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High Speed Trains are Killing the European Railway Network

230 points by gvb 13y ago

mschuster91 13y ago
In Germany, even the low-speed trains have met a powerful competition in form of coach bus lines. The coaches are brand new, offer free WiFi, and are vastly cheaper than even the lowest-price DB tickets. edit: another quite popular travel solution is car sharing("Mitfahrgelegenheit"); this is especially useful if you must drive with your own car (e.g. because you carry stuff you can't transport in a train/airplane) and want to lower your own travel costs.
- chaz 13y ago
  In the northeast US, too. If I wanted to go from Manhattan to Boston this afternoon: $200 by plane, $75-100 by train, $15 by Boltbus. All take about 4 hours. Plane is going to cost more because it's a bit of a haul to get to JFK or Newark airports -- about $8 + 1 hour by public transportation, or about $50 + 30 min by taxi. Planning out a week or two, though, airfare can be as little as $75. Train stays the same price.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    At least part of the issue is that Boltbus is traveling on heavily subsidized highways. On the Northeast Regional, ticket fares more than cover costs. In comparison, only about 50% of highway construction and maintenance is paid for by highway and gas taxes and trucking fees, with the rest coming from general taxes. New York in particular is a state which funds highway maintenance heavily out of general tax revenue. Still, I think air travel is the clear loser in the comparison. The public transit route to LGA or JFK is a bus trip through not very pleasant parts of Harlem and Queens, and is just a huge PITA with luggage. Strolling into Penn Station is a breeze.
    - twoodfin 13y ago
      Roads are certainly "subsidized" in the U.S., but given how much economic and civic activity they enable relative to the general revenue required, I don't think it's fair to call that subsidy "heavy". I doubt it's outrageous when considered per passenger-mile relative to, say, the non-fee general revenue that goes to the TSA, FAA, airport improvement, etc. The federal highways that represented the majority of that Boltbus' trip could easily be funded by gas taxes and other essentially user fees if you raised them marginally and removed the requirement that something like 1/6 of that funding be redirected to subsidize public transit. With a few regional exceptions, Amtrak absolutely could not exist without general revenue: As you raised fares, passengers would vanish. And I'm skeptical that Northeast Regional fares really do cover any more than the operating expenses. Are they sufficient to cover capital expenses as well? State and local road funding is trickier, because it's inefficient to build toll booths along small roads and local gas taxes can be evaded in border areas by driving to another locality. But almost everyone uses local roads, so paying for them out of local taxes isn't a terrible solution. Regardless, if we could switch to GPS-based taxation without too much of a row, I am quite sure that state and local roads would continue to exist and grow without any "subsidy".
    - protomyth 13y ago
      "At least part of the issue is that Boltbus is traveling on heavily subsidized highways. On the Northeast Regional, ticket fares more than cover costs." You might want the check on that since Amtrack is heavily subsidized by taxpayers[1] and rail is the original subsidized transportation. Here's a thought experiment. What if you took all the rail in the northeast[2] and made it private roads for automated buses? Would it be better or worse? I imagine you can crank the speed on an automated bus on a closed road. 1) In 2010, Amtrak earned about $2.51 billion on $3.74 billion in expenses. 2) yes, big impact on cargo hauling - the thing American rail is optimized for
      - cfmcdonald 13y ago
        Amtrak loses money in most of the country, but the Northeast Corridor is profitable. http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/03/01/amtrak_profits_in_the_northeast_where_people_use_it_they_make_money.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/03/01/amtrak_profit...
- Toenex 13y ago
  There is a similar ticket price disparity here in the UK too. You can travel from Manchester to London and back for less than £30 on the coach but it will cost over £100 for a similar journey by train. The downside is the time it takes; nearly 5 hours each way on the coach versus just over 2 on the train. Personally I never consider using the coach as I own a car and would always perceive it to take longer than it would for me to drive, although it would cost a lot less. Whilst I would travel by train over taking the car as I'm not that keen on driving and somewhat perversely actually enjoy it. However, my main reason for not travelling by coach is that they always make me feel sick.
  - rahoulb 13y ago
    I went to a one day conference in London and, to save costs, decided to take the coach overnight (depart Leeds at 1am and then leaving London at 9pm in the evening - sleeping on the coach both ways). The train worked out at £40ish each way (I didn't know I was going till a couple of weeks in advance, if it had been months I'm sure I could have bought tickets for less). Using Megabus, I paid £4 to get there, £8 to get back ... and then had to pay £9 to get a taxi from the city centre to my house.
    - gadders 13y ago
      Was that a regular Megabus, or the special Sleeper Service one with beds?
      - rahoulb 13y ago
        Just the regular one. The seats were surprisingly comfortable - but I have been told that I could "sleep on a stick"
    - leoedin 13y ago
      The train does have a huge speed advantage though. That Leeds-London train takes a tad over 2 hours, while the bus is more like 4. The entire "privatised" monopoly train system is ridiculous though. I'm dreading the day I turn 26, because it will basically mean that I can no longer afford to travel by train.
- pathdependent 13y ago
  Although Amtrak (esp on the East Coast) could not be construed as high speed, I suspect they are having a problem with buses too. Previously, I used Amtrak without fail to get from NJ to DC and back. Now, I take BoltBus or MegaBus unless they are fully booked. The bus takes 1-2 hours longer but usually costs about 1/5 to 1/6 the cost of Amtrak. Plus, they both have fantastic customer service whereas Amtrak seems to not care at all about their customers. (Admittedly, I've had some bad experiences on Amtrak, but I don't think they are particularly unusual.)
