Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains • Hacker News Board

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#231

Post by pimmen » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 12:12 PM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #181

My experience is that flying inside Europe tends to be cheaper than long-distance train. Does anyone here whether it's simply intrinsically cheaper, or whether it's all because of kerosine subsidies etc? In other words, if countries would subsidize long-distance train as much as they subsidize air flight, would the economics look different? Would train get substantially cheaper? I lack both the insight and the data t…

Europe has extremely cheap prizes because the big airlines are trying to compete with the budget airlines. The real question is "why are budget airlines so cheap in Europe (they often cost about a third of what a budget ticket in the US would cost)?". Well, lots and lots and lots of reasons why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=069y1MpOkQY

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#232

Post by scraft » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 12:14 PM UTC

avolcano wrote: post #12

Excited about this idea. I wanted to do an overnight train in a Europe trip I did last year, but the timing and quality never quite worked out. A lot of the time, trains between cities in western Europe are annoyingly long for a day trip, but slightly _too short_ for overnight trips - almost like an NYC->London red-eye, where you arrive just after you fall asleep. The couple of overnight trains I saw that seemed like…

I have visited every country in the EU, a lot of which by train, it has been a thing my friends and I have done over the last 10 years, going to a few countries each year, trying to use public transport where it is reasonable. Along the way, I have been on a number of overnight trains and a number of overnight ferries and I personally highly rate the experience. There is something almost romantic about falling asleep one place and waking up somewhere else. But also the social aspect, head down to the bar cart on the train, have a beer, chat to other people, most people are a lot more open to chating than normal and you find out about their life, their reason for travel and sometimes even end up seeing them once you arrive at your destination. On top of that, planes are typically really noisy (from the engine), cramped, and just difficult (okay, business class is a fair bit better and I can only assume 1st class even more so) where as the train is quiet and just a nice way to relax either on the way back from somewhere on to build the excitement when heading somewhere!

Then again, I have also travelled the length of the Trans-Mongolian railway (St Petersburg to Beijing) and across the States (California to New York) by sleeper train!

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#233

Post by geolgau » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 12:30 PM UTC

krn wrote: post #92

Western Europe is very different from Eastern Europe in this case. In Western Europe, low-cost flights and buses essentially won the market. But there are not as many direct flights between Central and Eastern European cities, and the roads are often not that good, either. Therefore, in any direction from Budapest overnight trains are still very popular, and in countries like Ukraine it's probably the single most imp…

Never try to travel with a train in Romania. The infrastructure is totally wrecked. Trains are always late, even when weather is perfect, but if you're coming during summer you'll be late because "the rails are too hot" and in winter you're late because of the cold. It's a shame - we've reached the level where the average speed for trains is around 30km/h, lower than 50 years ago. Also, the trains are dirty and people inconsiderate of anyone else but their companions.

At the same time, I was delighted to travel with trains in Czech Republic when I lived there for one year. Not sure about other Eastern European countries.

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#234

Post by njepa » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 12:33 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #225

Shivetya wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

trains are even more heavily subsidized so I don't understand the comment. the EU restricts subsidizing airlines and similar at all but the smallest fields and even has pursued having some airlines refund monies giving to them in violation of the rules. There are tax breaks in the form of not paying VAT for domestic flight routes but overall the cost for all air travel breaks is less than twenty billion Euros whereas…

> the EU restricts subsidizing airlines I didn't mean subsidized in the sens of "tax money is given to airlines" I meant energy taxes for other means of transportation are much higher than for airplane fuel, which pay very low CO2 taxes compared e.g. to cars. That is: they are given an advantage through the CO2 taxation. If planes paid for their CO2 emissions, we'd be closer to having the train be cheaper than flying…

Unfortunately it isn't unexpected. It has been pretty clear that the current policy is favoring older domestic businesses over the cluster based "knowledge economy". The opportunity cost of having Bromma Airport taking up useful land is enormous. So is not investing in regional development.

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#235

Post by FabHK » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 12:45 PM UTC

readhn wrote: post #167

p2t2p wrote: post #146

So back in Russia a trip from my home town to Moscow on a plane takes about 6 hours in total. - get to the airport about 1 hour in advance - about 1.5 hour drive - The flight with all the procedures takes about 2 hours - All the exit procedures can take up to 0.5 hours easily if no longer - Wait for a train and ride to the city on the train - about 1 hour. - Once in the city get on subway and ride to destination - us…

it would be fun to take a trans-siberian rail ... except it takes like what ...7 days? eats up vacation time pretty quickly.

