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The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

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Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#41

Post by alkonaut »

ido wrote: post #40
jschwartzi wrote: post #12

In the US I would take a sleeper train from Seattle to Chicago instead of a plane provided the sleeper train runs 180 mph on average. That would put me in Chicago in about 10-12 hours, meaning I could get to Union Station in Seattle, get on the train, sleep a full night, wake up, eat breakfast, and disembark in Chicago. The red-eye to Chicago, which is a comparable trip, really sucks because you only get about 3 hour…

"airfare-level prices"? In Germany and Austria my experience was that flying was generally cheaper than the train, and sleeper trains more expensive still. I'm on a (day) train between Berlin and Vienna this very minute and it costed me €99 (one way!) where as a flight would have been about €50. You can get cheaper tickets if booking well in advance (months) but the same applies to budget airlines.

> where as a flight would have been about €50.

To be fair to travel betwee Berlin and Vienna City centres you'd need to add at least a €10 in each end for ground transport.

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#42

Post by mschuster91 »

ido wrote: post #40
jschwartzi wrote: post #12

In the US I would take a sleeper train from Seattle to Chicago instead of a plane provided the sleeper train runs 180 mph on average. That would put me in Chicago in about 10-12 hours, meaning I could get to Union Station in Seattle, get on the train, sleep a full night, wake up, eat breakfast, and disembark in Chicago. The red-eye to Chicago, which is a comparable trip, really sucks because you only get about 3 hour…

"airfare-level prices"? In Germany and Austria my experience was that flying was generally cheaper than the train, and sleeper trains more expensive still. I'm on a (day) train between Berlin and Vienna this very minute and it costed me €99 (one way!) where as a flight would have been about €50. You can get cheaper tickets if booking well in advance (months) but the same applies to budget airlines.

The joke is that airfare is way too cheap compared to the damage it causes - be it noise, exhaust gases or land usage for airport infrastructure.

In addition jet fuel in Europe is tax-free which enables these ultra low prices.

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#43

Post by ido »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #27
jschwartzi wrote: post #12

In the US I would take a sleeper train from Seattle to Chicago instead of a plane provided the sleeper train runs 180 mph on average. That would put me in Chicago in about 10-12 hours, meaning I could get to Union Station in Seattle, get on the train, sleep a full night, wake up, eat breakfast, and disembark in Chicago. The red-eye to Chicago, which is a comparable trip, really sucks because you only get about 3 hour…

In the US I would take a sleeper train from Seattle to Chicago instead of a plane provided the sleeper train runs 180 mph on average. Not really doable for a lot of Austria and generally the Alpine regions. There are not many high speed tracks in Austria and Switzerland, the reason being that the countries are relatively small and that building high speed tracks through the alps is insanely expensive. Switzerland bui…

In Austria if you're traveling between big cities you're probably traveling to a neighboring country (very common to travel to Germany, Czech, Hungary, etc by rail).

Unfortunately Germany is the only neighbor with an extensive high-speed rail network that Austria has.

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#44

Post by michaelbuckbee »

One high-level design choice that they made is to entirely skip any kind of in-seat entertainment and screens and instead of plan around people showing up with their own tablets and phones (to which they provide power). This makes immense sense to me and I'm sure simplifies things on their side.

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#45

Post by alkonaut »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #27
jschwartzi wrote: post #12

In the US I would take a sleeper train from Seattle to Chicago instead of a plane provided the sleeper train runs 180 mph on average. That would put me in Chicago in about 10-12 hours, meaning I could get to Union Station in Seattle, get on the train, sleep a full night, wake up, eat breakfast, and disembark in Chicago. The red-eye to Chicago, which is a comparable trip, really sucks because you only get about 3 hour…

In the US I would take a sleeper train from Seattle to Chicago instead of a plane provided the sleeper train runs 180 mph on average. Not really doable for a lot of Austria and generally the Alpine regions. There are not many high speed tracks in Austria and Switzerland, the reason being that the countries are relatively small and that building high speed tracks through the alps is insanely expensive. Switzerland bui…

> Not really doable for a lot of Austria and generally the Alpine regions.

