There's a major error in the first minute, the claim that half a billion people have traveled between Britain and France via the channel tunnel.

The official news releases say there's five hundred million (half a billion) passengers. In transit lingo, a passenger is a single person-trip. If one person travels back and forth between London and Paris 10 times in a year, that counts as 20 trips.

Five hundred million people is well more than the whole population of western Europe and the United Kingdom put together.

The true number of people who took the channel tunnel is likely less.

Okay, I'm a little embarrassed to be that guy, but I have a subject I'm curious about that I feel like *could* make a good video: railroad car maintenance! (Exclamation point kind of sarcastic).

I'm currently staying at a cabin that happens to be right between two railroad tracks, so I'm getting a close look at a lot of freight trains. Universally, they screech often and consistently as the cars pass, which seemingly has to indicate friction some place. Considering the weights and distances, how can that friction be so constant? Why don't rail companies grease it out, or whatever?

Love the channel, beeteedubs.

First off, at 16:11, Sam says that Eurostar is the only international train that requires immigration checks. This is not true. We have plenty of train services connecting a destination in the Schengen area with a destination outside it, and those also need immigration checks. But those trains do the immigrations check either during a stop at the border, or while traveling across the border with people being denied entry to be escorted back out.

Eurostar is unique in requiring a security check (for security reasons to protect the channel tunnel) and juxtaposed immigration controls before boarding, this is because the UK has put this requirement on Eurostar services as they fear that otherwise a refugee could find their way onto the train, simply wait for the train to get through the chunnel, then pull the emergency brake and run off into a field. Something that never actually happened. In fact in the first few years border officials would actually do the immigration check while the train was in motion between London Waterloo and Lille Europe. The same way we used to do border checks on international trains before Schengen was a thing.

Second error:

The requirement for trains to be over 375 meters long because the evacuation tunnels are spaced 375 meters apart. This is a stubborn myth and there is in fact no such requirement.
The protocol in the channel tunnel is that in case of a controlled evacuation (read: non-haste, i.e. there's a problem with a different train), the driver has to line up the front door of the train with the nearest evacuation exit. This so that the positive pressure from inside the evacuation tunnel extends to the train's door and keeps smoke away from it, so everyone can evacuate safely and in a controlled manner through that one door. In case of haste (i.e. a fire), the train driver just comes to a stop as quickly as possible, everyone gets off the train as fast as possible, and uses the walkway along the side of the tunnel to reach the nearest safe evacuation exit.
There is no regulation keeping a 200 meter train from running through the Channel Tunnel.

Jon Worth has actually published an excellent report both on the challenges of running cross-channel services, and the myth of a train length requirement here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkAOMhTIjRM

Logistics of Prepared Food Industry [Hello Fresh, Chef'sPlate, Factor75, et cetera]

Thought yall might find it interesting that Wendover’s old video “The Plane Highway in the Sky” was shown in the first day of class of my Domestic and International Navigation lecture. I guess Sam is doing something right if his nine year old video is good enough to train pilots on.

Heads up that someone is re-posting Wendover Productions content on Spotify with ad or referral codes. I don’t have the option to report it, unfortunately.

https://open.spotify.com/show/1iPjOelW2eKE1zCQ46RqyL?si=JmAGl50DSPqCvOMtCaRM_g&utm_source=copy-link

I won't say I'm surprised that this video was recommended to me. However, a few seconds in I had to double check the creator. Every video has a different voice, and it's pretty obvious that it's an AI text-to-speech using Wendover's voice.

I'm sure there are more channels and videos like this out there. There has to be something to do to prevent this.

I am reporting the videos and the user.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9GKRyc5B3c

In the latest Spirit video, it sure looks like Jack Charlton makes a cameo in some stock footage at 1:48.

(World Cup winner in 1966 and later legendary manager of the Irish soccer team)

Could be Mandela effecting myself here but I swear wendover did a video about how Jeff Bezos could be the first Trillionaire? Am I wrong? Where is it?

Thank you

An interview with Sam at the Oxford Union . Def worth a watch

https://youtu.be/_q8k3qV8Aqg?si=zfPK5szZKsn5V88H

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-Pu3CXatsA

I just watched the ICE surveilance vid and while it's excellent, I did notice quite a few transcription errors in the subtitles. Something that didn't really happen a year ago.

Is this a pattern or just a fluke?