  - rayiner 13y ago
    My wife and I ride Amtrak all the time between Wilmington and DC, because with a 1 year old the extra room is a godsend. We've had uniformly positive experiences with the customer service, both the Red Caps who always give us a hand with the stroller and finding a seat at the end of a car, to the ticketing protocol that automatically refunds no-shows (although unfortunately that's changing in March).
    - notacoward 13y ago
      I've been pretty happy with the Acela service between Boston and NYC, but it is considerably more expensive than the buses. Sometimes it's even more expensive than some of the planes, though they're more comfortable and quicker when you account for airport traffic/parking and TSA nonsense. I've also tried four of the bus lines. They're generally cool, but there are significant differences in terms of convenience of the pick-up and drop-off points at both ends. They don't all go right to the door of Penn Station. ;) Still, for someone on a budget, they just whip the alternatives. The only way either trains or planes could win would be to offer a significant reduction in total door-to-door travel time with prices no worse than double. I don't see any way they'll be able to do that. If people want to improve the long-distance transportation infrastructure, I think high speed rail is the wrong place to look. There are surely better ways to take advantage of the train right-of-way and station infrastructure, probably some variant on electric buses traveling at the same speed as today.
  - aroch 13y ago
- yoodenvranx 13y ago
  Yeah, riding train in Germany is just too expensive. Unfortunately I still have to use it because currently it is more flexible than the bus lines. I really hope that the competition will drive the train prices down, but that's something I don't believe in... Visiting my girlfriend at the other and of Germany costs 220 Euro if I pay the full price. Sometimes you get cheaper tickets but that's still too much. Just visiting each other twice a month cost about 400 Euro which woudl be better invested in a vacation or something similar.
  - rixx 13y ago
    Prices won't go down, probably, but bus lines will diversify. They work really well and many people use them. Random comparison: Stuttgart–Berlin is 6 hours, 140€ by train and 8 hours, 25€ by bus, going two or three times a day.
  - claudius 13y ago
    Train prices are not too high, the other means of transport are too cheap – both regular cars and coaches receive heavy subsidies and cause existential costs for the environment without having any advantage whatsoever. And if you get a BahnCard 50, the price cap for a return ticket is 140 € second class (~200 first class). The (underpriced) BahnCard 100 is at about 4000 €/year second class (and 7000€ for first), which is also a completely reasonable price to ask for a year’s worth of transportation.
    - mschuster91 13y ago
      Problem with the BC100 is that you have to put up the whole amount upfront and that it's for a full year only - I wouldn't mind something like a 1-month "Bahn Flat" for 350€ or such.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - switch007 13y ago
      €4000/year is incredible value. That's about the same price in the UK to commute 60 miles daily from Surrey to London.
- hessenwolf 13y ago
  Luckily, DB are raising their prices, in some cases by over 8%, to remain competitive.
- darklajid 13y ago
  Care to share some links? I just declined meeting my brother today, because the trip (70km) costs vastly more money than I'd spend on a train ticket and still a lot more than the route costs by car. We're talking about slow trains (Regionalverkehr) here.. That said, I haven't actually encountered those coaches before..
  - mschuster91 13y ago
    Sure, just go on meinfernbus.de. ADAC/Deutsche Post have launched the "Postbus", and if you're into carsharing, I recommend mitfahrgelegenheit.de.
    - neokya 13y ago
      I recently used Meinfernbus to travel from Frankfurt Airport (yes airport) to Hannover. It's comfortable and very cheap, 15 euro.
- CookWithMe 13y ago
  I was really excited about the coach bus lines - until I took a trip with one. Did you take a (longer) trip with one yet? In an IC(E), I can open my 13" Laptop and work fine, even if the person in front of me lowers their seat. On the particular bus I was riding, the table was just too small. Plus, the bus has much more unexpected movements than a train, I couldn't even look on a tablet screen for too long without feeling some travel-sickness. It was a very long, very boring ride. The WiFi, btw, was a joke on the autobahn. It was working a bit in the cities... Also, the trip took more than an hour longer than was planned, and the traffic on the autobahn was absolutely fine (I did the same trip with a car a couple of times). Driving into the cities took lots of time, but again the traffic probably would have looked the same any other average day. It definitely is cheaper though...
  - mercer 13y ago
    I regularly travel between Amsterdam and Berlin, and I have had the same experience. I avoid the bus because it sucks, I avoid flights because they actually feel longer and more exhausting, and because the door-to-door advantage is only two hours (out of 6 or 7 total). Whenever I can, I take the train.
    - pjmlp 13y ago
      Same experience here. Although I could live happier without "problems in course of operations". :)
  - mschuster91 13y ago
    I've done lots of trips since the first coach lines started... and yes, the WiFi quality tends to suck (but so does your cellphone internet).
- prawn 13y ago
  The buses can be pretty decent in Turkey also.
delinka 13y ago
i.e. competition changes markets.
- skrebbel 13y ago
  Very little railroading in Europe have anything to do with markets and competition. Most rail companies are either state monopolies, or state-endorsed almost-monopolies. Replacing a cheap option by an expensive and just slightly better option is very typical monopolist behaviour, and that's what this article is about.
  - d4rti 13y ago
    Or the UK's disastrous worst of all worlds system, of which the best run piece is run by the State! [1] Unless you're willing to build redundant train routes between cities it's not really possible to have competition for train journeys. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22700805 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22700805
- stuaxo 13y ago
  Although, often in perverse ways; if you are running the premium (high speed) service and the slower one, why not push everyone onto the premium service. Well, it might be really expensive for most consumers, perhaps they should be protected from this sort of thing - since the market inherently has no idea of morals or what is best for people, maybe we should decide ourselves.
