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Europe is investing heavily in trains

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Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#371

Post by zenogantner »

lqet wrote: post #26

Here in Germany, for as long as I can remember, the government praises itself every year for investing as much in rail as never before. I have not noticed the service quality to change for the better over the last 15 years. The ever-rising investments seem to be only enough to keep the status quo of the crumbling infrastructure.

I disagree: Travel time from Berlin to Munich went down from 6 hours to about 4 hours.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verkehrsprojekt_Deutsche_Einhe...

That is a massive change. Subjectively, how a train trip feels on that route went from "quite exhausting in the end" to "oh I just opened my laptop, couldn't even finish what I had started".

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#372

Post by hedora »

NoLinkToMe wrote: post #95
agumonkey wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A youtuber explained that Italy overlayed high speed rail routes now and that it's pretty brilliant. Things are moving.

Absolutely loved taking the train in Italy, fast, convenient, cheap, good amenities. Of course the country very much lends itself for rail (more or less an elongated territory that can run a very fast high-capacity north/south backbone, with slower but more ubiquitous horizontal offshoot rail to the various smaller cities and villages), but it was still very well done. Especially considering how much tunnelling was r…

As tourists, we got a Eurail pass, and international travel was as seamless as you could expect (at the time, the Italian trains were slow, the French trains stank, and the British ticketing offices were full of useless queues. The German trains were a little nerve wracking because the conductors were in a blind panic because the train was 30 seconds late).

Anyway, some computer figured out the transfers for us, and the itineraries were fine.

The only real problem was that we had to book weeks ahead. They physically mailed the tickets the US. I can't imagine it works like that now.

Either way, it's proof the patchwork of national operators can work well together.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#373

Post by zip1234 »

emn13 wrote: post #66
skrbjc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your perspective from someone close to the situation there. I believe many Americans have a picture of a perfect system in Europe, but the truth is likely different. Can you elaborate on the negative aspects of the train system, as you see it?

One bit that might surprise people is how fragmented it was (probably still is?). I'll see if I can find more sources, but e.g. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.67... illustrates some of the issues. Gauges vary. Voltages vary. Safety systems vary. Edit: here's a nice diagram from (of course) wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_electrification_system... Europe doesn't have a rail…

Learned about iberian gauge while taking a train in Portugal last month. The tracks were further apart than any that I have ever seen. Rail is much more complicated than people might think

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#374

Post by hedora »

diordiderot wrote: post #323
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…

> Overhead wires would involve a significant infrastructure investment. Yeah building dozens of large scale hydrogen plants, trenching and welding pipelines, building massive excess of necessary renewable energy, figuring distribution networks, deciding storage & container standards, house retrofits etc to run our society will be much easier than ...(checks notes)... Hanging wires

Most rail stations are wired for water and electricity already, and small scale hydrogen crackers are already being deployed commercially in the US.

That addresses all your concerns, except maybe that people will want to produce hydrogen at home from their own solar arrays. That's expensive, but arguably unnecessary, since the hydrogen would mostly just be used to power cars.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#375

Post by vladvasiliu »

ews wrote: post #4
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.

RENFE (national railroad company) had no competitors until very recently, they opened the market just months ago. I am hopeful the new high speed companies (i.e Ouigo) makes the market much more competitive and lowers pricing in all tiers. Still, for same price and roughly same time, I always prefer using the train to the planes.

This is happening in France, too. I'm not too optimistic on how this will turn out.

What we've seen here is TrenItalia starting to serve one line, Paris-Lyon (and then on to Milan). The issue is that this is, by far, the most profitable train line in France.

If competitors only get in on the profitable lines and leave the others to the national company, it will probably not end well. Because it's my understanding that profitable lines used to somewhat compensate for the others, SNCF was able to provide a somewhat dense service. If this goes away, they'll either have to reduce (or even stop!) the less profitable service, or the State will have to step in with even more subsidies for those lines.

There's a lot of talk in France around "public service" and I think that things like good rail service, especially in the era of "climate emergency" is important for a State to have. Instead, we're now getting new bus routes - yay diesel!

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#376

Post by hedora »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #357
Manuel_D wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's $10K per foot of track, there's no way that is dominated by parts or the actual installation labor.

