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France’s new high-speed trains

citylab.com

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Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#71

Post by 7952 »

jdietrich wrote: post #59
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really not a fair reflection. Privatisation came after nearly 20 years of Tory under investment and far from adequate under several administrations previously. It was, by the time of Major, a very predictable and well-worn trope. What better way to "prove" your lawn needs a private mowing service than barely mowing the lawn for a decade or two? It's quite easy to see why rolling stock was far beyond expected l…

Rail subsidies are highly regressive. The rail network primarily connects cities to cities via relatively affluent suburbs. If you live on a council estate and work in a factory, it's highly unlikely that you have the option of commuting by rail. Very few workers with below-average incomes have the need to travel from Manchester to London for a meeting. Rail travel is inherently more expensive than other modes and al…

At least in London rail let's people avoid higher house prices by having a longer commute. But that expands the commuter belt, and raises prices for everyone else. It would be better if people could live closer to work.

I think they should use subsidy to make shorter local journeys free or very cheap. Include bus travel also. Ramp up the prices on longer journeys. They could also help out regional airlines to take strain of the rail network.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#72

Post by pas »

jdietrich wrote: post #59
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really not a fair reflection. Privatisation came after nearly 20 years of Tory under investment and far from adequate under several administrations previously. It was, by the time of Major, a very predictable and well-worn trope. What better way to "prove" your lawn needs a private mowing service than barely mowing the lawn for a decade or two? It's quite easy to see why rolling stock was far beyond expected l…

Rail subsidies are highly regressive. The rail network primarily connects cities to cities via relatively affluent suburbs. If you live on a council estate and work in a factory, it's highly unlikely that you have the option of commuting by rail. Very few workers with below-average incomes have the need to travel from Manchester to London for a meeting. Rail travel is inherently more expensive than other modes and al…

> Why should taxpayers subsidise a mode of travel that is inherently used primarily by the wealthy?

Well, the same goes for roads. Some people don't even have a car, and wealthy people move around a lot more in cars.

But it turns out wealthy people do a lot more of a lot of things, especially move around, because they have money to do so.

And were travel cheaper probably more people would do so.

So, taxpayers basically pay for the ability to have a network that allows them to travel a bit.

In some countries low income folks get cheaper tickets. Also high income folk pay a lot more taxes.

All in all, it'd be great to merge the high speed rail and ordinary road bus networks, and just maintain and subsidize that one, and have more socially fair pricing.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#73

Post by pas »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #44
jdietrich wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protectionism is usually an inferior policy option that makes everyone poorer. It amounts to a state subsidy of uncompetitive industries, redirecting resources away from other, more productive parts of the domestic economy. Investing in local industry is perfectly wise. A country that has a skilled workforce, good infrastructure and efficient capital flows is likely to be highly competitive on an international level.…

That’s fair. And, if we take a global / universal perspective it makes sense to optimise production where it’s most economical. I guess my wider point is: we ignore nationalistic sentiment to our own detriment, as evidenced by Brexit. We probably ought to consider there is a spectrum rather than an either/or.

> we ignore nationalistic sentiment to our own detriment, as evidenced by Brexit.

What do you mean by this? Could you explain this a bit please?

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#74

Post by adrianN »

simula67 wrote: post #63
supernova87a wrote: post #31

SNCF is fiddling with the wrong things. It doesn't need to separate train operations from rail track network maintenance. It doesn't need to open up the network to competition. What it needs to do is cut the number of excessive public sector workers, reduce costs, and stop running the business like a political arm of the government. I can bet that the reason they think they need to do all these things is that cost pr…

> Public rail is a money-losing venture, in every country (except Hong Kong). That's what "public" means. But it's important to have Why ? I wish connectivity to airports here in India would improve and railways would just die

For many connections that are less than 500km or so apart, a train is faster than a plane. A good rail network also connects smaller towns that don't have an airport. It can also be used to transport goods. All these uses would have to be replaced by cars and trucks if you'd only focus on planes, that's not very good for the environment.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#75

Post by acchow »

supernova87a wrote: post #31

SNCF is fiddling with the wrong things. It doesn't need to separate train operations from rail track network maintenance. It doesn't need to open up the network to competition. What it needs to do is cut the number of excessive public sector workers, reduce costs, and stop running the business like a political arm of the government. I can bet that the reason they think they need to do all these things is that cost pr…

Hong Kong's is profitable mostly because it is run as a real estate company. They acquire land before adding a metro station and then lease/sell the valuable land after adding the station.

Why don't other cities do this?

