[HN Gopher] New network of European sleeper trains planned
___________________________________________________________________
New network of European sleeper trains planned
Author : YeGoblynQueenne
Score : 126 points
Date : 2021-06-23 09:49 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| modin wrote:
| I'd love to arrive to FOSDEM in one of these! (Oporto-Bruxelles,
| written on the map).
| AlexanderDhoore wrote:
| Maybe this way you can arrive before all the rooms are full!
| streamofdigits wrote:
| For measurable environmental impact the network should at least
| support the annual migration of Homo Europeanus Nordicus to the
| Mediterranean sea.
| tgv wrote:
| Every year, 3.7 million Dutch visit the Mediterranean. Even if
| you had sleeper trains with 500 beds (the current ones seem to
| have around 200), you'd need a staggering 7400 trips (and
| another 7400 back) for just the Dutch population. Since most
| people leave within a period of 3 weeks, that's one every 5
| minutes. Totally infeasible, I'm afraid.
| streamofdigits wrote:
| hmm, it might be that your calculation is the start of
| something wonderful, not the end of it :-)
|
| The narrow holiday season is quite artificial: we live
| through the pandemic-induced work-from-home experience.
| rethinking why and when we travel in large numbers seems like
| a timely idea. Besides facilitating a sustainable migration
| this lowers the environmental burden at the destinations not
| to mention the enjoyment of less crowded facilities.
|
| The train size / frequency etc could be worked-on although I
| suspect you can't achieve large multiple differences.
|
| In any case its not about getting _all_ the summer migration
| to happen via train. Its more appropriate to think of it as
| another justification to have a complete and streamlined rail
| network across Europe (this being another potentially
| significant and steady source of passengers).
| cromka wrote:
| I understand many of them use cars these days. Otherwise, to
| counter your argument, there would have to be a plane every 5
| minutes, and short-haul narrows bodies don't carry 500
| passengers, either.
|
| Cars are not that big of a problem, especially if fully
| occupied, which I imagine is very often the case when going
| for holidays. And especially with increasing electrification,
| they will keep becoming lesser of a carbon footprint
| contributor.
| tgv wrote:
| I think charging several times during a trip is going to be
| a blocker. And there are really many planes from the Dutch
| airports to the Mediterranean: 30 in the coming three hours
| from AMS, EIN and MST combined.
| asdff wrote:
| They should also bore a tunnel through the center of the earth
| to get all the Australians who appear in low key places like
| Croatia every summer.
| ginko wrote:
| That would be great. Hopefully the new tunnel[1] linking
| Zealand and North Germany should make that possible. A direct
| connection from Oslo to Hamburg would open up so many good
| train connections. Here's hoping DB doesn't screw up the
| connection like they did with the Gotthard tunnel.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fehmarn_Belt_Fixed_Link
| pintxo wrote:
| They surely will
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| Getting off topic, but skimming past I read that as "the new
| tunnel linking New Zealand and North Germany", which would be
| an impressive feat of engineering!
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Critical part with that route is to go really through the
| direct line through the core and bit the long way close to
| surface.
| rpadovani wrote:
| I'm really looking forward to the Brenner Base Tunnel[0].
| Apart from cutting train time from Innsbruck to Bolzano from
| 120 to 50 minutes, it will increase the number of trains that
| can go through, and I hope it will absorb a lot of the
| lorries going through the Brenner Pass,
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Base_Tunnel
| _ph_ wrote:
| It would be even more awesome, if it were directly
| connected to the German train system, but on the German
| side, the connection is severely lacking and might not be
| there for many years. The state of the German railway
| system is pretty scandalous. The connection to the Swiss is
| also overloaded.
| rpadovani wrote:
| Yeah I'm unfortunately well aware. Also, Bolzano-Verona
| is quite lacking! But the Berlin-Palermo railway axis is
| one of the "core" projects of the EU, so I hope it will
| improve in time
| dkarp wrote:
| I once took the train while backpacking from Hamburg to
| Copenhagen. I was incredibly surprised when part way through
| the journey I awoke on a ferry. It still blows my mind that
| they have a train that can roll on and off a ferry.
