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Austria rail operator OeBB unveils new night trains

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Re: Austria rail operator OeBB unveils new night trains

#221

Post by ddejohn »

beebeepka wrote: post #196
ddejohn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> carbon tax > big fat scam Care to elaborate?

If it's going to be anything like the carbon offsets, I see zero reason to elaborate since it will inevitably end up looking like arguing with religious people. I am all for taxing pollution but focusing on carbon alone makes me extremely dubious of the actual intent behind such proposals. These things appear to be weapons disguised as legitimate efforts to improve things.

So instead of taking the opportunity to educate somebody on a topic you're implying you know a lot about, you've decided it's not worth the bother because I'm probably religious about -- checks notes -- carbon taxes... and there's going to be no reasoning with me?

Why bother commenting on the internet at all?

Re: Austria rail operator OeBB unveils new night trains

#223

Post by jryle70 »

nologic01 wrote: post #153
jdasdf wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>what could be more pleasant than being able to criss-cross Europe in night trains that are affordable, comfortable and sustainable? Doing it by plane at a fraction of the time and cost.

Air travel is cheaper in part because it is subsidized [1]. Nothing wrong with optimizing for cost - if all externalities are properly priced. Otherwise its just egotistical behavior (don't mess with my habits) that passes as "common sense". [1] https://www.transportenvironment.org/challenges/planes/subsi...

Train is also subsidized. In fact, while air transport benefits from tax exemption, train receives substantial infrastructure subsidy. The following report puts rail subsidy to be around 75B EUR, whereas air within 27B to 35B. The study is from 2007, but I doubt it has changed much.

https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/technical_report_2007...

Re: Austria rail operator OeBB unveils new night trains

#224

Post by monkaiju »

rasz wrote: post #127
bpye wrote: post #88

I love night trains. I’ve taken them from Warsaw to Prague, Prague to Zurich, and Verona to Paris. It’s by far my preferred option - you get a decent nights sleep and whilst the tickets are more expensive it’s one fewer nights in a hotel which normally offsets it. I still really want to do the two in the UK, the Caledonian Sleeper and the Night Riviera.

You pay extra to sleep 10 hours on a train versus 2 hours by plane at half the cost?

Honestly given the difference in environmental impact idk why it matters. Flying is simply nit sustainable and should generally simply not be an option.

Just to be clear it currently is commonly the only option, but that must change

Re: Austria rail operator OeBB unveils new night trains

#225

Post by flemhans »

Closi wrote: post #195
jltsiren wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, like many other ideas combining cars and public transport, sounds like something that doesn't scale. The exact numbers vary, but the passenger capacity of a car train is usually something like 1/2 of a normal night train or 1/3 of a normal day train, assuming that the train is fully dedicated to carrying people with cars. You also need special facilities and longer stops, because cars can't just dismount at nor…

This implies that rail is running at capacity during the night, which I suspect isn’t true. It’s not a choice between 1 car-train or 1 normal night train - you can have both if there is line capacity. And you probably aren’t running sleeper carriages during peak hours.

I do feel like rail in general isn't running anywhere near capacity. If it was optimized better with modern fluid signaling system, "packet based" routing of individual carriages, and way shorter headways, I think 10x the amount of cargo could be squeezed through.

Re: Austria rail operator OeBB unveils new night trains

#226

Post by asdff »

crote wrote: post #208
asdff wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but think the liquid limit was put in to limit drinking as well, thats a big part why its a thing at stadiums and other events. If they let you bring in a water bottle people would fill it with vodka and then you get 300 frat boys throwing up on the plane to panama city beach.

Don't they still allow you to bring duty-free alcohol on board? I'm not a frequent flier, but as I understand it any liquids bought post-security can be brought on the flight.

Yeah but you aren't allowed to drink it. Meanwhile no one bats an eye if you are taking pulls from a plastic water bottle.

Re: Austria rail operator OeBB unveils new night trains

#227

Post by asdff »

midasuni wrote: post #199
asdff wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big issue I think with the tax is that its ultimately paid for by consumers and not capital, as a result behavior won't shift, people will just get poorer in need of more subsidy and wealth will be more concentrated. Rather than a carbon tax, we should tax wealth for carbon used to generate such wealth in the American economic system. We could do this by taxing the holdings directly, or having a progressive tax r…

In theory a carbon tax incentivises low carbon solutions. In theory the market is frictionless and transparent.

Theory will only take you so far

Re: Austria rail operator OeBB unveils new night trains

#228

Post by asdff »

ant6n wrote: post #214
asdff wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per passenger mpg between a train and a plane isn't all that far off. Planes tend to travel pretty full so per passenger mpg is pretty high, like 100mpg. You get better per passenger mpg with a train but the train needs to get decent ridership. Depending on where you are going, maybe the train and bus service doesn't get too much ridership and your flight in might actually work out to be the greenest way.

Radiative forcing-wise, flying emits 200g equivalent of co2 per pax-km, rail about 20g. And that’s largely due to infrastructure, so the marginal „cost“ of more trains is low.

The marginal cost of more trains being low depends on there being infrastructure at all, and some countries and areas are much better built out for this than others. For example, whats the marginal cost of another high speed train from Tokyo to Osaka? Probably low, the high speed tracks are already there and there is probably ample platform capacity at either end. Move east to Califnornia and whats the cost of adding another high speed train from SF to LA where there wasn't one previously? We are looking at north of 100 billion dollars here for this link and years of work. Quite a mountain of money, time, and effort, compared to e.g. scheduling another plane to land even at a tiny airport in an impoverished country.

Re: Austria rail operator OeBB unveils new night trains

#229

Post by dheera »

petre wrote: post #131
dheera wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Beijing when flying to the US they confiscated water that I had bought post-security. There were people on the actual boarding ramp confiscating liquids. Wasn't good for me because my body needs to frequently drink water, I get dehydrated easily. It didn't happen when flying to domestic destinations in China, so it makes me think the US requested that to happen.

Better bring a sack of fruit with high water content then. Maybe the security doesn't have enough imagination to clasify them as "liquids". For instance China is an exporter of pomelo. The fruit is also used as a good luck charm, consumed during the mid-autumn festival and used in Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations in India, so you could claim it's for "religious use" if they try to confiscate it.

Have you ever tried to eat a pomelo on airplane, let alone cut one open with the only shitty plastic knives you can get on board?

Re: Austria rail operator OeBB unveils new night trains

#230

Post by ornornor »

albert180 wrote: post #202
ornornor wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I boarded an ÖBB train with a ticket sold to me by ÖBB and a partial refund for the delay from ÖBB.

Yes because you bought the ticket from ÖBB so they are responsible for refunds too. It's still a Train operated by MAV (and you also can buy tickets from them directly) and the ÖBB Nightjet Website explicitly tells you: "Der Umfang und die Qualität der Serviceleistungen in einem EuroNight Zug und das eingesetzte Wagenmaterial weichen vom Angebot des ÖBB Nightjets ab." "The scope and quality of the services in a Euron…

Okay. Isn’t it a technicality though? In the end of the day, ÖBB sells this through their website so they should stand behind it. It’s too easy to sell anything and everything and say “caveat emptor, it might be total shit or maybe not but in any case I’m only here to take your money.” See Amazon and how happy people in general are with their comingling problem.

That’s my opinion anyway, feel free to have your own.

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