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More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

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Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#181

Post by detaro »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #178
presto8 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most well-executed high-speed train system I can think of is in Japan, e.g. shinkansen from Kyoto to Tokyo, which Google Maps is reporting as 2h11m. Distance by road for that city pair is showing as 464 km, for an average speed of 212 km/h. So I think around 200 km/h can be considered the highest possible currently practical average speed of a high speed train network over a reasonable distance. I tried to find s…

I tried to find something equivalent in Europe to compare, maybe Frankfurt to Berlin? Google Maps is showing that as 4h16 by ICE over 549 km, for an average speed of 128 km/h. Ah, I took the ICE from Frankfurt to Berlin last year on a last minute ticket. A bunch of things come to mind. In no particular order: - Tokyo - Kyoto is pretty much the premier Shinkansen line. Is Frankfurt - Berlin considered the same? - I wa…

A premier ICE route that had a lot of impact is probably the new Berlin-Munich route. 623 km, the "sprinter" trains with the least stops do it in 3:55 - 160km/h average.

Stop counts are always a difficult balance for longer routes: They slow the trains down, increasing end-to-end travel time, but provide connections to more people and regions.

Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#182

Post by MaulingMonkey »

chrisseaton wrote: post #123
MaulingMonkey wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don't get why trains can be so expensive and what we need to do to fix that. I recently watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjwePe-HmA which covered much of the cost breakdowns - especially for American passenger rail. TL;DR: * Labor is expensive. That 10 hour train ride is 10 hours you're paying every employee on the train. The faster speed of an equivalent plane ride means you're not paying pilots f…

> That 10 hour train ride is 10 hours you're paying every employee on the train. A driver, a ticket inspector, and someone to run the café? Three people? Shared amongst a few hundred passengers? Is that really a significant cost?

If they're each pulling down $100k/year (this is slightly bellow amtrack average!) or ~$50/hour in total comp, 3x50x10 = $1500 right there for none of the support staff - managers, staff back in the control rooms switching signals, staff on call for maintainence issues - and none of the associated costs of putting the staff up in hotel rooms on account of being 10 hours away from home when their shift is over, etc. Spread it out over 300 riders and that's perhaps only $5 for the trip and your 1:100 employee:rider staffing ratio. Not so bad!

Of course, there are also 44 hour routes. Or less popular routes without 300 passengers that are run for political reasons, or because they feed passengers into the more popular routes. Or the popular routes when run off-peak, so passengers can still use the route even if they may occasionally need some flexibility in when they travel. The video suggests amtrack employs 1 person per 4 riders, not per 100! For a route half the distance (DC to New York - 3.5-5 hours) they attribute $25/ticket to labor costs.

You've got stories like this where Japan is keeping open a train station for a single passenger - do you think that route has 300 people on it there? And this is in a country where trains are popular and some routes are packed to the brim in the middle of rush hour: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2016/01/japan-keeps-t...

Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#183

Post by tim333 »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #65

I really don't get why trains can be so expensive and what we need to do to fix that. To an extent, flying is just way too cheap. I mean, I was looking at a roundtrip london/barcelona just last week, it was $25. By train I'm looking at at least 10 hours, likely more like 15, and $300. Both the $25 and the $300 just seem wrong. Flying is way too cheap, but I also don't get how $300 per person is competitive against so…

And that's in spite of most railway lines being subsidised and most airlines not. I guess if you think of the stuff involved going London - Barcelona, for flying it's a plane with maybe 10 crew, and some tarmac at either end for runways, for train it's 100s of miles of track, goodness knows how many staff along it, plus the train of course.

The UKs new HS2 line is looking at costing £750m per mile while airspace is free.

Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#184

Post by eesmith »

Hamuko wrote: post #176
eesmith wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Adding capacity to the sky is easy because it's empty Adding capacity to airports, however, is much harder. Heathrow is at 98% capacity, for example, and it's difficult to add a new airport, or even new runway, for London. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_of_Heathrow_Airport , which discusses the major earthworks, etc. involved. > Roads are easier to maintain and pay for themselves without subsidies just…

> Adding capacity to airports, however, is much harder. Is that somehow different for train stations?

... no? I mean, of course not - it costs money to maintain and upgrade train stations as well.

But I am confused about your comment. There are two distinct statements. X = "Adding capacity to the sky is easy because it's empty. It's essentially just about scaling air traffic control systems." and Y = "Rails need constant work to keep them in good condition".

I don't believe X is correct, and I gave a counter-example about adding capacity to London.

But that doesn't mean I think Y must necessarily also be invalid. While it seems you interpret my comment to mean that Y is correct? And I don't understand how one can draw that inference. So I don't understand the point of your comment.

Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#185

Post by Hamuko »

eesmith wrote: post #184
Hamuko wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Adding capacity to airports, however, is much harder. Is that somehow different for train stations?

... no? I mean, of course not - it costs money to maintain and upgrade train stations as well. But I am confused about your comment. There are two distinct statements. X = "Adding capacity to the sky is easy because it's empty. It's essentially just about scaling air traffic control systems." and Y = "Rails need constant work to keep them in good condition". I don't believe X is correct, and I gave a counter-example…

And I don't really understand the point of talking about scaling airports when the issue was about scaling the number of airplanes that can move between places, since that's an universal problem with it comes to any method of transportation.

If you want to move more buses, you need more bus terminals. If you want to move more planes, you need more airports. If you need to move more trains, you need more train stations.

The point about scaling air traffic and scaling trains is that you need far less infrastructure to get a plane from place to place. You don't actually even need a huge, expensive airport to do so, since there are much smaller ones and even just tiny airstrips. And unlike trains, once they leave, they have pretty much unlimited room. How many tracks would a train station need in order to accomodate the same number of passengers leaving from Heathrow?

Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#186

Post by eesmith »

Hamuko wrote: post #185
eesmith wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... no? I mean, of course not - it costs money to maintain and upgrade train stations as well. But I am confused about your comment. There are two distinct statements. X = "Adding capacity to the sky is easy because it's empty. It's essentially just about scaling air traffic control systems." and Y = "Rails need constant work to keep them in good condition". I don't believe X is correct, and I gave a counter-example…

And I don't really understand the point of talking about scaling airports when the issue was about scaling the number of airplanes that can move between places, since that's an universal problem with it comes to any method of transportation. If you want to move more buses, you need more bus terminals. If you want to move more planes, you need more airports. If you need to move more trains, you need more train station…

The point is that most people don't want to simply go to some arbitrary small airport or tiny airstrip.

Again, thu2111's statement was:

> "Adding capacity to the sky is easy because it's empty. It's essentially just about scaling air traffic control systems."

ATC systems are not the only relevant part of infrastructure - airports are also important.

You write "you need far less infrastructure". Sure. But airports are also needed for scaling, even if small/tiny airstrips are included, and my point was that airports were omitted from the infrastructure cost.

You write "since there are much smaller ones ... tiny airstrips". That doesn't solve London's capacity problem, which is why a capacity question must include the cost of airports.

You ask "How many tracks would a train station need in order to accomodate the same number of passengers leaving from Heathrow?"

Heathrow has about 80 million passengers per year says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathrow_Airport .

London Waterloo has about 94 million passengers per year says https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/1668/estimates-of-statio... , with 24 platforms says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Waterloo_station . Looking at the aerial photo confirms there are 24 platforms, and it appears from Google Maps' satellite view that they are served by 7 rail lines, splitting into 24 platforms.

So, 7 tracks are enough to accommodate the same number of passengers leaving from Heathrow.

However, that answer doesn't make a whit of difference to my point, which is that if ATC is important cost facto to bring up when discussion air transit capacity, then airports are also an important cost factor.

Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#187

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

LatteLazy wrote: post #179
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

200 miles is way too short for the break-even point. If you take into account the time overhead for airplanes, the break-even point is about 4 hours. For modern high-speed rail (speeds of over 200 mph), that's about 800 miles (NYC to Chicago, or Paris to Vienna). Most European high-speed rail lines outside France and Spain don't operate at that speed yet, but it's not uncommon for newly-built high-speed lines (which…

4 hours at 200mph is 800 miles. But no train does that over distance. Even the Japanese, with dedicated infrastructure for bullet trains and minimal political issues stop every few hundred km because they're at a city people want to get on or off at...

The fastest Beijing - Shanghai trains take 4:18 to travel 809 miles.

The maximum speed that trains operate at in regular commercial service is 350 km/h (217 mph), so average speeds of nearly 200 mph are possible nowadays.

Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#188

Post by thu2111 »

eesmith wrote: post #172
thu2111 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes quite a lot of maintenance unfortunately. Rails need constant work to keep them in good condition. So does the ballast. Signalling involves miles of cables, lights, radio towers and motors that also degrade. The stations need staff, gates, ticket kiosks, displays. A frequent need is to add capacity. Adding capacity to the sky is easy because it's empty. It's essentially just about scaling air traffic control…

> Adding capacity to the sky is easy because it's empty Adding capacity to airports, however, is much harder. Heathrow is at 98% capacity, for example, and it's difficult to add a new airport, or even new runway, for London. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_of_Heathrow_Airport , which discusses the major earthworks, etc. involved. > Roads are easier to maintain and pay for themselves without subsidies just…

It's very dependent on obviously the nature of the power source used to power the trains, how loaded the trains are, how fast they go (so route dependent etc).

The BBC can't really be trusted to get complex topics right. They're just quoting some activist organisation there. Note that the figure is "per passenger" but that turns to assume fully loaded vehicles. The airline industry is much better at keeping seats full than train operators are. A nearly empty train will be much worse for the environment than a full plane.

As for trucker strikes, yes, but that happened mostly because they were allowed to blockade refineries. In the UK at least laws have changed since and there are mitigations in place. If you look at the rule changes around unions coming up there, they're motivated by rail strikes because those are a common occurrence whereas strikes taking it out roads are not.

Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#189

Post by thu2111 »

eesmith wrote: post #186
Hamuko wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I don't really understand the point of talking about scaling airports when the issue was about scaling the number of airplanes that can move between places, since that's an universal problem with it comes to any method of transportation. If you want to move more buses, you need more bus terminals. If you want to move more planes, you need more airports. If you need to move more trains, you need more train station…

The point is that most people don't want to simply go to some arbitrary small airport or tiny airstrip. Again, thu2111's statement was: > "Adding capacity to the sky is easy because it's empty. It's essentially just about scaling air traffic control systems." ATC systems are not the only relevant part of infrastructure - airports are also important. You write "you need far less infrastructure". Sure. But airports are…

Heathrow is a rare case. Very few airports max out for such long periods whereas being at capacity is pretty journal for rail lines. That's why the argument for HS2 is capacity oriented.

Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#190

Post by thu2111 »

vanderZwan wrote: post #175
thu2111 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU intervention solves nothing. Forcing roaming prices down just pushed up other tariffs, which didn't matter to the Commission because their ideological goal is to unify Europe into a single country, not get people the best mobile deals. It was only possible at all because the phone industry already built all the infrastructure for roaming on it's own. The problem is lack of demand. The article posits there is huge…

> Forcing roaming prices down just pushed up other tariffs I pay less than twenty euros a month for 10 GiB of data throughout all of Europe. What are you talking about?

The phone companies lost a lot of money when roaming tariffs were forced down and that was reflected in tariffs for the majority of people who never roam. There are studies about this. Did you think that in the relatively competitive mobile market price controls can be enforced with no impact at all? It was a form of wealth transfer from the poor to the rich.
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