 
 there are too many connections to the train.

if there is a direct train, from brussels or frankfurt, i am sure that there will have not so many questions.

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:20:31 +0600

> I had my train reservations near the beginning of June.

i have none from frankfurt.  long haul airline can be fairly off.

>  Of course, I'm taking the Eurostar from St. Pancras because I'm a
>  train geek

did that in may, i think it was.  pretty bland train.

randy

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:32:19 +0600

> I so much remember when we in Scandinavia got the question before
> the IETF in Oslo whether Oslo was safe or whether one should bring
> a gun.

i would feel safer if that kind of person did not come.

randy

---

From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 23:32:29 -0700

At 8:06 AM +0200 7/19/10, Patrik Fältström wrote:

>  But at the same time, the people travelling to 
> the IETF should be a bunch of engineers that 
> are very used to travel. My neighbors are 
> different that had been outside of Sweden once, 
> and then went to Egypt.

Patrik, I think people are asking precisely 
because they *are* engineers and *are* used to 
travel.  Engineers anticipate problems and like 
to have the solution figured out beforehand. 
People used to business travel know that 
sometimes, for example, conference centers have 
air conditioning set to "Arctic" when it is 
extremely hot and humid outside (I can recall 
some IETFs where people had to run out to 
purchase jackets because it was so cold inside).

-------------- Randomly selected tag: ---------------
Everyone knows that dragons don't exist.  But while this simplistic
formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the
scientific mind.  The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact
wholly unconcerned with what does exist.  Indeed, the banality of
existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to
discuss it any further here.  The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the
problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the
mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical.  They were all,
one might say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted in an entirely
different way....

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 02:51:17 -0400

> did that in may, i think it was.  pretty bland train.

Well, perhaps, but here in the U.S. we don't have very many passenger trains, so any train is novel to us.

---

From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 08:51:54 +0200

On 19 jul 2010, at 08.32, Randall Gellens wrote:

> Patrik, I think people are asking precisely because they *are* engineers and *are* used to travel.

Possibly.

> People used to business travel know that sometimes, for example, conference centers have air conditioning set to "Arctic" when it is extremely hot and humid outside

In some cases they have the air conditioning set to "Arctic" even if it is not even warm outdoors ;-)

   Patrik

---

From: Basil Dolmatov <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:58:44 +0400

> maybe it's best if folk think of them as commuter airplanes that don't
Yeah, because the taxiing is quite a feature of planes in US ;)
Sometimes it takes nearly the same time as flying. ;)

dol@

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:24:56 -0400

My experience with the French (SNCF), German (DB), Dutch (NS) and Belgian (SNCB/NMBS) railways is that with the exception of the Thalys (TGV) services and some international German ICE services, the trains generally operate on a "turn up and go" basis - an advance reservation is not needed (as someone noted, one can think of most European trains as airplane shuttles that doesn't leave the ground).  While there is Thalys (TGV) service between Brussels and Liege, the distance is short enough that the time savings is minor (e.g., much of it will be lost by having to go to Brussels Midi/Zuid instead of Brussels Nord to catch the Thalys); the Belgian IC (InterCity) trains from Brussels Nord (or Louvain) are fine for getting to Liege.

Looking further into Derek's comment about direct trains between Maastricht and Brussels, the Dutch (NS) and Belgian (SNCB/NMBS) web sites don't agree - the NS site shows direct trains, but the SNCB/NMBS site does not.  I'll spare you the details, but since the Belgians actually operate all the trains involved, and the Belgian Railways web site contains specific dates when the direct trains do not operate (5 July - 20 August), I'm inclined to believe the Belgian info.

Thanks,
--David

From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of [email-masked]
Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2010 11:07 PM
To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [78attendees] flying into Brussels?

Thanks,
--David

 

-- 

Randall Gellens

---

From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:34:49 -0700

Is the Maastricht-Brussels Express separate and different service
than the other trains?

For example, for a 18:35 scheduled arrival time, guessing one
hour to get to train station, the http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/ site
says to take:

Bruxelles-Nat-Aeroport [B]
19:39   IR 4218

Louvain [B]

19:52

Louvain [B]

20:26   IC 518

Liege-Guillemins [B]

21:00

Liege-Guillemins [B]

21:23   L 5371

Maastricht (nl)

21:50

It also says "Please note that the Diabolo surcharge applies
for passengers traveling to or from the Brussels Airport
station."

For the Maastricht-Brussels Express, the info and map at
http://www.maastrichtbrusselexpress.nl/?id=26 show a change at Noord
and at Luik.  The timetable for Brussels to Maastricht doesn't
show the airport train, but says that there is a train that leaves
Nord at 20:06, arriving at Maastricht at 21:50, with a footnote saying
"Extra change in Liège-Guillemins".

At 11:24 AM -0400 7/19/10, <[email-masked]>
wrote:

My experience with the French (SNCF),
German (DB), Dutch (NS) and Belgian (SNCB/NMBS) railways is that with
the exception of the Thalys (TGV) services and some international
German ICE services, the trains generally operate on a "turn up
and go" basis - an advance reservation is not needed (as someone
noted, one can think of most European trains as airplane shuttles that
doesn't leave the ground).  While there is Thalys (TGV) service
between Brussels and Liege, the distance is short enough that the time
savings is minor (e.g., much of it will be lost by having to go to
Brussels Midi/Zuid instead of Brussels Nord to catch the Thalys); the
Belgian IC (InterCity) trains from Brussels Nord (or Louvain) are fine
for getting to Liege.

Looking further into Derek's comment
about direct trains between Maastricht and Brussels, the Dutch (NS)
and Belgian (SNCB/NMBS) web sites don't agree - the NS site shows
direct trains, but the SNCB/NMBS site does not.  I'll spare you
the details, but since the Belgians actually operate all the trains
involved, and the Belgian Railways web site contains specific dates
when the direct trains do not operate (5 July - 20 August), I'm
inclined to believe the Belgian info.

Thanks,

--David

From: [email-masked]
[mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
[email-masked]

In Brussels, the trains from the airport
and towards Liege (for Maastricht) both enter the city from the north,
so Brussels Nord is the preferred station to change at.  The info
I have from the Belgian Railways web site is that the direct trains
between Brussels and Maastricht are not running during the period when
the IETF meets, so an additional change at Liege Guillemins is
required.  Use this link to find the actual Belgian Railways
schedules: http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/.
According to that web site, both Brussels Nord and Louvain are
places to change to the same trains to Liege Guillemins - changing at
Louvain is more direct and probably faster (in other words, your
choice is whether to take a train from the airport to Brussels vs.
Louvain - the other two trains will usually be the same).

Maastricht (nl) is the central station in
Maastricht.  Maastricht Randwyck is the station near the MECC
(IETF venue), but trains to/from Belgium don't stop at Maastricht
Randwyck.

Thanks,

--David

From: [email-masked]
[mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Randall
Gellens

To: [email-masked]

It looks like the train connections from Brussels are
straight forward and easy to manage.

I admit to being easily confused, but it
doesn't appear quite so straightforward and easy to
manage.

The page
http://www.ietf78.nl/travel/airport-brussels.html says it is an easy
90 minute train ride from BRU to Maastricht, which sounds terrific.
But that page doesn't give details on how to achieve this.  It
does have links to http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/ and
http://www.ietf78.nl/travel/maastricht-brussels-express.html and these
two have different information, plus lots of footnotes about when to
transfer at one station versus another.

My guess is that there are two very
different trains one could take for the main part of the journey, but
it's not clear to me exactly how to plan the trip, knowing only
scheduled flight arrival.

According to
http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/, it looks like, depending on time, one
can take a train from BRU to Midi or to Louvain, then transfer to
Liege, and then transfer to Maastricht.  I assume this would be a
central station in Maastricht?  And then a taxi to the hotel I
suppose.

Per
http://www.maastrichtbrusselexpress.nl/?doc_id=5&m=files, one
takes a train from BRU to your choice of Brussels-Midi,
Brussels-Central, or Brussels-Nord, and then transfers to Maastricht,
although some trains require an extra transfer at Liège-Guillemins.
The train timetable is from Midi, Central, or Nord, so to be able to
buy a ticket it seems one must work backwards to try and figure out
when one will arrive there, based on an estimate of how long
formalities will take, plus the train from BRU to Midi, Central, or
Nord.

