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Europe is investing heavily in trains

nytimes.com

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Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#51

Post by dkural »

PaywallBuster wrote: post #40
simonsarris wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

as I remember, the discussion went that if EU implemented a tariff on on jet fuel companies would simply load their planes elsewhere, e.g. Russia/Dubai where there's abundant fuel with little to no tax not so relevant for the shorter trips intra-EU, but still a factor

It'll be more expensive to constantly fly back and forth to Dubai to load up than to simply pay the tax. Dubai is not that close to Paris. It takes about 7-8 hours. I don't know if you've been checking the news lately but Russia is out of the question for airplanes. They won't even return leased airplanes back anymore.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#52

Post by megablast »

PaywallBuster wrote: post #40
simonsarris wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

as I remember, the discussion went that if EU implemented a tariff on on jet fuel companies would simply load their planes elsewhere, e.g. Russia/Dubai where there's abundant fuel with little to no tax not so relevant for the shorter trips intra-EU, but still a factor

Most flights are local.

They aren’t going to russia for the Paris London flight.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#53

Post by blamazon »

One thing that's cool about intercity train travel is that, while high speed rail is an ~=obvious economic miracle, trains can be slow and still be commercially competitive.

I would much rather take an overnight sleeper train than either an early morning flight or a night flight with hotel room. The sleeper train will arrive right to the city center and save a lot of hassle and I always sleep like a rock on sleeper trains.

My impression is that Europeans are 'waking up' to this fundamental difference in value proposition vs aeroplanes and overnight trains are becoming more popular.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#54

Post by ithinkso »

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.

It's different in Poland. Here, everyone always complains about the rail and it was shit like you wouldn't believe only like 15 years ago. I've been using trains only sporadically but the improvements are absolutely immense, I couldn't believe my eyes. Not perfect of course but holy shit did it improve, especially regional rails

Of course we had to improve from much lower standards than Germany, I guess, so I have no idea if our expectations of good are the same but nevertheless

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#55

Post by oh_sigh »

mywittyname wrote: post #17

Time is money, so I don't think trains can ever compete with flying for long-distance travel (>1000miles). They could do like the USA does and make flying such a time-consuming pain in the ass that it's rarely worth it for trips under 5 hours.

I don't think anyone is expecting people to start taking a train from London to Istanbul, unless they are doing it for the trip in itself. The sweet spot for trains is travel > 100 miles and < 500 miles, so say Paris-Nice like is highlighted in the article.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#56

Post by Sharlin »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #30
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.

Not so. The whole point of trains is that expenses are largely one-off. Building the infrastructure is expensive. Recurring costs are much lower than other modes of land transport, ceteris paribus.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#57

Post by nfin »

skrbjc wrote: post #34
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.

Thanks for your perspective from someone close to the situation there. I believe many Americans have a picture of a perfect system in Europe, but the truth is likely different. Can you elaborate on the negative aspects of the train system, as you see it?

my short answer would be: bad at punctuality. Frequent delays bigger than 10min.

France for example is better at punctuality IMO. But granted: smaller population density, therefore less stops needed in rural areas. And lower population density made it also a lot easier to build many complete own tracks for fast trains (TGV). Also more centralized way of thinking, so if you are around Paris: good, if you live far away of big cities, not so lucky.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#58

Post by tonyedgecombe »

Barrin92 wrote: post #22
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.

Rail replacement buses are what the rail companies lay on when they can't run their trains because of some failure. It isn't an investment in the way you interpreted it.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#59

Post by paddez »

namdnay wrote: post #43
ape4 wrote: post #12

More feasible than planes to electrify or switch to hydrogen (hydrogenify?)

You still have diesel trains ?!

Most of the intercity trains in Ireland are powered by diesel.

I believe there's a long term electrification plan for the greater Dublin area, but I don't see a change from using DMU's for a while.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#60

Post by Krasnol »

skrbjc wrote: post #34
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.

Thanks for your perspective from someone close to the situation there. I believe many Americans have a picture of a perfect system in Europe, but the truth is likely different. Can you elaborate on the negative aspects of the train system, as you see it?

Deutsche Bahn is a weird construct.

It's been separated into many subsidiaries in preparation for a privatisation. It never happened and while subsidiaries like Schenker work quite well and drive profits, others like those responsible for network or train maintenance create only costs and have been neglected. This results in delays in your daily experience with DB. DB's "punctuality" or the lack of it is actually a running gag here in Germany.

tl;nr: mismanagement.

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