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#76

Post by rswail »

supernova87a wrote: post #31

SNCF is fiddling with the wrong things. It doesn't need to separate train operations from rail track network maintenance. It doesn't need to open up the network to competition. What it needs to do is cut the number of excessive public sector workers, reduce costs, and stop running the business like a political arm of the government. I can bet that the reason they think they need to do all these things is that cost pr…

"Public rail is a money-losing venture"

So are public schools, public hospitals and national defence. But they are enablers of everything else that we do and the actual purpose of government and taxes.

Public transport needs to be as efficient as it can be while providing the services needed. There are additional benefits like providing a training environment for trades, ensuring that a heavy engineering skillbase is maintained, social cohesiveness and equality of opportunity to remote populations etc.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#77

Post by lultimouomo »

adrianN wrote: post #74
simula67 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Public rail is a money-losing venture, in every country (except Hong Kong). That's what "public" means. But it's important to have Why ? I wish connectivity to airports here in India would improve and railways would just die

For many connections that are less than 500km or so apart, a train is faster than a plane. A good rail network also connects smaller towns that don't have an airport. It can also be used to transport goods. All these uses would have to be replaced by cars and trucks if you'd only focus on planes, that's not very good for the environment.

Also, a 4 hour travel door-to-door on a plane means:

* Half an hour to go to the airport

* Half an hour passing security and waiting for boarding

* 20 minutes between boarding and stable flight when you can start working on your laptop

* One hour and 40 minutes when you can work cramped in a noisy environment with terrible air quality

* 15 minutes descent and landing

* 15 minutes deboarding and getting out of the airport

* Half an hour to get where you need to be

Same trip by train:

* Half an hour till you are on the train

* 3 hours working comfortably in a usually bigger space with ground level air pressure and very little noise

* Half an hour to get where you need to be.

Travel in reasonably modern trains is by far the best kind of business travel you can have today, IMO.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#78

Post by mamon »

baroffoos wrote: post #64
ams6110 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a writer, one writes for one's audience. It's a US publication, targeting mainly US readers. Using metric units would be less understandable. It's not like the reason high speed rail doesn't work in the US is because we talk about speed in miles per hour.

Its part of the US attitude of ignoring modern engineering

I would argue that most of modern engineering originates in USA, with possible exception of automotive industry :)

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#79

Post by jabl »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #51
jdietrich wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>UK tried this sort of thing and it left everyone with a shittier experience, though they could claim that they successfully privatized the industry -- everyone knows that's a total lie. Passenger volumes have more than doubled since privatisation, after a long period of stagnation under nationalisation. While walk-on fares have increased above the rate of inflation, advance fares are substantially cheaper. The suppo…

That's really not a fair reflection. Privatisation came after nearly 20 years of Tory under investment and far from adequate under several administrations previously. It was, by the time of Major, a very predictable and well-worn trope. What better way to "prove" your lawn needs a private mowing service than barely mowing the lawn for a decade or two? It's quite easy to see why rolling stock was far beyond expected l…

> Separating track, rolling stock and station building into three different companies was nuts. Public subsidy plummeted after privatisation, until inadequate maintenance was identified as cause of the Hatfield crash. Then reached never before seen peaks. They're still fiddling around to try and remove the systemic consequences of how it was privatised. Nothing that even slightly resembles the integrated transport The Netherlands can manage.

Just curious, what are they doing in the Netherlands?

One argument I've heard from people who seem to know more about railroading than me (not a very high bar to meet, but...) is that superficial similarities aside, tracks + trains as a business is very different from roads + vehicles. The track-train "interface" is much tighter and there are much bigger advantages to vertical integration (same entity owns and operates both tracks and trains). For a simple example, what is the "optimal" penalty that the train operator should pay to the track operator if a train breaks down, causing chaos in the entire network? I.e. how do you structure the incentives for the different companies so that the outcome for the entire system is optimal? For roads this isn't much of a consideration, if a truck breaks down other traffic can pass it.

If so, it would mean the EU & UK approach of separating the track and train companies is very foolish.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#80

Post by riffraff »

adrianN wrote: post #74
simula67 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Public rail is a money-losing venture, in every country (except Hong Kong). That's what "public" means. But it's important to have Why ? I wish connectivity to airports here in India would improve and railways would just die

For many connections that are less than 500km or so apart, a train is faster than a plane. A good rail network also connects smaller towns that don't have an airport. It can also be used to transport goods. All these uses would have to be replaced by cars and trucks if you'd only focus on planes, that's not very good for the environment.

With fast trains, even >500km is better than airplanes, since you go from city center to city center and don't have to be at the airport in advance.

In Italy, the Milan-Rome (570km, 2.5/3 hours) fast trains have been making a killing for years.

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