--

Randall Gellens

-------------- Randomly selected tag: ---------------

Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than
at

each other.

--Ann
Landers

78attendees mailing list

[email-masked]

--

Randall Gellens

-------------- Randomly selected tag: ---------------

I never travel without my diary.  One should always have something

sensational to read on the train.

--Oscar Wilde

---

From: Michael Graff <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:55:14 -0500

> But at the same time, the people travelling to the IETF should be a bunch of engineers that are very used to travel.

Speaking for myself, I'm a nervous traveler.  I like to show up to the
airport hours early to make certain I get there on time.  I like to know
what will happen once I land, when I have somewhere to go.

I've also attended very few non North American IETF meetings. In fact, I
believe this will be my second, and the 4th time off the NA continent in
all contexts.

If I were traveling for vacation, I don't care so much as it's easy to
"just stay wherever" but for IETF or other meeting travel, I don't want
to waste time or worse money.  Thus, I find the answers to the questions
about travel (trains, planes, things to do, things not to do) to be
valuable.

- --Michael

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:23:46 +0200

On 19 jul 2010, at 19:34, Randall Gellens wrote:

> Is the Maastricht-Brussels Express separate and different service than the other trains?

In the sense that it requires a different ticket? I don't think so. But I don't really know.

> For the Maastricht-Brussels Express, the info and map athttp://www.maastrichtbrusselexpress.nl/?id=26 show a change at Noord and at Luik.  The timetable for Brussels to Maastricht doesn't show the airport train, but says that there is a train that leaves Nord at 20:06, arriving at Maastricht at 21:50, with a footnote saying "Extra change in Liège-Guillemins".

Note that:

Luik = Liège
Leuven = Louvain
Keulen = Köln = Cologne
Aken = Aachen
noord = nord = north
centraal = central = central
zuid = midi = south

In general, don't worry about the trains in the Netherlands or Belgium unless the timing is tight, if you miss one there's always another one.

And don't forget to complain to the IAOC if you feel they didn't sufficiently take the extra ground travel into consideration when selecting this venue.

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:26:43 +0200

>> For the Maastricht-Brussels Express, the info and map athttp://www.maastrichtbrusselexpress.nl/?id=26 show a change at Noord and at Luik.  The timetable for Brussels to Maastricht doesn't show the…

= Lüttich (de)

> Aken = Aachen

= Aix-la-chapelle (fr)

>...

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Ed Jankiewicz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:38:33 -0400

as the rare American who actually has made frequent use of trains 
(Amtrak Central NJ to Washington DC) I rather think of the train as 
being like a diner with an extremely limited menu that moves marginally 
faster than a regular diner.

In Europe and Japan, I found the food better, and the trip quicker, and 
I consider figuring out the trains to be a great part of the travel 
experience.  Now with websites, many available in English, it is easy to 
plan ahead and avoid surprises on the ground.  Take the adventure and 
travel like the locals.

bon voyage.

-- 
Ed Jankiewicz - SRI International
Fort Monmouth Branch Office - IPv6 Research 
Supporting DISA Standards Engineering Branch
732-389-1003 or  [email-masked]

---

From: Eric Burger <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:12:46 -0400

Darn - you are on to us.  We try to maximize attendees' ground travel time, trying to route people through West Elbonia, if possible.  Do remember while you are there to wear the concentric-circle red and white T-shirt we sent you with your registration packet.

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2005-08-30/
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-08-31/

But really, total travel time *is* one of the factors the IAOC considers.  However, I would like to take this moment to remind ANYONE who does not like ANY venue at ANY time: FEEL FREE TO SPONSOR A MEETING.  It is hard to justify going to Place-WE-went-before-but-have-no-sponsor when we have the opportunity to go to Place-YOU-have-not-gone-before-but-we-have-a-sponsor.  This is more especially so when the situation is bleak and at the last minute a sponsor pulls out and mercifully another sponsor comes forward. In that situation, we went from "How could you possibly think of having a meeting in Hiroshima?" to "Wow - that was one of the best meetings we ever had!"

<IAOC hat off>
Unless you do not mind paying $1,000+ per meeting for registration, which personally I would have a problem with, then if I was king (which I am not), you would not be *allowed* to complain about a venue until after you or your organization has sponsored a meeting.

Maybe a new IETF revenue source could be a pay-to-complain service about venue selection.
</IAOC hat>

Of course, with my IAOC hat on, please feel free to complain - taking complaints is what we do best ;-)

---

From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:17:38 -0700

>  Luik = Liège

Thanks, I missed that one.

>  In general, don't worry about the trains in the 
> Netherlands or Belgium unless the timing is 
> tight, if youmiss one there's always another 
> one.

In my case, landing at 18:35 on a Friday, it 
appears there is one train per hour, or possibly 
one IC train and one Maastricht-Brussels Express 
per hour.  So, my concern is that if I throw up 
my hands about the difficulty of figuring it out 
via the web, and just go to to the train station 
at BRU airport, I'll wait in line, ask the agent 
about going to Maastricht, and he'll say "One 
train is leaving at this very instant (which you 
could have made had you purchased a ticket online 
days ago) and the next is in one hour."  I 
suppose arriving at the hotel at midnight instead 
of 11 PM isn't the worst thing in the world, but 
if knowing what to do ahead of time avoids it, it 
would be preferable.

>  And don't forget to complain to the IAOC if you 
> feel they didn't sufficiently take the extra 
> ground travel into consideration when selecting 
> this venue.

It does seem that the cheerful text at 
www.ietf78.nl about how easy and fast it is to 
get from BRU to Maastricht doesn't match what the 
linked web pages say, which seems more like a 
lengthy and complex transition, especially for an 
exhausted traveller, with different options, some 
of which must be booked in advance, others have 
footnoted complications.  And no, I don't think 
that picturing a train as a commuter plane (as 
someone else seems to think) would help in the 
slightest.  Personally, I like trains, I in 
general enjoy them, but I like to know what train 
to take, where to take it, how to get a ticket, 
etc.

I do appreciate the help that people are offering on the list.

-------------- Randomly selected tag: ---------------
Quick!!  Act as if nothing has happened!

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:11:06 +0200

On 19 jul 2010, at 22:12, Eric Burger wrote:

> But really, total travel time *is* one of the factors the IAOC considers.  However, I would like to take this moment to remind ANYONE who does not like ANY venue at ANY time: FEEL FREE TO SPONSOR A MEETING.

The idea that someone who donates towards non-meeting IETF operation costs gets to decide where we meet is broken. And I do sponsor the IETF every time I go to a meeting, because the registration fee is much higher than the meeting costs.

We also never hear about the difference in costs / income between venues. What would have been the difference for the IETF if this meeting had been held in The Hague? And what would have been the difference in time (2 hours less travel from schiphol) and money (more workable connections, fewer people staying an extra night) for the attendees?

> <IAOC hat off>
> Unless you do not mind paying $1,000+ per meeting for registration,

That could be a valid tradeoff if other costs are $365 lower.

> Maybe a new IETF revenue source could be a pay-to-complain service about venue selection.

Very mature. And for the record, I wasn't complaining, I was just pointing out where complaints should go if there were any.

---

From: Olaf Kolkman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:49:18 +0200

> And don't forget to complain to the IAOC if you feel they didn't sufficiently take the extra ground travel into consideration when selecting this venue.

It has been taken into account as a negative during decision making see http://iaoc.ietf.org/minutes/IAOC_Committee_Minutes_090205.txt
   'The biggest negative is the travel to Maastricht'

'sufficiently' is always in the eye of the beholder but it was part of a tradeoff between Rai (amsterdam) World Forum (The Hague) and MECC (Maastricht) and all 3 sites where seriously investigated.

--Olaf

________________________________________________________ 

Olaf M. Kolkman                        NLnet Labs
                                       Science Park 140, 
http://www.nlnetlabs.nl/               1098 XG Amsterdam

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:21:43 -0700 (PDT)

"And don't forget to complain to the IAOC if you feel they didn't 
 sufficiently take the extra ground travel into consideration when 
 selecting this venue."

