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TGV is also incredibly expensive. Yes this cuts carbon emissions... but it's also just protectionism. There's a reason short-haul flights are popular. Someho

TGV is also incredibly expensive. Yes this cuts carbon emissions... but it's also just protectionism. There's a reason short-haul flights are popular. Somehow, insanely, rail is often more expensive.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
cameronh90 3y ago
It's not insane. Rail is just fundamentally more expensive for many routes. Short haul flight is typically run at a profit despite taxes, whereas intercity rail is run at a loss and subsidised. A big factor that affects costs both for running airliners and trains is turnaround time. Faster turnaround means more revenue per vehicle, pilot, etc. and planes are multiple times quicker than trains for most city pairs. Train infrastructure is also very expensive. It's costly to acquire the land and build suitable tracks, then the track maintenance is a very labour intensive task. Thousands of people are employed to inspect tracks, clear foliage, etc. Every city needs to be linked up to the rail network, whereas planes just go through the sky for free. Of course, you might argue tracks just need to be built once then they continue generating revenue for hundreds of years, which is true (maintenance aside), but as ridership increases and that track reaches capacity, the ticket pricing becomes a way of managing demand since typically building more track is cost prohibitive. With planes, if there is unserved demand, a new low cost carrier will spring up to handle it. Of course, if you were to factor in emissions fully, that could significantly tilt the tables in favour of rail.
crazygringo 3y ago
I'm looking up the reasons why, and it seems quite complex. On the one hand, it does seem like aviation has unfair (?) advantages, in that there's no VAT on plane tickets and no tax on aviation fuel. But on the other hand, laying+maintaining railroad track (and acquiring the land) is quite expensive, while airplanes only need an airport built at either end. Plus train trips just take longer, leading to higher crew costs. And then airlines offset cheaper coach seats with expensive first-class, plus lots of upgrade fees, while the opportunities here are smaller for rail. Does protectionism also factor in to TGV? I can't find anything on that.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > airlines offset cheaper coach seats with expensive first-class, plus lots of upgrade fees, while the opportunities here are smaller for rail The opportunities for first-class train cars are enormous and precedented. Rail requiring subsidies just makes it politically unpalatable. (The solution is to let private cars hook up to public trains for a fee. Imagine the Caltrain having a Google car instead of a Google bus on the road. Or the Four Seasons operating a fleet of luxury Amtrak cars.)
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    You generally can't add an extra coach to a high speed train. They are fixed in formations of 4-9 or so coaches, sometimes with one set of wheels shared between two coaches. It is more aerodynamic and safer. You can usually couple two whole sets together.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      You can in theory couple two whole sets together, but in practice you can't do this either because you need to rebuild all the stations along the way so the platforms are longer. You often can't even build only the busy stations bigger and seat people going to smaller stations on the one car that stops as the train will hang out of the station onto track and so some other train not stopping can't get by it.
      - Symbiote 3y ago
        Coupling sets of 4, 5 or 6 coach trains together is done regularly. There are scheduled trains where this is done partway through the journey. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1j2e-R1cv9w https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1j2e-R1cv9w
  - bluGill 3y ago
    Amtrak says they became more reliable when the stopped allowing private cars to hookup. (or they would be? I don't recall exactly what I read) Many people who own private cars have not kept up on maintenance, and if your private car breaks down the whole train stops.
WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
Without protectionism, what would they have? Also without protectionism, they'd be back to burning coal like germany.. https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/1124448463/germany-coal-energy-crisis https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/1124448463/germany-coal-energ... Without protectionism, ESA wouldn't be able to have their own space missions Without protectionism, germany wouldn't have his car industry Calling out "protectionism", is often a weapon used by foreign countries to weaken competition, so they can have their chance without much effort Without protectionism, what's the alternative? Also TGV is just the 1st step, hydrogen comming next You gotta have to keep innovating, otherwise you'll depend on others (germany refused Nuclear because they had a 'cheap' dependency on Russia ;)) Protectionism is great, protecting your interests is great, they should do it, the US is doing it, China is doing it, and it works great for them Long live ESA, long live the nuclear industry and long live the TGV

