High Speed Trains Are Killing the European Railway Network (2013)

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/12/high-speed-trains-are-killing-the-european-railway-network.html

by okket • 7 years ago

69 86 7 years ago

solar.lowtechmagazine.com

rb808• 7 years ago

I totally agree, high speed trains are glamorous and high profile but I think spoil the main goal. eg California high speed train was hugely expensive, would be much better to expand commuter trains and/or improve the existing Amtrak lines.

shereadsthenews• 7 years ago

Expanding commuter service and Amtrak does not solve the problems that CaHSR solves, namely meeting the long-haul travel needs of the next ten million Californians and complying with AB32’s carbon reduction requirements.

Patrick_Devine2• 7 years ago

These are not mutually exclusive goals. An example is CaHSR is helping electrify Caltrain, which should have been done over 30 years ago and will finally give the Silicon Valley frequent service in SF.

Building a strong rail backbone ties regional networks together (of Caltrain, ACE, Capitol Corridor, and Metrolink) and will increase the utility/usefulness of each of those systems.

devit• 7 years ago

The article doesn't really seem to address why, if there is demand for what the author wants (which is quite reasonable), the market (or even a monopolist train company) doesn't provide it.

ramshorns• 7 years ago

Maybe because it can make more money providing high-speed rail which a few people want for a high price. The article does address the difficulty of competition (either between companies or within a nationalised rail provider) because tracks are one-dimensional, so maybe the rail provider has to choose between low speed and high speed.

DennisP• 7 years ago

Well that's unfortunate. I lived in Germany in the '80s, and traveled by train all over the continent. Especially in Germany, France and northern countries there was no place I wanted to go that couldn't be conveniently reached by train, trolley, and bus; I don't think I often had to walk more than a mile or wait more than half an hour. And it didn't cost much either; the dollar was really strong at the time but I got six weeks of unlimited travel for a few hundred bucks.

burlesona• 7 years ago

This is an interesting article, but I think it could be summarized fairly succinctly: trains are amazing for intercity travel in the 100-300mi range, and beyond that they’re not really competitive against air travel.

TLDR; The author basically explains that the old system of good regional (euro national) networks which happened to connect together was almost as fast as the high speed trains but much cheaper and more convenient. When high speed lines are added these international regional lines are typically shut down. Since the high speed trains are expensive this means that the new network basically only serves medium/short distance business travel, where the old network was affordable for anyone to take basically any distance.

maelito• 7 years ago

not competitive against air travel

Financially, maybe. In terms of the negative externalities impacting climate, high-speed trains are incomparable.

fetbaffe• 7 years ago

Railway on the other hand have negative impact on wildlife when building it.

Give it a decade or two and we will have electrical air travel.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19652363

thatfrenchguy2• 7 years ago

intercity travel in the 100-300mi range

Paris-Marseille is 775km (481 miles), 3 hours by train, I don't think anyone actually takes airplanes to do this route if they don't have a connection afterwards.

martinald• 7 years ago

I'd say more than 300mi. Probably 500-600mi. Eg: Paris-> Montepellier, 3h30 by train. 1h20 by plane. By the time you add an hour for security/checkin at the airport, and the additional hassle of getting to/from the airport vs city centre rail terminals, it's competitive. I think only when you get over 4h then air starts to benefit.

Xylakant2• 7 years ago

And even at 4 hours, things really depend: I just travelled about 650km from Berlin to Mannheim in about 5 hours. There’s no airport at the destination, so I’d have to fly to Frankfurt and continue from there. There’s a direct train every hour and considering time to the airport and check-in etc, taking the train is still faster. Air travel wins out on short/medium distances only if both ends of the leg are close to an airport.

t0mas882• 7 years ago

He is entirely right, and since 2013 is has become even more like he described. It now already applies from Amsterdam to Paris... It's a 1 hour flight, for 99 euros return on Air France / KLM and far less than that if you take easyJet or another low cost option (with the downside that you're going to an airport further from the city). The train takes 3 to 4 hours and costs more.

Only on really short trips like Amsterdam - Brussels the train is the better option. And on those the normal train is only 15 minutes out of a total 2.5 hours slower than the expensive high speed train, while the high speed is more than twice as expensive.

stingraycharles2• 7 years ago

That doesn’t account for airport taxes and boarding time. Real door-to-door durations are different, and I would take the Thalys over airplanes any day (the WiFi is great and you can get actual work done).

Leszek• 7 years ago

Comparing a 1 hour flight to a 3-4 hour train journey by those times alone is somewhat dishonest: it doesn't take into account the rest of the journey to/from the airport at either end (usually further out of the city than the main train station), nor the 1-2 hour early arrival at the airport for bag drop/security/killing time at the gate.