I am not sure why you think "ground" is a significant qualifier here.

It would certainly be nice to have venues that are all one-hop by 
plane from anywhere, alhough this is clearly impossible for a lot of 
locations. Fred Baker lives in Santa Barbara which typically adds one 
hop for him to get to a "major" city, just as an example.

Add to that the fact that most companies force the use of a single 
airline and you are pretty much stuck with a 2-hop solution for a lot 
of cases. Total travel time varies a great deal, but once you take 
into account typical flight schedules, "allowable connection times," 
and the onward flight, 3+ hours is not that atypical. Minneapolis 
comes to mind as one example, yes, there are direct international 
flights to MPLS (just love that acronym)e, but it all depends on where 
you are coming from and what airline you (have to) fly. Our friends 
from Japan typically went through Chicago.

In an ideal world I could imagine a better sponsorship model than the 
one you describe as "broken," but reality is as usual different from 
the ideal model. It would indeed be really nice just have a pool of 
cash provided by one or more sponsors to be used for meetings in any 
location, but so far we have not been able to convince the sponsors 
that this is a good model for them. Also, having a local host (or a 
collection of them) gives us many benefits. The network for Maastricht 
is but one example of an item that could easily have been a major 
expense item. Instead it is provided by volunteers and staff from 
RIPE, the host and others (not trying to be complete in my listing 
here) and the fact that some of these folks can source equipment, 
talent and other resources locally is a major win for the IETF.

Selecting an IETF venue is, like most engineering decisions, an 
excercise in tradeoffs between a number of factors. Travel time for
the typical attendee is certainly one factor, but there are many
others too.

Ole Jacobsen
IAOC Meetings Committee

---

From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:28:34 -0700

At 11:06 PM -0400 7/18/10, <[email-masked]>
wrote:

In Brussels, the trains from the airport
and towards Liege (for Maastricht) both enter the city from the north,
so Brussels Nord is the preferred station to change at.
The info I have from the Belgian Railways web site is that the direct
trains between Brussels and Maastricht are not running during the
period when the IETF meets, so an additional change at Liege
Guillemins is required.  Use this link to find the actual Belgian
Railways schedules: http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/.
According to that web site, both Brussels Nord and Louvain are
places to change to the same trains to Liege Guillemins -
changing at Louvain is more direct and probably faster (in
other words, your choice is whether to take a train from the airport
to Brussels vs. Louvain - the other two trains will usually be the
same).

Thank you, this makes the conflicting information from the
different web sites reconcile -- they are saying the same thing (in a
hidden way), which is that there is no Maastricht-Brussels Express
service, instead there is the IC service.

So, with the question being reduced to changing at Brussels Nord
versus Louvain, which is better?

--

Randall Gellens

-------------- Randomly selected tag: ---------------

A day for firm decisions!!!!!  Or is it?

---

From: Ben Campbell <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:01:50 -0500

The ns.nl site shows direct trains between Brussels-Nord and Maastricht on weekdays during that time. Did b-rail.be explicitly say the direct trains were not running, or just not offer them in the planner?

On Jul 19, 2010, at 7:28 PM, Randall Gellens wrote:

> At 11:06 PM -0400 7/18/10, <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Thank you, this makes the conflicting information from the different web sites reconcile -- they are saying the same thing (in a hidden way), which is that there is no Maastricht-Brussels Express service, instead there is the IC service.
> 
> So, with the question being reduced to changing at Brussels Nord versus Louvain, which is better?
> 
> -- 
> Randall Gellens

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:41:13 -0400

Found it (!).  B-rail says that most of the through trains are not
running, but there are a couple in each direction.  Here's the Belgian
Railways line folder (in French) for Liege-Maastricht, including the
through trains to/from Brussels:

      http://hari.b-rail.be/hafas/folders/20091213/A/FR/A-040.pdf

I just found that link; it appears to be the reliable timetable.  Most
of the through trains carry a black triangle indicating that they don't
run July 4 - Aug 21, or carry either a 1 or 2 footnote, each of which
includes the black triangle (!).  That leaves two through trains in each
direction that do run:

      Lv. Brussels Nord: 15:33, 16:33

      Lv. Maastricht: 7:07, 8:09

That's M-F (watermark: A in circle).  For Sat, Sun, always change at
Liege (watermark: C in circle).

As the Belgians actually run these trains, I would believe their posted
schedules.

Thanks,
--David

From: Ben Campbell [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2010 9:02 PM
To: Randall Gellens
Cc: Black, David; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [78attendees] flying into Brussels?

The ns.nl site shows direct trains between Brussels-Nord and Maastricht
on weekdays during that time. Did b-rail.be explicitly say the direct
trains were not running, or just not offer them in the planner?

	In Brussels, the trains from the airport and towards Liege (for
Maastricht) both enter the city from the north, so Brussels Nord is the
preferred station to change at.  The info I have from the Belgian
Railways web site is that the direct trains between Brussels and
Maastricht are not running during the period when the IETF meets, so an
additional change at Liege Guillemins is required.  Use this link to
find the actual Belgian Railways schedules:
http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/.   According to that web site, both
Brussels Nord and Louvain are places to change to the same trains to
Liege Guillemins - changing at Louvain is more direct and probably
faster (in other words, your choice is whether to take a train from the
airport to Brussels vs. Louvain - the other two trains will usually be
the same).

Thank you, this makes the conflicting information from the different web
sites reconcile -- they are saying the same thing (in a hidden way),
which is that there is no Maastricht-Brussels Express service, instead
there is the IC service.

So, with the question being reduced to changing at Brussels Nord versus
Louvain, which is better?

-- 

Randall Gellens

---

From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:54:04 -0700

At 8:01 PM -0500 7/19/10, Ben Campbell wrote:

The ns.nl site
shows direct trains between Brussels-Nord and Maastricht on weekdays
during that time. Did b-rail.be
explicitly say the direct trains were not running, or just not offer
them in the planner?

The b-rail.be site didn't show any
direct trains, and the Maastricht-Brussels Express site has a footnote
for those trains that says there is a change at Liege.

I hadn't checked the ns.nl site, but I tried it now and it shows
the last direct train leaves Brussels-Noord 3 minutes before my plane
is scheduled to land.

On Jul 19, 2010, at 7:28 PM, Randall
Gellens wrote:

In Brussels, the trains from the airport
and towards Liege (for Maastricht) both enter the city from the north,
so Brussels Nord is the preferred station to change
at.  The info I have from the Belgian Railways web site
is that the direct trains between Brussels and Maastricht are not
running during the period when the IETF meets, so an additional change
at Liege Guillemins is required.  Use this link to find the
actual Belgian Railways schedules: http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/.
According to that web site, both Brussels Nord and Louvain are
places to change to the same trains to Liege Guillemins
- changing at Louvain is more direct and probably
faster (in other words, your choice is whether to take a
train from the airport to Brussels vs. Louvain - the other two trains
will usually be the same).

Thank you, this makes the conflicting
information from the different web sites reconcile -- they are saying
the same thing (in a hidden way), which is that there is no
Maastricht-Brussels Express service, instead there is the IC
service.

So, with the question being reduced to
changing at Brussels Nord versus Louvain, which is
better?

--

Randall Gellens

-------------- Randomly selected tag: ---------------

78attendees mailing list

[email-masked]

--

Randall Gellens

-------------- Randomly selected tag: ---------------

The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the

stupidity of your action.

---

From: Ben Campbell <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:57:40 -0500

Ah, those are _dates_.   Yet another date format I've never seen before :-) (4.VII.10 -> 21.VIII.10)

I found that pdf on the site, but until you handed me the key, I wasn't sure how to interpret the notes. Only reading a little French didn't help.

Thanks,

Ben.

