[HN Gopher] In Europe, trains are full, and more are on the way
___________________________________________________________________
In Europe, trains are full, and more are on the way
Author : mikhael
Score : 123 points
Date : 2024-01-05 19:05 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| frumper wrote:
| duplicate https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38870002
| k__ wrote:
| 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 50EUR/month subscription to
| all regional trains (not the fast ones). Which removes the hassle
| of dealing with local subway and bus companies.
|
| But the trains are often late, which sucks, especially if you
| want to ride in the evening.
|
| If Europe could get on Japan's level, that would be a dream.
| eigenket wrote:
| 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 Germany they blame delays from Poland.
|
| If you're trying to do something more advanced like get across
| Germany to Belgium or France & eventually the UK the it gets
| quite annoying.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >Germany and while you're in Germany they blame delays from
| Poland.
|
| Both can be true at the same time.
|
| Developing enough capacity to avoid non-blocking train
| systems and bunching is a difficult issue.
| ddek wrote:
| German trains wishing to enter Switzerland need to wait at
| the border so the DB's, err, _erratic_ scheduling doesn't
| perturb the much more rigorous Swiss system.
|
| My experience of German trains is one train arriving on time,
| to find my connection is delayed, but actually leaving
| earlier because the same train 1h before was 54 minutes late
| and I could get that instead.
| enaaem wrote:
| 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.
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| Enaaem: It already works that way. The Iberic Peninsula has
| a different rail gauge from Central Europe, but - in
| parallel to Iberian Gauge - is building and expanding its
| TGV network, which is in the Central European gauge. So, a
| secondary network.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| 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!
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> 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
| zirgs wrote:
| > Just built a separate international network, with its own
| separate system and tracks.
|
| This is what Rail Baltica is going to be. The Baltics are
| using the Russian gauge, but RB will be using the standard
| gauge. And it won't be connected to the existing railway
| system. So if it all works out - we'll finally have a high-
| speed rail line from Tallinn to Warsaw,
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| 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.
| bondant wrote:
| Couldn't you book with another ticket seller? Like
| trainline.eu?
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| I tried Omio and one more, but this specific direction
| was not available there via train. DB website was simply
| showing an error at the last step. A month later, by the
| moment error was gone all tickets appeared sold.
| eigenket wrote:
| If you run into the problem again try the website of the
| Polish trains pkp.pl. You'll probably have to Google
| translate some stuff but it works well.
| snthd wrote:
| 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_...
| bigfudge wrote:
| I think everyone complaining about DB should be forced to
| live in the UK for a short while first. My 15 yo daughter
| has just come back from her first trip to Koln to stay with
| friends. She was wide eyed with how well everything worked,
| and how nice the trains were. It was interesting to me to
| see that she saw it too and it's not just jaded politics
| that makes me think the UK is going to the dogs.
| eigenket wrote:
| My experience is at UK trains are a bit more reliable at
| turning up on time than DB. German trains tend to be
| cheaper though and you sometimes have to do stupid
| ticket-splitting stuff in the UK.
| donalhunt wrote:
| Did Prague to Brussels in one day (~ 12 hours) in 2010 and
| everything just worked. One connection in Frankfurt airport
| (it has a train station) and it was cheaper than flying. Will
| need to check how I bought the ticket but do know it was
| bought as a single ticket.
|
| Good thing I left early in the morning because the later
| trains to Germany all got stuck in heavy snow downfalls. \o/
| MrDresden wrote:
| No need to get to Japans level.
|
| Just matching the Netherlands in punctuality and connections
| would be more than enough (using the word 'just' here does not
| do their rail network the justice it deserves).
| com wrote:
| Argh. I moved away but am back in NL regularly and the train
| service has degraded beyond all recognition for me done in
| comparison to 2021 or so.
|
| Short trains, cancellation of 75% of scheduled services for
| random reasons, regular failures on key links (Amsterdam
| CS/Zuid-Schiphol, HSL-Zuid, Delft-Rotterdam etc etc) leading
| to widespread network disruptions.
|
| NS wasn't perfect before, but it sure seems that they and
| their evil twin, ProRail, aren't even trying any more.
| static_motion wrote:
| That's interesting to read. I recently visited the
| Netherlands on vacation and one of the things I was most
| impressed by was the train service. I came away from an
| excellent opinion of NS, but I'd probably chalk that down
| to my extensive experience with Portugal's own national
| train service which is an absolute clown show on rails.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> especially in small Europe_
|
| What's small about the scale of Europe in this context? Even
| taking the extremely conservative measurement of Madrid to
| Berlin, that's 1200 miles/2000 km, which is comparable to the
| entire length of the Japanese isles, or the distance from
| Beijing to the South China Sea, or the distance from Boston to
| Minneapolis and/or Miami. Speaking as an American, I'd be over
| the moon if our passenger rail was half as nice as Europe's,
| and we can't even use the scale of the country as an excuse.
