How Can Germany's High-Speed Trains Get Back on Track?
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Re: How Can Germany's High-Speed Trains Get Back on Track?
#2I wonder how many more decades before we get high-speed rail in the US... I've been on the trains in France and Japan and it's a great way to travel.
Re: How Can Germany's High-Speed Trains Get Back on Track?
#3this article is a good demonstration of the all-or-nothing big-government requirements of high speed rail.
In the two countries which have working, effective, high speed rail networks (France and Japan) it cost billions, took many years and required 100% government commitment to achieve. Only a few countries have the political setup to achieve something like that.
Re: How Can Germany's High-Speed Trains Get Back on Track?
#4I wonder how many more decades before we get high-speed rail in the US... I've been on the trains in France and Japan and it's a great way to travel.
I've got the somewhat unpopular opinion that its probably too late for us Americans to put something like that together. I live in DC and have witnessed the nearly 2 decades of political whinging it took to get started on a 20 mile extension of DC's already sorry little system out to the airport.
It would take a change in attitude so radical to get national high speed rail to a decent number of cities that I'm not sure it can be done. Perhaps the end of cheap oil could do it in a generation or two?
For good or bad, we've cast our lot with asphalt tracks and rubber wheels.
Re: How Can Germany's High-Speed Trains Get Back on Track?
#5A accurate portrayal of the problems, but I would very much like to add that actually going to places with a ICE really is a joy. I always prefer it to traveling by car, even if I have to travel some part of the way with a slower regional train.
(That might be because traveling by train is just plain cool, period. I once took that Russian night train to Krakow – that was a unique experience.)
Re: How Can Germany's High-Speed Trains Get Back on Track?
#6I wonder how many more decades before we get high-speed rail in the US... I've been on the trains in France and Japan and it's a great way to travel.
It will NEVER happen due to the lack of a sustainable economic model for passenger service.
The U.S. lacks both the population density and the dearth of a legacy bulk airline/airport network to make large-scale roll-out of high-speed rail service viable.
That said, I'd still be the first one to vote FOR a referendum on a build-out. Journeying by train is real, civilized travel. Outside of private charter service and PLSes, travel by air is mere transport.
Re: How Can Germany's High-Speed Trains Get Back on Track?
#7I wonder how many more decades before we get high-speed rail in the US... I've been on the trains in France and Japan and it's a great way to travel.
I've got the somewhat unpopular opinion that its probably too late for us Americans to put something like that together. I live in DC and have witnessed the nearly 2 decades of political whinging it took to get started on a 20 mile extension of DC's already sorry little system out to the airport. It would take a change in attitude so radical to get national high speed rail to a decent number of cities that I'm not su…
As a D.C. metro resident (living in NoVA), I share your pain. When I moved, I made sure to live close to at least 1 airport (ended up being IAD) for that verysame reason.
Re: How Can Germany's High-Speed Trains Get Back on Track?
#8At this point, for europe it might just be a better idea to let the TGV network grow outwards from France. It's already started to spread its tendrils in other countries anyway.
Not that the network is that good in France though, Paris-Lyon-Marseilles has been nice for years, the connection to Lilles (and now to Bruxelles in Belgium as well) and to London via the channel tunnel is nice, a line recently opened to the east of the country (Strasbourg) but the TGV network has a few glaring issues:
* Everything goes through Paris. Lyon-Paris takes 3 hours, Paris-Strasbourg take about the same time, but a direct from Lyon to Strasbourg (not via Paris) takes 6 hours even though there is pretty much the same distance (~450km) betweem all of them (yep, Paris-Lyon-Strasbourg almost forms an equilateral triangle). Likewise Paris-Marseille (800km) takes 4h but Marseille-Nice (south-east to south-east but further east, 200km) will be 3h30
* There are no LGV (high-speed train lines) to western France, they stop at Le Mans and Tours (200~250km from Paris) so travelling from Paris to Marseille (800km) takes 4h, and Paris to Bordeaux (550km) will take you 4h as well (as the TGV has to use regular lines for half the travel). Paris to Toulouse (670km direct, 780km via Bordeaux) will waste at least 7h (TGV to Bordeaux then regional train).
Thankfully this is changing, there are new lines in the work and projected to start solving this issue (see dotted lines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:France_TGV.png) and overall TGV is awesome, but it's nowhere near perfect right now.
PS: I note that my timings differ from Spiegel's, I got mine from the SNCF database so...
PPS: For those unfamiliar with french geography and cities, Paris is of course the french capital (inner city population 2.2M, 11.7M including suburbs), Marseilles is France's second biggest city (852k inner, 1.6M metro), Lyon comes third (472k inner but 1.75M metro), Toulouse is the fourth biggest (437k inner, 1.1M metro), Nice stands at 5th (348k inner, 990k metro), Strasbourg 7th (273k inner, 638k metro) and Bordeaux is 9th (250k inner, 1M metro)
Re: How Can Germany's High-Speed Trains Get Back on Track?
#9I wonder how many more decades before we get high-speed rail in the US... I've been on the trains in France and Japan and it's a great way to travel.
It will NEVER happen due to the lack of a sustainable economic model for passenger service. The U.S. lacks both the population density and the dearth of a legacy bulk airline/airport network to make large-scale roll-out of high-speed rail service viable. That said, I'd still be the first one to vote FOR a referendum on a build-out. Journeying by train is real, civilized travel. Outside of private charter service and…
> The U.S. lacks both the population density and the dearth of a legacy bulk airline/airport network to make large-scale roll-out of high-speed rail service viable.
As a whole yes, but that's not really relevant. The US have several big metropolitan areas or groups for which HSR would be perfect: the western corridor between San Diego and SF, the north-east around NY, Ohio (Chicago area), ...
Is HSR competitive for NYC-SF? Hell no, not with current techs anyway, but for Chicago-Saint Louis or NYC-Washington? You bet (the question of whether a market exists in this place is another issue).
The idea is not that HSR can replace air travel as a whole. It can't. But more locally, it is able to much improve the situation in places where it applies, and there are quite a few of those in the US.
The bigger issue in the US is the dislike for trains and the car culture. In the 50s, when Japan and France were thinking about trains (as efficient ways of moving large numbers), the US were investing in roads and cars and in the 60s air travel took of insanely, meanwhile the train was left in the dust when it wasn't knowingly strangled. And through these, Suburbia was born. One of the biggest advantages of train is that it connects city centers (where airport usually require further connection work to reach the cities), and suburbia means deserted and useless city centers.
Re: How Can Germany's High-Speed Trains Get Back on Track?
#10A accurate portrayal of the problems, but I would very much like to add that actually going to places with a ICE really is a joy. I always prefer it to traveling by car, even if I have to travel some part of the way with a slower regional train. (That might be because traveling by train is just plain cool, period. I once took that Russian night train to Krakow – that was a unique experience.)
I love trains, too. Using high speed rail to see my parents is one the favourite things about my decision to move back to Germany.
ICEs are great and it is such a shame that the network is so patchy. When they actually do go up to speed it's thrilling.