| Unfortunately, it looks like it no longer takes the ferry and
| one day will take that tunnel instead
| https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/hamburg-to-
| copenhag...
| liversage wrote:
| I live in Copenhagen. Nowadays we have bridges or tunnels
| everywhere except when traveling to Germany. However, when
| I was younger ALL train travel outside Zealand (with
| Lolland and Falster) would involve going on a ferry. The
| carriages were on the lower deck sometimes mixed with cars
| and sometimes with cars on a separate deck. After departure
| you could leave the train for a nice break. It wasn't
| particularly fast but very relaxing. Surprisingly, I also
| remember that I sometimes would meet old friends while
| strolling on the deck. These ferries were bottlenecks and
| would put a lot of people in the same place at the same
| time.
| cromka wrote:
| That's also the case for trains going to Sicily, BTW.
| nivenkos wrote:
| I'm sure it'll be at least 10x the cost of flights.
|
| Train travel is just too expensive.
| teekert wrote:
| Flying is just too cheap ;)
|
| It's easy to say, but if you look at the environmental impact,
| it really is too cheap. If airlines would pay the same tax on
| fuel as cars and were expected to compensate for their
| pollution, they'd be a lot less attractive.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| CO2 analysis of train travel needs to take into account the
| cost (and emissions) of building and maintaining the rail
| network.
|
| The other factor is that air travel is consistently
| profitable in the EU, without subsidies. But the reverse is
| true of rail.
|
| The simplest solution is just to impose a $100/ton carbon
| tax, and let the market figure it out. But EU bureaucrats
| seem intent on socialism and planned economies instead.
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| > But EU bureaucrats seem intent on socialism
|
| Socialism isn't really a dirty word in Europe (or anywhere
| else in the world) like it is in the USA. 20% of elected
| representatives in the EU are socialists.
|
| So it's less "EU bureaucrats intent on socialism" and more
| the European zeitgeist.
| zajio1am wrote:
| > Socialism isn't really a dirty word in Europe
|
| Depends on which part of Europe. In former communist
| countries 'socialism' is associated with economic system
| of their communist past, while center-left politics is
| called 'social democracy'.
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| I feel like in the 21st century (at least in the context
| of parties with widespread support and elected
| officials), there's no practical difference between
| social democrats and democratic socialists.
|
| But you're right, the Eastern European parties call
| themselves "social democrats" and the Western parties
| call themselves "socialists"
| detaro wrote:
| Where in the EU is air travel not subsidized in some way?
| globular-toast wrote:
| What about the cost to your children?
|
| Air travel is just too cheap.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| If the problem with air travel is emissions then we ought to
| work on alternative fuels. That's the positive thing to do.
|
| There is too much finger pointing, though. Globally, air
| travel accounts for only a small proportion of emissions,
| which means it gets a disproportionate amount of attention at
| the expense of more important things.
| xroche wrote:
| > If the problem with air travel is emissions then we ought
| to work on alternative fuels.
|
| They don't exist yet.
|
| > Globally, air travel accounts for only a small proportion
| of emissions
|
| Air travel is 2% of all global emissions. This is huge for
| such a small sector.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| They don't exist yet... Hence perhaps working on it and
| investing much more into R&D would be useful.
|
| 2% of global emissions is close to negligible. Certainly
| this does not warrant the constant media coverage against
| air travel on environmental grounds. This is the usual
| fluff while the real, hard problems are not discussed.
| Politics instead of pragmatism.
|
| It's really important to go a such important problems in
| a pragmatic and systematic way, rather than following
| into PR and political games.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| Can I have 2% of your paycheck then, if it's negligible?