| bluGill wrote:
| Europe mostly speaks a different language in every country,
| so the actual scale of Europe isn't the whole continent (or
| whole EU), but a single country. Sure you can travel to other
| countries, but there is a language barrier (though English is
| common enough to get by most places).
|
| Note that GP was talking about Germany with seeming no
| awareness that the situation is different in Switzerland,
| France, England and Spain. (of the 5 countries I named there
| are significant differences that are unique to each - Swiss
| trains run ontime, French trains are fast...) God help you if
| you are trying to cross a border by train in Europe - it is
| possible, but often much harder than it should be.
| erk__ wrote:
| There is daily trains between all the countries you named
| (at least those that share a border) most of them are no
| different than any other border crossing with exception of
| the trains going to and from England as you have to go
| through security for that one. I don't remember ever having
| a bad experience crossing a border when I was on InterRail
| some years back.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| 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.
| scott_w wrote:
| It's so seamless that I was racing someone through
| Belgium and only realised I'd entered the Netherlands
| when I got a text telling me I was on a Dutch phone
| network!
| Freak_NL wrote:
| By car you'd notice, but that's mostly because suddenly
| the car goes quiet upon crossing over onto the smooth
| asphalt of the Dutch snelwegen. (Despite being
| neighbouring countries, the contrasts are often
| interesting.)
| hannob wrote:
| I don't have experience with InterRail, but the bad
| experience often starts with buying a ticket.
|
| The amount of "we cannot sell you that ticket, we can't
| even tell you the price" I have gotten when checking
| international connections is wild. It is slowly improving
| (I just checked a particularly absurd example where
| Deutsche Bahn was unable to sell a ticket to switzerland
| through if it wasn't bought a long time in advance -
| seems at least they fixed that), but still... it's absurd
| if your train trip starts with "figure out how to get a
| ticket, because the train company won't tell you."
| hnaccount_rng wrote:
| Oh that's nothing. 5 years ago DB couldn't sell you all
| tickets within Germany (if you didn't cross a
| Verkehrsverbund boundary the local train company could
| refuse to license that right to DB). So yeah. Improving
| ;)
| RHSman2 wrote:
| French trains are fast if they aren't striking.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| French train speed is fast but velocity can be slow if
| you're not going toward or away from Paris.
|
| If you're going from the northwest to the southwest, it
| can be faster to drive than the high speed train that
| will dogleg through Paris.
|
| (It's getting better though)
| timthelion wrote:
| As a Czech person I have never npticed language barriers
| reducing travel (or business), if anything they increase it
| by making it more exciting.
| thrance wrote:
| I had zero trouble visiting my german friends by train last
| november, departing from Paris. I didn't even have to leave
| my seat. I have no idea what you are trying to say.
| umpalumpaaa wrote:
| This is not really true. There are high speed trains
| operated by Italy that start in the center of Germany
| (Frankfurt) and end in Milano - crossing Switzerland. There
| are also trains that start in Germany end end in south
| France (Mannheim - Marseille). Super easy to purchase
| tickets.
| superjan wrote:
| It is a mixed bag, but definitely improving. Some
| experiences: From Holland, It was impossible to do an
| online booking a ticket to Italy. Only possible via phone,
| or as separate legs. For long journeys with changeovers
| watch out that you don't get stuck halfway due to a missed
| connection. From NL, London, France, Germany is easily
| reachable, as well as Barcelona. I took a sleeper train to
| Stockholm last Christmas, we had delays, but made it in
| time. In general if you have a long distance leg, it's best
| to have it at the start of your journey so you don't miss
| it.
|
| Railways do have single points of failure. A single
| disruption on a key piece of track can disrupt service for
| hours, even days. This is less of an issue with air travel,
| there's usually other airlines, and alternative routes.
| EEBio wrote:
| Not only does English get you by in most big cities, a fair
| amount of European citizens are multilingual and often it's
| the neighbouring countries that people speak the language
| of.
| muspimerol wrote:
| 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 Madrid to Berlin ;-) most people still prefer to
| fly rather than take a multi-day journey on the train. Maybe
| that will change if more sleeper carriages are introduced.
| scott_w wrote:
| > 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 are known for heavily using rail travel.
|
| Hell, wasn't the USA built on the back of continental rail
| travel during its industrial revolution?
