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Europe is investing heavily in trains

nytimes.com

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Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#351

Post by KennyBlanken »

mcv wrote: post #284
Manuel_D wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overhead wires would involve a significant infrastructure investment. Not too much of an issue with more densely populated areas like Europe - and countries like France and Japan already do use overhead wires - but it is not cost competitive in sparse locations like much of North America. It's true that it's contingent on a carbon-free source of hydrogen. But if something like thermochemical hydrogen production throu…

> "Countries like France and Japan already do use overhead wires" Don't most countries already use these? World wide, a third of all rails is electrified in some way, and for long-distance rail, that's bound to be overhead. Most European rail is electrified. So hydrogen or any other diesel replacement is only relevant for very rural, very sparsely used lines.

How dare you argue against the "electrification is too expensive to do in the US!" crowd with facts like "most of the rest of the world does it"!

In the US, the east coast line is electrified from Boston to DC (possibly further? Can't remember.)

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#352

Post by KennyBlanken »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #272
gumby wrote: post #267

> Last year, SNCF relaunched overnight services between Paris and Nice, with tickets starting as low as 19 euros, about $21, for a midweek low-season ticket. That compares with 31 euros, not including baggage fees or the cost of airport transfers, for a short flight on EasyJet These prices are inconceivable in the US, where competition in air travel has essentially been eliminated.

And yet US airlines (United/American/Delta/Southwest/Alaska/JetBlue) are barely profitable, if not losing money many years. The most hated airline, Spirit, has the most consistent profit margin 10%+, but all the others are near 0% most years.

The overall industry has been profitable since 2010, peaked at 15% average in 2015. 2020 was a slaughter for obvious reasons.

You have a weird definition of "barely profitable" given the average corporate profit margin in the US is 9% and your claim "others are near 0% most years" is an outright fabrication.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#353

Post by novembermike »

einpoklum wrote: post #203
cheschire wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having commuted with both american and german rail systems before, my educated guess it's likely due to who owns the rails. American rail freight companies have far more control over prioritization than european freight companies. DB Netz owns the vast majority of german rail and therefore prioritizes what makes them the most money. Historically that's been carrying people due to all the government and company subsid…

But why couldn't DB Netz do both people and freight, if both are profitable (after subsidies for passenger traffic)? i.e. why does it have to be a choice?

Typically everyone does both freight and passengers, but it'll be better at one or the other. Passengers want fast trains with few delays that get close to population centers. Freight doesn't care about speed as much but cares about the overall throughput and wants to end up in distribution centers.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#354

Post by robocat »

pc86 wrote: post #38
Hermel wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By definition, low taxes are not a subsidy. It is the trains that are heavily subsidized. The main reason behind the price difference is that there is plenty of competition between airlines for a given flight, eg Paris-Berlin, but no competition for the same train connection.

They are if other industries consuming the same product pay different tax rates. In this example, an airline purchasing 1L of kerosene pays a different rate than a train purchasing the same 1L of the same kerosene. That's the textbook definition of a subsidy.

Can you find any information showing that most European trains pay tax on diesel? Plenty are electric, so any tax would be indirect.

This report seems to show that trains mostly pay for infrastructure and the network: https://cedelft.eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/03/CE_Del...

I think British trains pay for “red” taxed diesel?

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#355

Post by TulliusCicero »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #350
wasmitnetzen wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airports, especially smaller ones, are heavily subsidized in Europe.

The US airline industry is massively subsidized. Every country heavily subsidizes air travel. The federal government spends $2BN/year on Amtrak and people lose their damn minds. Meanwhile, at the FAA, nearly $12BN/year...and that doesn't account for all the local and state funds used to subsidize airports. Or Department of Transportation spending...

How does that subsidy look per trip, though?

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#356

Post by Manuel_D »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #351
mcv wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Countries like France and Japan already do use overhead wires" Don't most countries already use these? World wide, a third of all rails is electrified in some way, and for long-distance rail, that's bound to be overhead. Most European rail is electrified. So hydrogen or any other diesel replacement is only relevant for very rural, very sparsely used lines.

How dare you argue against the "electrification is too expensive to do in the US!" crowd with facts like "most of the rest of the world does it"! In the US, the east coast line is electrified from Boston to DC (possibly further? Can't remember.)

In total less than 2,000 miles of track are electrified out of 140,000 miles of track [1]. Boston to DC is electrified only on a specific passenger rail line (along with one route to Philadelphia). The only other electric rail lines are short coal-haulers moving coal from mines to coal power plants.

Europe's lines are economical to electrify because of greater density. Electrifying a rail line costs the same regardless of how many trains use it, so it breaks even in dense and frequently traveled routes but not on sparse lines. Guess which is more common in a less densely populated continent like North America?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_electrification_in_th....

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#357

Post by DoingIsLearning »

Manuel_D wrote: post #316
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that trains need tracks, why is it significant added infrastructure to have wires?

You have to put up wires and a bunch of posts. Googling around, cost estimates are $4.8 million per track-mile [1]. At 140,000 track miles in the US that's $672 billion to electrify the railway network. Especially if hydrogen becomes very cheap through something like generation through waste-heat from nuclear power plants, hydrogen propulsion may make more sense. 1. https://www.freightwaves.com/news/is-electrifying-t…

> $4.8 million per track-mile

The study you quote is for southern california so that probably is on the high end of an estimate. Probably a different budget for West Virginia.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#358

Post by transportguy »

julienb_sea wrote: post #132
occz wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but trains are also directly subsidised to the tune of billions each year. The rail network just costs a ton to build and maintain. Just wait until you hear about how subsidised the infrastructure for cars and trucks are.

Construction of road infrastructure can be compared to construction of tracks and stations, and it's fair to say taxpayers foot the bill in full for both. The difference is that trains operate at a loss even with high ticket prices and operational subsidies are necessary for market viability. That is not the case with car and truck usage.

In London, both roads and buses are subsidised from the income of the tube lines.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#359

Post by TulliusCicero »

fomine3 wrote: post #326
xixixao wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every train station and every airport is a geographical monopoly. There needs to be government regulation that prevents them from forcing people through a huge shopping mall maze.

In Japan, make huge shopping mall near (or into) station is a big part to make train company profitable. Banning them could be bad to make public transport profitable.

My experience has been it's not a maze, though, they just build some commerce at ground level and a lot more on upper levels. The experience of getting to your train isn't very compromised.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#360

Post by bigDinosaur »

Leherenn wrote: post #21
Fargren wrote: post #2

Living in Spain, I love trains and take them over airplane when it's an option. However, trains are often around twice as expensive as flying for may routes. I know nothing about trains, but intuitively I would expect the opposite, and I really wish it was more affordable, specially high speed rail.

Rail infrastructure is very expensive compared to planes. An airport is expensive, but once you've built it you're pretty much immediately connected to half the world. With a train station, you need a track to each surrounding stations, maintain them, and so on. Also, train doesn't scale down as well, it quickly becomes inefficient for the less dense routes. People are talking about subsidies (by not taxing fuel for…

Rail can be used to make routes densify though. Air travel can never do this. The cost of rail has to be thought of in the context of an investment in a city or country (this doesn't mean 'go crazy building HSR' like some countries but then again many countries have no problems with approving road megaprojects that are terrible ideas so why not rail?). This is actually true of road infrastructure too, but there are a lot of negative externalities to roads that don't apply to rail.
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