Not to mention inconveniences like lack of liquids in hand luggage, expensive airport amenities (should you choose to use them), passing through the security theatre, and of course the actual cost of getting to the airport (in the UK, this can be more than the flight!).

jdietrich• 7 years ago

The train probably has proper tables, power outlets and useable WiFi or 4G. For a business traveller, a 4 hour train journey can be 4 hours of very productive time, whereas a 1 hour flight can completely obliterate half a day.

harperlee• 7 years ago

Absolutely.

I travel between Paris and Frankfurt a lot; a couple of Thursdays ago the 19h-23h train to Paris was cancelled, and I had to go to Fraport with the S-Bahn (I work close to Hauptbahnhoff), wait a queue of 65’ just to pass security (Fraport security is absurdly inefficient, with e.g. about 10 workers per luggage scanner), take a 70’ flight and then a 30’ taxi ride from CDG. I arrived home at the standard time.

With the train I go from city centre to city centre, I jump on the train upon arrival, and I have 4 hours of work/leisure; ample space, bug windows, a cafeteria and room to walk. The alternative is 4 hours of taxi queue security wait queue finger queue take off have a sandwich please close tray landing taxi, where you can get total 1h of work done if you get lucky (except if you have someone to call).

And the train is half the price.

1stcity3rdcoast• 7 years ago

This is the Q factor that everyone omits when doing the calculus on their own journeys. The pre- and post-flight nonsense are basically another trip entirely.

t0mas882• 7 years ago

But that also applies to the train, I don't live at the train station.

Plane:

- Drive 30 minutes to Amsterdam airport

- Park and go to gate, takes me 20 minutes from parking to gate

- Boarding and waiting for take-off: 20 to 30 minutes

Train:

- 10 minutes bike to the station is the fastest

- Another 10 minutes to get from bike into train

- Highspeed train doesn't stop here, so 40 minutes train to Rotterdam

- Wait to switch to the highspeed train, 15 minutes

So they roughly take me the same time to get to. The only upside of the train is that it goes to Paris Nord instead of the airport. But the benefit of that greatly depends on what meeting you're trying to get to, because most larger offices in Paris are not in the middle of the city.

crote• 7 years ago

Interesting, I've got the opposite experience.

When taking into account the time required to get to/from the airport and the time required to actually get on the plane, it's just as fast to take the train. Taking into account comfort, stress, and effort required, the train wins by a very large margin.

If you book in advance, €35 tickets are very easy to get, and sub-€60 aren't uncommon either. The article compares last-minute train pricing with the cheapest air fares. If I want to take a plane to Paris tomorrow, I'd have to pay €366 as well. For virtually any date, booking a train is going to be cheaper than booking a plane.

If anything, the biggest problem with high-speed trains is that there aren't enough of them, and that they share too much infrastructure with traditional trains. They are not killing low-speed trains, reality is. Even without high-speed infrastructure, many of them would no longer exist: for longer distances, air travel is simply in every way superior. They are just far too slow and far too uncomfortable to compete.

Besides, actually running those trains is an absolute nightmare. The article suggests giving them priority in order to keep the timetable. In reality, in The Netherlands large portions of the network is transitioning to a train every 7.5 minutes. Any delay whatsoever is unacceptable: having a delayed long-distance train could result in the cancellation of literally dozens of local trains. Overnight trains could work, but that's not really desirable for medium-distance. It was fun while it lasted, but they are just no longer viable.

herbst• 7 years ago

Next to the fact that flights always have more time overhead and train stations are almost always central.

I regularly drive from Bern to Salzburg (Austria). To lazy to Google but AFAIK there are no more direct flights, the last I know of was about 400 dollars and with check in and getting to and from the airport did take about 4 hours. Using a nearby airport gets this to 5 hour or more.

Some cities are well and cheap connected per flight. Most however aren't

lispm3• 7 years ago

Hamburg -> Munich. next thursday morning, >600km

ICE, duration 5:40. Cost around 100€ With Bahncard 50: 76 €

Same with slow train: duration 11:00, cheapest ticket 29€

Flight around 200 Euros, Lufthansa 300+€, Flighttime 1:15, Travel time: around 3.5 hours.

