True, there is not yet teleportation. But currently we do have the technology to travel across an entire continent in less than a year. If you think about it, that is what the railroads do. Because most of the turns in this game are equal to a year or more (as much as fifty). How long would it take you to travel from Europe to China by rail in 2004? If it is less than 1 year, then the railroads are realistic for the vanilla game. For railroads to be unrealistic, you would probably need to measure your turns in days rather than months or years.