| ericmay wrote:
| 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.
| deburo wrote:
| 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.
| ericmay wrote:
| 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.
| conceptme wrote:
| I think trains amd especially the rails mostly are funded
| through other ways (government/ taxes) something which
| americans are not too fond of.
| muspimerol wrote:
| It's only misleading if you disregard the rest of my
| comment :-)
|
| You have identified a part of the USA with a decent
| density of cities - nice! That is exactly what I think.
| There are pockets where rail makes sense, and should be
| built up. But even this area is not nearly as dense as
| Germany, England, Belgium, Italy, etc, so I fail to see
| why it makes sense to compare this to the EU.
| ericmay wrote:
| Right, but that's where the vast majority of the
| population is too. It's not that there are _pockets_
| where rail makes sense, rail just makes sense and should
| be built up.
|
| > But even this area is not nearly as dense as Germany,
| England, Belgium, Italy, etc, so I fail to see why it
| makes sense to compare this to the EU.
|
| Why would you compare America to the EU anyway then?
|
| -edit-
|
| Sorry I also wasn't trying to disregard your comment, I
| just thought it wasn't a great argument (you're a great
| person though I'm sure! :) )
| kasey_junk wrote:
| The US has the largest rail network in the world (for
| now). It's hugely dominated by freight.
|
| It's not for lack of rail lines we don't have good
| passenger service it's a priority and preference issue.
|
| If you got a fast train between Indianapolis and
| Cleveland what would you do with it? Neither has
| reasonable public transit and aren't dense cities that
| are good for walking. They also are only 4.5 hours away
| from each other by car, something residents of both
| largely own.
| ericmay wrote:
| Chicken-egg problem with the density. But we know that
| things can change and it's always surprising when we're
| always very open to changing things when it comes to
| technology, but other areas we're not so open to it.
| Amsterdam is a canonical example [1] or how you can fix
| infrastructure.
|
| Example: I am not the biggest soccer fan in the world,
| but I might take a train down to Cincinnati and get
| dinner, stay the night, and watch Columbus play
| Cincinnati. I'm not doing that with a car because of
| parking and it being a big hassle. If I can take a train
| down there, I'm way more likely to go. Once I get there
| the very first time I'll just arrive in the downtown
| area, plenty to walk around to see and do. The same is
| true for the reverse trip. Someone coming from Cincinnati
| can arrive in the Short North in Columbus and walk
| anywhere they want from German Village to Downtown to
| Ohio State's campus.
|
| I'm not entirely sure about Cleveland (haven't been in a
| while) or Indianapolis (haven't been maybe ever?) w.r.t
| to walking around, but in the example I gave you can see
| there is plenty to do with a train that gets you from one
| of the example cities to another and it only improves as
| more and more people use the service.
|
| Funny actually. What you were saying kind of applies to
| cars too. You'd just drive through or around
| Indianapolis. After all once you park there's nothing to
| do and nowhere to go.
|
| [1]
| https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-
| bic...
| pi-e-sigma wrote:
| I'm shocked to learn that only a 1%, yes, ONE percent of
| American rail network is electrified. At least according
| to wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countri
| es_by_rail_tran...
| ajuc wrote:
| Yes, it's not population density that's important but the
| distribution of said population, and USA is more
| urbanized and clumped up than many European countries
| with much better train system than USA.
|
| The problem in USA is that the people making the
| decisions don't live in the cities.
| muspimerol wrote:
| 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.
| sophacles wrote:
| Boston to minneapolis could pass through:
|
| MA: Springfield
|
| NY: Albany, Buffalo,Rochester
|
| Oh: Sandusky, Cleavland, Toledo,
|
| IN: Fort wayne
|
| IL: Chicago, Rockford,
|
| WI: Madison, LaCrosse, Eu Claire, Milwaukee
|
| With some fairly minor deviations on the path. (Assuming
| a fairly straight path that stays in the US, going south
| of the lakes). Depending on your tolerance for minor
| deviations from the straightest possible path it could be
| all or a subset, but not none of those. They are all
| medium sized or larger cities.
|
| There are ton of small cities too, but the train doesnt
| have to stop in each one - there's lots of through trains
| in Europe to that skip towns/cities they pass.
| muspimerol wrote:
| I don't know why we're still stuck on the Berlin <->
| Madrid topic, but I'll bite :-)
|
| I added up the population of all those cities: 6.13
| million. The population of Berlin and Madrid alone is
| 6.86 million, and our theoretical journey would take us
| through several cities of 1m+ along the way: Cologne,
| Brussels, Paris... The dense parts of Europe have 500k+
| cities basically overlapping.
|
| As someone who grew up in the Midwest, I would absolutely
| love this theoretical train, but I'm not surprised it
| doesn't exist (yet)!
