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Europe is investing heavily in trains

nytimes.com

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Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#21

Post by Leherenn »

Fargren wrote: post #2

Living in Spain, I love trains and take them over airplane when it's an option. However, trains are often around twice as expensive as flying for may routes. I know nothing about trains, but intuitively I would expect the opposite, and I really wish it was more affordable, specially high speed rail.

Rail infrastructure is very expensive compared to planes. An airport is expensive, but once you've built it you're pretty much immediately connected to half the world. With a train station, you need a track to each surrounding stations, maintain them, and so on. Also, train doesn't scale down as well, it quickly becomes inefficient for the less dense routes.

People are talking about subsidies (by not taxing fuel for instance) for planes, but trains are also directly subsidised to the tune of billions each year. The rail network just costs a ton to build and maintain.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#22

Post by Barrin92 »

uuyi wrote: post #3

Good on you Europe. Here in the UK we are heavily investing in rail replacement busses at the moment.

Bus networks are a pretty decent solution as well. Rail is very expensive and there's not that many regions where you can operate it economically. In particular with electrical busses becoming better you can shift a lot of traffic away from personal vehicles on existing infrastructure.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#23

Post by KptMarchewa »

Glawen wrote: post #13
Fargren wrote: post #2

Living in Spain, I love trains and take them over airplane when it's an option. However, trains are often around twice as expensive as flying for may routes. I know nothing about trains, but intuitively I would expect the opposite, and I really wish it was more affordable, specially high speed rail.

A plane doesn't have to build and maintain km of tracks, it just uses airport facilities (subsidised usually) and untaxed kerosene. A high speed train can only go to a few destination, the tracks can hardly be repaid

A lot of time those tracks are already paid for by freight trains.

The track tax is just what governments choose to do - especially since cargo trucks barely pay any road access tax.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#24

Post by gunfighthacksaw »

Fargren wrote: post #2

Living in Spain, I love trains and take them over airplane when it's an option. However, trains are often around twice as expensive as flying for may routes. I know nothing about trains, but intuitively I would expect the opposite, and I really wish it was more affordable, specially high speed rail.

The train feels more civilized.

You can afford to have a bit more space to sit, wider aisles to walk and can fit a much nicer kitchen.

Bigger tables too so you can spread out your work/shopping/food.

If you haven’t tried train food before I highly recommend it. It’s stereotypically good in the same way plane food is stereotypically bad.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#25

Post by jhgb »

Hermel wrote: post #20
ceejayoz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article hints at why this is: > The fact remains that, despite the European Union’s support for rail, the bloc’s governments continue to grant enormous subsidies to airlines — in the form of bailout packages as well as low taxes on jet fuel — although that could change soon.

By definition, low taxes are not a subsidy. It is the trains that are heavily subsidized. The main reason behind the price difference is that there is plenty of competition between airlines for a given flight, eg Paris-Berlin, but no competition for the same train connection.

> By definition, low taxes are not a subsidy.

The conspicuous lack of Pigouvian taxes on a fossil fuel for just one industry is definitely a subsidy. Someone else is paying for the externalities.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#26

Post by lqet »

Here in Germany, for as long as I can remember, the government praises itself every year for investing as much in rail as never before. I have not noticed the service quality to change for the better over the last 15 years. The ever-rising investments seem to be only enough to keep the status quo of the crumbling infrastructure.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#27

Post by monksy »

As someone who just rode in a sleeper car for the second time. I like amtrak when I can do this. It's completely unreasonable for a round trip, but I did Chicago->Seattle and Chicago to Boston (Where I"m currently here.. and will be flying back tomorrow).

It's a mostly great experience... all due to the scenery you're watching, not so much everything else.

What worries me if it becomes more privatized: You'll see the experience drop a lot more, features you need for long distance trips (big seat+power outlet) removed. You'll get a lot more stressed employees who will create conflicts etc.

What I would like to see:

- More prioritization on autonomous cars

- More frequent routes

- Infrastructure improvements for faster service (We could and should have a hub/spoke model for ICE like passenger rail)

- Support with integration into the communities they connect into. (Build the town around it) Create a standard that local rental car companies are working with the passengers arriving and leaving.

- General equipment refreshes (A lot of it is maintenance by schedule rather than reactory.. a lot of the experience is pretty dirty) Also there is an attitude with the coach passengers that the train is a trashcan because it's already pretty dirty. Being in coach is freaking brutal if you have to be on it more than 9 hours or overnight.

Btw Their employees are a lot more helpful about being functionally helpful when something goes wrong. Airline employees just escalate and pull the "screw you, you won't get help" when something goes wrong in person. (Yea I'm looking at you IAH gate agent that just left the desk right before boarding.. the captain was playing secretary). No the empire builder doesn't have WIFI.. but how will dinner work.. they're more than helpful at explaining it, etc.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#29

Post by andy_ppp »

simonsarris wrote: post #10
Fargren wrote: post #2

Living in Spain, I love trains and take them over airplane when it's an option. However, trains are often around twice as expensive as flying for may routes. I know nothing about trains, but intuitively I would expect the opposite, and I really wish it was more affordable, specially high speed rail.

This is mentioned near the end of the article but the reason those short domestic flights are so cheap in Europe is that commercial kerosene is currently tax exempt in every single EU member state. Jet fuel is cheaper per gallon in the EU than it is in the USA! (or was, before the current war) In typically tax-happy Europe this always struck me as odd, agree it is sad when you find out an airplane ticket is cheaper t…

“Follow the money…”

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#30

Post by encryptluks2 »

lqet wrote: post #26

Here in Germany, for as long as I can remember, the government praises itself every year for investing as much in rail as never before. I have not noticed the service quality to change for the better over the last 15 years. The ever-rising investments seem to be only enough to keep the status quo of the crumbling infrastructure.

Trains are incredibly expensive to maintain. The US still relies a lot on manual operations when running trains. I wonder if they will ever be able to fully automate their travel.
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