Hamburg -> Frankfurt. 400km

IC, duration 3:30, Cost starting at around 75€, with Bahncard 50: 53€

Business Trips: company pays. Many business trips in one year: get a Bahncard 100. Company pays. Costs 4400€. Unlimited travel with full flexibility within Germany. For example one trip Hamburg<->Frankfurt per week and the Bahncard 100 is easily more convenient.

stingraycharles2• 7 years ago

This matches my experience as well. I take the Thalys from Amsterdam to Paris once or twice a month, and a round trip ticket is around 200 euros.

I don’t think this is expensive at all. Surely the car would be much more expensive (fuel + maintenance), so I do not share the author’s point of view.

I, for one, am incredibly happy for having a viable (much better, actually) alternative to the airplane.

discordance• 7 years ago

I took the Thalys from Amsterdam to Paris last week for the first time.

Pretty poor design. There's a horizontal section between two windows that prevents you from looking out of the window comfortably, and the whole experience is extremely cramped.

pjmlp4• 7 years ago

With Eurowings or Ryanair that flight would be 100 €.

Sadly I am yet to know a company that actually gets Bahncard for their employees. I have known a couple that expect people to use Bahncards. though.

lispm3• 7 years ago

With Eurowings or Ryanair that flight would be 100 €.

No way. Eurowings is more expensive and Ryanair does not fly that route.

yet to know a company that actually gets Bahncard

That's an easy calculation. It's cheaper once there is a certain amount of travels. But the travel usually has do be on company purpose. Companies then order 'Business Bahncard's for employees, which allows relatively flexible travel.

ragebol• 7 years ago

I love taking the IC Bus + ICE from Eindhoven to Stuttgart. Takes me ~6.5 hours door-to-door, for c.a 140-150 euros round trip (with Bahncard 50). I could do this by car in roughly the same time and cost but then I couldn't work (at ca. 300kph no less!).

Flying would be silly too: much less (environmentally) friendly with lines and security checks, which also leaves less time to work. I even have decent internet access the whole time, for free, which I would not have in an airplane.

tinus_hn• 7 years ago

Another possibility is the FlixBus which takes 13 hours and is €23.

ip26• 7 years ago

The funny thing is I rode the Lyon-Paris route, and the train was jam-packed with what I would consider ordinary people and families.

Although, that was a sample size of one, and I think I read somewhere it was one of the few profitable high speed routes.

unstructured• 7 years ago

As far as I know its the only high-speed route that is profitable in France.

thatfrenchguy2• 7 years ago

What I'm getting from this is that we need to tax intra-EU flights.

adrianN3• 7 years ago

What we need is a general carbon tax.

eternalban• 7 years ago

What a great website. Thank you for posting this.

tomelders2• 7 years ago

We need to nationalise the railways EU wide. Privatised rail makes no sense anywhere in the world. Flights are cheap because competition drives down prices. But there's no real competition on the rail network. You can't have two trains leave the same station and arrive at the same destination as the same time. The train company that runs the train from Station A to Station Z at 13:00 get's all the passengers that need to travel that route at that time. Sure there are ways for one train to overtake another, but that capacity is severely limited because of the physical and safety constraints.

Trains are also more expensive to run than planes because they need more infrastructure to operate, and that infrastructure is high maintenance. So we have almost no competition, high operating costs, and we've set it up so the people operating the trains are in opposition to each other and have no incentive or obligation to work together to lower prices or improve the service.

Nationalise it. All of it. And let's just accept that there are some things that simply shouldn't be run by the private sector.

And I realise that "Nationalisation" in the context of the EU is the wrong word. What I'm saying is the that EU should run the whole thing. Whatever that's called... Federalisation? I don't know.

rebolek2• 7 years ago

We have no high speed rails, are finally privatizing some trains and it's for good. The quality of service is finally going up even in the state run train company.

The competition works differently. Our country wants train that will run from A to B, X times a day and companies will present their offers. Who has the best offer will run this route for Z years.

Nationalization was tried and doesn't work. It has to be supervised by state, but not run by them, that will lead to inferior service.

willyt4• 7 years ago

Privatisation was tried in the UK and it hasn’t worked. Our trains are just as unreliable as they always were. The food is still shit. Only difference is that the fares have been going up way faster than inflation for years now because we not only have to pay for the maintenance and operation costs but also the cost of someone making a profit from it and all the administrative costs of having 100 organisations all arguing over who’s fault the delay was. Our running costs are considerably higher than other EU countries because of this. Railways are a natural monopoly, just like power lines, water pipes and roads.

_0ffh2• 7 years ago

The German national train service was mostly privatised in 1994, because of the public cost. Since then, service was reduced, 5000km of rail tracks decommissioned, former flexibility lost, prices hiked, reliability reduced.