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| This is about prioritising issues. If your boat is
| sinking you do not discuss what to do about the slow drip
| at the back, you try to solve the massive hole at the
| front first.
|
| If air travel only accounts for 2% of emissions then
| whatever we do will have a very small impact overall. So
| do we really need to bother at the moment or at all? It's
| not targeted because it makes a difference but because
| it's politically easier for a number of reasons. People,
| especially on HN, should really see through this theatre.
|
| For example in France they tried (very badly) to add
| further taxes on car fuel and that ended in riots. So now
| they say that they will ban air travel when a train
| alternative exists. That will make no difference on
| anything but they can claim that they are doing something
| (that seems to target the rich more than the poor, so
| even better).
| globular-toast wrote:
| I think most people here understand profiling and
| starting with the big target first. But we can and should
| be doing multiple things at once and air travel is far
| enough up there to bother with.
| swiley wrote:
| My dad worked in DC three days every week (so that's two
| nights he wasn't home) and still managed to teach me and my
| siblings math (we were home schooled) and find time for fun
| with us. I don't want to sound harsh but being away for short
| periods of time isn't an excuse for bad parenting.
| justincormack wrote:
| The OP meant destroying the environment for your children,
| not time spent with them I think.
| tokai wrote:
| The price globular is mentioning is surely regarding CO2
| emissions. If it was about the time spend being away from
| children, the train would never win over the airplane.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Realistically from what I've seen in Sweden, this isn't
| necessarily true. I'm sure it depends where you are going. I
| will be taking the night train this summer to go into Lapland
| from Copenhagen area and the round trip cost for my ticket was
| about $235 USD which includes a transfer in Stockholm. Similar
| plane tickets were priced roughly the same with long layover in
| Stockholm.
|
| I suspect it will not be possible for the night train to ever
| beat a short haul point to point on a Ryanair bike seat halfway
| across Europe between two major cities. But for anything more
| remote the night train will probably be quite competitive.
| After all, the infrastructure already exists for the most part.
| tgv wrote:
| Amsterdam-Vienna has tickets available in August for EUR49,90
| (per direction). Not bad.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| The article discusses the price:
|
| _Aumont was reluctant to give ticket prices, but said these
| would be competitive with that of a short-haul flight,
| including what he called the "hidden costs"._
|
| _"This includes what you would have to pay for baggage and
| things like taxis to and from the airport," he said._
|
| So it will cost more than a flight, but not by much.
|
| >> Train travel is just too expensive.
|
| Why do you say this? I travel through Europe by train a couple
| of times a year at least. It's certainly not "too expensive"
| and if you book early it comes out the same as flying.
| corobo wrote:
| > Aumont was reluctant to give ticket prices, but said these
| would be competitive with that of a short-haul flight
|
| If I'm booking time off work and the price is the same I'm
| going to opt for a longer holiday
|
| Good luck Aumont
| nottorp wrote:
| Actually you have the same holiday but you're arriving at
| your destination in the morning after sleeping all the way,
| instead of waking up early to be at the airport 2 hours
| before the flight etc.
|
| Sleeper trains go at night generally.
| [deleted]
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| This, and also for many of us riding the train through
| picturesque European countryside is part and parcel of
| taking a holiday, though of course ymmv.
|
| I mean, for me taking a holiday is time to slow down and
| enjoy the sights. I miss a hell of a lot of that when I
| fly.
| gurkendoktor wrote:
| It depends. I've just been looking for (non-sleeper) tickets
| from Germany to Prague and back, found some for a group of five
| adults for 149EUR one-way, three months into the future.
|
| The last sleeper train I took was Berlin-Budapest and that was
| 39EUR in a six-bed room, which I personally prefer to economy
| flights, where the cheapest option is usually somewhere between
| 10pm and 7am. I can't wait to take another NightJet train.
|
| Of course, just going from any place in Germany _to Berlin_ for
| that sleeper train can cost you upwards of 100EUR if you don't
| book in advance.
| swiley wrote:
| It really depends on where you're going. On the east coast
| going between DC and Richmond to visit my parents is <$100 and
| cheaper than driving or flying. Also airports really suck now
| and I'm happy to avoid them.