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > I added up the population of all those cities: 6.13
| million.
|
| Well just Boston (where it would presumably start) is
| over 4 million (and whole Massachusetts is almost as
| dense as Belgium). Minneapolis is another ~3 million.
| Chicago is over 8 million. I didn't even look up the
| other cities... yeah it's lower but really not as much as
| you're implying.
| muspimerol wrote:
| Oh if we're talking about metro area population, then the
| EU route is also significantly higher (for example, Paris
| goes from 2 million to 13 million). I was just looking at
| city limits in both cases.
|
| Honestly I agree with your sentiment. We should connect
| all these urban areas with passenger rail. But I _don 't_
| think that this is the first step. Most American cities
| have atrocious public transit, which needs to be fixed
| first. No one will take a train from Chicago to
| Minneapolis if they just have to rent a car once they get
| there anyway. It would be a shame to invest billions in
| connecting cities with high speed rail, only to have low
| ridership because it still doesn't compete with
| flying/driving.
| sophacles wrote:
| 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 Europe is more densly populated than US, so
| there would be longer stretches without a stop in the US.
| But that's OK - the long-distance trains in the EU don't
| stop at every station along the way anyway, it would just
| be a different structure of "locals" and "through trains"
| to service the poulations.
|
| I disagree however that population density is even all
| that relevant. All the cities in the US that I've
| mentioned have rail through them already. It's used
| profitably for freight all the time. I think the US
| doesn't have good passenger rail service because of a
| heck of a lot of other factors - subsidies favoring cars
| and planes over rail for transit, infrastructure having
| been created around getting everyone an automobile, a
| huge amount of FUD from various lobbies against rail
| (including arguments about population density), and a
| dozen others probably have more actual impact than
| "people per square mile is different on average".
| muspimerol wrote:
| 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 the US looks more like Spain and less like Central
| Europe.
|
| There needs to be local public transportation
| infrastructure. This is where the US should be focusing
| efforts, no long-distance high-speed trains. It works in
| Europe because there are huge catchment areas (see
| population density) that funnel riders to regional hubs
| that are then connected with high speed trains. I don't
| think the first step to making rail work in the US is
| connecting metropolises with high-speed trains. Until
| there's a better local public transportation story, it's
| expensive and impractical once you arrive at your
| destination.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| As a child, at about 11 to 12, so about 1981/82 I took the
| train from Bonn am Rhein to Madrid, and back to Bonn from
| Aguilas or Alicante. Alone!
| n4r9 wrote:
| > the trains are often late, which sucks
|
| Traveling on Deutsche Bahn in the hopes of making a late
| Eurostar connection was nailbiting for this reason. I hear that
| Switzerland is strict about cancelling late trains so as not to
| interfere with the overall schedule, and as a consequence most
| DB trains from Germany don't make it past the border.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| > small Europe
|
| Europe isn't microscopic. Paris to Amsterdam is about 300
| miles, which is the same as Chicago to Cleveland. This is for
| intercity travel, and of course in the Western USA, except for
| the Pacific Coast, it is really not very dense.
| layer8 wrote:
| Japan has it easier in terms of network topology. Compare
| https://keikaku-japan.com/sites/default/files/uploads/map-jr...
| with https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Bahnst
| re..., and the fact that the latter isn't an island.
| enaaem wrote:
| Distances on a square are shorter on average for the same
| area of land.
| layer8 wrote:
| Network topology is independent of euclidian distance.
| pi-e-sigma wrote:
| That doesn't make any sense. Network topology is designed
| in such a way as to make connecting routes as short as
| possible so it's 100% related to Euclidian distance. You
| know, we even build super expensive tunnels and stuff to
| make sure that the routes are as short as possible
| asdff wrote:
| 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.
| harha wrote:
| 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
| rchaves wrote:
| Nope, the trains are not often late, this is just in Germany
| jhoechtl wrote:
| Is there a pattern in Germany engineering? Airport Berlin,
| Stuttgart 21, constantly late running trains? Is Germany
| over-engineered and over-regulated, what's the issue?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Not really. It's just heavily used and so the faults are
| very obvious, and we Germans are extremely quick to
| complain. Objectively there's not much of a difference and
| for almost all European countries it's complaint at a high
| level[1]
|
| Of course Stuttgart 21 is objectively a mess but Germany is
| big, there's more than just a handful of engineering
| projects at any given time. We brought a pretty substantial
| amount of LNG capacity online in just two years but that
| never gets any press compared to the latest airport chaos.
|
| [1]https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.r
| edd....
