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There's also the environmental angle where trains are generally way more efficient [0] in terms of emissions per passenger, particularly compared to plane trave

There's also the environmental angle where trains are generally way more efficient [0] in terms of emissions per passenger, particularly compared to plane travel. [0] http://ecopassenger.hafas.de/ http://ecopassenger.hafas.de/

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
emteycz 6y ago
Does this count in the building and maintenance of railroad and the movement of all the maintenance/support/construction equipment (-> super-heavy diesel trains) etc?
- itsangaris 6y ago
  I doubt it, but if that’s the method of comparison then you’d want to include the building and maintenance of the airport.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    Nope - I didn't ask to include train stations. You can include runways only. I have no idea about the numbers, but it wouldn't surprise me if including building the railroads and maintenance would make plane and (electric) train equal. You don't want to know the amount of diesel smoke that's coming from the nearby railroad reconstruction. I wonder where could one find this data
    - Asraelite 6y ago
      Why would you include railways and runways but not train stations and airports? It's not possible to create a new destination, add additional capacity to an existing destination, or maintain existing capacity without additional costs to all major parts of the infrastructure, for both trains and planes.
      - emteycz 6y ago
        Because the machines don't care whether the humans inside are fed and warm, and won't emit more/less CO2 because of it. These buildings are very similar. The major difference is that while a capital city train station handles around 10-40 trains at a time with short arrival-departure pause (e.g. Prague main station handles around 10-15 concurrent trains), capital city airports are often handling many dozens of concurrent flights (with longer arrival-departure pause and smaller groups per vehicle) -> the airport takes more area but isn't technically sophisticated at all; the train station is denser, but railroad switching at a station isn't easy. So let's just keep stations separate. Of course buildings required by the machines should be included. It most definitely is possible to build an airport without any costs other than construction of the runway and a fuel pump, and a 2-4 km stretch of dirt is more than enough. If you want airliners landing there then simply pour asphalt or concrete over it, smaller planes can handle dirt. You'll want to bring fuel - a truck that already often drives nearby (to supply gas stations) will bring it to you, and nothing fancier than the simplest second hand fuel pump and a tank is needed. It is also most definitely possible to add significant capacity to an existing airport with nearly zero costs and it is routinely done - every year from May to September hundreds of tiny airports all around the world start serving (sometimes) more flights than the country's capital city, bringing in thousands of people from dozens or even hundreds of different destinations all around the planet, with flights coming in every 30 minutes from 8 to 22. Usually a travel agency finds a place they like (that probably never had a single airliner fly over there before), they call it and make a deal, and it's done. They'll set up their own ground handling service if they have that many flights daily to improve efficiency - that's as easy as parking a few cars next to the airport and placing staff they already employ there, and it's not needed if it's just a flight per hour or so. The thing that's hard about capital city airports is that everyone wants to go to a different destination and be there on time, everyone goes to the airport by their own means, the security theatre, etc. I don't know much train stations with numbers of car parking places comparable to airports, and these that do still don't like cars being parked for weeks there. The travel agency has it simpler because they're moving the whole group either by plane or by bus, and they can do whatever they like with the schedule. Many smaller cities have airports that handle few flights per week and that kind of airport is at most a single building next to the runway, nothing like FRA or the new BER. Maintaining existing capacity - I already talked about the runway pour... That's about it. The fuel equipment will need a refresh every 20 years or so.
    - loufe 6y ago
      The thing is, the cost of building rails is amortized over, in some cases, well over a hundred years. Most of train travels emissions are fixed emissions, marginal emissions being much lower. On the flipside, air travel has a much smaller fixed emissions amount but drastically higher marginal emissions. Also, it is not my particular field of engineering but there is likely no scenario where fuel efficiency of planes is better than trains. That you can find sources for pretty easily.
- nehalem501 6y ago
  In Europe all the major lines are already electrified, and because all the lines were built a long time ago (generally in the 19th century), the construction carbon emissions are divided between 150 years of transported passengers.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    The maintenance/construction/service vehicles are not electric anywhere I've been in Europe, and I use trains a lot to do eurotrips.