| handrous wrote:
| I envy those East-coast Amtrak routes. Amtrak's _so damn
| much_ more pleasant than flying coach[0] but in most of the
| country the trains travel fairly slowly to begin with, which
| might be OK if they weren 't also routinely subject to
| 50-100% increases in stated travel time due to having to
| yield to freight traffic, making them not just _way_ slower
| than driving, but also extremely unpredictable (so, very
| inconvenient to anyone waiting for you on the other end)
|
| [0] Of course, being stabbed with a hot poker is more
| pleasant than flying coach, but Amtrak's _a lot_ more
| pleasant.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| Trains compete with cars, not with airplanes.
| CaptainZapp wrote:
| Bruxelles to Paris : 90 minutes, Zurich to Paris : 244
| minutes, London to Paris 149 minutes
|
| I could go on.
|
| Show me where a car is competitive for any of those routes.
| In addition, not even plane is competitive if you consider
| the airport to city transfer and back.
|
| It also saves you, at least in the case of Paris, Europes
| most ghastly airport experience, which is CDG.
| ploika wrote:
| High-speed rail can absolutely compete with short-haul
| flights between (some) European cities.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| Yes, but that's beside the point.
|
| People take the train in the same situations when they
| drive a car, and travel time isn't always the most
| important criterion.
| exoque wrote:
| And some people take the train instead of a plane. And I
| did even in the US.
| blackbrokkoli wrote:
| It _is_ the point. People in Europe very much do consider
| train vs. plane. I encountered this first hand in
| personal considerations, family vacation planning and in
| a policy handout in a big corporation.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Quite a few of my friends in Europe prefer not to fly for
| environmental reasons as well, which I don't see really
| discussed a lot here. Oftentimes flight is seen as a last
| resort mode of transportation.
| petre wrote:
| Not in Eastern Europe and the Balkans where trains and
| rail infra are crap. If I were going from Austria to the
| Czech Republic, sure. Hungary to Greece? No way.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > People take the train in the same situations when they
| drive a car
|
| Not always. I live on the south coast of the UK. If I had
| to get to Scottish cities such as Glasgow (450 miles) or
| Edinburgh in a single day's journey I would fly or take
| the train, but never consider driving - it would be an
| absolutely horrendous car journey (edit: at least 8 hours
| assuming perfect traffic).
| iso1631 wrote:
| Depends on the route -- eurostar from London to
| Paris/Brussels knocked a lot of flights out. Vey few would
| choose to drive from Manchester to London when the cheap
| train (PS45 return no time restrictions) is quicker and the
| fast train is half the time of driving, but people do fly
| because west london to west manchester is quicker than
| schelpping to Euston and out from Picadilly - at least until
| HS2 drops it to under an hour and connects with crossrail.
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| That's a bit of a false comparison though.
|
| Alongside your flight, you also need to pay for a
| taxis/Ubers/trains to and from the airport on each side, and a
| night in a hotel.
|
| That can easily add an extra 300 Euro to your trip (one way).
| choeger wrote:
| That hotel night might not be necessary when you take a
| plane, though. Maybe you just safe a day of vacation instead?
| In that case, how much money does the plane trip _safe you_?
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| In that case, you can take a plane.
|
| You could even take the overnight train one way, and fly
| the other.
| gaff33 wrote:
| If just you look at flight vs train then sure the flight will
| win. But the train goes from the city centre, and includes a
| night of accomodation.
|
| If you look at taxi + flight + taxi + night at hotel - the
| train will be attractive.
|
| If we correctly price externalities (i.e. environmental cost)
| then the train should win hands down!
| zip1234 wrote:
| I'm not sure how externalities should be priced, but it does
| seem like a good idea, especially in the age of climate
| change. It is likely politically and practically very
| difficult though.
| justincormack wrote:
| France are I think effectively banning internal (non
| connecting) flights in return for the airline bailout. Most
| of the night trains are international, but the EU could ban
| short non connecting flights overall too at some point.
| ginko wrote:
| >but the EU could ban short non connecting flights
| overall too at some point.
|
| First thing the EU should do is to finally get rid of the
| aviation fuel tax exemption for intra-EU flights.
| thepangolino wrote:
| Don't most airlines already offer to buy carbon credits to
| compensate the flight at a minimal price? Accounting for
| all other externalities shouldn't make flight much more
| expensive.