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Trains being late is simply an overrated problem. This is
| not something that DB should optimize for. It would be easy
| to make sure every train is punctual by running one Munich-
| Berlin-Hamburg train a day.
|
| Trains are late because they run a demanding schedule,
| trying to serve every big city (this is not like France
| where everything is supposed to go through Paris, this is a
| country that unified late with many powerful regions who
| all want direct connections between them).
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| Schedule isn't the root cause. DB has serious problems
| with staffing, because their workforce is going to retire
| soon in large numbers and finding replacement is hard.
| They have problems with infrastructure: it is telling
| that a heavy rain, moderate snowfall or burning grass can
| knock out a major route. Both are management problems.
| jamil7 wrote:
| It's just poorly governed at every level by geriatric
| politicians/managers and has an enormous older population
| keeping them there.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Aren't plane just as often late ?
|
| My hypothesis is that planes are just as often late but people
| complain less because : 1. They have already
| taken the whole day because getting to the airport, booking,
| security... so they don't care as much about a two hours delay.
| 2. They have some respect for the fact that we are allow to fly
| and see that as big technical challenge depending on weather
| and good security practices. On the other hand a train *seems*
| trivial when in reality it's not. Psychologically for most
| people it's just putting some cars on rails and it will
| basically drive itslef to its destination.
| dewey wrote:
| Not if you are comparing to Deutsche Bahn. Where in the last
| months only 52% of long distance trains were on time:
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/germany-november-train-punctuality-
| wor...
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| This includes 6-15 minutes lateness which would be
| absolutely inconsequential in air travel. We aren't
| comparing apples.
| cassepipe wrote:
| 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 was
| affordable but the company did not last alas. I am personally
| ready to pay more in order to avoid a flight, I don't even care
| about the time it takes, I like being on trains. Sleeper cars
| are even better. The only thing is the price.
| egman_ekki wrote:
| 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 cuisine). It's
| not even comparable how much more value you get when flying.
| philjohn wrote:
| It's worse in the UK. Paris to Napoli is a long distance.
| London to Birmingham walk up fair can be PS150.
| morsch wrote:
| > 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.
| harha wrote:
| 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
| tpm wrote:
| 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.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| 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?"
| jhoechtl wrote:
| > lichthupenden and warnblinkenden Nieten in Nadelstreifen
| trying to overtake the Normalos,
|
| Thank you, made my day. Austrian btw.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Ja das war halt so. Fette Karren, Audi, Benz oder BMW,
| Sakko wackelnd am Bugel auf'm Rucksitz hangend. Kannte ich
| bisher nur als Cliche, aber das war da so zu beobachten.
| Und wirklich _alle_ immer lichthupend und drangelnd, und
| nicht linksblinkend, sondern warnblinkend.
|
| Aber bei 330 war das als wurde man an einem Diorama
| vorbeifahren.
|
| Unvergesslich :-)
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| Europe is not small. And lots of European countries are
| investing/have invested heavily in their rail networks,
| especially compared to the United States.
|
| Spain and France have extensive high speed rail and regular
| rail networks. There's an EU level initiative to connect all
| the national rail networks and facilitate the creation of
| robust pan-euorpean rail services.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > Flying always comes with security hassle
|
| Unfortunately that is not the case, the security theater seems
| to be slowly contaminating rail too.
|
| The Barcelona->Paris connection has some bullshit security on
| the Barcelona side (luggage x-ray & plastic trays for laptops),
| and I think the Eurostar had some of this on the London side
| too.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I went through that Barcelona one, and it must have been the
| weakest security I've ever seen.
|
| Dude wasn't even looking at the xray machine screen.
|
| ICAO or whomever audits airport security would shit their
| pants if the Barcelona rail station had the same scrutiny.
| jamil7 wrote:
| I changed in Barcelona on my way to Madrid and went through
| this too, it seems like it's specific to Spain/Barcelona, at
| least for now.
| donalhunt wrote:
| Eurostar has had airport-style security for long time (maybe
| always?). Definitely 10+ years anyway.
| frereubu wrote:
| This is partly to do with the fact that the UK was never
| part of the Schengen group of countries (i.e. countries
| where you can travel from one to the other without a
| passport), even when it was part of the EU.
