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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

#141

Post by Dunedan »

ianbooker wrote: post #138

Finally I see someone realizing the "hovering" seats in a train. Anytime I sit in a train, I wonder why they have not done so for the last 30 years or so. While they state its for luggage and design purposes, I just think: Its so much easier to clean. Even automatically ;)

> Anytime I sit in a train, I wonder why they have not done so for the last 30 years or so.

My guess: Ease of installation and for stability reasons. Bolting the seats to the outer frame probably requires much more consideration than simply bolting them to the floor.

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

#142

Post by nathankunicki »

munificent wrote: post #99

I recently took a train from Seattle to Portland with my family. One difference compared to flying that it took me a while to realize was how amazingly quiet it is. On a plane, the engines are right there out on the wing screaming and conducting that sound directly into the airframe next to you. With a train, the engine is way up front, hundreds of yards a way, separated by several linkages. The end result is that a…

Worth noting that trains with a locomotive up front are quite rare these days (although most common in the US - Amtrak Acela notwithstanding).

Most of the rest of the world has gone down the "multiple unit" route, where there are smaller motors in each car, under your feet, and there are no dedicated locomotives.

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

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

#143

Post by improbable22 »

deanclatworthy wrote: post #134
em-bee wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

trains longer than the station would double the time at each stop. that's not acceptable. but also, most stations are not designed to have trains longer than the station. a station usually has more platforms than the two rails that feed it. an overlong train would frequently block other trains coming in at other platforms. the only thing that would work is to have two trains on the same route in a short delay from ea…

Two trains would suit me just fine. Or three. As long as they are serving customers I don't see the problem. I'd guess people weren't using them because they are so cramped and uncomfortable. I would bet they could be economical and comfortable when the whole process is designed from scratch. I don't think this exercise feels like that.

You should think that the cost is basically per floor area. The cars are already as light as they are willing to go (for crash safety etc). The minimum acceptable space gets you to a price that a trainload of people per day can afford.

The beds with their own screens look nicer than the ones in trains I've taken (and at comparable density) and far far nicer than anything in the air I've ever had. (Also nicer than the airport lounges I've slept in between flights...) There are also private cabins which I'm sure cost double.

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

#144

Post by c22 »

bluGill wrote: post #131
ceejayoz wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A one way train ticket for that route is $36. The same trip via car takes about the same amount of time and $20 in gas. Don't forget wear and tear on the car, though. The IRS sets mileage at 58 cents/mile. That's $100 for Seattle to Portland.

Most of the costs of a car are fixed once you own it. Wear and tears per mile is actually small. Insurance is the same for a car driven 7000 miles a year as one driven 30,000. there is a small discount for less than 7000 miles/year, but it is still fixed. Likewise the car payment doesn't change at all. The IRS has to come up with a fair number that translates all those fixed costs into per/mile. It is a good financia…

It's only worthless to this discussion if you hold the basic assumption that everyone should own a car.

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

#145

Post by vkou »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #139
ghaff wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I wouldn’t have thought that expensive for intercity travel. Certainly doesn’t strike me as such relative to shorter haul European trains I’ve taken. And in the US, I’m a decent fraction of that ($13) just to take the commuter rail into the city one way.

Same here, I've taken the London to Edinburgh on LNER and Virgin East Coast multiple times and it runs about £40 each way. And my 30 mile train into Manhattan is $14 $36 one way for a 5 hour train seems pretty cheap.

The problem is that the train has to compete with 3 hours by car... And then the ability to actually use a car at your destination. The transit systems in either Seattle, or Portland, are nowhere near as good as they are in New York.

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

#146

Post by vonmoltke »

finolex1 wrote: post #98
keeganjw wrote: post #8

If only the US had trains this nice... One can dream. This really looks spectacular.

The new Acela Express trains don't look too shabby.

Of only we could get the tracks to take advantage of them. Oh, and cut several stops off it as well.

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

#147

Post by nhf »

arien wrote: post #17
Freak_NL wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Caledonian Express is definitely on my list of trains to travel by some day. Pretty soon (when the customs part is sorted out on the Amsterdam end) it will be possible to travel from Amsterdam to London directly on the Eurostar without transferring in Brussels, so that helps too for me as a Dutchman.

I've been on a fair amount of sleeper trains and the Caledonian has been the most comfortable so far. For the opposite, the most uncomfortable one to sleep in was the Hong Kong to Shanghai one. I paid extra for the Deluxe option, can't even imagine how hard the bed would have been on the lower classes. Still, was a pretty cool journey.

I think that's just an (northeast) Asian bed thing. Preferences trend firm for mattresses and you can see this in traditional or luxury places that don't cater to Westerners. The most deluxe ryokans in Japan still have relatively thin mats on the floor, business hotels in China and Japan often have former mattresses, and so on.

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

#148

Post by TylerE »

bluGill wrote: post #131
ceejayoz wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A one way train ticket for that route is $36. The same trip via car takes about the same amount of time and $20 in gas. Don't forget wear and tear on the car, though. The IRS sets mileage at 58 cents/mile. That's $100 for Seattle to Portland.

Most of the costs of a car are fixed once you own it. Wear and tears per mile is actually small. Insurance is the same for a car driven 7000 miles a year as one driven 30,000. there is a small discount for less than 7000 miles/year, but it is still fixed. Likewise the car payment doesn't change at all. The IRS has to come up with a fair number that translates all those fixed costs into per/mile. It is a good financia…

Not really.

Buying new tires are a thing. Even if you buy cheap tires and get good life out of them (and that combo is...rare, you get what you pay for), that's, say, $400 ever 40,000 miles, that's a cent a mile right there..and tires are usually more expensive than that and don't last that long.

The most obvious cost of wear and tear though is that eventually the car needs to be replaced. More miles = sooner replacement.

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

#149

Post by oracle2025 »

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…

I take plenty of trains in Europe, and booking well in advance, I never pay the "full" fare. It is usually quite easy to take advantage of early booking offers.

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

#150

Post by acqq »

TKAB wrote: post #6

As a regular train traveller here in Austria and I'm very curious how this turns out. Currently the Intercity/RailJet trains are more like a downgrade to what was available before. They look nicer, but provide quite uncomfortable seating and offer no possibility to change the seating inclination; due to the air condition it's very noisy; there's no place to put your feet in an elevated position; there's no compartmen…

I'm sure I couldn't sleep in the upper bed here:

https://www.priestmangoode.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Pr...

Enclosing beds to make them a kind of cradle is bad. The good design would add space not stuff. There's a reason older trains didn't have that.

Typical design made on computer that nobody tried to use (or not enough users to say how bad it is).

I've also traveled in the newer trains in Europe that were significantly worse than the older, again for having less space everywhere. It's a bad trend.

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