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Europe is investing heavily in trains

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Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#231

Post by xeeeeeeeeeeenu »

It seems likely that hydrogen will replace diesel in trains. Companies like Alstom[1], PESA[2] and Talgo[3] are developing hydrogen trains. Germany has already started deploying them on a small scale[4], while Poland is planning to[5].

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom_Coradia_LINT#iLint

[2] - https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/poland-pesa-presented-a-hydr...

[3] - https://www.railwaypro.com/wp/talgo-to-launch-hydrogen-train...

[4] - https://constructionreviewonline.com/news/construction-of-hy...

[5] - https://www.orlen.pl/en/about-the-company/sustainable-develo...

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#232

Post by ascar »

noirbot wrote: post #200
Goronmon wrote: post #187

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. 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 amazin…

> I'm a little surprised to learn that I take Amtrak more in the US than the average German citizen takes DB

Amtrak had 31.3 million passengers in 2016 [1]. That's 0.095 passengers per capita. And that's on all Amtrak trains, while the German number is just for the ICE high-speed trains. Amtrak's high-speed Acela trains only had 3.5 million passengers in 2019 or 0.01 per capita. [2]

Per capita is just not a useful number for this discussion.

[1] https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1155658/acela-high-speed...

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#233

Post by hilbert42 »

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.

"The ever-rising investments seem to be only enough to keep the status quo of the crumbling infrastructure."

It's quite a while since I've traveled by Deutsche Bahn but I found it very efficient and on time when I did. What do you reckon is the reason for the crumbling infrastructure? There was huge reinvestment after the war to renew war-damaged infrastructure and rail infrastructure usually has a very long life (many rail bridges and viaducts built in the mid 1800s are still in service today).

Was that war reconstruction rushed/not well implemented or what?

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#234

Post by noirbot »

twelvechairs wrote: post #225
noirbot wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 amazin…

> I take Amtrak more in the US than the average German citizen takes DB Its more than ICE trains not more than the whole of DB. Its 100m ICE trips per year but 2600m DB trips per year in 2019 (c. 31 per capita per year) https://www.statista.com/statistics/936254/deutsche-bahn-pas...

Sure, but then the better US comparison includes things like the Chicago/NYC/Boston/DC/Atlanta train systems, which I'd imagine a decent number of folks in those cities take more than 31 times a year. Heck, I think I've taken more than 31 MTA rides per year and I don't even live in NYC.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#235

Post by efxhoy »

Rail travel here in Sweden is unfortunately not reliable at all. In february only 75% of long distance and 90% of short distance trips were on time. Many departures were canceled due to a myriad of problems ranging from technical issues with the tracks caused by poor maintenance, to staffing problems caused by staff being off sick or failures of the new staff planning system to allocate staff. The problems aren’t uniform, some parts of the country are worse affected.

The train is fantastic when it runs but it takes a heavy toll on quality of life for thousands of commuters when they unexpectedly have to spend several hours a day every week waiting for trains that don’t work. Today my partner spent 3 hours on what should be a 70 minute commute.

Instead of spending much more on maintenance (which has been underfunded and mismanaged for years) to increase reliability the government is spending billions to build a new fancy high speed line between Stockholm and Gothenburg. I guess maintenance and reliability aren’t sexy enough for political campaigning.

Stats in Swedish: https://www.sj.se/sv/om/om-sj/hallbarhet/punktlighet.html

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#236

Post by ascar »

noirbot wrote: post #222
ascar wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also all international trips are irrelevant for comparison as the ICE traffic is national.

Give or take. There's plenty of trains between countries in Europe that would also be within driving distance. In my mind, the optimal realistic situation is to have rail for longer distances (1-8 hours), but not trans-oceanic obviously, and then either ICE or local light rail for smaller trips

The relevant point is that there are no (or very few) international ICE trains. Cross-border are usually slower Euro-city trains that shouldn't be included in the ICE statistics.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#238

Post by noirbot »

ascar wrote: post #232
noirbot wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 amazin…

> I'm a little surprised to learn that I take Amtrak more in the US than the average German citizen takes DB Amtrak had 31.3 million passengers in 2016 [1]. That's 0.095 passengers per capita. And that's on all Amtrak trains, while the German number is just for the ICE high-speed trains. Amtrak's high-speed Acela trains only had 3.5 million passengers in 2019 or 0.01 per capita. [2] Per capita is just not a useful nu…

Sure, but Amtrak is a weird comparison since its "real" service area isn't anywhere close to the full population of the US. There's plenty of whole states that don't have an Amtrak station in them. Most EU countries have a much lower median distance to a train station than the US does.

I'm not expecting to have them be similar numbers. My original point was purely anecdotal - I usually take 1-3 Amtrak rides a year and I don't even live in a part of the country that has good Amtrak service. It's odd to me that folks in a country with much better service use it less than I feel like I would use Amtrak if I could.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#239

Post by TeeMassive »

xeeeeeeeeeeenu wrote: post #231

It seems likely that hydrogen will replace diesel in trains. Companies like Alstom[1], PESA[2] and Talgo[3] are developing hydrogen trains. Germany has already started deploying them on a small scale[4], while Poland is planning to[5]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom_Coradia_LINT#iLint [2] - https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/poland-pesa-presented-a-hydr... [3] - https://www.railwaypro.com/wp/talgo-to-launch-…

I'm not against using Hydrogen but the problem is always what are they producing Hydrogen with and how is it more efficient energetically and emission wise?

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#240

Post by Aperocky »

randomsearch wrote: post #174
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…

According to a relative who has spent a lifetime being a transport nerd, rail is actually more suited to people transport and roads to goods. The reason is surprisingly obvious in hindsight. You bring 1000 people into a city centre train station and then they deliver themselves to their final destination. But goods either have to be sent to single purpose custom built lines and depots (eg power stations) or else tran…

> I am personally very good at delivering myself autonomously on foot for several miles

Meanwhile in America people drive a 2 ton vehicle to deliver themselves to the parking lot next block (guilty as charged).

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