| kergonath wrote:
| I cannot say for Spain, but for the Eurostar it has been like
| that for quite a long time and it is related to the Schengen
| area border. The checks are made on boarding, so in Paris,
| Lille, London, Brussels, and Amsterdam before they started
| refurbishing the station (I am not sure about seasonal
| destinations but I can't see how they could avoid checks at
| some point). It is not an example of increasing security
| theatre.
| WinstonSmith84 wrote:
| Not sure whether you're sarcastic or doing some PRs but trains
| in Germany are from my experience definitely not awesome.
| Flying is usually much more reliable in Germany as long as it
| doesn't snow (but trains are stopped too when it snows anyway).
| Trains in Germany are: 1- constantly delayed (ironically I
| already missed my flight because of that) 2- very expensive
| (unless you've hours to waste on regional trains) 3- slow in
| average (yes it can clock at 300kmh+ for 20 minutes just to get
| stuck behind a freight train using the same network..)
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| 4. German train can use a completely different route to
| destination, dropping all passengers who were going to an
| intermediate station somewhere early on the route (you figure
| out yourselves how to get home at this late hour). I was on
| board of ICE from Rostock to Berlin which was suddenly routed
| via Greifswald with arrival in Berlin delayed by 2 hours.
| There was some fire on the tracks between Oranienburg and
| Berlin.
| bradley13 wrote:
| German rail infrastructure is...in need of help. Here, in
| Switzerland, many trains come from Germany. Well, they did.
| They are so often late that some routes now stop at the border,
| so that the Swiss schedule isn't impacted by German problems.
|
| Germany is also years behind on putting cargo onto trains for
| transit through the Alps. Even Italy was faster.
| bigfudge wrote:
| This is true, but I have watched with amusement as a Swiss
| station master paced, tutted and finally started swearing
| under his breath as a train from Milan got later and later.
| It amazed me at the time he cared so much - it seemed
| personal. But I guess that's why Swiss rail is so great -
| that and the funding.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Yes, paying for things is a hassle, but it's also a great way
| of incentivizing companies to provide services that people
| actually need, and incentivizing people to use only those
| services that they actually need.
|
| And yes, figuring out what exactly you have to pay for on
| public transit is an especially big hassle, but that's a
| problem that's solved technologically in many countries, where
| you just have to swipe a card at the entry and exit.
| yann63 wrote:
| > A train is just: get in/get out.
|
| This is changing, at least in France. Enshittification of train
| travel has begun by SNCF/ouigo. I traveled last month, now (at
| least for some trains) you must have a ticket at your name to
| travel, you must register big suitcases. It is becoming less
| and less get in / get out, unfortunately :-(
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > If Europe could get on Japan's level, that would be a dream.
|
| To be fair Germany could at least reach France's or Italy's
| level first.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > To be fair Germany could at least reach France's or Italy's
| level first.
|
| I'm not sure Germany should be looking to Italy for advice on
| getting the trains to run on time.
| rubymamis wrote:
| Trains in Italy and Spain were so much better than trains in
| Germany (I was a nomad in Europe for 1.5 years).
| wongarsu wrote:
| > small Europe
|
| Europe the continent is 7% larger than the US. It's not _that_
| small. The population is just comparatively evenly spread out
| vizzah wrote:
| "A train is just: get in/get out" - alas, not really. High-
| speed AVE trains in Spain are subject to security checks with
| you/your luggage going through the scanners. Fortunately, no
| need to take out laptops, throw water away, put liquids in a
| transparent bag and other nonsense.
| locallost wrote:
| Worth noting that it's still a struggle because of competing
| interests. For instance in Germany the auto industry and its
| lobby is strong enough to succeed in keeping freeways toll free,
| whereas the German Railways infrastructure part was split out
| into a company called DB Netz. So when you buy a ticket the cost
| of using the railway infrastructure is included in the price.
| Also other things, but not relevant for this discussion.
|
| So yes the railway is a lot better in Europe and the rest of the
| world than the US, but it's almost always a question of politics
| and interests of different groups. I also think it's poor framing
| to say people do it because of climate change - I do it because
| it's the best way to travel. During early corona time I went with
| a car on a typical 2-3 hour trip I usually take and it was just
| horrible in comparison. In the one case you can sit in
| comfortable seats, walk around, get something to drink an eat,
| and in the other you are usually stuck in a cramped seat, can't
| get out and can only take a break on a gas station or a similar
| place.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Yeah, during COVID, I rented a car both times for Christmas,
| hated it, glad I'm now back to trains.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| This illustrates that many times induced demand is a good thing
| as it shows that more people are having their needs met
| chabons wrote:
| The way I see it, induced demand is just a way of saying that
| all modes trend towards equilibrium. If you invest more in
| trains, they become more attractive, and people gravitate
| towards them. The same is true of cars, busses, etc... How each
| mode of transport scales influences whether you want to induce
| demand for it.