I've taken the TransSib (or TransMongolian, in this case) from Ulaanbaatar to Moscow. It's pretty much 4 days, just short of 100 hours. No showers, and the restaurant car was so-so; I mostly ate nuts and snacks: the train would stop some 10 minutes or so at stations, and there were kiosks on the platform to stock up. You really need to take some good books or good friends.

BTW, "The Man in Seat 61" has lots of info on it:

https://www.seat61.com/Trans-Siberian.htm

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#236

Post by anticensor » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 12:52 PM UTC

p2t2p wrote: post #146

So back in Russia a trip from my home town to Moscow on a plane takes about 6 hours in total. - get to the airport about 1 hour in advance - about 1.5 hour drive - The flight with all the procedures takes about 2 hours - All the exit procedures can take up to 0.5 hours easily if no longer - Wait for a train and ride to the city on the train - about 1 hour. - Once in the city get on subway and ride to destination - us…

> No check-ins, luggage management, no nothing.

RZD started checked luggage recently.

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#237

Post by glenneroo » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 1:10 PM UTC

tellak wrote: post #58

alehul wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a private room, bathroom, and shower What trains have you found that offer this? As an American unaccustomed to such trains, I'd be super interested to try them.

You do realize that Amtrak long distance routes offer such accommodations? I mean yeah, the trains themselves are slow as shit and might not go where you want, but superliners and viewliners have some interesting accommodations.

Train pricing is utterly insane, I have tried the last few years to find an affordable alternative to flying/driving by searching for long-distance or overnight Amtrak options (for Southwest area), but have consistently failed to find tickets less than $500, regardless of time of year.

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#238

Post by Symbiote » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 1:14 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #224

krn wrote: post #92

Western Europe is very different from Eastern Europe in this case. In Western Europe, low-cost flights and buses essentially won the market. But there are not as many direct flights between Central and Eastern European cities, and the roads are often not that good, either. Therefore, in any direction from Budapest overnight trains are still very popular, and in countries like Ukraine it's probably the single most imp…

The airlines have basically put trains out of business in Western Europe. Currently you cannot get from one end of Denmark to the other for a morning meeting by train. Last time I checked the only way to have a 9:00 meeting in the center of Copenhagen, leaving from Aalborg (400km away) is by leaving at 23:00 the day before. It's a 6.5 hour train ride. Flying is 20 minutes and you have multiple departures and airlines…

> When people talk about how great trains are in Europe

When people generalize across Europe, which you've just done, it should often be ignored. They tend to pick the best or worst examples.

Denmark (and Greece) have the least favourable geography for land transport. That favours flying, but doesn't mean flying from Nuremburg to Berlin is necessarily the best option.

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#239

Post by kaybe » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 1:22 PM UTC

jbverschoor wrote: post #209

PaulHoule wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent a year in Germany circa 1999 and then overnight trains were all the rage. For instance, Dresden to Amsterdam was an easy and inexpensive trip. Going east you could get to Budapest, going south to Innsbruck, etc. At that point an American in Europe would ride the train as much as he could, but the Europeans I knew thought taking a plane was cooler and it was a good experience because the plane had competition…

Train tickets are simply too expensive compared to flights. Sometimes over 3-4 times.

Just like with flights, you have to book early enough and check different times, and then additionally get the discount cards, and then you're looking at comparable prices quite often.

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#240

Post by kakwa_ » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 1:24 PM UTC

scraft wrote: post #232

avolcano wrote: post #12

Excited about this idea. I wanted to do an overnight train in a Europe trip I did last year, but the timing and quality never quite worked out. A lot of the time, trains between cities in western Europe are annoyingly long for a day trip, but slightly _too short_ for overnight trips - almost like an NYC->London red-eye, where you arrive just after you fall asleep. The couple of overnight trains I saw that seemed like…

I have visited every country in the EU, a lot of which by train, it has been a thing my friends and I have done over the last 10 years, going to a few countries each year, trying to use public transport where it is reasonable. Along the way, I have been on a number of overnight trains and a number of overnight ferries and I personally highly rate the experience. There is something almost romantic about falling asleep…

Traveling by train across Europe, specially if you are going from one city to the next, is quite nice.

On great way to do that is to buy an interrail pass: https://www.interrail.eu/en/interrail-passes/global-pass

I did it about 10 years ago when I was a student, I left the day before, with a backpack, a rough idea of the itinerary and a few tourist guide books, and visited in the course of 3 weeks Bruxelles, Bruges, Amsterdam, Lubeck, Copenhagen and Berlin (and a small stop in Cologne).

Definitely something I would recommend to any student in Europe.