TGV is also incredibly expensive. Yes this cuts carbon emissions... but it's also just protectionism. There's a reason short-haul flights are popular. Somehow, insanely, rail is often more expensive.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

cameronh90 3y ago

It's not insane. Rail is just fundamentally more expensive for many routes. Short haul flight is typically run at a profit despite taxes, whereas intercity rail is run at a loss and subsidised. A big factor that affects costs both for running airliners and trains is turnaround time. Faster turnaround means more revenue per vehicle, pilot, etc. and planes are multiple times quicker than trains for most city pairs. Train infrastructure is also very expensive. It's costly to acquire the land and build suitable tracks, then the track maintenance is a very labour intensive task. Thousands of people are employed to inspect tracks, clear foliage, etc. Every city needs to be linked up to the rail network, whereas planes just go through the sky for free. Of course, you might argue tracks just need to be built once then they continue generating revenue for hundreds of years, which is true (maintenance aside), but as ridership increases and that track reaches capacity, the ticket pricing becomes a way of managing demand since typically building more track is cost prohibitive. With planes, if there is unserved demand, a new low cost carrier will spring up to handle it. Of course, if you were to factor in emissions fully, that could significantly tilt the tables in favour of rail.

crazygringo 3y ago

I'm looking up the reasons why, and it seems quite complex. On the one hand, it does seem like aviation has unfair (?) advantages, in that there's no VAT on plane tickets and no tax on aviation fuel. But on the other hand, laying+maintaining railroad track (and acquiring the land) is quite expensive, while airplanes only need an airport built at either end. Plus train trips just take longer, leading to higher crew costs. And then airlines offset cheaper coach seats with expensive first-class, plus lots of upgrade fees, while the opportunities here are smaller for rail. Does protectionism also factor in to TGV? I can't find anything on that.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> airlines offset cheaper coach seats with expensive first-class, plus lots of upgrade fees, while the opportunities here are smaller for rail The opportunities for first-class train cars are enormous and precedented. Rail requiring subsidies just makes it politically unpalatable. (The solution is to let private cars hook up to public trains for a fee. Imagine the Caltrain having a Google car instead of a Google bus on the road. Or the Four Seasons operating a fleet of luxury Amtrak cars.)
- Symbiote 3y ago
  You generally can't add an extra coach to a high speed train. They are fixed in formations of 4-9 or so coaches, sometimes with one set of wheels shared between two coaches. It is more aerodynamic and safer. You can usually couple two whole sets together.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    You can in theory couple two whole sets together, but in practice you can't do this either because you need to rebuild all the stations along the way so the platforms are longer. You often can't even build only the busy stations bigger and seat people going to smaller stations on the one car that stops as the train will hang out of the station onto track and so some other train not stopping can't get by it.
    - Symbiote 3y ago
      Coupling sets of 4, 5 or 6 coach trains together is done regularly. There are scheduled trains where this is done partway through the journey. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1j2e-R1cv9w https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1j2e-R1cv9w
- bluGill 3y ago
  Amtrak says they became more reliable when the stopped allowing private cars to hookup. (or they would be? I don't recall exactly what I read) Many people who own private cars have not kept up on maintenance, and if your private car breaks down the whole train stops.

WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago

Without protectionism, what would they have? Also without protectionism, they'd be back to burning coal like germany.. https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/1124448463/germany-coal-energy-crisis https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/1124448463/germany-coal-energ... Without protectionism, ESA wouldn't be able to have their own space missions Without protectionism, germany wouldn't have his car industry Calling out "protectionism", is often a weapon used by foreign countries to weaken competition, so they can have their chance without much effort Without protectionism, what's the alternative? Also TGV is just the 1st step, hydrogen comming next You gotta have to keep innovating, otherwise you'll depend on others (germany refused Nuclear because they had a 'cheap' dependency on Russia ;)) Protectionism is great, protecting your interests is great, they should do it, the US is doing it, China is doing it, and it works great for them Long live ESA, long live the nuclear industry and long live the TGV