|
| AFAICT trains scale pretty well in terms of space and
| environmental impact, and point-to-point latency decreases as
| more trains are run (and transfer times decrease), so it's
| pretty nice to induce demand for it.
| hmottestad wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20240105191213/https://www.nytim...
| tmtvl wrote:
| As a Belgian I am very envious of Japanese rail. While it does
| have its own problems (overcrowding during rush hour in the major
| metropolises), I really miss various Quality of Life conveniences
| like being able to pay the difference if you need to go to a
| further station than you originally planned.
| thriftwy wrote:
| When in France, I could reschedule my rail ticket to a
| different time by using ticket machine and paying some extra
| cash. You don't have to be in Japan for QoL.
| sgu999 wrote:
| > You don't have to be in Japan for QoL.
|
| Sorry, what? SNCF is the absolute worst in term of customer
| service. They even consider that a train is on time if it's
| less than 15mn late on almost all TGV lines [1]. And if they
| provide a bus as an alternative to your cancelled TER (local
| train), they won't refund you at all whatever the time -
| that's from personal experience.
|
| A Shinkansen is late from the first second behind schedule,
| and Japan Rail will apologise if a train leaves a couple
| seconds too early.
|
| PS: A bit bitter I'll admit, reading any kind of praise for
| SNCF always triggers me.
|
| [1] https://ressources.data.sncf.com/explore/dataset/regulari
| te-...
| landgenoot wrote:
| In the Netherlands, you can tap your credit card when entering
| the railway station, and tap again when you exit the
| destination station. The exact amount for the trip will be
| deducted.
|
| Works with all types of public transport and in the entire
| country.
|
| https://ovpay.nl/en/
| hwbehrens wrote:
| This sounds incredible! Is this a private company, or a
| government program, or an open standard? I couldn't tell from
| the 'about' page on the linked site. I'd be interested in
| seeing how this could be adopted in other areas or
| modalities.
| GrumpySloth wrote:
| _> 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.
| tompagenet2 wrote:
| I'm sure there are a mix of reasons. It's definitely
| significant for us and as we went to Cornwall this year we
| spoke to people on the way there and way back who offered this
| without promting for why they took the train. Different people
| may choose trains for a mix of different reasons.
| kristiandupont wrote:
| >Almost nobody thinks like that.
|
| I have no data but I personally think like that and I have had
| conversations with friends who think like that. Why do you
| think demand is increasing then -- the convenience you mention
| isn't new?
| GrumpySloth wrote:
| The convenience is very much new. 15 years ago in Poland it
| was completely normal for a train to have multi-hour delays.
| Now it's not, and the trains are getting a lot faster. E.g.
| currently it takes 2h-2h 22m to go from Warsaw to Gdansk. In
| 2016 it used to take 3h. 15-20 years ago it could take half a
| day or longer.
| ikesau wrote:
| The article is citing Alberto Mazzola, the executive director
| of the CER. He says that reduced emissions and price are
| driving the rise in demand. Clearly he's not impartial here,
| but I'd trust him to be forthright about these reasons.
| GrumpySloth wrote:
| I can see reduced prices driving the demand. I doubt about
| the reduced emissions part. Why should I believe that that's
| what's driving people?
|
| To me it just sounds like a marketing spin. Don't get me
| wrong: it's cool that people are choosing a cleaner means of
| transport, but I doubt this is the reason.
| pvg wrote:
| _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
| GrumpySloth wrote:
| This point is repeated many times throughout the article.
| It's not picking, unless you mean I should ignore half the
| article.
| pvg wrote:
| That may be but pasting a quote of a quote just to do some
| contentless sneering is exactly the sort of comment the
| guideline is about.
| mondaymusings wrote:
| I have avoided flying and instead used trains for the last 10
| years due to climate concerns. I know plenty of people who have
| made the same change in behaviour and my experience from the
| public debate in the nordic countries is that such a behaviour
| shift has grown more common among consumers in general. I found
| no study on consumer preferences on this topic that covers all
| of Europe but to get started here are two reports on single
| country surveys, in Portugal and Germany.
| https://www.eib.org/en/press/all/2021-389-91-of-portuguese-p...
| https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200128-why-germans-ar...
| Do you know of some survey evidence that points in the other
| direction?
| DrDroop wrote:
| 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.
| Philpax wrote:
| Er, no, not really? I live in Sweden and a large slice of
| society take the trains. Ditto everywhere else I've been in
| Western Europe. Is it possible that your train network
| specifically is mediocre?