Kequc 13y ago
When you're looking at a 12+ hour train ride with two changes and 200€ vs a 1.5hr flight for 30€, as seem so often to be the options. To someone who hates visiting airports more high speed trains can't get here quickly enough.
danmaz74 13y ago
It's a bit disingenuous to compare prices from the 90s to today's without accounting for inflation.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  >> "Paris-Amsterdam over the same route (the blue line) would now cost 66 euro" The 'now' indicates he is probably accounting for inflation.
  - danmaz74 13y ago
    Possibly, but it's a very important thing to specify. It wasn't at all clear to me he was :)
- gvb 13y ago
  His comparison on the "Paris - Brussels - Amsterdam" route is using today's prices: "The relatively modest time gain of the Thalys has a steep price. The fare for the Étoile du Nord was a fixed amount calculated according to a rate per kilometre. Converted to the current kilometre charges of the Belgian, French and Dutch railways, a single ticket Paris-Amsterdam over the same route (the blue line) would now cost 66 euro, regardless of whether you buy it two months in advance or right before you leave. [...] You can still travel cheaply by low speed train between Paris and Amsterdam -- over the same route that was covered by the Étoile du Nord. But you have to be very patient: the trip takes 7 to 8 hours and you have to switch trains 5 to 6 times (Paris-Maubeuge-Jeumont-Erquelinnes-Charleroi-Brussels-Amsterdam). A one-way trip costs €66, half the price of the most common fare of the Thalys. The "Barcelona - Paris" route was completed recently (December 15, 2013), so presumably both fare figures are current.
stuaxo 13y ago
This is sad. I wonder if the high speed trains need to be this expensive (through energy use etc). Also, if the lower speed ones are being shut merely to move people onto the higher speed lines. Certainly in the UK, with high speed one, they introduced an extra delay into the old line to make it seem less competetive. I'm guessing that nearly double the price for a 20%-25% decrease in journey time is more than a sane person would want to pay.
- awjr 13y ago
  I'm wondering if this type of analysis has been done for HS2 (http://hs2.org.uk/about-hs2/facts-figures/route-trains-cost http://hs2.org.uk/about-hs2/facts-figures/route-trains-cost). I can see a situation where routes are closed to force uptake of the HS2 route thus making HS2 a 'success'. I would highlight that the cost of air flights is kept artificially low by the lack of fuel duty or VAT on fuel. So flights do come across as cheaper. Of note, in the UK public buses are able to claim a fuel duty rebate. I am unsure on the situation with diesel trains.
lmm 13y ago
Most European rail networks are not profitable. Night trains have approximately never been profitable for anyone, anywhere. They survived only due to government subsidy, and those same governments are not subsidizing the high-speed trains. The price difference has nothing to do with high-speed vs low-speed and everything to do with government subsidy. Cheaper and easier transport will always increase demand; either you're for cheap transport or against it, and if you're for it you accept that it will be used by commuters living further away from the cities they work in. Making the rail networks cheaper, as the author seems to advocate, would only increase this effect. Or is the argument that leisure travellers care more about cost and commuters care more about journey time? Maybe, but the rail network would be completely unsustainable without commuter traffic. And as someone who travelled by EuroCity, they weren't the land of milk and honey this author portrays; they were (and still are, in Eastern Europe) frequently several hours late, leading to missed connections. I do think there are cases for some international trains to be scheduled more sensibly (Italy's high-speed trains that then sit for 30 minutes in each station on the way up are ludicrous; Eurostar has sped up by several minutes over the last few years by eliminating less popular stops), but at some point you simply can't match the speed advantage of true high-speed rail. The specific route complained about here is a dogleg for connectivity reasons; what you're not seeing on his map is the line from Calais (and thence from Britain) coming down to meet it at Lille. There are winners and losers in any routing decision (basically the high speed lines her are a tree centered on Lille, so rather than two distinct lines from Paris to Brussels and Calais there's one line that branches. Longer than a direct train, but it avoids building two distinct lines), but as a Brit I'm profoundly grateful for this one, which makes day trips to Paris or Brussels plausible in a way they simply weren't before.
- joosters 13y ago
  those same governments are not subsidizing the high-speed trains In the UK at the moment, the government is about to blow £50 billion on a high speed rail link. If that's not subsidizing, what is?
  - Shivetya 13y ago
    usually these projects are pandering to donors and expected donors. There have been numerous reports that many high speed rail lines only serve to allow the very well off to live where they want with access to other places they need. The build out costs are not the same as funding day to day operations. Usually subsidizing implies the fare is lowered because of government spending.
drill_sarge 13y ago
The price model of the rail company doesn't make much sense here (germany). I can travel from Berlin to Paris cheaper, than I can from Frankfurt to Munich for example. But then they have special offers for certain regions sometimes, which you can combine with regular tickets for the rest of your route, which makes it cheaper again. Or in combination with a flight ticket. Or traveling in groups with special ticket, or traveling in a certain region with a specific train and so on. It is so complicated and confusing that even the staff at the train station can't always tell you whats the best ticket.
