321–330 of 654 posts
Just wanted to point out that Western European rail investments are dual use. Large scale military operations require massive logistics and rail is a big part of that.
Observations from a frequent train traveller in Germany and Japan: - Train Travel works when the frequency of trains is so high that you do not need to think about "a" connection, but instead just choose the "next" connection. - Any significant number of delayed trains are a problem when one has important appointments. Morning meetings require an overnight trip, even if an early morning connection would usually work.…
That's interesting. What are the worst examples of this? I had found some Japanese stations rather labyrinthine too, especially Tokyo ones with multiple public/private systems and above/underground malls cobbled together like Shinjuku, so I'm surprised that the European experience is worse.
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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 would involve a significant infrastructure investment. Not too much of an issue with more densely populated areas like Europe - and countries like France and Japan already do use overhead wires - but it is not cost competitive in sparse locations like much of North America. It's true that it's contingent on a carbon-free source of hydrogen. But if something like thermochemical hydrogen production throu…
Yeah building dozens of large scale hydrogen plants, trenching and welding pipelines, building massive excess of necessary renewable energy, figuring distribution networks, deciding storage & container standards, house retrofits etc to run our society will be much easier than ...(checks notes)... Hanging wires
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Why?
The economics are quite involved, and can be easily skewed depending on what externalized costs you choose to include in your analysis. Superficially, flying has relatively lower infrastructure costs because it only needs the two endpoints (no road, no track, no bridges, no tunnels -- all expensive items). That impacts both the initial capital cost, and the ongoing investment in maintenance. Similarly, planes are fas…
It would be amazing to see humans build a large scale fusion reactors and Dyson spheres around the sun and never have to think about energy consumption :).
At the same time, I think we all should be disappointed in our approach towards energy production. We shouldn't have to ration it. Successful governments should be responsible for running sequestrators on tax funding.
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I can't help but feel much of this argument is relative. From my experience (I'm no longer a European resident) almost all of the European rail network that I've traveled on (and that's quite a lot) beats much of the infrastructure in Anglophone countries—and I'm referring to both track and rolling-stock). (...Perhaps my view has been formed by the fact that I've come from a low base in Anglophone countries, so every…
As a UK resident, I can't help but wonder which group you're including the UK in. We're both a European and an anglophone country!
That said, to be fair I found the UK track maintenance pretty good although trains weren't as punctual as they were in most of Europe. Likewise, the carriages/comfort was somewhat primitive compared to most of what I've experienced on the Continent.
I have to say it's quite some years since I've traveled on British Rail and I understand things have improved considerably in recent years (one only has to watch Portillo speaking to camera from a UK train carriage to realize that).
My worst (and repeated) experience on UK Rail was the horrible Gatwick Express which was often notoriously late (especially the time when it broke down midway to the airport and I missed a flight to New York and lost a whole day in the process).
Perhaps my most memorable experience—it's what always first comes to mind whenever I think of rail travel in the UK—it's the horrible apology for a cheese sandwich that I was offered (and at an enormous ripoff price) on an 'overnighter' from London to Edinburgh (I've witnesses, they suffered the same fate). I can't say I've ever eaten a worse one.
Presumably, the latest food offerings have also improved somewhat since then.
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> Electrification of lines is just not happening anymore in Germany. It's politically more sexy to do something with Hydrogen. Very odd. "Odd" is a fine euphemism to describe Germany's energy strategy. > By trying to remodel stations cheaply for commerce, most stations in Germany have become unpleasant to navigate. Signage is particularly bad (compared to Japan) Yes... Parisian train stations are also becoming gigant…
Every train station and every airport is a geographical monopoly. There needs to be government regulation that prevents them from forcing people through a huge shopping mall maze.
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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 an…
You probably just travel more than most people. Also, America is much bigger than any given European country and that leads to greater travel distances.
As a general example, the Midwest is roughly the same size and population as France, so if we made the investment we could reasonably have a regional high speed network centered on Chicago. We’ll never have coast to coast high speed rail, but having a few regional networks is certainly doable.
I feel that when the total cost of rail is taken into account, there are only a few very high density areas or high traffic routes where they make sense. I was recently reading about how large stretches of China's bullet train system cost tens of billions of dollars, and ongoing expenditure of billions more, and have hardly enough traffic to justify their maintenance, let alone their construction costs. There are som…
Agree. Trains make perfect sense in metro areas like London, Berlin, Paris, Frankfurt, etc. Everywhere else, they are a complete waste of money, are difficult to run on a regular schedule, service only narrow corridors, are inconvenient to get to/from for daily commutes and increase total commute time 2+ times. To increase use of public transport, we need to increase convenience, not reduce cost.