On the other hand that distance is a lot smaller than Chicago-Seattle (4x) so the lack of high speed in the alpine region isn't as noticable for a night train because the distances are much shorter. The thing about sleeper trains is that you need the distance to be 8-15 hours. If it's less than 8h you'd get uncomfortable departure or arrival times. 10h for Zurich-Vienna is perfect for a sleeper.

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#46

Post by alkonaut »

distances wrote: post #14
Freak_NL wrote: post #4

Österreichische Bundesbahnen (ÖBB) took over all remaining sleepers run by Deutsche Bahn (DB) some years ago. One downside of this was the dropping of the Amsterdam–Munich sleeper — ÖBB's nexus lies in Vienna. The Netherlands currently has no sleeper trains, which is rather unfortunate, because the sleeper train appears to gaining in popularity after a period of decline. Increasingly, people want to avoid flying if r…

Then problem of price still remains before wide popularity for sleepers or even just long daytrips. I'd love to use trains more often, but I'm not willing to pay through the nose. A trip in Central Europe I recently booked would've been over twice the price with a train, with maybe a couple of hours longer travel time when accounting for airport trips and waiting. Second class, just a daytime journey without sleeping…

The EU should force a carbon tax on plane fuel for intra-EU flights and subsidize rail with the money.

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#47

Post by undersuit »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #27
jschwartzi wrote: post #12

In the US I would take a sleeper train from Seattle to Chicago instead of a plane provided the sleeper train runs 180 mph on average. That would put me in Chicago in about 10-12 hours, meaning I could get to Union Station in Seattle, get on the train, sleep a full night, wake up, eat breakfast, and disembark in Chicago. The red-eye to Chicago, which is a comparable trip, really sucks because you only get about 3 hour…

In the US I would take a sleeper train from Seattle to Chicago instead of a plane provided the sleeper train runs 180 mph on average. Not really doable for a lot of Austria and generally the Alpine regions. There are not many high speed tracks in Austria and Switzerland, the reason being that the countries are relatively small and that building high speed tracks through the alps is insanely expensive. Switzerland bui…

TBF the Rockies are no easy passage either. Amtrak runs on the Hi-Line year round, over 2200 miles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_Builder

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#49

Post by _ak »

ido wrote: post #40
jschwartzi wrote: post #12

In the US I would take a sleeper train from Seattle to Chicago instead of a plane provided the sleeper train runs 180 mph on average. That would put me in Chicago in about 10-12 hours, meaning I could get to Union Station in Seattle, get on the train, sleep a full night, wake up, eat breakfast, and disembark in Chicago. The red-eye to Chicago, which is a comparable trip, really sucks because you only get about 3 hour…

"airfare-level prices"? In Germany and Austria my experience was that flying was generally cheaper than the train, and sleeper trains more expensive still. I'm on a (day) train between Berlin and Vienna this very minute and it costed me €99 (one way!) where as a flight would have been about €50. You can get cheaper tickets if booking well in advance (months) but the same applies to budget airlines.

In Germany, jet fuel is untaxed, whereas train companies have to pay tax on electricity, in particular renewable energy. Also, VAT is handled differently: if you buy a flight from Germany to another country, only a portion of what you paid for your plane ticket is taxed at German VAT rate, but for train tickets, 100% of the ticket price is taxed with the German VAT rate. These are several factors that make it quite a bit harder for the railway to compete with short-distance flights.

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#50

Post by [deleted] »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #38
jschwartzi wrote: post #12

In the US I would take a sleeper train from Seattle to Chicago instead of a plane provided the sleeper train runs 180 mph on average. That would put me in Chicago in about 10-12 hours, meaning I could get to Union Station in Seattle, get on the train, sleep a full night, wake up, eat breakfast, and disembark in Chicago. The red-eye to Chicago, which is a comparable trip, really sucks because you only get about 3 hour…

Taking the night train between London and Edinburgh used to me and my partners absolute favourite way of making that journey. If you get yourself into a deep enough sleep (admittedly I didn't always manage) it can feel like magic to wake up at your destination having wasted no useful time; having not been irradiated or felt up; and not being subject to enforced retail operations.

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