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New network of European sleeper trains planned

theguardian.com

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Re: New network of European sleeper trains planned

#101

Post by jodrellblank »

bluGill wrote: post #96
jodrellblank wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could walk on a mud path to the train station. You could walk on a cobbled street, not wide enough or strong enough for cars, to the train station. It wouldn't be as convenient, but cars are useless without roads in a way that trains aren't. A two-way road between every building, and space for on-road parking or space for off-road parking around every building, bloats out the space between buildings and lowers de…

Which is great until you buy a new bed, your toilet breaks, or any other large service is needed in your house. Sure a plumber can carry everything to your house, but it is much more efficient when he drives a van with all the different pipe adapters that your might need instead of walking to the office. You won't get a heavy appliance down a mud path unless the delivery is scheduled for a few weeks after the last ra…

In the context of this thread, can you say "it is much more efficient" to have every single house on the planet tarmac'd, on the off-chance that a plumber might need to carry more than one basket worth of stuff to your house?

The up front cost is enormous, the ongoing maintenance is huge regardless of usage.[1] says "deteriorating roads are forcing [American] motorists to spend nearly $130 billion each year on extra vehicle repairs and operating costs" and "The U.S. has [...] a $786 billion backlog of road and bridge capital needs. The bulk of the backlog ($435 billion) is in repairing existing roads, while $125 billion is needed for bridge repair, $120 billion for system expansion, and $105 billion for system enhancement (which includes safety enhancements, operational improvements, and environmental projects).", and of course the amount of people who die on roads, and the amount spent on motoring costs just because people have to run a car because everything is so far away because everyone has cars in a circular way.

Whereas if that wasn't such a convenient option, you'd be more likely to use parts which lasted longer, and not change them frivolously for fashion reasons, and standardise on pipe adapters, and have more local caches and stores instead of big central warehouses a long way away.

> "You won't get a heavy appliance down a mud path unless the delivery is scheduled for a few weeks after the last rain."

I'm not deliberately missing your point when I say this, but "it's impossible because that would require forward planning" does show society in a bit of an unfavourable light, doesn't it?

[1] https://infrastructurereportcard.org/cat-item/roads/

Re: New network of European sleeper trains planned

#102

Post by [deleted] »

nottorp wrote: post #34
corobo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aumont was reluctant to give ticket prices, but said these would be competitive with that of a short-haul flight If I'm booking time off work and the price is the same I'm going to opt for a longer holiday Good luck Aumont

Actually you have the same holiday but you're arriving at your destination in the morning after sleeping all the way, instead of waking up early to be at the airport 2 hours before the flight etc. Sleeper trains go at night generally.

[deleted]

Re: New network of European sleeper trains planned

#103

Post by bluGill »

jodrellblank wrote: post #101
bluGill wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is great until you buy a new bed, your toilet breaks, or any other large service is needed in your house. Sure a plumber can carry everything to your house, but it is much more efficient when he drives a van with all the different pipe adapters that your might need instead of walking to the office. You won't get a heavy appliance down a mud path unless the delivery is scheduled for a few weeks after the last ra…

In the context of this thread, can you say "it is much more efficient" to have every single house on the planet tarmac'd, on the off-chance that a plumber might need to carry more than one basket worth of stuff to your house? The up front cost is enormous, the ongoing maintenance is huge regardless of usage.[1] says " deteriorating roads are forcing [American] motorists to spend nearly $130 billion each year on extra…

Where did I say anything about putting every single house on tarmac? I said several times that gravel is good enough for most roads. As you get into dense cities you will discover that tarmac is a better choice than gravel just because the large number of tasks that don't work well via mass transit makes the disadvantages of gravel show.

> "it's impossible because that would require forward planning" does show society in a bit of an unfavourable light, doesn't it?

Things break without warning. Or are you proposing we automatically replace our large appliances every few years even though they could probably last for 5 times longer? (even then you will still have random early failures). Not everything is worth repairing.

Re: New network of European sleeper trains planned

#104

Post by choeger »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #60
choeger wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we correctly price externalities (i.e. environmental cost) then the train should win hands down! I would not be so certain on that one. The downside of trains is the massive infrastructure requirements. I don't think there are any privately funded and profitable tracks anywhere in Europe. Government pays for this, of course. Of course, if you only account for carbon dioxide, things can look different.

"Massive infrastructure requirements" for trains. Compared to what though?

Planes.

It is actually rather simple. Airports are extremely expensive of course, but if you build three airports you have three connections. Four airports give six. Five airports ten... Each of these connections require dedicated tracks if you want to go by train.

Re: New network of European sleeper trains planned

#105

Post by asdff »

streamofdigits wrote: post #45

For measurable environmental impact the network should at least support the annual migration of Homo Europeanus Nordicus to the Mediterranean sea.

They should also bore a tunnel through the center of the earth to get all the Australians who appear in low key places like Croatia every summer.

