How Can Germany's High-Speed Trains Get Back on Track?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,699847,00.html

by sdfx • 16 years ago

38 41 16 years ago

melling• 16 years ago

I wonder how many more decades before we get high-speed rail in the US... I've been on the trains in France and Japan and it's a great way to travel.

noonespecial• 16 years ago

I've got the somewhat unpopular opinion that its probably too late for us Americans to put something like that together. I live in DC and have witnessed the nearly 2 decades of political whinging it took to get started on a 20 mile extension of DC's already sorry little system out to the airport.

It would take a change in attitude so radical to get national high speed rail to a decent number of cities that I'm not sure it can be done. Perhaps the end of cheap oil could do it in a generation or two?

For good or bad, we've cast our lot with asphalt tracks and rubber wheels.

bonsaitree2• 16 years ago

As a D.C. metro resident (living in NoVA), I share your pain. When I moved, I made sure to live close to at least 1 airport (ended up being IAD) for that verysame reason.

eru3• 16 years ago

> Perhaps the end of cheap oil could do it in a generation or two?

Maybe. But electric cars should be ready in a few decades at most.

(Disclosure: I really like trains, do not own a car and have even worked for Deutsche Bahn once.)

bonsaitree2• 16 years ago

It will NEVER happen due to the lack of a sustainable economic model for passenger service.

The U.S. lacks both the population density and the dearth of a legacy bulk airline/airport network to make large-scale roll-out of high-speed rail service viable.

That said, I'd still be the first one to vote FOR a referendum on a build-out. Journeying by train is real, civilized travel. Outside of private charter service and PLSes, travel by air is mere transport.

masklinn6• 16 years ago

> The U.S. lacks both the population density and the dearth of a legacy bulk airline/airport network to make large-scale roll-out of high-speed rail service viable.

As a whole yes, but that's not really relevant. The US have several big metropolitan areas or groups for which HSR would be perfect: the western corridor between San Diego and SF, the north-east around NY, Ohio (Chicago area), ...

Is HSR competitive for NYC-SF? Hell no, not with current techs anyway, but for Chicago-Saint Louis or NYC-Washington? You bet (the question of whether a market exists in this place is another issue).

The idea is not that HSR can replace air travel as a whole. It can't. But more locally, it is able to much improve the situation in places where it applies, and there are quite a few of those in the US.

The bigger issue in the US is the dislike for trains and the car culture. In the 50s, when Japan and France were thinking about trains (as efficient ways of moving large numbers), the US were investing in roads and cars and in the 60s air travel took of insanely, meanwhile the train was left in the dust when it wasn't knowingly strangled. And through these, Suburbia was born. One of the biggest advantages of train is that it connects city centers (where airport usually require further connection work to reach the cities), and suburbia means deserted and useless city centers.

fghjkoi8uygt• 16 years ago

>It will NEVER happen due to the lack of a sustainable economic model for passenger service.

What about the oil for Jet-A reaching $500/barrel?

akadruid• 16 years ago

this article is a good demonstration of the all-or-nothing big-government requirements of high speed rail.

In the two countries which have working, effective, high speed rail networks (France and Japan) it cost billions, took many years and required 100% government commitment to achieve. Only a few countries have the political setup to achieve something like that.

Tangurena2• 16 years ago

High speed rail is breathtakingly expensive, especially in urban areas. When BART was planning on a high speed branch out to silicon valley, it was budgeted to run $120,000,000 per mile of track. Part of the cost is that you cannot have any at-grade crossings, every road crossing has to be an over/underpass.

masklinn6• 16 years ago

> High speed rail is breathtakingly expensive

Expensive yes, breathtakingly no. The recent LGV Est (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGV_Est) has a budget of 4b€ for 406km (252 miles) or about $20m/mile. London's M25 projects £6.5b for 117 miles, so urban motorways are not cheap either.

Completely urban stuff is very expensive, but usually HST is mostly out of urban systems, only getting in to land at a given stop and getting out just as soon.

