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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

#61

Post by morsch »

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…

> I've yet to ride one that goes faster than 200, probably because the rails aren't what they're used to be.

Then you are riding odd routes because the ICE hits 250 all the time. Piss poor infrastructures governance notwithstanding.

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

#62

Post by harha »

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…

In theory end to end shouldn’t make a big difference for short routes, but if you want to get somewhere reliably just don’t take Deutsche Bahn

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

#63

Post by GrumpySloth »

pvg wrote: post #57
GrumpySloth wrote: post #26

> Amid concerns about climate change, demand for rail service is strong This attempt at spinning it as people being motivated to use trains out of concern for the climate is hilarious. Almost nobody thinks like that. Trains are just a hell of a lot more convenient than alternative modes of transport for long distance trips.

Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

This point is repeated many times throughout the article. It’s not picking, unless you mean I should ignore half the article.

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

#64

Post by muspimerol »

scott_w wrote: post #32
muspimerol wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scale of the country is an excuse in many cases. There are densely populated areas in many parts of the USA, but nearly all of Europe is densely populated. The EU has an average density of 112 people per square km compared to 36 in the USA. The USA still can and should do better, but there are important geographical differences to the EU. And as an aside, I don't think many Europeans are taking the train from Mad…

> 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 about certain parts of the USA being dense and able to support passenger rail. But when we talk about country-scale rail systems, that's where I have a bone to pick.

As I said, there are areas of the USA that are perfectly suitable to rail, and there should be more.

My criticism is the notion of "you can technically take a train from Madrid to Berlin, so you should also be able to take a train from Boston to Minneapolis". Trains in Europe go long distances, but most importantly they connect a lot of medium-sized cities along the way.

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

#65

Post by bratwurst3000 »

Traintraveling in Europe is amazing. Mainly Germany is the problem. And noone knows why. Maybe it’s because the have the longest distance to travel and share the same network with the short travel trains. Btw short train travel in Germany is mostly on point. And the problem with the delay is mostly along the rhine river . There is an excellent talks about German train delay from Daniel Krisel on the ccc

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

#66

Post by ericmay »

deburo wrote: post #55
ericmay wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, it's misleading. The America is big argument fails to hold water once you actually take a look at a map. Take Columbus for example where we're within just a couple hours by train (could be less if we had any sort of seriousness about our country) away from: Chicago Detroit Cleveland Cincinnati Indianapolis Pittsburgh and maybe just a few hours away from other cities like Toronto, Buffalo, Louisville, and more.

There are other factors to trains not being viable in the states: cost to build. Every project they try, it’s almost always a financial disaster.

Sure but I was commenting on the "too big" argument which I think we can say is just factually incorrect at this point.

To address your points I think it's a much more nuanced conversation. I'd argue that car-only infrastructure is actually a gigantic financial disaster as well but it requires additional examination.

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

#67

Post by harha »

asdff wrote: post #21
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…

Do they have a similar program to TSA precheck in europe? That has really changed flying for a lot of airports in the US, to the point where it kind of is now a quick thing you can just get in/get out, only real issue being the artificial barriers airlines put on your like having to check in to the flight a certain time before boarding and having to board a certain time before doors are closed.

Except for Germany and the UK where trains are also quite bad, security usually doesn’t take too long. Boarding is typically 15 mins before the flight, but then again airports are usually more comfortable to navigate than train stations since you get rid of your large luggage in the first step

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

#68

Post by tpm »

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…

What isn't awesome is cross-border trains, it's always ad-hoc. I think there should be some grand unifying vision of complete cross-border (at least Schengen) connections. Possibly a new EU institution, whatever, because often it looks like every train company is playing in its own playground and cross-border connections are at best an afterthought.

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

#69

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

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…

You also have Thalys in .de which is not just get in. The same goes for Eurostar. Maybe more, but I don't know about them.

That aside, some could do 350kph in theory, but there are no tracks anywhere which are certified for more than 330kph in regular daily operations. With the additional constraint of limiting that to 280 kph max after several fuck ups, which I don't know about if that limit was lifted, or not.

And if you think you could board the Japanese fast ones at Deutschlandticket prices? Dream on! :-)

Anyways, it was fun to use one of the very first ICEs on the runway right side of the Rhine from Cologne to Bankfurt and back at 331kph, sometimes parallel to the A3 at a distance of only few 100meters, and watching the lichthupenden and warnblinkenden Nieten in Nadelstreifen trying to overtake the Normalos, while they seemingly stood still. Some sort of parallax-effect, I guess.

At that times I've thought: "Wozu brauch ich noch mal 'nen scheiss Transrapid?"

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

#70

Post by snthd »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #18
eigenket wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion the main "low hanging fruit" Europe has with trains are international birders, especially if they're trying to compete with flying. Trains in Poland work great, trains in Germany work pretty well but every train I've taken between Poland and Germany has been delayed. The standard thing is that while you're in Poland they claim the delay is because of previous delays in Germany and while you're in German…

In December I could not even buy tickets online to a train from Berlin to Warsaw because DB website is terrible. Had to cancel my trip — this is really a shame, that EU cannot fix cross-border connectivity.

You can buy from Polish Railways too.

https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/berlin-to-warsaw-by...

The EU seemed (2021) to be working on it https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_...

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