    - freeflight 6y ago
      Those are very specialized vehicles, that's most likely the reason they haven't been electrified yet, that will probably only happen as they age too much and can't be maintained anymore, mandating a complete, more modern replacement. I also doubt they make up a substantial part of the rail traffic, if we go about it that way we there's a whole bunch of vehicles with horrible CO2 emissions that only have gotten barely viable electric alternatives in the last handful of years, like excavators, bulldozers and all kinds of other construction/hauling/maintenance vehicles.
    - Symbiote 6y ago
      There are electric (battery) versions of these vehicles for use in tunnels, where diesel fumes would be a problem. Much construction equipment is often converted roadbuilding equipment, and that's still diesel powered. However, railway vehicles tend to last for decades, so it might take a long time for everything to be electric. The people buying them can both afford and have the expertise to purchase reliable, repairable equipment. It's then run on a perfectly smooth "road" without much rough handling.
  - julienb_sea 6y ago
    This is not particularly accurate, train lines have had to be rebuilt multiple times to support increasing speed of trains. The current TGV lines in use in France are not capable of running on old track, they need to be on modern infrastructure which continues to be built out. In any case, I think its fair to say over time trains win out over airplanes on emissions, but it isn't that cut and dry especially early on.
- hmmokidk 6y ago
  Don't forget the cost of building and maintaining airports!
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > (-> super-heavy diesel trains) Why would you use a super-heavy diesel train to pull night-train carriages? Use a little electric one.
  - fogihujy 6y ago
    Especially since diesel trains are often noisy.
  - aembleton 6y ago
    The line might not be electrified. For example, the line to Fort William used by the Caledonian Sleeper is not electrified all of the way.
- jnxx 6y ago
  The emissions of trains are always many times less. For a quantitative comparison: https://www.seat61.com/CO2flights.htm https://www.seat61.com/CO2flights.htm For example: London to Nice Plane: 4 hours, 250 Kg CO2 Train: 8 hours by Eurostar+TGV, 36 Kg CO2 85% less Traveling short to medium distances by plane is simply indefensible if you care about climate change. For an average European, it can easily make up one third of their total yearly carbon emissions, more than 1500kg, or even more. (BTW this site, seat61.com, is a great and very useful web site, if one likes train travel or wants to travel by train in Europe, one should seriously have a look!)
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    Nah, flying is totally defensible. I fly everywhere. The problem is offsetting your emissions. Most people are offloading their externalities to the Earth. Since climate change is a non-local phenomenon you can be carbon negative for very cheap if you pay to reduce carbon emissions. Also, it's a little bit rich to listen to any sort of climate talk from anyone in cold countries¹. They emit so much carbon just to be warm. Well, I don't, because I live in California. ¹ Between 14% and 30% of total emissions are from heating in Germany for instance https://www.bmu.de/fileadmin/Daten_BMU/Download_PDF/Klimaschutz/klimaschutz_zahlen_2019_fs_gebaeude_de_bf.pdf https://www.bmu.de/fileadmin/Daten_BMU/Download_PDF/Klimasch...
    - freeflight 6y ago
      > Since climate change is a non-local phenomenon you can be carbon negative for very cheap if you pay to reduce carbon emissions. How does that work in practical reality so it doesn't just turn into a money making scheme with no real impact akin to Catholic indulgences? > Also, it's a little bit rich to listen to any sort of climate talk from anyone in cold countries¹. They emit so much carbon just to be warm. Well, I don't, because I live in California. How many emissions in the US come from the use of AC and heating due to basically zero federal building standards for energy efficiency? [0] Afaik AC is generally considered way more inefficient, heating can be captured as a side-product from a lot of processes, cooling not so much. [0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328701132_A_comparison_of_building_energy_codes_and_policies_in_the_USA_Germany_and_China_progress_toward_the_net-zero_building_goal_in_three_countries https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328701132_A_compari...
- dheera 6y ago
  This is a valid question and not sure why it is being downvoted. As far as I know the answer is it is a net positive for most frequently used passenger lines in the world, e.g. most in Europe and Asia. Also, the emissions of building railroad track are also on a similar order of magnitude to building highway, so even if the goal is to displace cars instead of planes, it is still more than worth it to build. I can imagine it being a net negative in the US where trains travel only every few hours, or in some cases only a few times a week, except maybe in the Boston-NYC-DC corridor. SF to LA is only once a day for goodness sake, which is incapable of displacing cars or planes. Compare to Japan or China where service between major cities is every few minutes. Once a day service from a city like SF to a city like LA would be unthinkable in Europe or Asia.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

emteycz 6y ago

Does this count in the building and maintenance of railroad and the movement of all the maintenance/support/construction equipment (-> super-heavy diesel trains) etc?

