3 ms·

> low-maintenance, high-capacity fast train, planes with ecofuel is either existing? > On top of that, a rail station has quite a limited capacity, especially

> low-maintenance, high-capacity fast train, planes with ecofuel is either existing? > On top of that, a rail station has quite a limited capacity, especially if it's inside the city. Traffic generated by rail station limited by capacity would require gargantuan airport to handle it, which would anyway require bus/train/car connections from within city taking even more space.

slyall 4y ago
A fun stat is: Daily passengers on the New York subway system is around the same as total daily passengers on every commercial flight in the US.
- choeger 4y ago
  I can totally believe that. But it has 470 or so stations. That makes about 10k or so daily passengers per station. That's very roughly the same as Berlin. Additionally, the trains are quite slow, which ain't a problem for a metropolitan network, but you certainly cannot compare that system to a country- or continent-wide train network.
- fanf2 4y ago
  In London, the Kings Cross + St Pancras complex handles about 340,000 passengers per day, and is about 0.3km x 0.5km. Heathrow handles about 240,000 passengers per day, and is about 3km x 5km.
inglor_cz 4y ago
He is not entirely wrong about the capacity limits of the railway stations, though. European cities struggle with inadequate railway capacity all the time. The main problem is that the original railway stations were laid out in about 1840-1870, for much smaller passenger streams, and today find it hard to cope with modern requirements (a lot of commuters from the suburbia). But given that there is dense city infrastructure all around them, the only way to solve this is to build a new station underground, which is hideously expensive and slow. Berlin was somewhat "lucky" to have a good place to build their new Hauptbahnhof, a result of the former division of the city. Stuttgart is rebuilding and upgrading its railway network at a great expense, the construction works started in 2010 and are far from finished. In Prague, there is a lot of discussion what to do with the rail network in the center. You cannot just tear down whole tracts of buildings in a historical city, so yes, we will have to go the Stuttgart route and who knows what the budget (and) time overrun will be. I commute with a train daily. The lack of capacity is visible in chronic delays, sometimes up to 30 minutes. Fortunately I do not have to be at my office at a precise hour, but going to a medical appointment without wasting too much time is already a bit of a challenge. I even witnessed a 15 minute delay at 4:30 in the morning.
- matkoniecz 4y ago
  If you have no space for larger train station, then you will have problem to fit airport there. Or even commuting infrastructure to reach airport.
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    That is why airports are built in the middle of nowhere (also because of the noise). People can tolerate a longer commute to the airport and back, because few Europeans commute by air daily. Most of us fly at most several times a year.

slyall 4y ago

A fun stat is: Daily passengers on the New York subway system is around the same as total daily passengers on every commercial flight in the US.

choeger 4y ago
I can totally believe that. But it has 470 or so stations. That makes about 10k or so daily passengers per station. That's very roughly the same as Berlin. Additionally, the trains are quite slow, which ain't a problem for a metropolitan network, but you certainly cannot compare that system to a country- or continent-wide train network.
fanf2 4y ago
In London, the Kings Cross + St Pancras complex handles about 340,000 passengers per day, and is about 0.3km x 0.5km. Heathrow handles about 240,000 passengers per day, and is about 3km x 5km.

inglor_cz 4y ago

He is not entirely wrong about the capacity limits of the railway stations, though. European cities struggle with inadequate railway capacity all the time. The main problem is that the original railway stations were laid out in about 1840-1870, for much smaller passenger streams, and today find it hard to cope with modern requirements (a lot of commuters from the suburbia). But given that there is dense city infrastructure all around them, the only way to solve this is to build a new station underground, which is hideously expensive and slow. Berlin was somewhat "lucky" to have a good place to build their new Hauptbahnhof, a result of the former division of the city. Stuttgart is rebuilding and upgrading its railway network at a great expense, the construction works started in 2010 and are far from finished. In Prague, there is a lot of discussion what to do with the rail network in the center. You cannot just tear down whole tracts of buildings in a historical city, so yes, we will have to go the Stuttgart route and who knows what the budget (and) time overrun will be. I commute with a train daily. The lack of capacity is visible in chronic delays, sometimes up to 30 minutes. Fortunately I do not have to be at my office at a precise hour, but going to a medical appointment without wasting too much time is already a bit of a challenge. I even witnessed a 15 minute delay at 4:30 in the morning.

matkoniecz 4y ago
If you have no space for larger train station, then you will have problem to fit airport there. Or even commuting infrastructure to reach airport.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  That is why airports are built in the middle of nowhere (also because of the noise). People can tolerate a longer commute to the airport and back, because few Europeans commute by air daily. Most of us fly at most several times a year.