On Jul 19, 2010, at 8:41 PM, <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Found it (!).  B-rail says that most of the through trains are not running, but there are a couple in each direction.  Here's the Belgian Railways line folder (in French) for Liege-Maastricht, including the through trains to/from Brussels:
>  
> I just found that link; it appears to be the reliable timetable.  Most of the through trains carry a black triangle indicating that they don't run July 4 - Aug 21, or carry either a 1 or 2 footnote, each of which includes the black triangle (!).  That leaves two through trains in each direction that do run:
> That's M-F (watermark: A in circle).  For Sat, Sun, always change at Liege (watermark: C in circle).
>  
> As the Belgians actually run these trains, I would believe their posted schedules.
>  
> Thanks,
> --David
>

---

From: "Fahd A. Batayneh" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:17:54 +0300

Folks, allow me to jump in and say that a lot of exaggeration has been
expressed during these discussions. I am sure things are not as bad as they
might initially look. I have been to Europe several times, and until now I
have never come across any troubles using the train system or the metro
system.

I look at things from a different angle. To me, traveling from Amsterdam to
Maastricht by train passing by Utrecht and Eindhoven is an excellent
excursion trip which I look forward to and hope to enjoy. There is always
"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly", so always be optimistic of "The Good"

Cheers,

-- FAB
Sent from Amman, Jordan

---

From: Bernie Hoeneisen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:52:28 +0200 (CEST)

> :-) (4.VII.10 -> 21.VIII.10)

hey, one cannot claim that to have never seen this numbering format 
before. It's been known for a long time in the IETF; for a reference see 
RFC 2551 "The Roman Standards Process" ...
:-)

Have fun and c.u soon!

cheers,
  Bernie

--

http://ucom.ch/
Tech Consulting for Internet Standardization

---

From: Bernie Hoeneisen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:24:28 +0200 (CEST)

While some people might complain, I would like to express that I have been 
quite happy with the recent work of the IAOC, in particular with the venue 
selection process. What I appreciate most, is the new strategy to more 
equally distribute the meetings around the globe, so that people from 
other parts of this world have a higher chance to participate in IETF 
Standardization work.

I can imagine IAOC work has not always been easy, in particular given the 
economic boundary conditions we currently face.

Keep on doing good work!

cheers,
  Bernie

--

http://ucom.ch/

---

From: Henk Uijterwaal <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:41:03 +0200

Bernie,

> Keep on doing good work!

Thanks for the compliments and I'll continue to do my best,

Henk

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Henk Uijterwaal                           Email: henk.uijterwaal(at)ripe.net
RIPE Network Coordination Centre          http://www.xs4all.nl/~henku
P.O.Box 10096          Singel 258         Phone: +31.20.5354414
1001 EB Amsterdam      1016 AB Amsterdam  Fax: +31.20.5354445
The Netherlands        The Netherlands    Mobile: +31.6.55861746
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I confirm today what I denied yesterday.            Anonymous Politician.

---

From: Antoin Verschuren <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:32:06 +0000

I can't keep up with all your confusion, but I thought that detailed reading should belong to an IETF attendee.
Anyway, to take away one confusion:

- -The Brussels-Maastricht express is a good rail connection, but: IT ONLY RUNS ON WEEKDAYS.

So if you arrive on a Saturday/Sunday (which is NOT a weekday), this train does not run, and you need to take a regular train which has a stopover at Liege.

Antoin Verschuren

Technical Policy Advisor SIDN
Utrechtseweg 310, PO Box 5022, 6802 EA Arnhem, The Netherlands

P: +31 26 3525500  F: +31 26 3525505  M: +31 6 23368970
mailto:[email-masked]  xmpp:[email-masked]  http://www.sidn.nl/

> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Monday, July 19, 2010 4:23 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> The page http://www.ietf78.nl/travel/airport-brussels.html says it is an
> easy 90 minute train ride from BRU to Maastricht, which sounds terrific.
> But that page doesn't give details on how to achieve this.  It does have
> links to http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/ and
> http://www.ietf78.nl/travel/maastricht-brussels-express.html and these two
> have different information, plus lots of footnotes about when to transfer
> at one station versus another.
>
> My guess is that there are two very different trains one could take for
> the main part of the journey, but it's not clear to me exactly how to plan
> the trip, knowing only scheduled flight arrival.
>
> According to http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/, it looks like, depending on
> time, one can take a train from BRU to Midi or to Louvain, then transfer
> to Liege, and then transfer to Maastricht.  I assume this would be a
> central station in Maastricht?  And then a taxi to the hotel I suppose.
>
> Per http://www.maastrichtbrusselexpress.nl/?doc_id=5&m=files, one takes a
> train from BRU to your choice of Brussels-Midi, Brussels-Central, or
> Brussels-Nord, and then transfers to Maastricht, although some trains
> require an extra transfer at Liège-Guillemins.  The train timetable is
> from Midi, Central, or Nord, so to be able to buy a ticket it seems one
> must work backwards to try and figure out when one will arrive there,
> based on an estimate of how long formalities will take, plus the train
> from BRU to Midi, Central, or Nord.
>
>
> --
> Randall Gellens

---

From: Gordon Lennox <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:40:07 +0200

On 20 July 2010 10:32, Antoin Verschuren <[email-masked]> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA256

And to add a nice point...

Liège-Guillemins railway station is pretty cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li%C3%A8ge-Guillemins_railway_station

Gordon

PS - I live in Brussels and so will probably take the metro or bus to
Midi (I prefer Midi to Central or Nord) sometime on Sunday morning and
then I will simply get the next train to Liege and then Maastricht.

I will probably not check with http://www.railtime.be/

I might confirm times once more on http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/

See you there... :-)

---

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:58:22 -0700

Bernie,

On Jul 20, 2010, at 12:24 AM, Bernie Hoeneisen wrote:

> 
> While some people might complain, I would like to express that I have been quite happy with the recent work of the IAOC, in particular with the venue selection process. What I appreciate most, is the new strategy to more equally distribute the meetings around the globe, so that people from other parts of this world have a higher chance to participate in IETF Standardization work.
> 
> I can imagine IAOC work has not always been easy, in particular given the economic boundary conditions we currently face.
> 
> 
> Keep on doing good work!

Thanks, it's very appreciated.  

Bob

> IAOC mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/iaoc

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:19:21 -0500

A preface to the below: I worry about people replying to a thread with 
concerns about IAOC decisions by saying, "I think the IAOC is wonderful" 
because I think it is an attempt to marginalize folks and diminish their 
legitimate concerns. If you don't appreciate that the IAOC is doing hard 
and generally very good work, you simply "don't get it." You should feel 
free to express their wonderfulness to them (in public if you like), but 
in the context of a discussion where some people think there is a 
problem with a particular decision, I think it's quite inappropriate. 
That said:

> I am not sure why you think "ground" is a significant qualifier here.

Ole, I think if you don't understand why "ground" is a significant 
qualifier here, then there is a serious problem. I for one am more than 
happy to take trains (I prefer them to planes on the whole, especially 
in Europe and Japan), and I'm willing to put up with other kinds of 
ground transportation. However, the fact is that in most places, 
switching modes of transportation from air to ground when both modes are 
multi-hop is often quite a burden travel-wise. I live in a tiny town 
with a tiny airport, so my air travel is always 2-hop, but once in the 
"air transport system", transferring between flights is usually an 
orderly (if not relatively speedy) process: The travel is all 
pre-arranged with appropriate times between connections (normally the 
airline takes care of calculating that), I'm already in the airport so 
getting to the next gate is no big deal, and if I were a 
checker-of-baggage (which I am not), that all happens without my getting 
involved in the process. Switching to ground from there if it is one hop 
(say, a taxi) is normally a matter of walking out the appropriate exit, 
getting into the taxi and arriving at my hotel. This trip is not of that 
sort.

I am, for assorted reasons, flying into Heathrow, so getting to the 
Eurostar from there involves two mode switches (Heathrow Express and 
Tube), but even if that weren't the case and I was flying into a sane 
airport with sane connection to rail, the time to the next connection is 
not pre-arranged, so planning is a bit trickier. I find getting baggage 
across an airport (even leaving aside checked baggage) is significantly 
easier than getting baggage through ground connections (which sometimes 
involve stairs, turnstiles, and narrower passageways that don't 
accommodate luggage as easily). I am arriving on Saturday, so the 
Brussels-Maastricht Express is not a choice, so I am taking the train 
from London to Brussels to Liege to Maastricht and then either hopping 
the local to Maastricht Randwyck or taking a taxi. I happened to do the 
pre-planning and bought the tickets ahead of time, but this was not 
nearly the straightforward process that buying an airplane ticket is. 
And if you don't do that pre-planning, you have to do it on the spot at 
the originating train station. This is something I feel perfectly 
comfortable with, but I can imagine for lots of folks it is 
significantly more stress inducing than having the itinerary printed out 
in front of you, knowing that all you have to do is get yourself into 
the air transport system (whatever the number of hops) and then back out 
via a taxi.