| dsr_ wrote:
| I don't think you can always add in the price of a hotel
| night. If I'm flying from Paris to Copenhagen at 0900,
| arriving at 1100 and being in the city center by 1200, I
| wasn't expecting to have to pay for a night in Paris.
|
| A train that leaves Paris the day before at 1347 and arrives
| at 0655 the next morning (current schedule) isn't as useful,
| unless what I really wanted was to spend all day in
| Copenhagen instead of half a day.
| ginko wrote:
| >A train that leaves Paris the day before at 1347 and
| arrives at 0655 the next morning (current schedule) isn't
| as useful
|
| That's with several transfers. No way a direct train would
| take 17 hours for that connection. Most likely it'd leave
| late at night and arrive in the morning.
| sokoloff wrote:
| On the ends of the trip, the train often offers a night of
| accommodation that is required by the slower pace of the
| train travel.
|
| For a business trip, I'll often leave on the first flight out
| Monday morning and fly back Thursday night or Friday night.
| If the train changes that into leaving Sunday evening and
| returning Friday or Saturday morning, the "included" nights
| of accommodation aren't an actual benefit as compared to the
| competitive mode of travel. Instead, they're a fix to a
| problem that the train created.
|
| There are trips where I'd rather arrive the night before, so
| I'm fresh and unrushed for the first morning's meeting. In
| that case, the train could be better as I'm already taking a
| night away from the family for performance reasons.
| choeger wrote:
| > If we correctly price externalities (i.e. environmental
| cost) then the train should win hands down!
|
| I would not be so certain on that one. The downside of trains
| is the _massive_ infrastructure requirements. I don 't think
| there are any privately funded and profitable tracks anywhere
| in Europe. Government pays for this, of course. Of course, if
| you only account for carbon dioxide, things can look
| different.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| In Europe, 60% of airports are government owned:
| https://simpleflying.com/how-airports-make-money/ From that
| page, Heathrow makes half its money from passengers from
| operating a train line into the city, car rentals,
| restaurants, retail, parking, VIP lounges. Is that saying,
| if you couldn't extract money from a captive audience for
| how inconvenient the airport is, it wouldn't make enough to
| cover its own running costs?
|
| Surely, trains need less infrastructure than _cars_ - a
| road to every building in the country? Government pays for
| this, of course.
|
| https://greennews.ie/eu-airlines-propped-up-subsidies/
| claims that small European airports are not profitable, and
| are propped up by government subsidies, which RyanAir uses
| to undercut competitor rates, and they essentially act as a
| subsidy to RyanAir.
|
| Jet fuel is not taxed in the EU (same link), but diesel
| train fuel is taxed in the UK (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocarbon_Oil_Duty#Trains
| ).
| bluGill wrote:
| > Surely, trains need less infrastructure than cars - a
| road to every building in the country?
|
| Trains need that too. It can be a road from the train
| station to the building, or it can be tracks. However in
| the end every building sometimes need something
| delivered.
|
| Maybe the trains allows you to downgrade the road to
| gravel, but trains still need the road network for that
| last mile.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| You could walk on a mud path to the train station. You
| could walk on a cobbled street, not wide enough or strong
| enough for cars, to the train station. It wouldn't be as
| convenient, but cars are useless without roads in a way
| that trains aren't.
|
| A two-way road between every building, and space for on-
| road parking or space for off-road parking around every
| building, bloats out the space between buildings and
| lowers density in a way that makes cars more necessary.
| It's possible for thousands of people to live within a
| short walk distance of a train station without even
| resorting to residential towerblocks.
| bluGill wrote:
| Which is great until you buy a new bed, your toilet
| breaks, or any other large service is needed in your
| house. Sure a plumber can carry everything to your house,
| but it is much more efficient when he drives a van with
| all the different pipe adapters that your might need
| instead of walking to the office. You won't get a heavy
| appliance down a mud path unless the delivery is
| scheduled for a few weeks after the last rain.
|
| I agree we don't need large two-way roads everywhere.