In other news, one of the maintenance roads for the Golden Gate Bridge was recently completed. Adjusted for inflation, it cost more and took

longer than the bridge itself. If I remember right, one of the bus stops in SF also cost more than the Golden Gate Bridge.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#377

Post by hedora »

nicoburns wrote: post #290
xeeeeeeeeeeenu wrote: post #231

It seems likely that hydrogen will replace diesel in trains. Companies like Alstom[1], PESA[2] and Talgo[3] are developing hydrogen trains. Germany has already started deploying them on a small scale[4], while Poland is planning to[5]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom_Coradia_LINT#iLint [2] - https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/poland-pesa-presented-a-hydr... [3] - https://www.railwaypro.com/wp/talgo-to-launch-…

I think the vast majority of trains will go electric. This is already a mainstream technology (unlike electric cars). Overhead wires or 3rd rails in most places, with batteries where that's not possible or economic. Perhaps hydrogen will have it's niche though (perhaps on low-use railways?).

Hydrogen fuel cells and batteries are roughly comparable technologies.

The main difference is that you can use the power grid to "charge" the fuel cell while it's in motion. You simply generate hydrogen at its destination, then rapidly pump the hydrogen into tanks when it stops.

So, the higher the duty cycle of the vehicle, the more sense hydrogen makes. Also, hydrogen has higher energy density (volume and weight per unit energy are both lower).

For those two reasons, I'd guess long haul, heavy use lines would be the first use case for hydrogen, and that batteries won't ever be particularly competitive for those use cases.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#378

Post by 2143 »

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.

> That is not the case with car

I felt like private cars (the ones that are not taxi/commercial) just stay in one place the majority of its lifetime.

Pre-covid, I had a 45 minute commute. The other 22.5 hours my car just stayed in one place. Engine off. Road trips unfortunately don't happen often for me.

Trains, trucks, planes, and even taxis are probably running/flying more than it's staying still.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#379

Post by TeeMassive »

ncmncm wrote: post #276
TeeMassive wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not against using Hydrogen but the problem is always what are they producing Hydrogen with and how is it more efficient energetically and emission wise?

Hydrogen can be produced electrically from water. A positively stupendous amount of electrolysis equipment will need to be built out, but there will be demand for as much as can be produced. Burning hydrogen produces mainly water. Burned in an engine, it also produces nitrous oxides, so probably some ammonia would be dissolved in to scavenge that. Liquid hydrogen takes up a lot more room than kerosene. The insulated…

> Hydrogen can be produced electrically from water.

Which adds three energy transformation steps (Electricity for H2O to H2 + compression, H2 + 02 to water and heat, water and heat to mechanical movement) as opposed to electricity to motor.

Hydrogen is a meme.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#380

Post by hilbert42 »

cryptoz wrote: post #8
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.

Same in the US. I would love to take the train from Seattle to SF, but, it costs so much more than a flight would, and takes a very long time compared. Sleeper cars make the price nearly double, and for such a long trip, train seats without a sleeper are somehow worse than plane seats. I have taken many Amtrak short trips, like 1h, and 50% of the time the train leaves more than 1h late (and 100% it leaves late, some…

"Belgrade to find 0 hotel rooms due to a football match."

Once, I had the same problem due to a football match in Rome. In hindsight, how I got a bed for the night was hilarious but it wasn't at the time as I was dead tired (I'll spare you the details—I learned quickly that very strange things can happen in Rome).

A day or so later I was on a train from Rome to Vienna, the trouble was that by then many of those football fans were returning home so we all ended up together on the same train. To make matters worse, many of them were drunk. Suffice to say, Austrian Customs and border police were not amused, the train was delayed many hours.

See, you're not alone, we all have days like that when traveling in strange places especially so when crossing country borders.

"I love trains. But the process needs improvement, just like airplanes. Long-distance travel without a car is honestly quite difficult in Europe and USA imo."

I agree with you about the US and Eastern Europe, however you really shouldn't have any trouble in Western Europe—France, Belgium, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, and Germany—even Italy (if you're forewarned what to expect). Of course, here I'm referring to major towns or ones that receive a reasonable number of foreign tourists. As always, small villages and places that are way off the beaten track will be difficult no matter where you are (so are one and two star hotels problematic in such places as they are much less likely to speak English).

In particular, I found such travel by train in the US much more difficult than in Western Europe. It seems to me that since WWII all the once excellent (and traditional) railway infrastructure (such as railroad-owned hotels at or near railroad stations, etc.) has either been dismantled and or sold off, so one ends up at one's destination—even in large towns or cities—without any or minimal local support. Right, all this once infrastructure has been transferred, or relocated or rebuilt around airports.

I reckon the US will have a huge job in reversing the process (or duplicating the infrastructure as it once was around rail terminals), that is if it wishes to make rail truly relevant again.

Generally, Europe is miles ahead of the US in this area of public transport infrastructure.

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