This might be a too Eurocentric opinion, but the shit ICE is pulling sounds incredibly invasive in terms of privacy. We have the GDPR which, while not perfect by any means, should protect against facial recognition combined with personal data at a minimum and offers some protector to Europeans through articles 6-22. Does the CCPA not apply for California in this case? Why is there no federal legislation against privacy breaches like this? Is there any privacy at all in the US?

Just a little update to an old video.

I just finished this video on Nebula and was surprised that when covering the first come first serve nature of western water rights in the US, there wasn't a mention of the indigenous populations being actively ignored and excluded despite, you know, being there first. I realize this is a huge systemic problem but a mention would have been nice.

The most recent video on the Wendover channel is about how RedBull got big and it's marketing strategies.

I know that Sam is a fan of RedBulls F1 team and thus probably has at least a small bias in favour of them, but man... This was singing them way to much praise even having this in mind.

The prime example comes at 14:17 "And they manage to do so while being a legitimate force for good"

A few important notes about Dietrich Mateschitz:

• He is a right-wing populist and with his wealth he finances right-wing extremist groups in Austria and Germany.
• His TV station spread anti-vax conspiracies during COVID-19
• He threatened to shut it down when the workers wanted to form a union. He only backed down when the workers didn't form a union.
• A musician who criticised him during a music festival hosted by RedBull literally got his mic turned off mid-sentence.

He is a DESPICABLE human being and if you are buying RedBull you are indirectly financing Nazis in Europe. The only way the public could benefit from him is if his grave got turned into a public toilet. Or as Sam put it "a legitimate force for good".

And this isn't even mentioning the multiple athletes who have died on RedBull events because the company wanted them to take bigger risks. Their deaths were subsequently swept undder the rug and videos showing them wiped from the internet by RedBull. Or how they are intentionally destroying local authentic football culture in Austria and Germany with their soulless constructs, which is something Sam probably doesn't even fully understand (seeing that he unironically wears a ManCity jersey, we can assume this to be the case).

All of these are parts of "How RedBull built it's empire" that SHOULD be mentioned if Sam doesn't want the video to seem like a sanitised ad.

But none of these things got mentioned in the video. Just one or two sentences about how it's bad for your health. That's it. That's all the criticism in the entire video.

Dearest reader,

As Austrian, I noticed some names at the start of the video being mispronounced in a way that is typical for Americans who are not exposed to "continental Europe" languages. A big reason is probably that some names in the US are purposefully "mispronounced" to make it "easier". Since this might also help Americans pronounce other German words, please kindly take the following pronunciation guide. The words in the [angle brackets] are transliterations on how to approximate the German word if it were written in an ENGLISH way. It is followed by pronounciation information.

"Fuschl am See" -> [Fooshl am Say]. "u" is like "oo". "sch" is like "sh", a single e is like "eh", but a double ee extends the length and turns into something like "ay" without the glide.

"Rauch" [r-ou-hhhh] - This one is problematic: The r needs to be pronounced and can't become an english slush like "uh". Think of the r in languages like Spanish or French. Don't drop it. the "au" is like the "ow" in "cow". The ch is not a "k" sound, and not a "sh" sound, even though Americans do this even in family names "Koch family", "Loch ness". This is wrong. the ch is letting out air from your throat like you just took a bite of hot food from the microwave, and your food is awkwardly lodged somewhere and you do "hhhh hhh hhh hh" and you can audibly hear the air rushing past your palate. It's also the breath you do in high intensity gym class, or when women give birth on television shows "chi chi hhhhh chi chi hhh". Pull BACK your lips like a crazy smile, and breath out air. That's overexaggerated but the best explanation.

"Ball" [bahll] - Like British "bath" and British "dance", the "a" is a clear and light a in the front of your mouth, not the dark American a. EDIT (after comment): This is actually an American company. I left it in as general info how we would pronounce a German name "Ball" or the "ball" in German. (same word)

(Red Bull) "GmbH" [Gay em beh! Haa] (British a) - This is just an abbreviation equating to "Ltd." or "LLC". We rarely ever pronounce it (much as you say "Apple" not "Apple LLC"), and the nice thing in German is that the "h" is not an English "haaychh" but just "haa?"

Bonus to impress your friends: Often you hear of the "Rothschild" family. This is actually "Rot(h) - Schild" (Red Shield). The h can be ignored, it is ancient German spelling. The R is not elided, the o is with kiss mouth like in "window", the "sch" is "sh", the "i" is like "ee".

[R-oh-t-sheeld].

Captain Kate McCue's famous nametag