| However we still need a lot of small roads everywhere
| because some things cannot be done well by humans
| walking.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| In the context of this thread, can you say "it is much
| more efficient" to have every single house on the planet
| tarmac'd, on the off-chance that a plumber might need to
| carry more than one basket worth of stuff to your house?
|
| The up front cost is enormous, the ongoing maintenance is
| huge regardless of usage.[1] says " _deteriorating roads
| are forcing [American] motorists to spend nearly $130
| billion each year on extra vehicle repairs and operating
| costs_ " and " _The U.S. has [...] a $786 billion backlog
| of road and bridge capital needs. The bulk of the backlog
| ($435 billion) is in repairing existing roads, while $125
| billion is needed for bridge repair, $120 billion for
| system expansion, and $105 billion for system enhancement
| (which includes safety enhancements, operational
| improvements, and environmental projects)._ ", and of
| course the amount of people who die on roads, and the
| amount spent on motoring costs just because people have
| to run a car because everything is so far away because
| everyone has cars in a circular way.
|
| Whereas if that wasn't such a convenient option, you'd be
| more likely to use parts which lasted longer, and not
| change them frivolously for fashion reasons, and
| standardise on pipe adapters, and have more local caches
| and stores instead of big central warehouses a long way
| away.
|
| > " _You won 't get a heavy appliance down a mud path
| unless the delivery is scheduled for a few weeks after
| the last rain._"
|
| I'm not deliberately missing your point when I say this,
| but "it's impossible because that would require forward
| planning" does show society in a bit of an unfavourable
| light, doesn't it?
|
| [1] https://infrastructurereportcard.org/cat-item/roads/
| bluGill wrote:
| Where did I say anything about putting every single house
| on tarmac? I said several times that gravel is good
| enough for most roads. As you get into dense cities you
| will discover that tarmac is a better choice than gravel
| just because the large number of tasks that don't work
| well via mass transit makes the disadvantages of gravel
| show.
|
| > "it's impossible because that would require forward
| planning" does show society in a bit of an unfavourable
| light, doesn't it?
|
| Things break without warning. Or are you proposing we
| automatically replace our large appliances every few
| years even though they could probably last for 5 times
| longer? (even then you will still have random early
| failures). Not everything is worth repairing.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| "Massive infrastructure requirements" for trains. Compared
| to what though?
| choeger wrote:
| Planes.
|
| It is actually rather simple. Airports are extremely
| expensive of course, but if you build three airports you
| have three connections. Four airports give six. Five
| airports ten... Each of these connections require
| dedicated tracks if you want to go by train.
| saddlerustle wrote:
| The EU ETS applies to flights within the EU, so carbon
| externalities are already priced in.
|
| Also the choice isn't between trains and poorly connected
| airports. You can build high speed rail connections between
| city centres and airports, and many cities do so.
| calpaterson wrote:
| After the politically inevitable taxes on short-haul flights
| are brought in, it may not be. As Hebert Stein said (on a
| different subject): if it can't go on forever it will stop.
|
| Railways also benefit from considerable cost economies of
| scale, similar to the post office, the internet and of
| course...short haul flights. I wonder what the cost of flying
| will be when passenger seat miles drop by a factor of 5-10.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Why do you think the taxes are inevitable? Not only are
| short-haul flights in Eastern Europe not heavily taxed, the
| building and running of the airports has been heavily
| subsidized. It has more than paid for itself by bringing
| tourism income to the region, and encouraging the diaspora to
| regularly revisit and spend the money they have earned
| abroad.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Higher per-mile carbon emissions. Paying for itself through
| tourism doesn't count the externality of climate change.
| LeanderK wrote:
| This is a great idea. I really like the concept of sleeper trains
| but I don't think they make sense for when for most national
| destinations. A german sleeper train network only has a few
| routes that are long enough. But when viewed from a European
| perspective, there should be enough connections long enough for a
| real sleeper-train experience.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| I will almost always opt for a sleeper train when possible,
| even though the routes are always served by day trains with a
| shorter (sometimes significantly so) journey time. The night
| trains I take are slower, but personally I believe 16 hours in
| a bed easily beats 7 hours on a seat.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Not even Austria. let alone Hungary. So Europe meh...