Retric2• 16 years ago

That's still fairly reasonable compared to interstate construction costs in a city.

For ~30 Billion you could build a DC to NY line that runs through Baltimore and Philadelphia.

"The Big Dig was the most expensive highway project in the U.S.[2] Although the project was estimated in 1985 at $2.8 billion (in 1982 dollars, US$6.0 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2006[update]),[3] over $14.6 billion ($8.08 billion in 1982 dollars)[3] had been spent in federal and state tax dollars as of 2006[update].[4] A July 17, 2008 article in The Boston Globe stated, "In all, the project will cost an additional $7 billion in interest, bringing the total to a staggering $22 billion, according to a Globe review of hundreds of pages of state documents. It will not be paid off until 2038." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig

PS: It was probably not worth the cost: "The result was a 62% reduction in vehicle hours of travel on I-93, the airport tunnels, and the connection from Storrow Drive, from an average 38,200 hours per day before construction (1994–1995) to 14,800 hours per day in 2004–2005, after the project was largely complete.[28] The savings for travelers was estimated at $166 million annually in the same 2004–2005 time frame.[29] Travel times on the Central Artery northbound during the afternoon peak hour were reduced 85.6%.[30]"

ugh3• 16 years ago

A accurate portrayal of the problems, but I would very much like to add that actually going to places with a ICE really is a joy. I always prefer it to traveling by car, even if I have to travel some part of the way with a slower regional train.

(That might be because traveling by train is just plain cool, period. I once took that Russian night train to Krakow – that was a unique experience.)

lenni2• 16 years ago

I love trains, too. Using high speed rail to see my parents is one the favourite things about my decision to move back to Germany.

ICEs are great and it is such a shame that the network is so patchy. When they actually do go up to speed it's thrilling.

ugh3• 16 years ago

Ah, the 200 km between Cologne and Frankfurt – if only every track were like that :)

(Here’s a overview over the current state of the German network: http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:ICEtracks.pn...)

jlangenauer• 16 years ago

The really cool trip is the one from Copenhagen to Hamburg on the ICE - they actually load the entire train onto the ferry, kick you off it for an hour so you can swan about on deck, and then it's back onto the train once you dock. Very cool.

pjhyett2• 16 years ago

We rode ICE from Berlin to Rostock last week and it was an absolute pleasure. It's funny (sad really) how taking trains in Europe is second nature when I'm visting, but you don't even consider it in the US.

masklinn6• 16 years ago

At this point, for europe it might just be a better idea to let the TGV network grow outwards from France. It's already started to spread its tendrils in other countries anyway.

Not that the network is that good in France though, Paris-Lyon-Marseilles has been nice for years, the connection to Lilles (and now to Bruxelles in Belgium as well) and to London via the channel tunnel is nice, a line recently opened to the east of the country (Strasbourg) but the TGV network has a few glaring issues:

* Everything goes through Paris. Lyon-Paris takes 3 hours, Paris-Strasbourg take about the same time, but a direct from Lyon to Strasbourg (not via Paris) takes 6 hours even though there is pretty much the same distance (~450km) betweem all of them (yep, Paris-Lyon-Strasbourg almost forms an equilateral triangle). Likewise Paris-Marseille (800km) takes 4h but Marseille-Nice (south-east to south-east but further east, 200km) will be 3h30

* There are no LGV (high-speed train lines) to western France, they stop at Le Mans and Tours (200~250km from Paris) so travelling from Paris to Marseille (800km) takes 4h, and Paris to Bordeaux (550km) will take you 4h as well (as the TGV has to use regular lines for half the travel). Paris to Toulouse (670km direct, 780km via Bordeaux) will waste at least 7h (TGV to Bordeaux then regional train).

Thankfully this is changing, there are new lines in the work and projected to start solving this issue (see dotted lines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:France_TGV.png) and overall TGV is awesome, but it's nowhere near perfect right now.