vmlinuz 13y ago
In about 6 weeks, my girlfriend and I will be flying into Frankfurt - because that was an available cheap flight via China from Hong Kong, where we live. We will be travelling from Frankfurt to Strasbourg (fast train, 1 change), from Strasbourg to Brussels (fast train, change in Paris), from Brussels to Amsterdam (fast train, direct), and from Amsterdam back to Frankfurt (fast train, direct). Total price for these train journeys, for two people, is €330 - because I booked the apparently hard-to-get cheap fares. Compared with travelling by plane on low-cost carriers: We will mostly be going from city centre to city centre. We will have power at our seats in at least some cases. We will be free to get up and walk around for comfort. We will be able to bring our own food and drink onboard. We will get to see some of Europe passing by the window. And we will have to be on the platform a couple of minutes before departure time, not an hour or more... Trains make more sense, in terms of service and cost, over short-to-medium distances. Barcelona to Amsterdam is probably over the line where flying makes more sense. Our Strasbourg to Brussels journey will take around 5 hours, but over 1 hour of that is time to change trains - and stations - in Paris, so I think that still falls before said line.
rowyourboat 13y ago
I never understood why HSTs are supposed to be in competition with planes. For short trips (<500km), HSTs generally win against planes when comparing door-to-door times, but so do cars. For longer trips, planes win. Period. To me, the HST is what makes the train able to compete with the car for medium-distance travel. Let's take an example from Germany: Hamburg to Frankfurt. It's about 500km, which takes 4-5 hours by car. The HST link takes 3:30h - if you take the time from station to station. But that's not a fair comparison, because generally you do not want to go from station to station but from some place in Hamburg to some place in Frankfurt. If we add an hour of traveling by local public transportation, we arrive at a local trip time of 4:30, in the same range as the car. The HST has made traveling by train a viable option - not insanely fast, but comparable to the car. Mass transit is slow compared to cars. HST is fast. Combine those, and HSTs make public transport a viable alternative to going by car, time-wise.
antr 13y ago
The title to me is link bait, and the post considerably biased towards pricing, which is an important factor, but not the main reason I use high-speed rail. Not to mention that the author fails to mention how important, in passenger volume terms, are some of the routes he mentions e.g. Barcelona-Paris, come one, +800km on a train it isn't going to be cheap nor fast. High-speed travel works for shorter distances under 500-600km, not this. I travel on high-speed rail 2-3 of times a month, and this is my choice over air travel because: > Pricing: On average the train price is c. 20% more expensive than the plane, but that is one side of the story. > Travel time: the fact is that the time I require to go to the airport is a minimum 30min ride (if I'm lucky) from city centre to airport. Add to that the need to be there 45min before the plane departs, and any of the usual delays. That's at least 1h 15min of my day gone in commuting to travel. If I travel by train my commute is not that different than that of going to work by bike, needless to say that the train gate closes 2min before departure, not 45min. > Location: the train station being located at the city centre is extremely convenient, forget about getting a taxi and bumping into traffic, paying arbitrary "airport" fares, etc. > Comfort: the leg space, seat width, baggage allowance, etc knocks out air travel. I can open my laptop on a tray way bigger than those on planes and comfortably work all the journey with my 3G/4G connection and get real work done. > Flexibility: train frequency is much higher than that of planes, so finding a time that fits my agenda is not a problem. Add to that the fact that you can catch an early train if, for example, you finish your meeting/work early, without paying additional fees.
- joosters 13y ago
  I think the article is really complaining about the difference between high-speed and normal trains, rather than the train<->plane comparison. In your own example, you could be catching a slower train and still get there faster than the plane. It's not really the 'high speed' bit of the train that matters much. You can also argue that nowdays it matters even less. With WIFI/3G, as you say, you can get useful work done on a train journey, so even if it takes a bit longer, the travel is not dead/wasted time for business. This weakens the case for high speed trains even more. I agree with your points though, I've commuted London<->Paris by plane and train, and the train is so much nicer.
jzwinck 13y ago
In Italy, you can arrive at the station without a ticket, and go to a machine. The machine supports multiple languages. You can buy a ticket in multiple classes on multiple speeds of service (roughly "regular", "fast", "high-speed"). These trains are frequent, well-connected to regional buses, and clean. The high-speed ones are fairly expensive, but the regular ones are fairly cheap. This is the way to do train service. And it's heavily used. P.S.: if you really want a slow night train for cheap, visit Zimbabwe. A "first class" sleeper cabin is about $10 from Bulawayo to Victoria Falls, and it's beautiful. But every part of the 1970's British train has long since been stolen--the lights, the faucets, the toilets, etc. Still, $10, and it goes to interesting places.
- colanderman 13y ago
  LOL. Last time I was in Italy (on a trip across Europe), I wanted to get a ticket to get to France. I tried one of those machines… wouldn't let me buy tickets for the route I wanted (commuter rail to Paris). Actually tried two or three; there were several kinds. Stood in line for an hour plus. Guy at the desk claims no-one there speaks English (fine, but that was a lie as the attendant next to him was). We use our phrasebook to order tickets. Walking away from the counter, we realize they're for a train that leaves in ONE MINUTE. Of course we don't make it. Eventually we found customer service tucked away in a dirty corner. They were able to right everything, but seriously… my experience getting train tickets in Italy was NOT as rosy as you paint it. (Only place worse was France, where the damn airport tram ticket machines needed 18€ of COINS.)
  - ricardobeat 13y ago
    I think the parent was referring to trains within Italy. It's train system is really good, you can go almost everywhere, easily buy a ticket on the spot for a fixed fare, and they are quite comfortable.
    - colanderman 13y ago
      Yes, to be fair, I didn't have trouble within Italy. It was only trying to get out that I had trouble. (And I had been through nearly every country in western Europe by that point without any trouble, despite some convoluted plans.)
epaladin 13y ago
I haven't been to Europe yet, but after living in Japan for a year and then returning to the US, there's nothing I miss more than trains that go fast and go everywhere. I could wake up, walk down the street, hop on the train, and be 350 miles away before getting bored of staring at the back of the seat. They've managed to get by without much cannibalization of other services (you can still get to anywhere on normal-speed trains) and it seems that revenue ends up being at least more than operating costs. They obviously make a great deal of sense in Japan, and perhaps less so in Europe and the US, at least for cross-country service. Regional services would be fantastic for key areas, and I don't see why we couldn't make it work. Unless we just skip right to Hyperloop?