> the typical attendee is certainly one factor, but there are many

IETF meetings are for getting work done. I don't much care where they 
take place, but to be fair to folks around the world, I think it's fair 
to move the meetings around to different areas. Once an area of the 
world is chosen it seems like the criteria for selection are finding 
places that can accommodate us and then minimizing overall cost for all 
participants and minimizing travel time/complications for all 
participants. In the latter calculation, number of ground connections is 
a significantly bigger factor than number of air connections for most 
people.

And, to make the implicit explicit: I do think that the IAOC is doing a 
good job with a hard set of problems. That praise should do nothing to 
diminish the real concern that as locations go, neither Maastricht nor 
Quebec City (to name two upcoming ones) are anywhere close to ideal.

pr

-- 
Pete Resnick<http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102

---

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:59:23 -0700

Pete,

I agree with you that people should complain to the IAOC if there are problems or if things could be done better.  That said, being on the IAOC, like the other I* jobs, is a lot of work and it doesn't hurt to get some occasional thanks.  But I do agree this should not discourage expressions of serious concerns.  

> IETF meetings are for getting work done. I don't much care where they take place, but to be fair to folks around the world, I think it's fair to move the meetings around to different areas. Once an area of the world is chosen it seems like the criteria for selection are finding places that can accommodate us and then minimizing overall cost for all participants and minimizing travel time/complications for all participants. In the latter calculation, number of ground connections is a significantly bigger factor than number of air connections for most people.
> 
> And, to make the implicit explicit: I do think that the IAOC is doing a good job with a hard set of problems. That praise should do nothing to diminish the real concern that as locations go, neither Maastricht nor Quebec City (to name two upcoming ones) are anywhere close to ideal.

Thanks!

I agree with you personally about preferring larger cities with more direct flights, but not everyone agree with this.

The choice of Maastricht has been discussed on this list already.  It was the best venue in the Netherlands that was available for the dates we had.  

We had a choice between Quebec City and Vancouver.  After having a similar debate inside of the IAOC regarding venue selection, we took a survey of the community and found that the majority of people preferred Quebec City.  I was surprised by the outcome, but that was the outcome.  

Bob

p.s. Maybe the IAOC should publish a list of the places/venues we looked at and rejected :-)

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:04:47 -0400

> I agree with you personally about preferring larger cities with more direct flights, but not everyone agree with this.

In Europe it's a non-issue because of the trains.   It was cheaper to fly to London and take the Eurostar than to fly into either Amsterdam or Brussels; if IETF had been in one of those two cities, the direct flight would have been about the same as my flight+train.   It would have taken less time, but I'm pretty happy to be able to take the train, and enjoyed the Shinkansen ride as well.

Of course, ask me again in Maastricht--if for some reason I miss my Eurostar connection, I may be singing a different tune...   :')

---

From: David Kessens <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:27:21 -0700

Pete,

To me it looks like all the problems that you bring up here are of your own
making:

As mentioned earlier, if you want the simplest option to get to Maastricht,
fly to Brussels, rent a car or hop in an expensive taxi to Maastricht which
is just over an hour of driving. This is indeed somewhat longer than the
average drive from a US airport to a hotel but in the same order of
magnitude of getting from LAX to Anaheim or San Diego (which is what most
of our non-US particpants had to do).

In this particular situation, there are many *other* options available to
you that take a little bit more travel time but can be convenient as well as
you might prefer a certain airline. However, all these other routing options
are your *own* choice and can be avoided.

As for some more specific comments regarding the difficulties of changing
mode of transportation, especially for the Amsterdam airport case, it takes
you more time to reach the taxi stand than reaching the train station as the
arrival hall and the trainstation are pretty much the same thing and you can
bring the airport luggage carts all the way to the train. I read an estimate
of 15 minutes somewhere from getting your luggage to the railroad track - to
be a bit more precise, 15 minutes must be the absolute worst case scenario
as it is really no more than a 1-2 minutes.

David Kessens
---

On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 04:19:21PM -0500, Pete Resnick wrote:
> A preface to the below: I worry about people replying to a thread
> with concerns about IAOC decisions by saying, "I think the IAOC is
> wonderful" because I think it is an attempt to marginalize folks and
> diminish their legitimate concerns. If you don't appreciate that the
> IAOC is doing hard and generally very good work, you simply "don't
> get it." You should feel free to express their wonderfulness to them
> (in public if you like), but in the context of a discussion where
> some people think there is a problem with a particular decision, I
> think it's quite inappropriate. That said:
> 
> qualifier here, then there is a serious problem. I for one am more
> than happy to take trains (I prefer them to planes on the whole,
> especially in Europe and Japan), and I'm willing to put up with
> other kinds of ground transportation. However, the fact is that in
> most places, switching modes of transportation from air to ground
> when both modes are multi-hop is often quite a burden travel-wise. I
> live in a tiny town with a tiny airport, so my air travel is always
> 2-hop, but once in the "air transport system", transferring between
> flights is usually an orderly (if not relatively speedy) process:
> The travel is all pre-arranged with appropriate times between
> connections (normally the airline takes care of calculating that),
> I'm already in the airport so getting to the next gate is no big
> deal, and if I were a checker-of-baggage (which I am not), that all
> happens without my getting involved in the process. Switching to
> ground from there if it is one hop (say, a taxi) is normally a
> matter of walking out the appropriate exit, getting into the taxi
> and arriving at my hotel. This trip is not of that sort.
> 
> Tube), but even if that weren't the case and I was flying into a
> sane airport with sane connection to rail, the time to the next
> connection is not pre-arranged, so planning is a bit trickier. I
> find getting baggage across an airport (even leaving aside checked
> baggage) is significantly easier than getting baggage through ground
> connections (which sometimes involve stairs, turnstiles, and
> narrower passageways that don't accommodate luggage as easily). I am
> arriving on Saturday, so the Brussels-Maastricht Express is not a
> choice, so I am taking the train from London to Brussels to Liege to
> Maastricht and then either hopping the local to Maastricht Randwyck
> or taking a taxi. I happened to do the pre-planning and bought the
> tickets ahead of time, but this was not nearly the straightforward
> process that buying an airplane ticket is. And if you don't do that
> pre-planning, you have to do it on the spot at the originating train
> station. This is something I feel perfectly comfortable with, but I
> can imagine for lots of folks it is significantly more stress
> inducing than having the itinerary printed out in front of you,
> knowing that all you have to do is get yourself into the air
> transport system (whatever the number of hops) and then back out via
> a taxi.
> 
> IETF meetings are for getting work done. I don't much care where
> they take place, but to be fair to folks around the world, I think
> it's fair to move the meetings around to different areas. Once an
> area of the world is chosen it seems like the criteria for selection
> are finding places that can accommodate us and then minimizing
> overall cost for all participants and minimizing travel
> time/complications for all participants. In the latter calculation,
> number of ground connections is a significantly bigger factor than
> number of air connections for most people.
> 
> And, to make the implicit explicit: I do think that the IAOC is
> doing a good job with a hard set of problems. That praise should do
> nothing to diminish the real concern that as locations go, neither
> Maastricht nor Quebec City (to name two upcoming ones) are anywhere
> close to ideal.
> 
> pr
> 
> -- 

David Kessens
---

---

From: "Don Sturek" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:38:33 -0700

Living in San Diego as well, I don't see the issue.

I don't believe the commute to Maastricht is any more difficult than any
other IETF event.

Don

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
Behalf Of Pete Resnick
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 2:19 PM
To: Ole Jacobsen
Cc: Olaf Kolkman; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [78attendees] IAOC venue selection (was Re:
Brussels-Maastricht: More on trains)

pr

---

From: "Don Sturek" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:45:13 -0700

Hi Bob,

I would like to extend a "thank you" to the IAOC for their work in
organizing the Maatricht event.  I have full expectation on event travel to
IETF-78 based on the wealth of information provided.

