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Europe is investing heavily in trains

nytimes.com

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Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#381

Post by hguant »

simonsarris wrote: post #10
Fargren wrote: post #2

Living in Spain, I love trains and take them over airplane when it's an option. However, trains are often around twice as expensive as flying for may routes. I know nothing about trains, but intuitively I would expect the opposite, and I really wish it was more affordable, specially high speed rail.

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…

This is due to an international agreement post world war two (the 1944 Chicago Convention on Aviation) that agreed that fuel and maintenance parts necessary for _international air travel_ would be exempt from tarrifs and all taxes, barring a specific agreement between those to nations.

Domestic use is taxed, and at rather steep rates (look at the US!); however, because most flights in the EU are international, it would require both nations ok'ing a tax on flights between them. No one has gone through with this, and it's doubtful any one ever will, for a variety of reasons.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#382

Post by nextos »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #350
wasmitnetzen wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airports, especially smaller ones, are heavily subsidized in Europe.

The US airline industry is massively subsidized. Every country heavily subsidizes air travel. The federal government spends $2BN/year on Amtrak and people lose their damn minds. Meanwhile, at the FAA, nearly $12BN/year...and that doesn't account for all the local and state funds used to subsidize airports. Or Department of Transportation spending...

Airlines seem to be a bad business in the long run.

I recall a figure from MIT's microeconomics textbook (Pindyck et al.) where they showed the aggregate profits of all industry since its inception were negative.

In EU, subsidies to airlines are an indirect subsidy to the tourism industry.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#383

Post by ncmncm »

TeeMassive wrote: post #379
ncmncm wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydrogen can be produced electrically from water. A positively stupendous amount of electrolysis equipment will need to be built out, but there will be demand for as much as can be produced. Burning hydrogen produces mainly water. Burned in an engine, it also produces nitrous oxides, so probably some ammonia would be dissolved in to scavenge that. Liquid hydrogen takes up a lot more room than kerosene. The insulated…

> Hydrogen can be produced electrically from water. Which adds three energy transformation steps (Electricity for H2O to H2 + compression, H2 + 02 to water and heat, water and heat to mechanical movement) as opposed to electricity to motor. Hydrogen is a meme.

Solar panels on the train car roofs would utterly fail to propel the train, even at noon. So, the energy has to be concentrated somehow. Batteries are heavy, and also involve a pair of chemical transformations. Hydrogen is the single most energy-dense (per unit mass) medium.

But hydrogen is not best compressed, but liquified. There might be some value in compressing it on the way to liquifaction. Liquifying hydrogen consumes some energy too.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#384

Post by adrianN »

xyzzyz wrote: post #340
jhgb wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By definition, low taxes are not a subsidy. The conspicuous lack of Pigouvian taxes on a fossil fuel for just one industry is definitely a subsidy. Someone else is paying for the externalities.

No, nobody is actually paying for CO2 emission externalities. At best, you can argue that maybe someone will be paying them some day in future, but it’s a big fat maybe. Because nobody is actually paying for these externalities, we don’t have any figures of how much those externalities cost — you can come up with some estimates, but as GOSPLAN experience shows, calculating prices outside of markets is a fool’s errand…

We have pretty high estimates of what CO2 costs. Depending on how you discount future damage CO2 should cost at least 300€/ton.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#385

Post by im3w1l »

jrockway wrote: post #370
pydry wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also intense competition among airlines which cuts costs to the bone. That doesnt happen for rail.

Not sure that's really true. Look at the low cost high speed carriers like Ouigo.

With rail, the physical rail becomes an economic chokepoint. Who controls the rail came name his price. Now you might think that the same goes for airports, but often there are multiple viable choices. E.g. in the bay area you could use SF, Oakland or San Jose.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#386

Post by lostlogin »

Leherenn wrote: post #21
Fargren wrote: post #2

Living in Spain, I love trains and take them over airplane when it's an option. However, trains are often around twice as expensive as flying for may routes. I know nothing about trains, but intuitively I would expect the opposite, and I really wish it was more affordable, specially high speed rail.

Rail infrastructure is very expensive compared to planes. An airport is expensive, but once you've built it you're pretty much immediately connected to half the world. With a train station, you need a track to each surrounding stations, maintain them, and so on. Also, train doesn't scale down as well, it quickly becomes inefficient for the less dense routes. People are talking about subsidies (by not taxing fuel for…

Many airlines are subsidised, and their pollution (sound, air, sea, land) is effectively a subsidy as the airlines don't pay.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#387

Post by flavius29663 »

simonsarris wrote: post #10
Fargren wrote: post #2

Living in Spain, I love trains and take them over airplane when it's an option. However, trains are often around twice as expensive as flying for may routes. I know nothing about trains, but intuitively I would expect the opposite, and I really wish it was more affordable, specially high speed rail.

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…

You're saying this like it's a bad thing, why? Why should we tax common goods and services to the point they become luxuries only some people can afford?

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#388

Post by flavius29663 »

lostlogin wrote: post #386
Leherenn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rail infrastructure is very expensive compared to planes. An airport is expensive, but once you've built it you're pretty much immediately connected to half the world. With a train station, you need a track to each surrounding stations, maintain them, and so on. Also, train doesn't scale down as well, it quickly becomes inefficient for the less dense routes. People are talking about subsidies (by not taxing fuel for…

Many airlines are subsidised, and their pollution (sound, air, sea, land) is effectively a subsidy as the airlines don't pay.

Trains are also noisy, at least as much as planes. As for pollution, consider how much land is taken from nature for tracks...there is almost none for airplanes, in comparison.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#389

Post by lobochrome »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #359
fomine3 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Japan, make huge shopping mall near (or into) station is a big part to make train company profitable. Banning them could be bad to make public transport profitable.

My experience has been it's not a maze, though, they just build some commerce at ground level and a lot more on upper levels. The experience of getting to your train isn't very compromised.

Exactly. Not against commerce at all. Not for government regulation either. Just optimize the pedestrian traffic flow.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#390

Post by ornornor »

flavius29663 wrote: post #387
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…

You're saying this like it's a bad thing, why? Why should we tax common goods and services to the point they become luxuries only some people can afford?

Because of the externalities of flying, especially when compared to (electric) trains?
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