| ginko wrote:
| Paris-Vienna will be operated by OBB Nightjet starting December
| this year.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| Some information to put into perspective the articles which are
| now regularly published about the revival of sleeper trains.
|
| First, if you look at Europe as a whole, you will see that
| sleeper trains were never really dead. There are plenty of them
| in Germany and Eastern Europe. Often they go from large cities to
| holiday destinations and therefore are mainly used by people
| travelling for leisure.
|
| The novelty of these new lines (be it this company or the
| transeuropean effort to connect european capitals with sleeper
| trains) is that they mostly travel business travellers, people
| who would usually have taken a place. As plane journeys are often
| the largest item in a company carbon account, they are betting
| that some will push their employees towards the train.
|
| It might not be easy however. Track capacity at night is often
| severly limited by maintenance work in France for example and
| these trains will have to compete with rail freight transport at
| a time when Europe wants to massively develop rail freight.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Competing with freight at night isn't necessarily so bad, if
| the trip benefits from being slow. For example the sleeper I
| usually take is around 7-8h if done as fast as possible, but
| that's not the most convenient duration since you either leave
| very late or arrive too early. A few hours extra to make it 10
| or 12 hours is perfect.
| calpaterson wrote:
| > First, if you look at Europe as a whole, you will see that
| sleeper trains were never really dead.
|
| In the UK, experiences vary. The new Caledonian Sleeper
| (London-Highlands) is apparently a pretty rubbish experience.
| However, I took the Night Riviera (London - Cornwall) a few
| years ago and found it a pretty good experience even though I
| very nearly missed my stop in Truro. The problem for a business
| traveller is that you would need a shower.
|
| The other problem facing the Caledonian sleeper is that London-
| Glasgow is only something like 4 hours and the day trains are
| very good. The same is not so true for getting out to Cornwall.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I've haven't taken the Caledonian sleeper since the revamp
| but did take it a few times before that.
|
| In my experience it was a near perfect form of travel. Arrive
| at a train station long after most people had gone home,
| board the train and fall asleep, wake up at the platform very
| early the next day. You lose practically no 'useful' time.*
|
| The one thing which stopped us making use of it more
| frequently was the cost. It was generally more expensive than
| flying, much more expensive than driving and even more so now
| that we have a child.
|
| * In fairness, it's pretty loud and not massively comfortable
| so if you are a light sleeper you might not get the full
| magic carpet effect.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Part of the expense can be discounted against sleeping
| accommodations you would need otherwise though, and for
| many of us another part of the price is simply investing in
| something that is desirable for a variety of reasons
| (ecology being a prominent one).
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| For us specifically that didn't work out because the main
| reason we were travelling was usually to see friends or
| family who we'd be staying with anyway. I appreciate
| that's not the general case.
|
| While I'm happy to spend a little more for the sake of
| the environment we're talking something like 3-5x more
| expensive.
| bonaldi wrote:
| The revamped Sleeper is great, albeit pricey, especially now
| they've sorted the early issues with the new trains and
| crews.
|
| It's also ideal for getting a full day of work in either
| London/Glasgow and returning. Doing that by plane is also
| possible but is environmentally horrible and taxing, doing it
| by train eats into good chunks of the days either side.
| fy20 wrote:
| > The same is not so true for getting out to Cornwall.
|
| Trains from Paddington to Truro run every hour, taking around
| 4h30m.
|
| https://traintimes.org.uk/london/truro/09:30/today
|
| Considering its 1/3 the distance from London to Glasgow it's
| quite slow, but it's still faster than driving.
| justincormack wrote:
| A lot were being discontinued, and the number had declined
| substantially in the last few years.
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| I have taken the DB sleeper from Amsterdam to Prague. It was
| great. Not the best night of sleep ever, but it's great to go
| to have a full day in one city, have a nightcap and sleep on
| the train, drink a coffee with a light breakfast and be in a
| new city at 08:00 the next morning. No having to get
| trains/busses/taxis to airports, waiting around for hours, a
| short flight where you can't sleep at all for the light and
| noise, etc.