Don

-----Original Message-----
Behalf Of Bob Hinden
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 2:59 PM
To: Pete Resnick

Pete,

I agree with you that people should complain to the IAOC if there are
problems or if things could be done better.  That said, being on the IAOC,
like the other I* jobs, is a lot of work and it doesn't hurt to get some
occasional thanks.  But I do agree this should not discourage expressions of
serious concerns.  

> IETF meetings are for getting work done. I don't much care where they take
place, but to be fair to folks around the world, I think it's fair to move
the meetings around to different areas. Once an area of the world is chosen
it seems like the criteria for selection are finding places that can
accommodate us and then minimizing overall cost for all participants and
minimizing travel time/complications for all participants. In the latter
calculation, number of ground connections is a significantly bigger factor
than number of air connections for most people.

Thanks!

I agree with you personally about preferring larger cities with more direct
flights, but not everyone agree with this.

The choice of Maastricht has been discussed on this list already.  It was
the best venue in the Netherlands that was available for the dates we had.  

We had a choice between Quebec City and Vancouver.  After having a similar
debate inside of the IAOC regarding venue selection, we took a survey of the
community and found that the majority of people preferred Quebec City.  I
was surprised by the outcome, but that was the outcome.  

Bob

p.s. Maybe the IAOC should publish a list of the places/venues we looked at
and rejected :-)

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:40:00 -0500

> To me it looks like all the problems that you bring up here are of your own

For the most part, I agree. Some small disagreements.
> of our non-US particpants had to do).

Over an hour is significantly longer (and in a taxi or rental car, more 
expensive) than what I would consider a reasonable average distance from 
the airport. And my company's sponsorship notwithstanding, I never 
thought San Diego was a terribly good choice of location. Anaheim is one 
of those places where the other competing tradeoffs might have been a 
bigger factor. Either way, for San Diego and Anaheim there are many more 
choices of staying in the air and getting closer to reasonable one-hop 
ground distance than there are for Maastricht.
> as it is really no more than a 1-2 minutes.

As I said, if I were flying into an airport with a sane transportation 
system (like Schiphol), my life would be much less complicated, so I 
absolutely agree.

The overall point of my message was that ground transportation concerns 
should not be dismissed.

pr

---

From: David Kessens <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:03:45 -0700

Pete,

On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 06:40:00PM -0500, Pete Resnick wrote:
> Either way, for
> San Diego and Anaheim there are many more choices of staying in the
> air and getting closer to reasonable one-hop ground distance than
> there are for Maastricht.

Really ? Where are all those international flights landing in southern
california ? For Maastricht, one can fly into a long list of major
international airports like BRU, AMS, FRA, CDG, HRW.

> The overall point of my message was that ground transportation
> concerns should not be dismissed.

I would like to make that "reasonable concerns should not be dismissed".

While I agree that an hour driving (or a little longer by train) from
brussels is not ideal, it is hard to call that a major obstacle.

David Kessens
---

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:16:29 -0400

Pete, I guess I'm jaded.  I used to regularly fly into an airport that 
was 3.5 hours from meetings in order to save money.  These train rides 
are about as long as it takes from ORD to MSP.  Can you think of them as 
extra flight segments?

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:18:00 -0700 (PDT)

Pete,

Not every airport in the world is arranged the way you outline with 
respect to onward travel. At Frankfurt airport, to take one example, 
you need only change level from arrivals to departure (by escalator or 
elevator), walk across a short bridge and into the Fernbahn station, 
where you can get down to the platform via an elevatore or escalator. 
I've gone onwards to Amsterdam, Berlin, Leipzig and Gevenva, and in 
most cases spent less total travel time than is typically possible 
with flights. (Excluding Geneva in that case, but I saved a ton of 
money and it is a fabulous journey).

The tickets can be ordered online at bahh.de (which has an English 
language section) and typically arrives in California in a matter of a 
few days by mail.

Yes, this is different from the US. Yes, it requires some knowledge of 
a system that is unfamliar, and even in a different language. Yes, I 
understand that many people are more comfortable using air-to-air 
connections, but the reality is not always the same in the destination 
location. For Hiroshima, we, the IAOC, and WIDE, the host, reminded 
people that flying into Tokyo was not the "best solution" nor was even 
flying onward to Hiroshima. We suggested flying to Osaka and taking 
the train. It's the "best" option in a country which has better train 
service than (domestic) air service. I developed the web site:
http://hiroshima-info.info which points this out.

I am not dismissing your concerns as unreasonable nor do I think the 
IAOC should be shielded from any criticism, I am just pointing out 
that the reality of train travel is different in different parts of 
the world, and integrated differently. I also should point out that
neither Hiroshima nor Maastricht was chosen because the host insisted
on those locations. 

In the case of Hiroshima, Japan became the host late in the game, 
taking over from another location at which point none of the major 
facilities near Tokyo were available. In The Netherlands, the "obvious 
choice" would at first glace seem to be the RAI in Amsterdam, like it 
was in 1993 for IETF, but today there are more suitable venues 
supported by nearby hotels for a group the size of today's IETF, as 
Olaf pointed out. It has to be a tradeoff at the end of the day.

(I agree by the way that if host = sponsor who does not care if the
venue is even in their own country would be a great solution, but the
reality isn't there, yet...).

As for Quebec City, the community has spoken through a survey as
Bob pointed out. Vancouver or Quebec city were equally fine venues,
but the consensus from the survey was clear. (Also since QC is on
the East Coast of North America it seems fair to shift to burden
to us West Coasters from time to time.)

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: [email-masked]  URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj

---

From: "Antoin Verschuren" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 03:32:06 -0500

WARNING: contains banned part

Subject: Re: [78attendees] flying into Brussels?
From: "Antoin Verschuren" <[email-masked]>
To: "Randall Gellens" <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 03:32:06 -0500

 
 
Antoin Verschuren

---

From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 06:17:45 +0200

On 21 jul 2010, at 02.16, Scott Brim wrote:

> These train rides are about as long as it takes from ORD to MSP.  Can you think of them as extra flight segments?

To help Pete a bit, that is exactly his point. You can *not* see any mix of transport mechanisms as extensions of one or the other. Specifically not trains as you can (in normal case) not check your luggage. You have to drag it along up, down, platform here, platform there etc. Compared to an airpoint, it is less common to be able to go to all trains without changing levels on a train station, as trains have tracks. And situations like at Brussels Central Station where you have to walk 3-4 steps in a short stair to reach the escalator is not normal, but "stairs only" is not uncommon. In Stockholm there are two elevators to each track, but if you have a full train with people wanting to take the elevator, the line is almost like the line to immigration at IAD.

So, no, one can not see them as extra flight segments.

   Patrik

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:22:32 -0700 (PDT)

You may not be able to consider them as "flight segments", but my 
point is that this mixed mode of transport is much more common in
Europe, and of then the only reasonable option. And the amount of
luggage involved is of course a variable.

Ole

On Wed, 21 Jul 2010, Patrik Fältström wrote:

> > These train rides are about as long as it takes from ORD to MSP.  
> > Can you think of them as extra flight segments?
> 
> To help Pete a bit, that is exactly his point. You can *not* see any 
> mix of transport mechanisms as extensions of one or the other. 
> Specifically not trains as you can (in normal case) not check your 
> luggage. You have to drag it along up, down, platform here, platform 
> there etc. Compared to an airpoint, it is less common to be able to 
> go to all trains without changing levels on a train station, as 
> trains have tracks. And situations like at Brussels Central Station 
> where you have to walk 3-4 steps in a short stair to reach the 
> escalator is not normal, but "stairs only" is not uncommon. In 
> Stockholm there are two elevators to each track, but if you have a 
> full train with people wanting to take the elevator, the line is 
> almost like the line to immigration at IAD.
>

---

From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 08:18:32 +0200

> luggage involved is of course a variable.

Correct.

Being a person that nowadays take train more than airplanes, there are I think three things I still have problems with regarding trains:

1. It is more complicated if you have luggage. The "check in your luggage" service that exists on airplanes is an excellent service! In the old days in Sweden, you could check in luggage also for trains, but not anymore.

