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France’s new high-speed trains

citylab.com

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Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#101

Post by morsch »

realusername wrote: post #34
ucaetano wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It all depends, some industries are just not working privately, the privatization of electricity in France was also a failure for example. The privatization of the post system was also a failure but it matters less since the postal system is less important nowadays. That doesn't have anything to do with protectionism. Are you confusing protectionism with state-owned companies? > For the trains, the core issue here…

> That doesn't have anything to do with protectionism. Are you confusing protectionism with state-owned companies? No I don't, I'm going to explain how the public train service works, it works by subsidising the unprofitable parts with the profitable parts. Which private train company would like to take an unprofitable train line? If you can find one, good luck. > Rail networks in the EU are becoming open as well (wh…

SNCF has been closing local/rural train stations? The exact same thing has been happening in Germany for decades.

It's just bad federal policy, both in terms of allocation of funds for transportation as well as in terms of how they lead these publically owned train operators. And it's even possible to argue it's fine (I don't think it is), which is why it happened in the first place. Also: cars.

France, if anything, has always been even more enamored with fast trains to the detriment of anything else - iirc the TGV has a much more exclusive network than the ICE. That's money not spent on rural networks.

Anyway, I think the EU has very little to do with it. I've been following the debate for a long time and it's basically never come up.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#102

Post by atoav »

pathseeker wrote: post #70
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…

>That's what "public" means. No, that's not what that means. "public" is just the only place a money-losing venture can continue in perpetuity. It's very easy for governments to have self-sustaining programs. They are still "public" but they bring in enough money to pay for themselves.

Public means it is a service all citizen (aka the public) should benifit from. That doesn’t mean it is free of some sort of fee (see public libraries), but it also means it must be available to everyone (see public school).

A good public train network returns a lot of money indirectly, because it keeps all sorts of people mobile and therefore makes it easier for them to fill free positions. And in some areas (e.g. in the Alps) a good rail service is a huge multiplicator for tourism which means a whole industry profits from a cheap and well working train network.

The most important aspect of a public transport system is that it works well, is affordable and without disruptive changes can be so in 20 years time. The goal should be to reach these targets with efficiency.

I am not convinced that privatized railways offer any benefit for the public — they tend to grab all sorts of public money while closing lines that leave part of the public isolated, because there is not much profit to be made. In practise this can be observed in multiple nations. And public train networks have competition: busses.

In nations where people don’t rely as much on public transport (e.g. the US) it is only natural to come the conclusion that railways should be lead like private companies. People have cars anyways, gas is cheap, there is no real public transport network you need to compete with.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#103

Post by Symbiote »

fabianhjr wrote: post #52

¿Anyone knows why SNCF/Alstom keep favoring two locomotives over an EMU design like the Stadler KISS 200? Seems like more passenger space would also help reduce per-passenger cost and increase efficiency. (Speed difference aside; the current Alstom Euroduplex does 300 kmph and the Stadler KISS 200 does 200 kmph)

Locomotive hauled trains are quieter, as the passengers aren't near motors or the vibrations they cause.

As a passenger, I prefer them.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#105

Post by vixen99 »

pas wrote: post #72
jdietrich wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 basical…

The same doesn't go for roads. I might not have a car but my life would be severely impacted if local providers of goods and services including public ones, can't use roads.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#106

Post by eloisant »

jabl wrote: post #79
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…

> 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 Th…

Netherland is a small country, they don't need bullet trains.

The distance from Paris to Marseille is close to 800km, you'd better have a bullet train if you don't want the trip to take a full day.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#107

Post by moviuro »

aidenn0 wrote: post #43
microcolonel wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In French pronunciation the two first vowels are really different ("ennui" in French starts with a nasal 'a' sound which doesn't resemble an 'i' at all, to French ears at least). Yeah, I was confused when I tried to understand the connection they were trying to make. > Another point missed by the article is that in French "ennui" usually doesn't have the philosophical undertones that it has in English. Fatty liver…

At my D&D table we pronounced "Coup de grâce" as someone french might pronounce "Coup de gras" for years the latter of which translates to something along the lines of "Blow of fat (or grease)" (rather than "Blow of mercy") [edit] For non-francophones, the correct pronunciation is roughly "Koo day grass" and we were saying "Koo day grah"

Hmm, more like "Koo de grass", where "e" is pronounced as in "err" (hesitation): listen to https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=fr&t...

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#108

Post by carlob »

niea_11 wrote: post #62
ambicapter wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For english speakers, "composting" here means punching a ticket. I never understood where the word came from, and I'm a native French speaker.

Apparently the meaning doesn't come from the verb but from the italian word : "compositore" (according to wikitionary [1] and the larousse dictionary [2]) (again in [1]) "compositore" from italian is equivalent to "compositeur" in french which can mean "a person that writes music" but can also mean "a typographer or compositor". [1] : https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/composteur [2] : https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnair…

Funnily enough the word we use for stamping tickets in Italian is vidimare which comes from vidimus (seen) in Latin, so it's actually closer to visa in etymology.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#109

Post by Vinnl »

jabl wrote: post #79
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…

> 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 Th…

> Just curious, what are they doing in the Netherlands?

The Netherlands has a tracks company (ProRail) and several railroad companies, by far the largest one being National Rail (NS).

That said, that's one of the most criticised points of the Dutch construction, and whenever something's wrong, there's a lot of finger pointing going around (although that seems to have lessened a bit recently). NS and ProRail would like to merge though.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#110

Post by atoav »

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…

In Austria many people commute to Vienna via train, which as a nice side effect reduces the number of cars in the city.

As an Austrian in Germany who used trains regularily to go back and forth I can assure you that it is not rare to see workers in full clothes with toolboxes and stuff in trains. Most regular people look like office workers, families and you will always spot a few upper class managment people.

The mixture depends entirely on your timing. If you use the train only during the holidays or weekends, you might get a very distorted image of who uses these trains on a day to day basis.

But trains as a mode of transportation for the wealthy? Might be that way in the UK (I wasn’there a lot), but certainly not in the other parts of Europe.

In Germany and Austria you will see a mix of people that sort of represents the society as a whole (in terms of wealth.

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