- m_mueller 13y ago
  The big reason why Japanese high speed trains are so good and why they haven't cannibalized anything, is that they've built new tracks for them everywhere. Shinkansen aren't even compatible with normal tracks, they are wider (another reason why they're so spacious and offer such a smooth ride). There's simply nothing in the world that even comes close to the Japanese train system. As an indicator, here's a list of the 50 most frequented train stations in the world: http://www.japantoday.com/category/travel/view/the-51-busiest-train-stations-in-the-world-all-but-6-located-in-japan http://www.japantoday.com/category/travel/view/the-51-busies....
  - ggreer 13y ago
    A clarification: Shinkansen use the same 1.435 meter standard gauge as the continental railroad. Other trains in Japan use a narrower gauge. In modern times, wider gauges don't have much of an advantage in comfort. For example, the notoriously loud-and-shaky BART uses a 1.7ish meter gauge.
    - rdl 13y ago
      Broader gauges generally do allow wider cars, which is a plus for comfort. Wide 2x2 seating with a wide aisle is nice to have; wide 3x3 or 3x2 is probably not going to work on standard gauge.
yread 13y ago
I think a lot of the differences boil down to once-a-day point-to-point connection of classical or EuroCity trains versus corridors for frequent high-speed trains. Thalys goes every 2 hours, Etoile de Nord once a day. That's why bullet trains work so well in Japan, you can basically have 2 corridors one on each coast and they will pass through most of the important cities removing the need for direct links. I do agree with the article in most of the points. I have traveled Amsterdam-Perpignan (the last french city before Barcelona) with Thalys and low-cost night train (and TGV and Thalys on the way back) and I can attest that the night train is indeed quite uncomfortable. At least I could take a gas canister (for hiking) with me...
paddy_m 13y ago
He states that there was more air travel in Europe, and more trips taken in general because of HSR on routes that used to be serviced by air, thus there was no decrease in pollution, instead an increase. This is such a regressive attitude towards transit. Travel makes us all richer, more of it is a good thing (commuting is a different beast). My understanding is that overnight trains and the other trains that were less expensive were heavily subsidized and unprofitable. My guess is that HSR in Europe is less subsidized and closer to profitable. Many forms of transportation are subsidized (highways for cars, TSA for planes, HSR projects). The subsidies distort choices and encourage inefficient waste by not letting consumers decide with true information as to the costs of their mode choice.
- jonsen 13y ago
  Travel makes us all richer, more of it is a good thing Sure, this world can now afford constantly to have about one million of its people sitting in a chair in the sky.
furyg3 13y ago
For European HNers (or travelers) I plea for you to use the night trains, keep them alive. One example: Between Amsterdam & Bern - Skybus flies for €86 (1.5 hours) and the CityNightLine train is €80 for a bed (11.5 hours). Other routes are comparable, you can pay a bit more for your own (non-shared) compartment. Economically it seems crazy to take these night trains, and I never even bothered until a recent business trip from Amsterdam to Munich. It was great for many of the reasons mentioned in the article and other comments here: leave and arrive in the city center, no security, no gate closing time, no baggage restrictions/pick-up/lost luggage, have a beer or dinner on board at a real bar or table, use your laptop/phone/ereader whenever you like, lie down, take a shower, whatever. Basically it's like flying the night before with a free (albeit basic) hotel stay thrown in. I'm worried that too many people dismiss the night trains too easily (like I did), and that these will be relegated to the history books. In my opinion that would really be a tragedy. Plane travel has turned into a elementary school bus trip. The train is still a grown-up alternative.
- csmuk 13y ago
  My one experience of a sleeper (London-Scotland) was horrid. Farts, sick, snoring, alcohol noises and smells all night. I hope things are better on the mainland. If not, I'd rather take a plane. I flew back from Glasgow to Stansted for a small fortune to avoid the experience.
  - tpholland 13y ago
    I take the London-Edinburgh sleeper fairly regularly, and have only ever had good experiences. That said, although in theory standard-class passengers have to share, this has only ever happened to me once. I can imagine that if you drew the short straw it could be terrible. The other big down-side is that you can't have a proper wash on the train; luckily there are some pretty good public swimming baths between Waverley station and our client's offices.
  - leothekim 13y ago
    Somewhat off-topic - I found EasyJet to be a cheap alternative to trains going from London to Edinburgh. RyanAir is another one, though they have a reputation of claiming to fly you to one city, only to land in a different one because its airport fees are slightly cheaper [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair#Alleged_misleading_advertising http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair#Alleged_misleading_adve...
lispm 13y ago
German here. I have a Bahncard 100, which allows me unlimited train travel (plus unlimited local public transport in many cities) in Germany with most trains for one year. Fast or slow. I don't care. I usually pick the faster one. http://www.bahn.de/i/view/DEU/en/prices/germany/bahncard.shtml http://www.bahn.de/i/view/DEU/en/prices/germany/bahncard.sht... Deutsche Bahn also advertizes that they use renewable energy for my Bahncard travel and they will expand this over the coming decades to 100%.
- sami36 13y ago
  It also costs close to 5000 euros per year. That's a little more than you'd lose to depreciation if you owned a luxury car. If you have to travel that much inside Germany to make that card worthwhile for you, then you have a problem. Either you need to relocate or inject some telecommuting into your existing work habits. I'm going to go out on a limb here & suggest that many people travel for travel's sake as a way to give themselves an inflated sense of their own importance...or just find some glamour in being on the road all the time.
