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The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

priestmangoode.com

171–180 of 215 posts

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#171
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Buying new tires are a thing. Even if you buy cheap tires and get good life out of them (and that combo is...rare, you get what you pay for), that's, say, $400 ever 40,000 miles, that's a cent a mile right there..and tires are usually more expensive than that and don't last that long. The most obvious cost of wear and tear though is that eventually the car needs to be replaced. More miles = sooner replace…

Any modern car that is well maintained will last far longer than you will own it. People give up on their cars because their self image needs an excuse to get a new one. A lot of the maintenance cost is time based as well: UV and ozone are destroying rubber parts even while the car is sitting. It depends on the car, but typically you are looking at $.20/mile for fuel, and $.05 for all other maintenance (including tir…

Considering I was driving 30k/yr at one point while commuting, I can imagine quite a lot of miles, actually.

PS: Your insurance costs are fantasy land. The average US driver pays almost $1500/hr. I haven't had so much as a speeding ticket in a decade and live in a safe small town and am still over $1k/yr.

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#172

Elegant, comfortable travel across Europe * * For people exact height of 160cm

The beds are surely at least 2m? What makes it uncomfortable for someone over 160?

I’m looking at that first class seat and it’s angle. It’s most likely doesn’t have recline nor enough space for ones things, making it hell for taller frogs.

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#173
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never seen a train with in seat entertainment (other than looking out the window!). Is that even a thing?

It used to be a thing. https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/end-of-volo-tv-on-fgw-h...

They made the seats more claustrophobic even though they didn't stick out massively. They were not free so the only thing you could use them for realistically was the map. So yes, you could see where the train was for 2-3 minutes then it would go into 'attract mode' to try and get you to pay.

I think that they were a solution looking for a problem. They could reboot the concept to use Apple Carplay/Android Auto. Train info is useful to have on hand and it should be possible to do upsells.

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#174
post #2

Sleeper trains make so much sense for travel over land. They are often competitively priced with air travel, they pollute a lot less and the time saved can be huge when you consider that you spend time travelling when you would otherwise be asleep (although this is sometimes true for air travel, many/most people find it difficult to get quality sleep in economy class). The London - Edinburgh sleeper train (Caledonian…

I take sleeper trains occasionally between Germany and Austria. A plane ticket would be 30-50 EUR, a basic six-person sleeper cabin is 90 EUR, a private 2 person sleeper cabin is 160 EUR (x2, obviously). It's a great way to travel, but competitively priced it ain't.

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#175

In the US I would take a sleeper train from Seattle to Chicago instead of a plane provided the sleeper train runs 180 mph on average. That would put me in Chicago in about 10-12 hours, meaning I could get to Union Station in Seattle, get on the train, sleep a full night, wake up, eat breakfast, and disembark in Chicago. The red-eye to Chicago, which is a comparable trip, really sucks because you only get about 3 hour…

Knowing the fate of the California HSR project, what makes you think this is realistic in any way, shape or form? I mean, I would pay airline-level prices for an autonomous electric air drone taxi from my house in Seattle to my destination in Chicago, and as crazy as that sounds, it still might be more realistic than what you're asking for.

I'm not an expert in large-scale civil engineering projects, and I resent the implication that I should be before I'm allowed to express any desires.

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, compared to Finland at least, that pricing seems pretty normal, maybe even on the cheap side. (It's apparently a roughly 5.5 h drive?) Long-distance rail travel seems to be fairly expensive. Is that kind of trip cheaper somewhere comparable?

The thing in the US is that almost everyone already owns a car (so that’s considered sunk cost) and the cost of fuel is heavily subsidized. So that’s the comparison I guess. It’s not fair, but it’s also sort of reasonable, given car ownership here.

Fuel in the US is subsidized? I thought it was heavily taxed (not compared to European countries but compared to other consumer goods).

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#177
post #150
post #6

As a regular train traveller here in Austria and I'm very curious how this turns out. Currently the Intercity/RailJet trains are more like a downgrade to what was available before. They look nicer, but provide quite uncomfortable seating and offer no possibility to change the seating inclination; due to the air condition it's very noisy; there's no place to put your feet in an elevated position; there's no compartmen…

I'm sure I couldn't sleep in the upper bed here: https://www.priestmangoode.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Pr... Enclosing beds to make them a kind of cradle is bad. The good design would add space not stuff. There's a reason older trains didn't have that. Typical design made on computer that nobody tried to use (or not enough users to say how bad it is). I've also traveled in the newer trains in Europe that were sig…

It looks fine to me? What's wrong with it? Many people are worried about falling out of the upper bed in sleeper cars. There's often a rail there. The "half cradle" offers the same protection against falling, while making it easier to get in from the foot end. It provides protection against light, noise and drafts.

The foot end is a bit narrower than the overall bed, which is also a smart use of space and, again, makes getting into the bed easier.

This is also the first sleeper cabin I've seen where the window seems to be parallel beside the bed as opposed to orthogonal at one end.

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#178
One of the things that doesn't appear to have any real innovation is luggage space and the speed of loading. Get on any long-distance train or Eurostar service and you can wait minutes for people to drag 4 suitcases, trying to find space. Even on the Eurostar where you would expect most people to have a lot of luggage, there is often not much room at all.

We used to have luggage vans back in the olden days!

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#179
post #124

Really enjoyed a recent European rail trip but quickly discovered mixing flight and rail is problematic if the links between airport and train station suck

The French tried: both Paris CDG and Lyon airports have TGV stations in them. There was a time the trains were even code-shared and you could book them as regular connections.

It was very convenient when it worked, for example from the US to other cities or ski resorts in France. But that was 10 years ago, and I haven't looked into it recently, so I'm not sure if they developed it or not.

Re: The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

#180
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Caledonian Express is definitely on my list of trains to travel by some day. Pretty soon (when the customs part is sorted out on the Amsterdam end) it will be possible to travel from Amsterdam to London directly on the Eurostar without transferring in Brussels, so that helps too for me as a Dutchman.

I took the train direct from London to Rotterdam a few days ago so I assume it goes straight to Amsterdam also. No customs required (unless brexit) and passport control was done at the point of departure.

On the way back unfortunately you have to stop in Brussels because Amsterdam/Rotterdam do not have passport control for departure.
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