PS: I note that my timings differ from Spiegel's, I got mine from the SNCF database so...

PPS: For those unfamiliar with french geography and cities, Paris is of course the french capital (inner city population 2.2M, 11.7M including suburbs), Marseilles is France's second biggest city (852k inner, 1.6M metro), Lyon comes third (472k inner but 1.75M metro), Toulouse is the fourth biggest (437k inner, 1.1M metro), Nice stands at 5th (348k inner, 990k metro), Strasbourg 7th (273k inner, 638k metro) and Bordeaux is 9th (250k inner, 1M metro)

pmjordan2• 16 years ago

At this point, for europe it might just be a better idea to let the TGV network grow outwards from France.

I doubt that would solve the problem where political wrangling is the issue. I especially can't see the Germans allowing the French to build and run their trains and lines. ;)

The ICE has run to Vienna for a while now, and Austria's ÖBB recently started their high-ish-speed "Railjet" [1] service (vmax currently 200km/h, due to increase to 230). Both suffer from the same network problems as Germany - trains pass through far too many smaller towns; old tracks. Plus there's the additional difficulty of the Austrian geography. The Vienna-Munich/Frankfurt route runs through one of the flattest parts of Austria, much of the rest of the country is covered in mountains.

They are building bypasses (mainly colossal tunnels, as "flat" around here still is pretty hilly) but it takes decades and consumes a phenomenal amount of taxpayer money.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railjet

ugh3• 16 years ago

Oh, I don’t think that’s such a big problem. Thalys already exists [1] and they use TGV trains.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalys

eru3• 16 years ago

> At this point, for europe it might just be a better idea to let the TGV network grow outwards from France. It's already started to spread its tendrils in other countries anyway.

You can make the same argument about the ICE network.

masklinn6• 16 years ago

> You can make the same argument about the ICE network.

Nope. First because there are big issues with ICE in germany alone, the program isn't in its best shape where TGV is proven and pretty healthy, and second because TGV has already started expanding its network into neighboring countries.

jackfoxy• 16 years ago

Your point #1 is the inherent problem with rail passenger transport, and why air travel has an advantage. For rail you have to engineer and build both the vehicle and transport medium (rails). This gives you two very different engineering challenges. Building the transport medium between every two points is a new undertaking. Air travel on the other had presents one engineering challenge, creation of the vehicle. (I'm dismissing the airports, because essentially they are very simple structures. Of course the air traffic control system is not simple.) And when you have the vehicle your choice or routes is practically unlimited.

mrtron• 16 years ago

I am not sure I agree here. It seems to me this is an area where restrictions have both benefits and drawbacks.

Rails seem much more efficient, safe, and have faster terminal service. Riding on any good rail service is vastly more enjoyable to the passenger than flying. I would rather travel Europe, Asia, and North America on high speed trains than by air.

_ouxp• 16 years ago

Auf Deutsch: http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,699086,00.html

Spiegel Online should really give a link to the original German articles from corresponding international edition articles. Had to go back through @Spiegel_alles to find it on twitter.

I'm spoiled by Wikipedia.

throwaway321• 16 years ago

It's not the trains that are the problem, it's the tracks. There are enough high-quality, high-speed trainsets to choose from (TGV, Velaro, ETR 500+, AGV, etc), but they don't have enough track to run them on.

Spain gets it. There, the government has invested an insane amount in a dedicated HS infrastructure which is used by all types of (high-speed) trains. Madrid-Barcelona is 3 hours and has already halved the need for the air shuttle that runs between the cities.

What we need is for governments to stop trying to do everything and do what they do best: Build the rail infrastructure according to the relevant standards (ETMS, ERTMS) and cooperate to fill the gaps in the network (Perpignan-Figueras, Lyon-Turin, etc). Then let private companies do what they do best: Run the trains, compete and drive down prices.

How Can Germany's High-Speed Trains Get Back on Track?

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