But best of all: maintenance is paid by the new private company, but replacements/acquisitions are still paid for from taxes. Therefore it pays to scrimp on maintenance until stuff breaks, then get a replacement for free. Really bad incentive structure there. I sincerely doubt privatisation was a good deal overall.

Tijdreiziger2• 7 years ago

The train company that runs the train from Station A to Station Z at 13:00 get's all the passengers that need to travel that route at that time.

False. (Factual) counterexample: On the Stockholm-Malmö route, there are three operators (SJ, MTR and Snälltåget). The number of passengers on each company's trains will depend heavily on their pricing strategies.

tomelders2• 7 years ago

All running the same route, at the same time? It doesn't look like it.

https://www.omio.co.uk/search-frontend/results/1307902350/tr...

taffer2• 7 years ago

You can't have two trains leave the same station and arrive at the same destination as the same time.

To what extent is this a prerequisite for competition? The hour has 60 minutes, there is no need for all trains to depart and arrive in exactly the same minute.

Apart from that, it is also not possible for several aircraft to take off from the same runway at the same time. So there is no difference between trains and flights.

Nationalise it. All of it.

That's a non sequitur. If you want better service, enforce it through regulation; if you want lower prices, use regulation to improve competition. You do not need a state monopoly.

LifeLiverTransp• 7 years ago

Why cant the train and infrastructure be run by the state- while the service inside is run by a private company?

Like, the company rents the traincar barebone and puts in seats, foodstalls, wifi, ac, etc.

Finally, while we are at modernizing, can we get maglev trains - with detaching and attaching passenger cabins? Because, the real slowdown in europe is local "little" emperors having a say where the train stops, and theire voters region is that one place, the ICE has to stop.

adrianN3• 7 years ago

No we can't get maglev trains with detaching passenger cars because already the nonmagical train infrastructure we have today costs millions per kilometer for high speed service and modernizing the grid to support maglev service on a reasonable number of connections would be way too expensive.

AnimalMuppet• 7 years ago

Trains are also more expensive to run than planes because they need more infrastructure to operate, and that infrastructure is high maintenance.

Um... are you counting the airports when making that comparison? And the air traffic control infrastructure? And the maintenance costs of the planes themselves vs the maintenance costs of the trains?

Privatised rail makes no sense anywhere in the world.

Are you counting the US freight railways in that? If so, you are badly mistaken.

gumby2• 7 years ago

Trains are also more expensive to run than planes because they need more infrastructure to operate, and that infrastructure is high maintenance.

Planes and their associated physical plant are pretty expensive too and suffer a lot of variable costs trains don't. Do you have figures?

Apart from that, your suggestion is not obvious.

The SNCF is a nationalized train system, and it arguably works well.

Britain's rail network was built privately and suffered after nationalization (and subsequently after privatization)

The US's nationalized passenger network is in dire shape. The private sector freight system is thriving.

jonathanp88• 7 years ago

The SNCF is a nationalized train system, and it arguably works well

It SO doesn't!. Apart from the flashy TGV Network, Frances Railways are a total mess. Try taking a Train in a rural area and you'll most likely find it's been replaced by a bus, or there's gaps of Hours between Services.

The French governement will soon, finally, Long after most of the rest of Europe, allow private companies to bid to provide the Government-subsidized local rail Services. The regional goverments who actually provide the subsidy are champing at the bit to be able to Dump SNCF, who can essentially Name their Price, with the regions then forced to give it them.

tzs• 7 years ago

Trains are also more expensive to run than planes because they need more infrastructure to operate

Cost to run includes more than just the underlying infrastructure costs. Look at how much it costs to ship goods. Rail is over two orders of magnitude cheaper per ton mile than air, and about an order of magnitude cheaper than trucks, and about 1/3 of the cost of than boats. This suggests that the high infrastructure cost of rail has little impact on cost to run.

kartan• 7 years ago

Privatised rail makes no sense anywhere in the world.

It makes sense in Japan. It is a small country with a high amount of population that is very concentrated.

In any other part of the world governments are the ones paying the bill for the rail networks meanwhile "private" companies are just adding their profit to the cost. There is no competition, there is no long term investments (until the government pays), customers are captive, ... It just doesn't work.

Causality1• 7 years ago

"Hopping on a plane would be a hypocritical thing to do when you run a publication called Low-tech Magazine."

Yes, using a form of travel invented in 1903 is far more high-tech than publishing articles to the global information network. Putz.

adrianN3• 7 years ago

If you read a couple of articles on the site you'll see that it's about how we can use well-known, or recently forgotten technology to live in a much more sustainable way. It's a counterpoint to the "magical technology of the future will solve it" school of environmental politics.

the_mitsuhiko• 7 years ago

For a really long time I wanted high speed rail but now I just want better service and wifi. If the train takes some time it does not matter because i’m productive using it.