  - pjmlp 13y ago
    > Either you need to relocate or inject some telecommuting into your existing work habits. Not always an option. As an example, I live in NRW but our customers are scattered around Germany. Luckily I am located on our headquarters, but many of my colleagues need to go everywhere and not all clients appreciate phone conferences.
  - lispm 13y ago
    Travel with a car long-distance is not an option. I'm not going to drive 400km early in the morning with a car and be relaxed in the office at 9:30. > If you have to travel that much inside Germany to make that card worthwhile for you, then you have a problem. The 'problem' is called 'WORK'. A little bit more than 40000 people have such a card. > Either you need to relocate No option. > some telecommuting into your existing work habits. Sure, I do that. > I'm going to go out on a limb here & suggest that many people travel for travel's sake as a way to give themselves an inflated sense of their own importance...or just find some glamour in being on the road all the time. Maybe it's not that good to 'go out on a limb here and give useless suggestions. You seem to fail to understand that a lot of people have to travel as part of their work to meet customers. In my case I work with people which are located in different areas of Germany and I have to meet them face to face quite often.
squozzer 13y ago
I like trains. Really! But maybe the proper question is not, "Why build high-speed rail?" but "Why travel at all?" Especially the example given about those who live in Barcelona and commute to London by air. Probably not just because it's cheaper -- I'm sure the differences in weather had a minor influence too. But you might have heard about this thing we have in Bonerland called the Internet. Al Gore invented it, so it has to be green. Maybe you Euro-peons should check it out.
- walshemj 13y ago
  Realy - you have been drinking the video conferencing salesmans cool aid FTF beats the internet hands down for 90% of all workers
Theodores 13y ago
If I owned a railway I would like to use shipping containers to provide a night train service. The shipping containers would be self contained and appointed to budget hotel chain standards - clean, smart and to the point functional. Each would contain a small kitchen, toilet and shower. The beds would be bunks but with a bit more space as there would not be a shared walkway as happens on existing rolling stock. You would also be able to stow bicycles and other bulky luggage items without blocking up the train walkway if you were willing to go without much kitchen area. During the day the mini-hotel shipping containers would sit at the docks, out of the way, whilst the train went about its business delivering normal shipping containers to wherever is needed. Then, early evening, the mini-hotel shipping containers would be loaded up and the train would head off to London/Glasgow/Plymouth to pick up customers. The train would trundle at a nice sedate pace through the night with minimal stops and starts to arrive at a sensible time at the other end (5.30 a.m. is too early, 7 is good). Thereafter, back to the docks, unload and regular freight service for the train. To cope with seasonal demand and different passenger service levels (1st, 2nd class), the train could be loaded up with a mixed load of regular shipping containers and their mini-hotel variants. Modern IT niceties such as wifi, 'swipe' door locks and mobile telephony would make sure that everyone had a nice and secure journey. With 'aerogel' style materials and double glazing the inside of the mini hotel would be insulated from the noise of the train and the weather. Current night trains in the UK do not provide a good night's sleep, you also expect your belongings to be potentially stolen. With 'containerisation' problem solved. Would there be any takers? It all depends on price, however, if you are expected to be in two places at once or work on a North Sea oil rig then a decent night train would be quite tempting. If the business did not work out then a buyer could be found for the deluxe shipping containers, they could be transported by road to somewhere where a temporary workforce was needed or even used as a hotel.
- mschuster91 13y ago
  A nice idea - yet technically unfeasible. First problem is the time and storage you need for loading/unloading a whole train worth of carriages - I expect at least 30-60min, if not longer. And most container facilities are not equipped with large storage areas, just for short-term storage. Second problem is power: a freight train carriage usually just has two connections to its neigboring carriages: torque and the pneumatic brake line. Basically you'd need to somehow add electricity infrastructure (which 'd then again require specially modified freight carriages, and likely even different locomotives. I'm not sure if freight-only locos carry the 1kV heating power, which is (ab)used to provide electricity in passenger trains). Third problem is maintenance and cleaning: container load/unload facilities are not equipped with the place and the necessities for properly cleaning the containers, and even less maintaining them.
stcredzero 13y ago
What unintended effects would the Hyperloop have? My limited experience with the California train system is that it's no good unless you are in no hurry, or your travel just luckily happens to coincide with the right time and place.
auctiontheory 13y ago
Anecdote: In France, the system sold me a ticket for a non-existent day. I knew I was returning to Paris on a Saturday, so to buy my ticket I clicked on Saturday the 24th of May on one of those typical select-a-date web map UIs you've all seen. Except that the 24th of May was Sunday - I didn't double check my purchase against a calendar. So on "Saturday," ticket in hand, I was evacuated from my seat and had to stand for a couple of hours - of course everyone pretended not to speak English - and I suppose I should be grateful I wasn't defenestrated into the French countryside. Earlier, at the small station, I had let a woman who was obviously in a hurry pass ahead of me to buy a ticket. She said to me "obviously you are not a French man." :-)
rdl 13y ago
It was pretty amazing pricing DB train tickets vs. Eurail passes (I'm going to 30c3 and will probably be in Europe 25 DEC to 12 JAN). A single 2nd FRA-HAM-BER trip costs more than a 5-travel-day pass, in first on ICE.
