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Europe is investing heavily in trains

nytimes.com

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Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#61

Post by noahtallen »

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?

I’m an American who recently took a train in Europe from Paris to Brussels.

Some brief thoughts:

- It was so fast! Under 90 minutes for a journey which would have taken a few hours by car. Clearly much faster than a plane on this particular route, due to extra waiting and security in airports.

- It was also a very comfortable mode. If you’re traveling with friends, it’d be very easy to socialize around a table. Quieter than a car or plane as well.

- Love being able to hop on/hop off without a huge ordeal or waiting in a long line.

- Too expensive for the route. I would have to book much further in advance to think it was worth it. I think maybe 6x the cost of driving, if I compared to a similar route in the US.

- Obviously this is a high speed route. That doesn’t exist between all cities.

- Looking at other tickets, connecting between two routes can be tricky. For example, if I wanted to go from Amsterdam to London, I’d might transfer to a different train in Paris. That adds a huge amount of time.

I mean, compared to the US, it’s a delight! For a similar city-to-city distance (Portland to Seattle), I’d love a 90min transit mode, especially if it was relatively cheap.

Obviously there are still some route and cost drawbacks, but there just isn’t much comparable in the US. It’s a much better system, obviously, even if it’s not perfect. At least they have high speed rail!

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#62

Post by avianlyric »

fredoliveira wrote: post #9
uuyi wrote: post #3

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

The UK is a European country. Not in the EU anymore, but you folks didn't move continents ;-)

Culturally we generally consider Europe to mean continental Europe i.e. Europe without the islands. Thus the U.K. being an island nation isn’t part of Europe.

But the definition of Europe will change depending on who you’re talking to and what your talking about.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#63

Post by thebean11 »

monksy wrote: post #27

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…

I can't wrap my head around how expensive Amtrak is, given that it's so heavily subsidized by the government.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#64

Post by sschueller »

ParksNet wrote: post #48

It doesn't make sense to emphasize passenger travel over goods transport for rail. Rail's strength is efficient transport of heavy loads at slow speeds. People are light and often want to go at high speeds. Europe should reorient its rail network for rail transport, and passengers can travel by bus or plane. But - Europe's rail network is completely reliant on subsidies, and its easier to get them when you're transpo…

The not so long ago completed Alp transit Gotthard Basistunnel was primarily dug for cargo, yes passengers also go through it but the idea is for fast, clean cargo transit all the way from Amsterdam to Italy through the Swiss alps.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#65

Post by lqet »

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?

A short answer for Germany would be: the system is operating at its absolute limits. The results are employee burnout and bad reliability.

An example: a few years ago, they introduced a new way to reduce delays caused by trains arriving so late at their destination that they cannot make their scheduled return trip. This is the so-called "Pofalla-Turn", named after the manager who supported it: if a train has a delay of over 30 minutes, the train will often just stop at some station and the passengers are told "the train ends here". They then have to figure out their journey using alternative trains.

Just imagine this happening on a flight. I often witness completely helpless tourists lost at my local rail station who don't speak the language and cannot understand why the train they have an expensive ticket and reservation for just stopped, drove back, and left them stranded here.

If you are meeting/visiting someone in a city more than 200 km away, and if you tell them that you plan to take the train, the usual response is: "Oh, good luck".

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#66

Post by emn13 »

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?

One bit that might surprise people is how fragmented it was (probably still is?). I'll see if I can find more sources, but e.g. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.67... illustrates some of the issues. Gauges vary. Voltages vary. Safety systems vary. Edit: here's a nice diagram from (of course) wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_electrification_system...

Europe doesn't have a rail system, it has dozens of systems; and they're not all compatible - which given this all originated in pre-EU times, is hardly surprising.

And that also means that it can take quite a long time to travel by rail, despite high-speed rail. If you need to cross rail-system borders - some of which are even intra-national like in France, you may need to change trains and/or take illogical routes. If, however, you're lucky and your route is on the happy path - then it can be quite competitive with short-haul flights both in hassle (if not quite speed) and cost.

Then there's the fact that operators are fragmented too, so booking a ticket or finding the optimal route can be surprisingly tricky once you need to cross several borders. I'm not sure this is worse than navigating airline booking systems, mind you, but it sure isn't efficient either.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#68

Post by verve_rat »

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

If they did do that then the EU could introduce a tariff on the fuel they import when they fly back in.

There would be rules around a fuel flight vs a legit passenger/cargo service, assuming they don't want to tax the extra fuel left in a plane at the end of a flight.

But that seem like a pretty straightforward problem to solve.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#69

Post by Sharlin »

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?

Nothing is perfect, but also remember that people always find things to complain about, particularly if they don't have personal experience of less well functioning systems.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#70

Post by monksy »

thebean11 wrote: post #63
monksy wrote: post #27

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…

I can't wrap my head around how expensive Amtrak is, given that it's so heavily subsidized by the government.

Yes/No.

You can get a California zephyer ticket from Chicago->Seattle for 160 in coach one way. That's a really good deal for 2k+ miles, generous baggage allowance, etc (if you can tolerate that).

Sleepers can go 1k+ for the 2.5d. In the winter (what I did) was 600$. I'm also not paying for the efficency. I'm paying for the experience of the hotel, meals, convenence of travel, and the ability to watch out the window.

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