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

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

#211

Post by fatnoah »

muspimerol wrote: post #64
scott_w wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU has an average density of 112 people per square km compared to 36 in the USA. Isn't that a misleading statistic, though? It's not like the USA is an evenly spread wasteland in comparison to Continental Europe. It's more like pockets of high population density throughout, which trains can handle perfectly well. Russia and Ukraine are similar in that they're pockets of cities separated by miles of steppe. Both…

It's an average, so of course it says nothing about the distribution. I don't find that to be misleading, or at least I did not intend to insinuate that the USA is a perfectly distributed wasteland! It shows that while the EU and US kind of look similar in size, actually their population density on average is wildly different. Just look at a population density map of both continents side by side. It's fine to talk ab…

> so you should also be able to take a train from Boston to Minneapolis

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but you can take a train from Boston to Minneapolis, with either one, two, or three connections.

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

#212

Post by pvaldes »

egman_ekki wrote: post #92
cassepipe wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally my main gripe is not so much the speed as going to higher speed is probably less efficient hence more expensive. My main gripe is the price (I am poor by european standards). For example going from Paris to Napoli only by train is currently above 300 euros whereas you can find a flight for 40 euros. I am ready to pay around 100 euros for that. Recently there was sleeper car train from Paris to Milano which…

So much this. We’re so spolied by low cost airlines in Europe. I can either - go for a train trip to the 2nd largest city in Denmark (Copenhagen to Aarhus) for 230 eur (2 adults + a kid) and it takes almost 3 hours. - take a Ryanair flight to Alicante for 240 eur (2 adults + a kid), flight takes 3.5 hours The weather will be much better, the food and accommodation cheaper by a long shot (not to mention Spanish cuisin…

Is probably an unfair comparison. (And if you think that living in Alicante is cheap, you should see the boring inner smaller cities, easily reachable by train)

My impression is that Air travel to touristic destinations is just too cheap, for a reason. Selling airplane sits for pennies is probably just part of a bigger business. Tourists typically will spend money on services and hotels that could be owned by a sibling company, etc...

In Spain is often discussed how UK tourists can came to Spain for ridiculous prices, while we can't do the same in the opposite direction (or when flying inside the country). Tour-operators altering the market could be the reason for that "magic" IMAO.

Trains are nice in any case (but nobody is armed here, so just copy the system could be more defiant in other places)

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

#213

Post by pvaldes »

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!

Many of this tracks cross big cities. Doubling the rails in those places would need to demolish thousands of extant buildings

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

#214

Post by pvaldes »

The_Colonel wrote: post #153
throwup238 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not build parallel tracks, but with the same gauge? Jevon's paradox [1] probably. The most profitable part of the rail system will grow to crowd out and interfere with the rest. By keeping it different gauges, they all operate independent of each other's incentives. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

I don't really see this dynamic working in rail. In Japan, many of the companies operate trains on two gauges. People read too much into this, it's mostly just historical reasons. Most slow Japanese rail has a quite narrow gauge which is less suitable for high speed trains. The interoperability benefit is limited since you typically won't want to operate both Shinkanzens and local trains on the same rail. Having diff…

>Having different gauges provides no real benefit

Unless you live in the Europe of Napoleon or Hitler, when they were built. Then the benefit is huge and obvious. Imagine how much easier the life would had been for Ukranians if the Russian trains that transport heavy army stuff would operate by default in a different rail width

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

#215

Post by chris-orgmenta »

reaperman wrote: post #188
chris-orgmenta wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the hidden benefits of open travel is highly elastic. That is to say, that if we subsidized train travel, then there are benefits (open trade, comms, etc.) that are easily realised but that we don't see. I feel it is so elastic (sorry, I'm misusing this term somewhat) that you can subsidize to an extremely high percentage without net cost (if all externalities could actually be known and costed in) I wan…

Maybe “positive externalities” instead of “elastic”.

Yes I suppose 'net-positive externalities' is the most correct - Thanks

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

#216

Post by pvaldes »

nilsherzig wrote: post #147
rubymamis wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Spain and Portugal adopted initially a system of rails that are focused on security (both for customers and national security). Spain railways were built wider than the European standard; while other countries ignored the advice to focus in economy.

Iberian gauge allows trains to run faster without losing stability. The more narrow the railway, the cheaper to build, but the less stable for trains crossing hairpin bends for example at a decent velocity.

The climate is also very different, so is not really fair to compare both, but Europe saved a lot of money when building their first railways (and have more problems with ice and snow now for this reason)

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

#217

Post by panick21_ »

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.

I grew in a rural village, many of my class mates were literal fucking mountain farmers. Some of us went to Prague at age 15. Over the years we have been many places. Its traditional for young people to get Interrail and travel around Europe.

People taking the train to Amsterdam is incredibly common. Taking the train for Vacation to Northern Italian (like Venice) is super common. Visiting Paris is super common by train.

Trains are use for all sorts of reasons both professional and not. And a wide range of different people is on the train, you see bushiness people in suits and you see fucking stoners going to raves you see families you see tourist from outside of Europe.

And the waste majority of people I talk to prefer to go by train and only use planes if it really a major improvement.

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

#218

Post by panick21_ »

bluGill wrote: post #191
Freak_NL wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really. Crossing borders within the Schengen-zone is trivial and goes unnoticed for most travellers. You can even cross multiple borders in your sleep on the night trains.

The problems crossing the border in Europe have nothing to do with the physical crossing. the Schengen zone is nice for that, but only solves one problem. Often there is no border crossing at all where there should be one. Often nobody knows how to sell you a ticket for a trip that should be possible (or they will only do it with stupid restrictions). If you can find a train it may be a slow speed train despite this…

This is true. And sadly the big state monopolies have been lobbying against the airline like system of bookings. They don't want to be responsable for connection like airlines are. And they don't want to compete on a level bases either. They don't want open ticketing information.

The EU approach to rail improvement is incredibly flawed.

And all the different monopolies have their own dumb as opinion about things. French system is run by a bunch of airline manager idiots. German can't make their IT work for shit. And so on.

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

#219

Post by panick21_ »

muspimerol wrote: post #138
sophacles wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit misleading to claim: "The dense parts of Europe have 500k+ cities basically overlapping.", while pretending that Chicago doesn't have 6M+ additional people in its immediate suburbs who would also be able to use this hypothetical train. The US and EU structure administrative units a bit differently, so using the Urban or Metro populations for both is a better metric for population served. I agree that Europ…

Sure, all mega cities have even larger metro areas. I'm not pretending Chicago doesn't have a huge metro area. But my point stands: the European route has much higher catchment than your proposed USA route, even if you include metro areas. Population density is not the only argument, although I think it's pretty clear why the US and EU are not comparable: https://luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/#4/38.51/-51.06 Most of t…

The US has like 6 Super-Metro complexes that are all perfect for trains.

- Great Lakes

- North East

- Texas Triangle

- Florida Super City

- Bay Area

- Southern Cali

And of those the Lakes and the North East are perfect to connection. In all of them trains are massively underused.

Frankly some of these couldn't be more perfectly placed for trains.

But I do agree with your point. You need good local public transport. Or in more general terms, land use. Infill development, bikes and reliable bus system that is not designed to serve only poor people that don't have other options.

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

#220

Post by panick21_ »

lopis wrote: post #142
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.

It just makes no sense. You can get a car share in like 10min. Just go where you want to go and rent bikes or a car. Honestly in most places, you really don't need a car anyway.
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