itsangaris 6y ago
I doubt it, but if that’s the method of comparison then you’d want to include the building and maintenance of the airport.
- emteycz 6y ago
  Nope - I didn't ask to include train stations. You can include runways only. I have no idea about the numbers, but it wouldn't surprise me if including building the railroads and maintenance would make plane and (electric) train equal. You don't want to know the amount of diesel smoke that's coming from the nearby railroad reconstruction. I wonder where could one find this data
  - Asraelite 6y ago
    Why would you include railways and runways but not train stations and airports? It's not possible to create a new destination, add additional capacity to an existing destination, or maintain existing capacity without additional costs to all major parts of the infrastructure, for both trains and planes.
    - emteycz 6y ago
      Because the machines don't care whether the humans inside are fed and warm, and won't emit more/less CO2 because of it. These buildings are very similar. The major difference is that while a capital city train station handles around 10-40 trains at a time with short arrival-departure pause (e.g. Prague main station handles around 10-15 concurrent trains), capital city airports are often handling many dozens of concurrent flights (with longer arrival-departure pause and smaller groups per vehicle) -> the airport takes more area but isn't technically sophisticated at all; the train station is denser, but railroad switching at a station isn't easy. So let's just keep stations separate. Of course buildings required by the machines should be included. It most definitely is possible to build an airport without any costs other than construction of the runway and a fuel pump, and a 2-4 km stretch of dirt is more than enough. If you want airliners landing there then simply pour asphalt or concrete over it, smaller planes can handle dirt. You'll want to bring fuel - a truck that already often drives nearby (to supply gas stations) will bring it to you, and nothing fancier than the simplest second hand fuel pump and a tank is needed. It is also most definitely possible to add significant capacity to an existing airport with nearly zero costs and it is routinely done - every year from May to September hundreds of tiny airports all around the world start serving (sometimes) more flights than the country's capital city, bringing in thousands of people from dozens or even hundreds of different destinations all around the planet, with flights coming in every 30 minutes from 8 to 22. Usually a travel agency finds a place they like (that probably never had a single airliner fly over there before), they call it and make a deal, and it's done. They'll set up their own ground handling service if they have that many flights daily to improve efficiency - that's as easy as parking a few cars next to the airport and placing staff they already employ there, and it's not needed if it's just a flight per hour or so. The thing that's hard about capital city airports is that everyone wants to go to a different destination and be there on time, everyone goes to the airport by their own means, the security theatre, etc. I don't know much train stations with numbers of car parking places comparable to airports, and these that do still don't like cars being parked for weeks there. The travel agency has it simpler because they're moving the whole group either by plane or by bus, and they can do whatever they like with the schedule. Many smaller cities have airports that handle few flights per week and that kind of airport is at most a single building next to the runway, nothing like FRA or the new BER. Maintaining existing capacity - I already talked about the runway pour... That's about it. The fuel equipment will need a refresh every 20 years or so.
  - loufe 6y ago
    The thing is, the cost of building rails is amortized over, in some cases, well over a hundred years. Most of train travels emissions are fixed emissions, marginal emissions being much lower. On the flipside, air travel has a much smaller fixed emissions amount but drastically higher marginal emissions. Also, it is not my particular field of engineering but there is likely no scenario where fuel efficiency of planes is better than trains. That you can find sources for pretty easily.
nehalem501 6y ago
In Europe all the major lines are already electrified, and because all the lines were built a long time ago (generally in the 19th century), the construction carbon emissions are divided between 150 years of transported passengers.
- emteycz 6y ago
  The maintenance/construction/service vehicles are not electric anywhere I've been in Europe, and I use trains a lot to do eurotrips.
  - freeflight 6y ago
    Those are very specialized vehicles, that's most likely the reason they haven't been electrified yet, that will probably only happen as they age too much and can't be maintained anymore, mandating a complete, more modern replacement. I also doubt they make up a substantial part of the rail traffic, if we go about it that way we there's a whole bunch of vehicles with horrible CO2 emissions that only have gotten barely viable electric alternatives in the last handful of years, like excavators, bulldozers and all kinds of other construction/hauling/maintenance vehicles.
