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France’s new high-speed trains

citylab.com

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Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#121

Post by atoav »

devcpp wrote: post #68
nerpderp82 wrote: post #55

Quote: That doesn’t necessarily mean an end to SNCF’s dominance of high-speed rail. As things stand, most TGV lines don’t turn a profit but are made feasible by subsidies, paid by a state that clearly sees the economic advantages of an extensive high-speed network. Competitors would either need to make substantial savings on operational costs, or limit themselves to the most lucrative connections, such as the profit-…

That's why it's a monopoly. The region can tell companies "who can make these lines (some profitable, some less) for the lowest subsidies, while fulfilling these other requirements?" Then the private companies compete, one wins and has to serve cake routes as well as empty ones, because the contract with the region makes them do it. Everyone wants your region? Great, you can lower the subsidies, or even tax the compa…

But you could then just go, give the same plan to different competing teams in the public railway network and you will get a similar effect. Because over all the private companies will also have to carry the cost of a lost competition to their customers.

I just don’t think it is good to give public infrastructure into the hands of any entity that has to generate profit. It is not a good idea for trains (look at the German Bahn where it now turns out they neglected infrastructure for years just to look profitable), it is not a good idea for water and not for cellular networks or internet (the German market is again a good example).

If you have a monopolist it will also leverage the fact that they are the only one. They essentially will blackmail you by strategic problems that will fall back onto you as the responsible governing body. They will put lobbyists into every possible spot and suddenly you live in a world where the only people who understand railways are on the monopolists payroll and a politician should decide about a topic they have no idea about.

And if put up too high requirements, everybody loses. In Germany the frequencies for 3G were auctioned for way to much money. How did the mobile networks compensate that loss? By essentially halting any infrastructure investment and changing the requirement from “has to reach 99% of the area” to “has to reach 99% of the households”.

The effects: broken train infrastructure with 1 in 5 trains arriving late, the worst mobile network of Europe, the slowest internet of Europe.

I am convinced a public train, mobile and internet infrastructure would be expensive — but I might get reception 10km outside of Berlin — I might be able to catch that next train and I might be able to get fibre in the middle of the German capital.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#122

Post by iagooar »

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…

> cut the number of excessive public sector workers

I remind you, that we're talking about France here, where firing people is very, very hard. And we're talking public sector here, which would be a huge offense there. Protests would be massive.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#123

Post by otabdeveloper1 »

cosmolev wrote: post #90
otabdeveloper1 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Public rail is a money-losing venture, in every country (except Hong Kong). Not in Russia. They had a $2 billion profit in 2017. It's also the third-largest rail company in the world, so yes, it can be done.

All this profit comes from freight operations. Passenger services are loss making.

No. Their passenger services had around $100 million in profits, according to their 2017 report.

Much lower margins, of course, but still profitable.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#124

Post by mcv »

vixen99 wrote: post #105
pas wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Roads that would be clogged with more passenger traffic if there was no mass transit available. Better train infrastructure isn't just good for people who take the train, it's also good for road traffic.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#125

Post by francilien »

benj111 wrote: post #92

"the train’s shorter engine (59 feet instead of the current 72) opens up as much as 20 percent more space for passengers" Does it? Why? The max percentage increase is going to be for the shortest trains, where space isn't an issue anyway. But then even ignoring that, does the driver need a platform? Why not have the two motor units overhang the platform?

It was once tried at Gare de Montparnasse, but wasn’t too successful.

Most of the TGV traffic is at Paris, where all stations in the city are terminus stations. So you’ll always have one power car at the platform and on the other side you are often constrained by signals.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#126

Post by entity345 »

ucaetano wrote: post #7

Worth remembering that France hasn't fared very well in rail competition lately: the French-Government-controlled Eurostar chose the Velaro train sets from German Siemens to replace the existing TGV-derived train sets. It sparked a national outrage (because a company controlled by the French government should, in their opinion, only buy French) and a lawsuit from Alston (who makes the TGV).

"lately"?

You are reporting something that was announced in 2010.

It should now be put into the context of the French and German governments' wish to merge Alstom with Siemens.

'Lately' (2018), Alstom signed a deal to sell TGVs to Morocco.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#127

Post by mcv »

ucaetano wrote: post #7

Worth remembering that France hasn't fared very well in rail competition lately: the French-Government-controlled Eurostar chose the Velaro train sets from German Siemens to replace the existing TGV-derived train sets. It sparked a national outrage (because a company controlled by the French government should, in their opinion, only buy French) and a lawsuit from Alston (who makes the TGV).

Eurostar trains are less comfortable than TGV trains, though.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#128

Post by ownagefool »

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…

Err UK rail was famously terrible before "privatisation".

Not that privatisation is the answer, nor that being public was at fault, but I'm not sure rewriting history is helpful.

Looking at UK water companies being privatised so their owners can stuff them full of debt to get around the profit caps is probably a better case study.

Profit percentage caps are silly because the obvious way to make more money is to make the entire service more expensive by wasting money, this increasing turnover, thus increasing the size of that 4%.

Monopolies being privatised doesn't seem super helpful either, but hey, that's the UK for you.

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#129

Post by Camillo »

> In 2021, France will be trying something completely new with its high-speed services. For the first time, rival companies will be allowed to vie with SNCF, competing with the national provider on major routes.

Completely new for France, I guess? This has been reality in Italy for years: Trenitalia and Italo both operate high-speed trains on major routes.

> In its double-decker carriages, moving around by wheelchair will be far smoother, thanks to platforms that can lift and rotate at the end of each wagon.

Why would you even want to go to the upper deck on a wheelchair?

Re: France’s new high-speed trains

#130

Post by Gibbon1 »

close04 wrote: post #120
speedplane wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Public rail is a money-losing venture, ... But it's important to have. Just how much money-losing depends on the political environment and skill of the management. Arguably, all public rail should lose money. Quality transportation is a huge economic driver of regional economies. If a rail service is making money, it likely means governments are underinvesting in their own economies.

It usually does. Actually I am not familiar with one example where public rail actually makes a profit, in real terms. All public rail systems I know or have read about are subsidized by the state either directly or via subsidizing the fare for the traveler (or both).

Years ago I read an article where the author argued that between network effects and indirect beneficiaries of transportation services markets are extremely sub-optimal. Also the value of the service varies widely as well. One box contains a toaster anotherbox contains a vital part needed to get a machine shop back up and running.
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