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| DB got rid of its sleepers (which were the last ones to serve
| the Netherlands) in 2016. The Austrians bought most of the
| rolling stock, and kept some of the routes that served
| Austria going. They've now started expanding again, and a
| route from Amsterdam to Vienna and Innsbruck has just opened.
| IkmoIkmo wrote:
| What ticketing sites do you guys use? Whenever I want to
| try (night) trains around Europe I run into a myriad of
| national websites with poor information on non-national
| trips, a lack of decent information on what to expect,
| annoying pricing/planning/booking UIs, and generally lack
| of information about how it 'works', as in some require you
| to have an App, a card, to print out tickets etc.
|
| I often just give up.
|
| In that sense, flying somehow feels like a much more
| standardised and straightforward experience, despite a ton
| of different ticketing websites, airlines and airports
| which all have their own apps and gates and conditions etc,
| too.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| If you need information on train routes and where to buy
| tickets, the #1 place to get it is
| https://www.seat61.com/. It's an incredibly complete site
| run by a train enthusiast from the UK.
| thomaslkjeldsen wrote:
| > Track capacity at night is often severly limited by
| maintenance work
|
| Makes one wonder what it would do to the economics of train
| transportation if maintenance work was required to be carried
| out during daytime and passenger transportation was optimised
| for comfortable sleeper trains.
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| That would probably cause a whole lot of problems for
| commuter rail.
| bluGill wrote:
| Kill it. Even assuming we are limiting ourselves to long
| distance trips (that is commuting to work is still allowed to
| use tracks during the day), and hand wave away some tricky
| where to draw the line issues.
|
| Trains work best when the track is used. That means trains
| need to leave often to keep the track busy. Leave at 9pm, and
| arrive at 7am sounds great, but you don't get anyone leaving
| at 2am, which means there isn't enough users to pay for all
| the infrastructure needed.
|
| Day trains work because some people leave at 8am, some noon,
| some 6pm... You need enough riders to fill to 70% capacity 3
| trains per hour for 13 hours a day just to break even on all
| the costs of running a train for a reasonable price. (the
| numbers are approximate and depend strongly on local
| details). The more often you can run nearly full trains the
| better. Your night trains can't do this.
| CaptainZapp wrote:
| I also think the network, as proposed is a problem.
|
| It only seems useful if you're Paris based, since this appears
| to be the center node of the network.
|
| edit: This at least appears to be the case for the French
| startup mentioned and the map displayed at the very top of the
| article.
| ginko wrote:
| Well, that's France for you. The OBB Nightjet network is a
| lot less centralized:
|
| https://www.nightjet.com/dam/jcr:6a8041cb-0131-4ad3-84fd-251.
| ..
| emteycz wrote:
| OBB trains (even the ones reaching Czechia under Czech
| Railways brand) are super-good experience.
| izacus wrote:
| Yep, can confirm, using the Nightjet was surprisingly
| comfortable.
|
| The biggest issue is that they tend to be booked up weeks
| in advance so getting a slot in private compartment is
| pretty hard.
| cromka wrote:
| Which is a good problem to be had right now, from a
| citizen's perspective. Proves there's a market for these
| trains and we can only expect more of them coming.
| yohannparis wrote:
| This startup is not from the SNCF (national railroad), it's
| not comparable in terms of service with another national
| railroad. I'd love to see the project including OBB, SBB, &
| SNCF!
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > It only seems useful if you're Paris based, since this
| appears to be the center node of the network
|
| That's France's rail network in a nutshell. It's great, if
| your trip starts or ends in Paris. If you're not, you might
| still go through Paris and driving could be faster than a
| high-speed train.
|
| The other issue with domestic sleeper networks in France,
| other than sounding like a terrorist, is that high speed
| trains usually take 3-4h anyway.
|
| I think the only takers for an overnight equivalent would be
| tourists that can save a night of stay somewhere. And that's
| if you're not staying with family or friends.
|
| And the trains are almost all electric, so it's harder to
| make an argument for "slower, therefore less carbon burn".
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