2. Walking around at a train station is often much more complicated, as the trains normally is at one level, and the "floor from which you reach all tracks" is a separate level. Not as many security checks though.

3. An airplane most of the time go from one place to another, and when reaching the destination, everyone have to leave (there are exceptions of course). A train stops at many stations, and you have to keep track of when you should go off (or you ask someone to help you). So the risk of reaching the wrong destination (because you where sleeping for example) is significantly higher with trains than airplanes.

On the other hand, there are many reason why trains are more comfortable as well.

Its different...

   Patrik

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:41:42 -0700 (PDT)

Patrik,

We are in agreement. I think the single biggest "risk" for confusion 
in the Netherlands is trains that split somwhere along the line with 
some cars going one place and the rest somewhere else. I ended up in 
Leuwarden instead of Groningen once for this reason. If in any doubt 
ask your conductor if you are in the right car.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen

---

From: Bernie Hoeneisen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:49:24 +0200 (CEST)

On Wed, 21 Jul 2010, Patrik Fältström wrote:

> 1. It is more complicated if you have luggage. The "check in your 
> luggage" service that exists on airplanes is an excellent service! In 
> the old days in Sweden, you could check in luggage also for trains, but 
> not anymore.

This depends on the country. In Switzerland for example, there is a 
service to check-through your luggage from plane to train (and 
vice-versa).

   http://www.zurich-airport.com/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-116/

No idea though, whether such a service also exists in the Netherlands.

> 2. Walking around at a train station is often much more complicated, as 
> the trains normally is at one level, and the "floor from which you reach 
> all tracks" is a separate level. Not as many security checks though.

Here a positive example:

For IETF-78 attendees who arrive at AMS, the one train-change in Utrecht 
normally does not involve a floor change, as the connecting train usually 
runs from the same platform, just opposite side (14->15).

  http://www.ns.nl/stationsvoorzieningen/map.do?abbreviation=ut&level=1

cheers,
  Bernie

PS: I rather spend a couple of hours sitting in a train as opposed to 
standing a couple of hours in an immigration queue at IAD....

---

From: Klaas Wierenga <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:16:36 +0200

> ask your conductor if you are in the right car.

true. the other way around (going to Leeuwarden but ending up in 
Groningen) would be much better ;-)

Klaas (whose home town is Groningen)

---

From: Olaf Kolkman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:49:43 +0200

On Jul 21, 2010, at 10:16 AM, Klaas Wierenga wrote:

> true. the other way around (going to Leeuwarden but ending up in Groningen) would be much better ;-)
> 

Fortunately, in the case of IETF78 it will take the most incompetent traveler to end up in Groningen instead of Maastricht. My bet is about 3 persons.... :-) 

--Olaf

---

From: Basil Dolmatov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:19:14 +0400

> Fortunately, in the case of IETF78 it will take the most incompetent traveler to end up in Groningen instead of Maastricht. My bet is about 3 persons.... :-)

Maybe to set poster in Groningen for collecting misrouted participants 
and rerouting them?

;)

dol@

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 08:19:29 -0500

> mix of transport mechanisms as extensions of one or the other.

Thank you Patrik. Exactly.

Let me try shorter sentences:

The problem is an IAOC member dismissing ground transfers as irrelevant.

Ground transfers are more difficult and stress inducing to many folks 
than are air transfers. (NOT to me!)

On 7/20/10 11:22 PM, Ole Jacobsen wrote:

> my point is that this mixed mode of transport is much more common in 
> Europe, and of then the only reasonable option.
>
No, that was not your original point to which I responded. Your original 
point was: "I am not sure why you think "ground" is a significant 
qualifier here." It may be true that mixed transport is more common in 
some places and may be the only reasonable option. I completely agree. I 
disagree that it should be irrelevant to an IAOC member's decision process.

I absolutely agree that some airports are better than others for these 
transfers.
I absolutely agree that sometimes you can pre-reserve tickets.
I absolutely agree that amounts of luggage vary.
I absolutely agree that train trips can be much more enjoyable than 
plane trips.

And all of this is irrelevant  to your claim that "ground" is not a 
"significant qualifier". If you went into the decision on the IAOC 
thinking that it was not a "significant qualifier", then you missed a 
significant qualifier for many people. (Shall I repeat again, it would 
not be a make or break deal for *me*. I like taking trains. I 
pre-reserved. I don't check luggage.)

One postscript:

On 7/20/10 7:18 PM, Ole Jacobsen wrote:

> As for Quebec City, the community has spoken through a survey as Bob 
> pointed out. Vancouver or Quebec city were equally fine venues, but 
> the consensus from the survey was clear. (Also since QC is on the East 
> Coast of North America it seems fair to shift to burden to us West 
> Coasters from time to time.)
>
Bob and I chatted a bit about this. I don't dispute the result of the 
survey. However, I think it's possible the survey didn't tell you what 
you think it did. For us folks east of the Mississippi River and in 
Europe, QC is likely easier to get to than Vancouver. Given that I like 
QC and the shorter trip for me, I think I even answered the survey 
saying that *I* preferred QC to Vancouver. But in terms of total number 
of hops for most IETF participants (and in this case it's completely air 
hops), QC is not a great choice. (About on par with San Diego and 
Anaheim.) I'm happy to presume that Toronto and Ottawa were not possible 
for other reasons. But let's not give *too* much weight to the survey. 
(I'd guess that if you surveyed a preference between Eugene, OR and Las 
Vegas, NV during the summer, Eugene might get a pretty good, maybe even 
majority, vote. That wouldn't necessarily make Eugene a good choice, 
even if they had an appropriate sized venue.)

pr

-- 
Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102

---

From: Basil Dolmatov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:23:05 +0400

> than are air transfers. (NOT to me!)
I wish I have seen you saying that in April...

When stress was applied to all air travellers...

dol@

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 08:26:13 -0500

On 7/20/10 7:03 PM, David Kessens wrote:

>> Either way, for San Diego and Anaheim there are many more choices of 
>> staying in the air and getting closer to reasonable one-hop ground 
>> distance than there are for Maastricht.
>>
Sorry, I wasn't clear: In San Diego and Anaheim, you have the choice to 
stay on airplanes and get very close. That is, there are flights into 
those cities from other major airports. There are almost no flights into 
Maastricht (or any city within an hour by ground) from any major airport.

And again, I still agree that neither San Diego nor Anaheim are great 
venues as far as easy transfers are concerned.

> I would like to make that "reasonable concerns should not be dismissed".
Of course I agree.

> brussels is not ideal, it is hard to call that a major obstacle.
Not major.  For many people, I think somewhat more complicated than 
places with closer air-ground transfers.

pr

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:40:55 +0200

On 21 jul 2010, at 15:19, Pete Resnick wrote:

> (I'd guess that if you surveyed a preference between Eugene, OR and Las Vegas, NV during the summer, Eugene might get a pretty good, maybe even majority, vote. That wouldn't necessarily make Eugene a good choice, even if they had an appropriate sized venue.)

Note that Eugene has about 50% more inhabitants than Maastricht.

Another thing about air+train travel is that the two systems are separate. In the air system, once you're in, they take care of you if there are delays or cancellations. In the train system too (well, sort of). But if you miss a flight because a train was delayed, you have a problem.

---

From: Basil Dolmatov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:44:10 +0400

21.07.2010 17:40, Iljitsch van Beijnum пишет:

>
> Another thing about air+train travel is that the two systems are separate. In the air system, once you're in, they take care of you if there are delays or cancellations.
In the very special case when all your journey is performed by single 
carrier.

> In the train system too (well, sort of). But if you miss a flight because a train was delayed, you have a problem.
If you miss flight of one company because a flight of the other company 
was delayed, you have exactly the same kind of problem.

dol@

---

From: "DRAGE, Keith (Keith)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:44:58 +0200

However I suspect the year change does not occur on the 15th of March and IX probably means September rather than November.

Keith 

> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Bernie Hoeneisen
> Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 7:52 AM
> To: Ben Campbell
> Cc: [email-masked]
> > Ah, those are _dates_.   Yet another date format I've never seen 
> > before
> > :-) (4.VII.10 -> 21.VIII.10)
> 
> hey, one cannot claim that to have never seen this numbering 
> format before. It's been known for a long time in the IETF; 
> for a reference see RFC 2551 "The Roman Standards Process" ...
> :-)
> 
> Have fun and c.u soon!
> 
> cheers,
>   Bernie
> 
> --
> 
> http://ucom.ch/

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:08:09 -0400

> than are air transfers. (NOT to me!)

