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Europe is investing heavily in trains

nytimes.com

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Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#391

Post by lobochrome »

malermeister wrote: post #306
lobochrome wrote: post #288

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.…

Curious what you dislike about the Siemens trains? We use them all over Austria and I quite like them.

Frequent problems and breakage. Just last week one train couldn’t continue because of a stuck door. Another had no food because the water wasn’t running in the galley.

Also they are not accessible. Strollers are inconvenient to bring - wheelchairs are a nightmare.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#392

Post by lrem »

gpvos wrote: post #156
lrem wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It _really_ depends on the distances and sizes of the cities you're going to. Paris-London train is about 3 hours, which is likely less than you'll spend on getting to+from an airport. Paris-Berlin on the other hand is miserable, unless you love trains.

Or unless you take a night train. Get in in the evening, sleep most of the way and wake up at your destination. That can actually save you time compared to a flight, or be a lot more comfortable than, e.g., getting up at 4 AM to take a flight to a meeting in the morning somewhere.

When I looked at what map finds, there were only connections with two or three transfers. That doesn't sound like a comfortable night.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#393

Post by stephen_g »

xyzzyz wrote: post #347
sudosysgen wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are already paying for those externalities in extreme weather events caused by CO2, also from carbon taxes in other countries that wouldn't have been necessary otherwise, from people who have to buy more expensive cars and fuel, etc...

> People are already paying for those externalities in extreme weather events caused by CO2, And others are benefitting from positive externalities of warmer weather, reducing need for heating, increases yields due to increased CO2 concentration etc. Thing is, it’s incredibly hard to put a number on net costs on climate change. The most serious recent attempt to do that had its author, William Nordhaus, a Nobel Prize…

Nordhaus's work is absolutely panned as being basically literally insane by actual scientists. He based a large parts of his analysis on ideas like "well x% (something like 75%+) of GDP happens indoors so that won't be affected by any way by climate change".

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#394

Post by fulafel »

Symbiote wrote: post #223
namdnay wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still have diesel trains ?!

Wikipedia shows the percentage of electrified railway for all countries. It's 56% for the EU+UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_tran...

A more interesting table would be the percent of electrified vs not passenger service miles delivered. The rail networks has a lot of quiet or disused track.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#395

Post by monksy »

ones_and_zeros wrote: post #337
monksy wrote: post #27

As someone who just rode in a sleeper car for the second time. I like amtrak when I can do this. It's completely unreasonable for a round trip, but I did Chicago->Seattle and Chicago to Boston (Where I"m currently here.. and will be flying back tomorrow). It's a mostly great experience... all due to the scenery you're watching, not so much everything else. What worries me if it becomes more privatized: You'll see the…

I just looked at the Chicago to Boston train and it's 22 hours long? That seems...lengthy?

It starts at 9:30 and arrives at 8:30. So if you're in a sleeper, you're pretty much ready to get to bed when it starts. There's plenty to do on the train if you carry electronics, books, etc.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#396

Post by petesergeant »

im3w1l wrote: post #385
jrockway wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think this is probably the most accurate answer in this particular thread. There's essentially unlimited capacity in airspace, and while some airports are massively oversubscribed (LHR!) most are not. You can just keep putting planes up in the air in 3 dimensions where increasing the number of trains needs laying more excessively expensive physical infrastructure in 2 dimensions

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#397

Post by xyzzyz »

stephen_g wrote: post #393
xyzzyz wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are already paying for those externalities in extreme weather events caused by CO2, And others are benefitting from positive externalities of warmer weather, reducing need for heating, increases yields due to increased CO2 concentration etc. Thing is, it’s incredibly hard to put a number on net costs on climate change. The most serious recent attempt to do that had its author, William Nordhaus, a Nobel Prize…

Nordhaus's work is absolutely panned as being basically literally insane by actual scientists. He based a large parts of his analysis on ideas like "well x% (something like 75%+) of GDP happens indoors so that won't be affected by any way by climate change".

Why didn't those actual scientists bring this up when he, you know, got a Nobel Prize for that? Or are you arguing here that Nobel Prize is a joke, and people who give it are total idiots?

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#398

Post by xyzzyz »

adrianN wrote: post #384
xyzzyz wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We have some pretty high estimates. We also have some low estimates too. Average of the estimates we have is not "at least 300 eur/ton".

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#399

Post by pastage »

zdragnar wrote: post #365
TulliusCicero wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that subsidy look per trip, though?

Amtrack moves just shy of 17 million passengers in a year. Airlines in the US do that in 8 days. That's works out to roughly 45x as many passengers, with only what, 6x the subsidies?

How does that translate to carbon foot print per dollar.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#400

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

axiomsEnd wrote: post #182
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use trains here in Poland and although there have been big improvements, a lot of them are only a facade. Long distance PKP trains are still late everyday. The regional trains in my city tend to be over-packed, and from a technical pov they’re more like larger diesel buses than trains. However, in response to the earlier comment and this one as well, I would have to say that investment doesn’t always mean immediate…

Poland made a huge step back when it comes to trains after 1990 - there is a good book by Karol Trammer "Ostre cięcie" about disastrous cuts. On the other hand - Pendolino is a real step forward, and at least Cracow is trying to improve general quality and invest in intra-city trains, which maybe not the fastest, but still much better than buses or trams.

I highly disagree on Pendolino and I am quite angry about it. It has been around for what, >5 years now? I have still yet to take it because it is so expensive. It’s basically the Concorde of Polish trains - it cost a fortune to build and only rich people take it because it speeds up travel time by ~30%. Meanwhile, standard speed trains, which are still capable of covering the same distances in reasonable time, are late, are underinvested and are overcrowded. What we would need is an affordable high volume train network, not trains that cost the same as planes and look cool.

That’s my rant on that subject. On the other hand I do think the one great thing we got out of the previous system is a well developed train network. Even with all of it’s faults and issues, trains remain a great way to get around Poland. And that is something to be grateful for. I’ll check out that book, thanks!

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