I spend so little time at the train stations on either end and I can work the entire ride that I don’t feel like I wasted time. On the other hand almost any flight or car trip feels regretful.

njepa3• 7 years ago

Agreed. I don't think trains are really good at speed yet relative to costs. They are however good at comfort if given the chance. There is less of a space and weight premium. Noise and vibration can be much lower. And a medium speed train they can still go twice as fast as car.

I wish someone would take the idea of a business or first class flight, without the luxuries and inflated cost, and put that on a modern medium speed train. Something similar to this seat layout: https://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2018/02/08/swiss-777...

pintxo3• 7 years ago

Business class without luxuries and inflated costs is what? Economy class?

switch007• 7 years ago

I live on a route that had its local services replaced by new rolling stock to run new medium-distance services. That change led to higher ticket prices, reduction of local services, less desirable destinations, longer onward connections, and a year of abysmal service which resulted in some of the worst performance of the entire national network.

Local communities have been badly affected. People had to move. We have timetables that don't work, especially for people with children and jobs. 1 train per hour down from 2. Morning services that get you in to the city at stupid times (0808 and 0908). The train to one city dumps you at the less useful terminus, eventually, after it crawls though a busier line. The franchise is not meeting its contractual obligation for peak service frequency.

A lot to swallow just to get nicer new trains :/

lars_francke• 7 years ago

For most people, the time gained by taking the high speed train is not worth the extra cost.

Citation needed. I'm just a single data point but I'd gladly pay more to be home w/ family a few minutes/hour earlier and considering how jam packed the ICEs often are I would say others share a similar sentiment (maybe for other reasons).

Most arguments in this article are based on price which to me is similar to people arguing over benchmarks in software/hardware products (i.e. performance of a product) while there are tens of other factors to consider, performance being just one of them.

I for one don't consider price at all (within reason, for me that means when the difference between choices is ~200-300€) when travelling on business (and the older I get for private travel as well). I favor comfort, speed, reliability of connections etc.

I basically disagree with almost everything in that article - but similar to his viewpoint mine is very subjective.

Patrick_Devine2• 7 years ago

I just took the Barcelona-Paris train a few months ago and paid 119 Euros for a 1st Class ticket. I think it was 79 Euros for a 2nd class ticket. I was just looking at buying tickets for my entire family of four from Munich to Berlin for this summer, and the price is 95 euros for the entire family.

That doesn't really jibe with what the author is complaining about. I get that there will be instances where the old system better serviced some parts of the network, but I believe for the vast majority of the people using the train, high speed lines have been an absolute boon.

LeanderK• 7 years ago

I think the Munich-Berlin route is the prime example where high-speed rail makes sense. It's long enough to really make a difference but not too long so that you would consider a plane. 95€ seems cheap for the DB, I have a bahncard 50 (so 50% off) and usually pay ~30€ for Karlsruhe-Munich (bit over 3 hours), but I usually buy them when I start my trip.

spodek• 7 years ago

One of my favorite sites online. I recommend spending time there on other articles to catch his view of the modern world, which I find refreshing and timely.

jayalpha• 7 years ago

European trains a great. I wish Europe would be more positive about the future and build more modern trains. Why no self coupling train cars that go to different destinations?

Good news, recently on HN. I love night trains!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19557848

As always: http://seat61.com/

hevi_jos• 7 years ago

Europe needs competition on the rail networks, just like air traffic. This will happen over time. In places like Spain it will start this year or next one.

In Spain and other European countries, there was a State monopoly on rail. Extremely bad for the customer. No company could offer cheaper prices or be smarter. It is a bureaucracy used for political parties to place their(mostly incompetent) family members and friends.

bubblewrap• 7 years ago

Trains compete with planes, cars and bus lines. It seems likely that if it turns out to be necessary to be competitive, they'll reintroduce the cheaper trains.

Here in Germany, cheaper trains seem to be available for many times I happened to check (IC vs ICE).

I am also happy about the reduction of my travel time, although the costs may have been too large (years and years of building new tracks and tunnels).

dzhiurgis• 7 years ago

With advent of electric buses I believe railway is dead.

For short to mid range trips - electric buses already are capable to cover them at nearly same comfort level but much lower cost.

For long range we'll have to stick to planes.

High Speed Trains Are Killing the European Railway Network (2013)

Related Stories