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Europe is investing heavily in trains

nytimes.com

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Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#251

Post by beaconstudios »

ChildOfChaos wrote: post #250

Certainly not in the UK, our ticket prices keep going up massively and the service is getting worse and worse, putting on smaller and smaller trains and more delays and cancellations than ever, with most train stations badly run down. It's a complete joke. The trains are far worse and largely more expensive than they were ten years ago. In the past eight months, I have gotten a same day return journey on average once…

Well our train service is highly privatised, and in a way that does not engender competition.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#252

Post by riazrizvi »

gandalfian wrote: post #221

Here in the UK the train to London is five hours and £75. The coach is £15 and eight hours. Four people in a car perhaps £10 a head. Trains are nicer but there is something annoyingly mysterious about the ecomomcs of it all.

It’s a question of economy of scale. The amount of road vehicle that has been built over the last 150 years vastly supersedes the amount of train over an even longer period. More train, means better train. Hopefully advances in computer aided design will allow some narrowing of that gap.

EDIT: There is also an inherent feature in trains that greatly reduces the rate of progress. With toad vehicles there is very good decoupling between the track and the vehicle, from a design pov. With trains the chassis design is more coupled to the track design. And since you can’t really upgrade track easily, on both train and road, there are more constraints in new train design.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#253

Post by supertrope »

thebean11 wrote: post #87
monksy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I remember trying to get from NYC to DC and the prices being higher than flights. I took a bus instead.

If you consider the time-money spent in security checkpoints and riding taxis it’s a wash. Amtrak is able to charge more because it’s a better experience than a flight! But only on the NY-DC route.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#254

Post by wolfgang000 »

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-…

Bad idea in mi opinion, this is a solved problem, overhead wires, the amount of energy lost between the converting water into hydrogen and then back into water to get electricity can be as high as 70%, it's just a bad idea when you can use that energy directly using wire to get the same job done

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#255

Post by gopalv »

TeeMassive wrote: post #239
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?

> what are they producing Hydrogen with and how is it more efficient energetically and emission wise?

Even if it is just Blue hydrogen being burnt here, the splitter plants can have some carbon capture in it which would be impossible to install on a moving train (beats diesel and also direct LNG burning).

That said, with trains there's no real argument against electrification. The wheels have been electrically driven for a few decades now. It's not like they need to come up with motors or work out batteries.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#256

Post by chiph »

barry-cotter wrote: post #227
einpoklum wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why couldn't DB Netz do both people and freight, if both are profitable (after subsidies for passenger traffic)? i.e. why does it have to be a choice?

Because things which are designed to be good at one thing will not be as good at other things. There's only so much rail network and given a conflict either freight is a priority or passengers are. You can't have two number 1 priorities.

I'm pretty impressed with India opening dedicated freight corridors. It's double-track that is optimized for longer, heavier freight trains. It seems obvious that the different operational patterns of freight and passenger rail means they each should have their own tracks. The only thing they did "wrong" IMO was to have level crossings where cars & trucks can get hit by the trains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd6EW9QsRto

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#257

Post by Symbiote »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #186
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source? I'd expect rail to be more expensive from a capital expenditure perspective (laying rail, ties, buying cars, etc) but much cheaper to operate (coefficient of friction is lower between train wheels and rails than with rubber tires and roads, optimal speeding and slowing causing less wear on tracks, less downtime as rail repairs are much simpler than road repairs, etc)

In the UK, Network Rail spends about £150k per track kilometer per year on maintenance and renewal. Track needs constant maintenance through ballast redistribution and compaction to maintain track geometry; the rail itself needs to be ground regularly to maintain its shape; points systems need to be maintained, as well as signaling systems, earthworks and embankments, even vegetation. Maintenance costs for major road…

All Network Rail railways: £4479M / 20,000 miles of track = £140000/km

Strategic Road Network: £700M / 4,436 miles = £98000/km

Not included: cost of pollution, injuries and deaths on the roads.

Not considered: potential and actual capacity of the roads vs the railways, potential for historic underinvestment meaning higher current costs, whether these statistics mean a single track/road lane or all the tracks/lanes, usage costs for passengers and freight.

A breakdown of the railways costs would be useful for a better comparison, i.e. major lines only.

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Ann...

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#258

Post by Karrot_Kream »

erosenbe0 wrote: post #204
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We don't really want the trains (because of the way the US developed its cities). Let me give an example. In order to add a few more daily routes from Chicago to Milwaukee on Amtrak, a freight train would have to hold on a holding line for several hours in residential areas to let the Amtrak through. The increase in ridership, not just riders shifting their schedules, would have been at most a few hundred. So in orde…

This seems poorly argued to me. You're making a number of assumptions here which I don't see why they would hold:

1. Amtrak ridership will barely grow, at most by a few hundred riders per day. If you're this bearish on trains then naturally you'll think nobody wants to take the train and you don't think Amtrak should build more trains. You're coming into this assuming that nobody wants to ride the train.

2. Building dedicated track between Chicago and Milwaukee would be cost prohibitive for Amtrak or otherwise infeasible. The majority of the cost for building track comes from acquiring ROW (so purchasing the land), grade separations, and utility relocations needed for laying the track. Chicago to Milwaukee in particular is one of the cases where these costs are probably _lowest_ as much of the ROW is cheap to acquire (outside of the direct Chicagoland area), the land is fairly flat so grade separations are rarely needed and utility relocations are cheap to build.

3. The opportunity cost in carbon for added vehicles on the road would somehow be less than the opportunity cost for rolling stock to idle. Even if freight rail continues to refuse to electrify in perpetuity, the added carbon from private vehicle emissions will quickly dwarf extra carbon emissions from idling freight cars.

I think you're coming at this from a "trains are stupid, here's why" perspective rather than an unbiased cost and carbon perspective. These arguments change in areas where ROW acquisition is expensive or grade separations and utility relocations are difficult, but Chicago to Milwaukee has very few of these problems. In particular the problem in this part of the US is that while rail works to move from city-to-city, most Midwestern cities (other than Chicago) have no actual transit to speak of. Once the Amtrak drops you into Milwaukee, if there's nowhere to go via train, then you're stuck, in which case you may as well drive the whole way. That goes back to the fact that rail/transit in the US has been historically and systematically underfunded, particularly so in the Midwest where Detroit had a lot of negotiation (read: money) leverage in the golden years for American auto companies.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#259

Post by lillecarl »

noirbot wrote: post #229
DominikPeters wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like in 2019 there were 200-250 million airplane trips starting or ending in Germany. So maybe the surprise is how little average people travel rather than how little they rail.

Yea, that doesn't seem like that useful of a number, since Frankfurt is a fairly major layover airport for international travel. I guess the more specific question would be how many Germans fly to elsewhere in Germany or Central Europe vs. taking a train. I generally have to either do a long car trip or a flight to get around in the US outside of some specific corridors. Presumably most of Europe has the option to ta…

And yet layover flights are decreasing since the 2 engine restriction was "lifted". A 787 can fly non stop for as long as would be comfortable for someone to be on a plane.

According to Wendover Productions.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#260

Post by sva_ »

wolfgang000 wrote: post #254
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-…

Bad idea in mi opinion, this is a solved problem, overhead wires, the amount of energy lost between the converting water into hydrogen and then back into water to get electricity can be as high as 70%, it's just a bad idea when you can use that energy directly using wire to get the same job done

Overhead wires are not a solution on a large scale, and also an eyesore.
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