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Europe is investing heavily in trains

nytimes.com

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Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#191

Post by Karrot_Kream »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #140
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.

In the US, trains are seen as ancient cowboy technology. Trying to build more train infrastructure is surely an uphill battle.

It's hard to say. Trains have been chronically underfunded in the US for so long that I don't think the US even knows what decent train infrastructure is like. Amtrak hasn't had a guaranteed budget until the recent infrastructure bill passed and was originally designed to just be a publicly-funded holding company to sell off its rolling stock and lines.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#192

Post by burlesona »

julienb_sea wrote: post #132
occz wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but trains are also directly subsidised to the tune of billions each year. The rail network just costs a ton to build and maintain. Just wait until you hear about how subsidised the infrastructure for cars and trucks are.

Construction of road infrastructure can be compared to construction of tracks and stations, and it's fair to say taxpayers foot the bill in full for both. The difference is that trains operate at a loss even with high ticket prices and operational subsidies are necessary for market viability. That is not the case with car and truck usage.

At least in the US, local road networks in the suburbs and rural areas bleed money terribly, and as fuel taxes have not kept pace with inflation even the inner city streets and crowded highways can barely break even.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#193

Post by rootusrootus »

IshKebab wrote: post #177
detritus wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*stares at continental shelf depth map around the UK described on old European map on wall

Ha yes well... "the continent" refers to the European land mass. C.f. "continental breakfast". But the UK is part of the European continent in the continental shelf sense. The word "continent" is not really well defined. Here's a nice video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrsxRJdwfM0

It does seem poorly defined. If it were the land mass, I would expect that Europe extended all the way to the other end of Russia.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#194

Post by erosenbe0 »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #140
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.

In the US, trains are seen as ancient cowboy technology. Trying to build more train infrastructure is surely an uphill battle.

Trains kill lots of people and the noise is excruciating. They also impede other traffic when at grade, and require massively expensive carbon guzzling infrastructure when not at grade. The stations are often designed or located more optimally for getting freight to and from, rather than people.

The bathrooms are less claustrophobic though.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#195

Post by Etheryte »

Goronmon wrote: post #187
Etheryte wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers seem large when they're in absolutes, but per capita it's moved from ~0.91 trips per person per year to ~1.19 trips per person per year. Not to say there is no progress, but rather that the number of trips is low to begin with. If you contrast the money spent with the end result of roughly one trip per person per year, things are not that rosy.

The numbers seem large when they're in absolutes, but per capita it's moved from ~0.91 trips per person per year to ~1.19 trips per person per year. I mean, if the goal is to make the smallest number, why stop at "per person per year"? If you instead reflected the number as "per person per second" then you would see that the improvement is barely measurable.

Per capita is a standard way to contextualize things in statistics and since the original measure is per year, per capita per year. The point is not to "make the smallest number". 99 million trips per year alone doesn't tell us anything. If it was made by 1 million people, the scale is big, if it was made by 100 million people, not so much. That's why contextualizing per capita is important.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#196

Post by luciusdomitius »

scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #136
emteycz wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even a diesel bus on rails is much more efficient than a diesel bus on roads. It's also much easier to electrify than a fleet of buses, an much more ecological when you do (because no significant battery). Thus, anything on rails is a win.

Agreed - especially in the context of how unbelievably clumsy the US is at doing trains. Here in western Poland however it was a bit easier - lots of tracks remained since 19th century. And with these diesel buses popping up, an opportunity presented itself to go relatively low investment and lots of political bang. Those trains are usually way too packed in my personal experience. Similarly, Pendolino high speed rai…

Well. In Germany the middle class flies or drives, the lower class takes the bus and the upper-upper-middle class drives teslas or takes ICEs

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#197

Post by Sharlin »

uoaei wrote: post #93
Sharlin wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

By that logic, no one should complain about anything, because we don't live in literal hell. But that is of course preposterous.

That’s not what I meant. Only that the fact that people complain about X in both A and B does not tell much about the relative quality of X in A compared to B because the expectations and standards may be very different.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#199

Post by m2fkxy »

aarroyoc wrote: post #188
emn13 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that if you travel from The Netherlands to Spain you might be traversing 6 different railway electrification systems that vary in critical stuff like voltages (and by more than a factor 10!) and possibly Hz, and some are AC and some are DC (not kidding). Also there will be at least 2 incompatible track gauges involved. And I bet other stuff like communications and routing systems are incompatible and safety crit…

There's no gauge change. Spain high-speed tracks already use the international one (older tracks still use Iberian gauge). There are already high-speed trains that go to France without stopping at the border.

yes, Madrid Marseille, Lyon, and Paris on AVE, and TGV services on Paris Barcelona. No track gauge change, direct link.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#200

Post by noirbot »

Goronmon wrote: post #187
Etheryte wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers seem large when they're in absolutes, but per capita it's moved from ~0.91 trips per person per year to ~1.19 trips per person per year. Not to say there is no progress, but rather that the number of trips is low to begin with. If you contrast the money spent with the end result of roughly one trip per person per year, things are not that rosy.

The numbers seem large when they're in absolutes, but per capita it's moved from ~0.91 trips per person per year to ~1.19 trips per person per year. I mean, if the goal is to make the smallest number, why stop at "per person per year"? If you instead reflected the number as "per person per second" then you would see that the improvement is barely measurable.

But that seems like a reasonably understandable number? For all that everyone talks about how amazing trains are in other countries, I'm a little surprised to learn that I take Amtrak more in the US than the average German citizen takes DB, which is generally a much better system.

That said, that seems like a pretty good improvement, percentage-wise, but a lot of folks talk about trains in Europe as if it's so amazing that everyone is taking it all the time. I'd be curious of that number relative to the number of flights taken per year per capita.

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