If not to you, why are you championing the issue?   This seems like a non-problem to me.   Who exactly is it in whom this stress is being induced?   How bad is it?

Personally, I find flying extremely stressful.   I wish I could take a train to every IETF.   Being able to end my journey with a train ride is not merely not a problem--it is an opportunity for me to de-stress.

The IAOC has never factored this into their decisions about where to locate IETF, nor should they.  If they focused on pleasing me by having every IETF in New York, they would at the same time be making life a lot harder for many, many attendees.

(But consider this a plug for New York, say in 2014?)

:)

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:31:53 -0400

+1 for trains being a fine way to get to meetings.

In 20/20 hindsight, both "NS for Dummies" and "B-Rail (SNCB/NMBS) for
Dummies" :-) documents on how to get to Maastricht from the AMS and BRU
airports would have been good things to put together and post on the
meeting area of the web site a few months ago - use of European trains
is easy, but doesn't come instinctively to those who've never seen one
;-).

Kudos to the IAOC for arranging free use of the city buses in Maastricht
(that will eliminate a lot of strippenkaart confusion complaints), and I
think Maastricht's a fine meeting venue.

>From experience in arranging other meetings in the US, downtown Boston,
New York and Washington DC are out of the IETF's price tolerance range -
~$300/night hotel rates can quickly wipe out any perceived convenience
advantage of being downtown.  Finding a suburb/satellite of those cities
with enough meeting space, enough nearby hotel space. walking distance
to enough interesting restaurants and decent transit access is tough
(decent transit access tends to be a major problem in US suburbs).

Thanks,
--David

> From: [email-masked]
[mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Ted Lemon
> Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 10:08 AM
> To: Pete Resnick
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [78attendees] IAOC venue selection (was
Re:Brussels-Maastricht: More on trains)
> If not to you, why are you championing the issue?   This seems like a
non-problem to me.   Who exactly
> is it in whom this stress is being induced?   How bad is it?
> 
> Personally, I find flying extremely stressful.   I wish I could take a
train to every IETF.   Being
> able to end my journey with a train ride is not merely not a
problem--it is an opportunity for me to
> de-stress.
> 
> The IAOC has never factored this into their decisions about where to
locate IETF, nor should they.  If
> they focused on pleasing me by having every IETF in New York, they
would at the same time be making
> life a lot harder for many, many attendees.
>

---

From: Janet P Gunn <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:36:30 -0400

T
> Basil Dolmatov 
>
> 
> >
> > Another thing about air+train travel is that the two systems are 
> separate. In the air system, once you're in, they take care of you 
> if there are delays or cancellations.
> > In the train system too (well, sort of). But if you miss a flight 
> because a train was delayed, you have a problem.

Not my experience.

My journey to the Prague IETF was booked on two separate airlines- one of 
the majors IAD to Heathrow, then Czech Air Heathrow to Prague.  The 
transatlantic leg was delayed, I missed my connection, but they took care 
of it for me.  The only difficulty was figuring WHICH airline's customer 
service to go to.  But once I got in the correct line, it was taken care 
of uneventfully.

My journey to the Stockholm IETF was also booked on two separate airlines 
(Delta from IAD to Philly, and United from Philly to Stockholm).  The 
first leg was delayed many hours because of thunderstorms, but they got me 
on another route, which also involved multiple airlines, and I missed 
another connection, and they took care of that too.  I arrived in 
Stockholm a day later than planned, having spent the night (at the 
airline's expense) in a hotel in Munich.  But the airlines took care of 
it.

Janet

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:56:46 -0700 (PDT)

Pete,

Let me start by saying that English is not my first language.

I am at a loss to understand how my use of "significant" in the
context leads to your statement "The problem is an IAOC member 
dismissing ground transfers as irrelevant."

I have never stated that ground transfers are irrelevant, in fact
they remain the biggest pain for MOST of our meetings. San Diego
where you can easily WALK to the airport from the venue is one
notable exception.

I would OBVIOUSLY not suggest that ground transportation is somehow 
"equivalent" to air travel and that you should spend 10 hours on a 
train and an hour in the air instead of the other way around. This
is NOT a case of "true for 1, true for N and N+1, so true for all N"

I did use the word "here", that was supposed to provide context.

Getting to Maastrich is possible via many routes, flying does not
seem to be the best one, but it's not impossible. All of the
modes require some time for transfers and the journey itself and
THAT was the context in which I said "here".

The Narita Express takes 60 minutes to get to downtown Tokyo from the 
airport, the Arlanda Express takes about 20 minutes to get you from 
the airport to Stockholm, in Oslo the equivalent journey is 22 minutes 
and so on. I have lost track of the exact shortest train time from 
Brussels or Amsterdam to Maastricht since every day some new info gets 
posted here, but you get the point, yes it's longer, maybe as much as 
3x longer, no it is not devastagingly so.

This does NOT, I repeat NOT mean that anyone, including me, is 
suggesting that ground transfers are irrelevant. If you read that from
my posting (in context or otherwise), then there are only two 
possibilities: My English is bad or you're not reading it properly.

I am perfectly happy to think it is the former.

See you in Maastricht.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen

On Wed, 21 Jul 2010, Pete Resnick wrote:
> Ground transfers are more difficult and stress inducing to many folks than are
> air transfers. (NOT to me!)
> 
> 
> > my point is that this mixed mode of transport is much more common in Europe,
> > and of then the only reasonable option.
> >
> No, that was not your original point to which I responded. Your original point
> was: "I am not sure why you think "ground" is a significant qualifier here."
> It may be true that mixed transport is more common in some places and may be
> the only reasonable option. I completely agree. I disagree that it should be
> irrelevant to an IAOC member's decision process.
> 
> I absolutely agree that some airports are better than others for these transfers.
> I absolutely agree that train trips can be much more enjoyable than plane trips.
> 
> "significant qualifier". If you went into the decision on the IAOC thinking
> that it was not a "significant qualifier", then you missed a significant
> qualifier for many people. (Shall I repeat again, it would not be a make or
> break deal for *me*. I like taking trains. I pre-reserved. I don't check
> luggage.)
>

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:11:03 -0500

On 7/21/10 12:56 PM, Ole Jacobsen wrote:
> they remain the biggest pain for MOST of our meetings.
[...]
> I am perfectly happy to think it is the former.

I am perfectly happy with either explanation. I will buy the beer (and 
would be glad to offer an explanation of the miscommunication) in 
Maastricht. See you there.

pr

---

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 11:38:31 -0700

> Maastricht. See you there.

I am not that interested in micro-managing the IAOC.
I believe in Fred's Rule (Once in awhile,
the IETF meeting should be near me.) Beyond that,
I trust the people in charge will get the best facility
with the funds and resources they have available.

It's just a train ride.  How bad could it be?

I remember at the Yokohama IETF, there were a bunch of us
wandering around the train station for while, looking for
the 'taxi exit'.  The crowd of lost IETFers (easily identified
by laptop in tow) grew to about 50 people by the end.
But that was before Google Maps and online train schedules
in multiple languages,

> pr

Andy

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:45:51 -0400

On Jul 21, 2010, at 2:38 PM, Andy Bierman wrote:
> the 'taxi exit'.

It was pretty amusing too to find out later that the hotel was an easy walk from the train, and that the taxi was completely unnecessary.

---

From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:37:04 -0700

>  In the very special case when all your journey is performed by 
> single carrier.
>

>  If you miss flight of one company because a flight of the other 
> company was delayed, you have exactly the same kind of problem.

This is not true.

If you have flights from different airlines on the same ticket, the 
airlines protect you.  If you have flights on different tickets, then 
you are on your own.

-------------- Randomly selected tag: ---------------
You think it's a conspiracy by the networks to put bad shows on TV. But
the shows are bad because that's what people want. It's not like
Windows users don't have any power. I think they are happy with
Windows, and that's an incredibly depressing thought.
                                                           --Steve Jobs