bane 13y ago
I've ridden through bits of Central and Northern Italy, Rome to Florence to Venice all on regular 'old trains. And little tiny bits of France as well. I've also ridden trains in the U.S. from D.C. to Miami. Italy was an absolute pleasure. An easy walk to the stations, even with luggage. In Rome the rail network is an easy connection off of the subway system and in Florence lets you off and on so near the old parts of the city (which are fantastically walkable) that you don't even need a cab to get there. Seats were comfortable for the 2 or 3 hours the trip took, had a table to setup a laptop, read a book whatever. I sat in group of four seats that faced each other and had a lovely chat with an elderly couple from Scotland on holiday. Florence to Venice was similar, except my destination was outside of Venice and took a little more to get to from the station. No big deal and it beat having to deal with a rental car for a few weeks. Importantly, the ride was unbelievable smooth compared to other rail trips I've taken. Amtrak was my first long distance rail trip and was very bleh, seats were okay, but nothing to do on the 20+ hour ride from D.C. to Miami. This was back before laptops were common, but even with a pack full of gadgets I would have run out battery long before I ran out of boredom. Impossible to sleep on the train as it's noisy and jostles all over the place since we were on old freight rails for the entire trip. People also get so bored they start pacing the length of the train and with numerous stops were cars are split of and rejoined to other trains, and waits of a couple hours each time this happens, you feel like you make no progress at all. Trains were old, but in decent shape and generally well maintained. I've heard sleeper cars provide for a moderately better experience, but there's still the hours of boredom. I also didn't see any scenery of note, either mile after mile of overgrown weeds or industrial sections or really bad parts of towns we passed through. The worst, stations are hard to get to/from at the end points without prearranged transport and they aren't really all that nice. I regret the trip as flying would have only been $100 more and much faster. Every once in a while I think about taking the train North towards the better run North-East corridor parts of the system, but that one experience kind of waived me off the whole thing and with the stations so hard to get to and flying to my destinations faster (even with security hassles included) and about the same cost it just isn't worth it to me. My experience in France was on much shorter, hour or two trips, and they were "ok" if a bit run down. Graffiti on the trains, that sort of thing. Felt more like extended commuter trains (which they probably were) then proper passenger rail. It was somewhere between Italy and Amtrak in terms of comfort, but more towards the Amtrak side in terms of desirability.
yoloswaggins 13y ago
Cars are killing Horse Drawn Trolleys.
jff 13y ago
Low Tech Magazine: Drawing arbitrary boundary lines sells. 150 year old technology (trains) = ok, 100 year old technology (airplanes) = not ok.
PhantomGremlin 13y ago
So many comments but only one passing mention of "Eurail" in this discussion. http://www.eurail.com/ http://www.eurail.com/ So, help an American (potential tourist) out. Does using Eurail for a European vacation make sense? For a family of 2 adults and 2 children? E.g. getting the "15 days continuous" pass is $548 + $548 +$276 + $276 = $1648. That doesn't seem unreasonable for being able to go pretty much anywhere except UK. Does that make sense?
- yodsanklai 13y ago
  I think it really depends on your itinerary. 15 days is a short time to visit Europe. Maybe it could make sense if you plan on visiting only one or two countries and smaller cities. But if you want to see let say, Paris, Roma and Berlin. I don't think it's a good option.
- codfrantic 13y ago
  How many countries do you expect to visit, doing 4 / 5 countries in 15 days would seem like the best idea. Any more and you'll be on the train non-stop.. https://www.google.com/search?q=US+vs+EUROPE+size&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X https://www.google.com/search?q=US+vs+EUROPE+size&tbm=isch&t...
- CookWithMe 13y ago
  In addition to the itinerary, it also depends on your planing. If you want to be very flexible, it's most likely cheaper than buying a long-distance ticket at the station/in the train. If you want to plan and book your trips ahead of time, it may well be that, with early booking discounts, it's cheaper to book ahead of time. This would also allow you to reserve seats/a table, which I'd recommend if you travel with kids. Also note that in Germany, and maybe in other countries as well, kids < 15 years travel for free with their parents if noted on their tickets. If you travel a lot within one country, you may also want to check their frequent traveler programs. E.g. in Germany, the DB sells cards that give you 25%, 50% or 100% off of the ticket price. The 25% one can be ordered for a duration of only 3 months and costs 19 Euros, so it should pay off quickly! Note, however, that it is an subscription that you need to cancel. Enjoy Europe :-)

230 points by gvb 13y ago

In Germany, even the low-speed trains have met a powerful competition in form of coach bus lines. The coaches are brand new, offer free WiFi, and are vastly cheaper than even the lowest-price DB tickets. edit: another quite popular travel solution is car sharing("Mitfahrgelegenheit"); this is especially useful if you must drive with your own car (e.g. because you carry stuff you can't transport in a train/airplane) and want to lower your own travel costs.

chaz 13y ago
In the northeast US, too. If I wanted to go from Manhattan to Boston this afternoon: $200 by plane, $75-100 by train, $15 by Boltbus. All take about 4 hours. Plane is going to cost more because it's a bit of a haul to get to JFK or Newark airports -- about $8 + 1 hour by public transportation, or about $50 + 30 min by taxi. Planning out a week or two, though, airfare can be as little as $75. Train stays the same price.
- rayiner 13y ago
  At least part of the issue is that Boltbus is traveling on heavily subsidized highways. On the Northeast Regional, ticket fares more than cover costs. In comparison, only about 50% of highway construction and maintenance is paid for by highway and gas taxes and trucking fees, with the rest coming from general taxes. New York in particular is a state which funds highway maintenance heavily out of general tax revenue. Still, I think air travel is the clear loser in the comparison. The public transit route to LGA or JFK is a bus trip through not very pleasant parts of Harlem and Queens, and is just a huge PITA with luggage. Strolling into Penn Station is a breeze.