  - Symbiote 6y ago
    There are electric (battery) versions of these vehicles for use in tunnels, where diesel fumes would be a problem. Much construction equipment is often converted roadbuilding equipment, and that's still diesel powered. However, railway vehicles tend to last for decades, so it might take a long time for everything to be electric. The people buying them can both afford and have the expertise to purchase reliable, repairable equipment. It's then run on a perfectly smooth "road" without much rough handling.
- julienb_sea 6y ago
  This is not particularly accurate, train lines have had to be rebuilt multiple times to support increasing speed of trains. The current TGV lines in use in France are not capable of running on old track, they need to be on modern infrastructure which continues to be built out. In any case, I think its fair to say over time trains win out over airplanes on emissions, but it isn't that cut and dry especially early on.
hmmokidk 6y ago
Don't forget the cost of building and maintaining airports!
chrisseaton 6y ago
> (-> super-heavy diesel trains) Why would you use a super-heavy diesel train to pull night-train carriages? Use a little electric one.
- fogihujy 6y ago
  Especially since diesel trains are often noisy.
- aembleton 6y ago
  The line might not be electrified. For example, the line to Fort William used by the Caledonian Sleeper is not electrified all of the way.
jnxx 6y ago
The emissions of trains are always many times less. For a quantitative comparison: https://www.seat61.com/CO2flights.htm https://www.seat61.com/CO2flights.htm For example: London to Nice Plane: 4 hours, 250 Kg CO2 Train: 8 hours by Eurostar+TGV, 36 Kg CO2 85% less Traveling short to medium distances by plane is simply indefensible if you care about climate change. For an average European, it can easily make up one third of their total yearly carbon emissions, more than 1500kg, or even more. (BTW this site, seat61.com, is a great and very useful web site, if one likes train travel or wants to travel by train in Europe, one should seriously have a look!)
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Nah, flying is totally defensible. I fly everywhere. The problem is offsetting your emissions. Most people are offloading their externalities to the Earth. Since climate change is a non-local phenomenon you can be carbon negative for very cheap if you pay to reduce carbon emissions. Also, it's a little bit rich to listen to any sort of climate talk from anyone in cold countries¹. They emit so much carbon just to be warm. Well, I don't, because I live in California. ¹ Between 14% and 30% of total emissions are from heating in Germany for instance https://www.bmu.de/fileadmin/Daten_BMU/Download_PDF/Klimaschutz/klimaschutz_zahlen_2019_fs_gebaeude_de_bf.pdf https://www.bmu.de/fileadmin/Daten_BMU/Download_PDF/Klimasch...
  - freeflight 6y ago
    > Since climate change is a non-local phenomenon you can be carbon negative for very cheap if you pay to reduce carbon emissions. How does that work in practical reality so it doesn't just turn into a money making scheme with no real impact akin to Catholic indulgences? > Also, it's a little bit rich to listen to any sort of climate talk from anyone in cold countries¹. They emit so much carbon just to be warm. Well, I don't, because I live in California. How many emissions in the US come from the use of AC and heating due to basically zero federal building standards for energy efficiency? [0] Afaik AC is generally considered way more inefficient, heating can be captured as a side-product from a lot of processes, cooling not so much. [0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328701132_A_comparison_of_building_energy_codes_and_policies_in_the_USA_Germany_and_China_progress_toward_the_net-zero_building_goal_in_three_countries https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328701132_A_compari...
dheera 6y ago
This is a valid question and not sure why it is being downvoted. As far as I know the answer is it is a net positive for most frequently used passenger lines in the world, e.g. most in Europe and Asia. Also, the emissions of building railroad track are also on a similar order of magnitude to building highway, so even if the goal is to displace cars instead of planes, it is still more than worth it to build. I can imagine it being a net negative in the US where trains travel only every few hours, or in some cases only a few times a week, except maybe in the Boston-NYC-DC corridor. SF to LA is only once a day for goodness sake, which is incapable of displacing cars or planes. Compare to Japan or China where service between major cities is every few minutes. Once a day service from a city like SF to a city like LA would be unthinkable in Europe or Asia.