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In Europe, trains are full, and more are on the way

nytimes.com

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Re: In Europe, trains are full, and more are on the way

#141

Post by EEBio »

bluGill wrote: post #17
kibwen wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> especially in small Europe What's small about the scale of Europe in this context? Even taking the extremely conservative measurement of Madrid to Berlin, that's 1200 miles/2000 km, which is comparable to the entire length of the Japanese isles, or the distance from Beijing to the South China Sea, or the distance from Boston to Minneapolis and/or Miami. Speaking as an American, I'd be over the moon if our passenger…

Europe mostly speaks a different language in every country, so the actual scale of Europe isn't the whole continent (or whole EU), but a single country. Sure you can travel to other countries, but there is a language barrier (though English is common enough to get by most places). Note that GP was talking about Germany with seeming no awareness that the situation is different in Switzerland, France, England and Spain…

Not only does English get you by in most big cities, a fair amount of European citizens are multilingual and often it’s the neighbouring countries that people speak the language of.

Re: In Europe, trains are full, and more are on the way

#142

Post by lopis »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #140

I have amazing memories, as a kid, of going on vacation with my parents, from Belgium to the french riviera... We'd load our car , a Lada (the Lada Riva, an horrible car btw), on the train and then, in the same train, we'd go to the passenger car. The trip was about 1100 km / 685 miles. The train would drive over night and we'd eat and sleep in the train and then arrived near destination next morning, we'd hop into o…

I think because cars became much more reliable, we felt we didn't need these anymore.

The reintroduction of that type of service would mean you no longer thad to worry about your electric car's range when going on a road trip. The car could even charge while in the train.

Re: In Europe, trains are full, and more are on the way

#144

Post by ivan_gammel »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #104
jhoechtl wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a pattern in Germany engineering? Airport Berlin, Stuttgart 21, constantly late running trains? Is Germany over-engineered and over-regulated, what's the issue?

Trains being late is simply an overrated problem. This is not something that DB should optimize for. It would be easy to make sure every train is punctual by running one Munich-Berlin-Hamburg train a day. Trains are late because they run a demanding schedule, trying to serve every big city (this is not like France where everything is supposed to go through Paris, this is a country that unified late with many powerful…

Schedule isn’t the root cause. DB has serious problems with staffing, because their workforce is going to retire soon in large numbers and finding replacement is hard. They have problems with infrastructure: it is telling that a heavy rain, moderate snowfall or burning grass can knock out a major route. Both are management problems.

Re: In Europe, trains are full, and more are on the way

#145

Post by orwin »

yann63 wrote: post #101
k__ wrote: post #3

Trains are pretty awesome, especially in small Europe. Flying always comes with security hassle. A train is just: get in/get out. If Europe would just spent more money on infrastructure. We have trains in Germany that can do 350km/h but I've yet to ride one that goes faster than 200, probably because the rails aren't what they're used to be. Then we have the Germany Ticket. A 50€/month subscription to all regional tr…

> A train is just: get in/get out. This is changing, at least in France. Enshittification of train travel has begun by SNCF/ouigo. I traveled last month, now (at least for some trains) you must have a ticket at your name to travel, you must register big suitcases. It is becoming less and less get in / get out, unfortunately :-(

Yeah, low cost TGVs are a hassle.

Re: In Europe, trains are full, and more are on the way

#146

Post by ecnahc515 »

bigfudge wrote: post #118
bradley13 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German rail infrastructure is...in need of help. Here, in Switzerland, many trains come from Germany. Well, they did. They are so often late that some routes now stop at the border, so that the Swiss schedule isn't impacted by German problems. Germany is also years behind on putting cargo onto trains for transit through the Alps. Even Italy was faster.

This is true, but I have watched with amusement as a Swiss station master paced, tutted and finally started swearing under his breath as a train from Milan got later and later. It amazed me at the time he cared so much - it seemed personal. But I guess that’s why Swiss rail is so great - that and the funding.

Yeah that's a very Swiss thing. People get upset when trains are more than 1-2 minutes late. It's so reliable even a delay of < 5 minutes is important to people. Not to mention, transfers sometimes are < 5 minutes long, so a train being 1-2 minutes late means you might miss a timed transfer.

Re: In Europe, trains are full, and more are on the way

#147

Post by nilsherzig »

rubymamis wrote: post #109
Wytwwww wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Europe could get on Japan's level, that would be a dream. To be fair Germany could at least reach France's or Italy's level first.

Trains in Italy and Spain were so much better than trains in Germany (I was a nomad in Europe for 1.5 years).

In what way?

Re: In Europe, trains are full, and more are on the way

#148

Post by enaaem »

The_Colonel wrote: post #91
enaaem wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just built a separate international network, with its own separate system and tracks. The way Japan handles complexity is through redundancy. Japan runs both really old trains, hyper modern high speed rail and everything in between. Each system runs on separate tracks, are from different companies, and are not interconnected. This can be a lesson on how to run complex systems in general.

Why not build parallel tracks, but with the same gauge? > This can be a lesson on how to run complex systems in general. This sounds like cargo culting. Japan has great train system, it has to be because of separate gauges!

Because different countries might have different gauges. Japanese system is great not because they have different gauges, but because they don’t see it as a problem if there are different gauges. In general, Japan has many train companies that run on totally separate systems.

Re: In Europe, trains are full, and more are on the way

#149

Post by sureglymop »

DrDroop wrote: post #27

Sorry to burst your bubble but the trains in western Europe are a transport mode that caters to a specific class of people, mainly urban well educated people that work for in government, academia or for big corporations. I would occasionally take a train to go to a conference if the venue is close to the station otherwise it is just not practical.

At least in Switzerland that is not the case. Growing up we never even owned a car and there was no need to.

Re: In Europe, trains are full, and more are on the way

#150

Post by Sakos »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #122
dewey wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if you are comparing to Deutsche Bahn. Where in the last months only 52% of long distance trains were on time: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-november-train-punctuality-wor...

This includes 6-15 minutes lateness which would be absolutely inconsequential in air travel. We aren't comparing apples.

You also aren't switching planes as frequently as you do trains, much less with 5-15 minutes of time to switch trains in many cases. 6-15 minutes of delay absolutely matters if it means you will likely miss connecting trains, which can easily lead to hour or hours long delays in reaching your destination.
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