| lormayna wrote:
| In Italy the high speed trains literally killed the internal
| flights. Moving between the major cities is cheaper and more
| comfortable by train and the time spent on the train is the same
| if you consider security controls, boarding and the fact that
| airports are usually outside the city center. Let's wait that the
| tunnel under the Alps will be ready and we can have fast trains
| also between Milano and Paris (5 hours).
| jbverschoor wrote:
| A train ride within the Netherlands is around twice the price of
| a flight to many countries.
|
| Trains here are full because cars are super expensive and parking
| here is more expensive than anywhere else.. >$8/hour, 24/7
| switch007 wrote:
| Let's not try to insinuate that trains are anything but
| extremely cheap in the Netherlands. You can go from one end of
| the country to the other in peak times without advance purchase
| for about 29 EUR (4 hour journey, Maastricht to Groningen)
| wdb wrote:
| Just wished it didn't cost PS140 to get from London to Edinburgh
| (4.5 hour train ride). It's stupidly expensive you can fly there
| for a lot less
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| Well it's not going to get better now that Euston's HS2
| expansion has been functionally killed.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| I was in Toronto over the winter break, with many relatives and
| friends in the greater Toronto area. I took the GO Transit trains
| to travel between Union St in Toronto and nearby cities.
|
| I was quite impressed by the system. A simple Tap on/off with
| your credit card works for payments. Trains were on time within
| the minute, which was very comforting. The trains were clean and
| well maintained.
|
| I don't know about usage during normal days, but it's likely used
| quite a lot. Might be used a lot more if the trains were a bit
| faster.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Was largely a commuter service. Unfortunate part was that it
| was built over existing freight rail so mainly suburban
| stations with big parking lots that can be out of the way (and
| have to side to let prioritized freight pass, but new tracks
| have largely eliminated that).
|
| Pre-Covid, often at full capacity during morning/evening rushes
| and never "sold out", you could always stand if you couldn't
| get a seat. And flexible as no scheduled/reserved tickets.
|
| Credit card tap on/off is very new (last 12 months maybe).
|
| Nice that they have bathrooms on every car (looking at you
| Paris RER!!!).
| bratwurst3000 wrote:
| 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
| INTPenis wrote:
| You can visit 10 countries in 24 hours by train in Europe. It's a
| challenge but it's possible.
|
| I'm aiming to break my record with 11 countries, but we'll see.
|
| The problem is that even though the balkans are a lot of
| countries, the rail is very slow compared to going north and east
| towards Slovakia and Poland.
| o_m wrote:
| Trains are full in my country because nothing have been expanded
| in the last 50 years, so with the population growing 50% it can't
| keep up. I commute with a train and when people say they want
| lower prices so more people will commute I roll my eyes.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| https://archive.is/x2fqn
| dist-epoch wrote:
| In UK a train from London to Edinburgh (North of UK, Scotland)
| costs more than a plane.
|
| I just don't understand how that makes any sense, how can a train
| be more expensive than a plane.
| Yujf wrote:
| A plane flies faster so you can amortize the cost over more
| flights. A plane only requires 2 airports, which can be used as
| a starting point to connect with any other airport again
| amortizing the cost over many flights. For trains you need rail
| all the way, which is not flexible and costs a lot.
|
| Then the planes don't pay their full cost as they emit a lot of
| CO2 but aviation fuel is not taxed so you get planes that
| already have quite a lot of structural advantages getting even
| cheaper.
|
| Budget airlines are probably also run a lot more efficiently
| than most train systems
| boring-alterego wrote:
| With that title I think of the episode of Futurama where the
| brains were making everyone stupid.
|
| Their "Morbo and Linda" there was a train crash today, the
| governor lady said send in more trains.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| 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 our car.
|
| We'd do that every year. There were both 2nd and 1st class
| cabins.
|
| You'd save 1000 kilometers to the car (and in gasoline), times
| two.
|
| I miss that a huge lot: apparently some european countries,
| including France, are planning to reintroduce these.
| lopis wrote:
| 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.
| sgu999 wrote:
| I love trains so much, when managed properly they really are the
| most pleasant form of transport in my opinion.
|
| What the french establishment has made of SNCF is sickening. The
| service provided for the price is an absolute disgrace. It is the
| results of decades of poor investment choices and lack of
| consideration for their customers...
|
| In my experience the only time the train is actually competitive
| here is when going from one major city to another on a direct
| line, and booking your TGV tickets months in advance. That still
| leaves you with a good chance of being late at destination.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-01-05 23:02 UTC)