Re: New network of European sleeper trains planned

#106

Post by rpadovani »

_ph_ wrote: post #98
rpadovani wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really looking forward to the Brenner Base Tunnel[0]. Apart from cutting train time from Innsbruck to Bolzano from 120 to 50 minutes, it will increase the number of trains that can go through, and I hope it will absorb a lot of the lorries going through the Brenner Pass, [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Base_Tunnel

It would be even more awesome, if it were directly connected to the German train system, but on the German side, the connection is severely lacking and might not be there for many years. The state of the German railway system is pretty scandalous. The connection to the Swiss is also overloaded.

Yeah I'm unfortunately well aware. Also, Bolzano-Verona is quite lacking! But the Berlin–Palermo railway axis is one of the "core" projects of the EU, so I hope it will improve in time

Re: New network of European sleeper trains planned

#107

Post by fy20 »

calpaterson wrote: post #19
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #5

Some information to put into perspective the articles which are now regularly published about the revival of sleeper trains. First, if you look at Europe as a whole, you will see that sleeper trains were never really dead. There are plenty of them in Germany and Eastern Europe. Often they go from large cities to holiday destinations and therefore are mainly used by people travelling for leisure. The novelty of these…

> First, if you look at Europe as a whole, you will see that sleeper trains were never really dead. In the UK, experiences vary. The new Caledonian Sleeper (London-Highlands) is apparently a pretty rubbish experience. However, I took the Night Riviera (London - Cornwall) a few years ago and found it a pretty good experience even though I very nearly missed my stop in Truro. The problem for a business traveller is tha…

> The same is not so true for getting out to Cornwall.

Trains from Paddington to Truro run every hour, taking around 4h30m.

https://traintimes.org.uk/london/truro/09:30/today

Considering its 1/3 the distance from London to Glasgow it's quite slow, but it's still faster than driving.

Re: New network of European sleeper trains planned

#108

Post by baud147258 »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #5

Some information to put into perspective the articles which are now regularly published about the revival of sleeper trains. First, if you look at Europe as a whole, you will see that sleeper trains were never really dead. There are plenty of them in Germany and Eastern Europe. Often they go from large cities to holiday destinations and therefore are mainly used by people travelling for leisure. The novelty of these…

> As plane journeys are often the largest item in a company carbon account, they are betting that some will push their employees towards the train

I think just betting on companies going for the better option carbon-wise won't be enough, it also needs price parity (or better) and more convenience than taking the plane

Re: New network of European sleeper trains planned

#109

Post by jodrellblank »

bluGill wrote: post #103
jodrellblank wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the context of this thread, can you say "it is much more efficient" to have every single house on the planet tarmac'd, on the off-chance that a plumber might need to carry more than one basket worth of stuff to your house? The up front cost is enormous, the ongoing maintenance is huge regardless of usage.[1] says " deteriorating roads are forcing [American] motorists to spend nearly $130 billion each year on extra…

Where did I say anything about putting every single house on tarmac? I said several times that gravel is good enough for most roads. As you get into dense cities you will discover that tarmac is a better choice than gravel just because the large number of tasks that don't work well via mass transit makes the disadvantages of gravel show. > "it's impossible because that would require forward planning" does show societ…

My original point was under "trains need more infrastructure than planes" to say "and less infrastructure than cars". You then said that trains need cars - which they don't. If you had mud paths, and wilderness between cities, and intercity train would be an improvement on that, so would a local metro. Cars wouldn't be an improvement - everyone getting a Honda Civic wouldn't be able to move on the too-small, too-muddy roads, it would be instant jam. So, trains don't need cars to add value.

I agree gravel roads at the end of a train journey with motorised vehicles would also add a lot of value.

Small-ish gravel roads for occasional supply vehicles to travel down isn't the original "road network" that I was arguing about efficiency of - small gravel roads in a world built around walking distances wouldn't be a world where everyone could run a Honda Civic and drive in two-way lanes of traffic. That is, by "cars" I didn't mean "motorised vehicles", but "everyone has a car and uses it for most journeys, and the road network to support that".

Re: New network of European sleeper trains planned

#110

Post by johnwalkr »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #83
Ichthypresbyter wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DB got rid of its sleepers (which were the last ones to serve the Netherlands) in 2016. The Austrians bought most of the rolling stock, and kept some of the routes that served Austria going. They've now started expanding again, and a route from Amsterdam to Vienna and Innsbruck has just opened.

What ticketing sites do you guys use? Whenever I want to try (night) trains around Europe I run into a myriad of national websites with poor information on non-national trips, a lack of decent information on what to expect, annoying pricing/planning/booking UIs, and generally lack of information about how it 'works', as in some require you to have an App, a card, to print out tickets etc. I often just give up. In tha…

The DB app is horrible. It can only use your local time, at least when I used it. Was not fun to plan a trip from Japan. DB has the worst ticket machine I’ve ever seen too, I think in Berlin, although I might not remember the details perfectly and am probably exaggerating a bit.

Buy one ticket, and it asks you for money, the bill slot opens, you put money in, the bill slot closes, the ticket prints, and then the change return door opens. After you take your change, the change return door closes.

If you buy 4 tickets: it asks you for money, the bill slot opens, you put money in, the bill slot closes, the first ticket prints, and then the change return door opens, you take you change and then it closes. Then, the bill slot opens and closes, the second ticket prints, then the change return door opens and closes (repeat 2 more times). I know just the type of “meets the requirements” engineers that made this.

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