  - twoodfin 13y ago
    Roads are certainly "subsidized" in the U.S., but given how much economic and civic activity they enable relative to the general revenue required, I don't think it's fair to call that subsidy "heavy". I doubt it's outrageous when considered per passenger-mile relative to, say, the non-fee general revenue that goes to the TSA, FAA, airport improvement, etc. The federal highways that represented the majority of that Boltbus' trip could easily be funded by gas taxes and other essentially user fees if you raised them marginally and removed the requirement that something like 1/6 of that funding be redirected to subsidize public transit. With a few regional exceptions, Amtrak absolutely could not exist without general revenue: As you raised fares, passengers would vanish. And I'm skeptical that Northeast Regional fares really do cover any more than the operating expenses. Are they sufficient to cover capital expenses as well? State and local road funding is trickier, because it's inefficient to build toll booths along small roads and local gas taxes can be evaded in border areas by driving to another locality. But almost everyone uses local roads, so paying for them out of local taxes isn't a terrible solution. Regardless, if we could switch to GPS-based taxation without too much of a row, I am quite sure that state and local roads would continue to exist and grow without any "subsidy".
  - protomyth 13y ago
    "At least part of the issue is that Boltbus is traveling on heavily subsidized highways. On the Northeast Regional, ticket fares more than cover costs." You might want the check on that since Amtrack is heavily subsidized by taxpayers[1] and rail is the original subsidized transportation. Here's a thought experiment. What if you took all the rail in the northeast[2] and made it private roads for automated buses? Would it be better or worse? I imagine you can crank the speed on an automated bus on a closed road. 1) In 2010, Amtrak earned about $2.51 billion on $3.74 billion in expenses. 2) yes, big impact on cargo hauling - the thing American rail is optimized for
    - cfmcdonald 13y ago
      Amtrak loses money in most of the country, but the Northeast Corridor is profitable. http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/03/01/amtrak_profits_in_the_northeast_where_people_use_it_they_make_money.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/03/01/amtrak_profit...
Toenex 13y ago
There is a similar ticket price disparity here in the UK too. You can travel from Manchester to London and back for less than £30 on the coach but it will cost over £100 for a similar journey by train. The downside is the time it takes; nearly 5 hours each way on the coach versus just over 2 on the train. Personally I never consider using the coach as I own a car and would always perceive it to take longer than it would for me to drive, although it would cost a lot less. Whilst I would travel by train over taking the car as I'm not that keen on driving and somewhat perversely actually enjoy it. However, my main reason for not travelling by coach is that they always make me feel sick.
- rahoulb 13y ago
  I went to a one day conference in London and, to save costs, decided to take the coach overnight (depart Leeds at 1am and then leaving London at 9pm in the evening - sleeping on the coach both ways). The train worked out at £40ish each way (I didn't know I was going till a couple of weeks in advance, if it had been months I'm sure I could have bought tickets for less). Using Megabus, I paid £4 to get there, £8 to get back ... and then had to pay £9 to get a taxi from the city centre to my house.
  - gadders 13y ago
    Was that a regular Megabus, or the special Sleeper Service one with beds?
    - rahoulb 13y ago
      Just the regular one. The seats were surprisingly comfortable - but I have been told that I could "sleep on a stick"
  - leoedin 13y ago
    The train does have a huge speed advantage though. That Leeds-London train takes a tad over 2 hours, while the bus is more like 4. The entire "privatised" monopoly train system is ridiculous though. I'm dreading the day I turn 26, because it will basically mean that I can no longer afford to travel by train.
pathdependent 13y ago
Although Amtrak (esp on the East Coast) could not be construed as high speed, I suspect they are having a problem with buses too. Previously, I used Amtrak without fail to get from NJ to DC and back. Now, I take BoltBus or MegaBus unless they are fully booked. The bus takes 1-2 hours longer but usually costs about 1/5 to 1/6 the cost of Amtrak. Plus, they both have fantastic customer service whereas Amtrak seems to not care at all about their customers. (Admittedly, I've had some bad experiences on Amtrak, but I don't think they are particularly unusual.)
- rayiner 13y ago
  My wife and I ride Amtrak all the time between Wilmington and DC, because with a 1 year old the extra room is a godsend. We've had uniformly positive experiences with the customer service, both the Red Caps who always give us a hand with the stroller and finding a seat at the end of a car, to the ticketing protocol that automatically refunds no-shows (although unfortunately that's changing in March).
  - notacoward 13y ago
    I've been pretty happy with the Acela service between Boston and NYC, but it is considerably more expensive than the buses. Sometimes it's even more expensive than some of the planes, though they're more comfortable and quicker when you account for airport traffic/parking and TSA nonsense. I've also tried four of the bus lines. They're generally cool, but there are significant differences in terms of convenience of the pick-up and drop-off points at both ends. They don't all go right to the door of Penn Station. ;) Still, for someone on a budget, they just whip the alternatives. The only way either trains or planes could win would be to offer a significant reduction in total door-to-door travel time with prices no worse than double. I don't see any way they'll be able to do that. If people want to improve the long-distance transportation infrastructure, I think high speed rail is the wrong place to look. There are surely better ways to take advantage of the train right-of-way and station infrastructure, probably some variant on electric buses traveling at the same speed as today.
- aroch 13y ago
yoodenvranx 13y ago
Yeah, riding train in Germany is just too expensive. Unfortunately I still have to use it because currently it is more flexible than the bus lines. I really hope that the competition will drive the train prices down, but that's something I don't believe in... Visiting my girlfriend at the other and of Germany costs 220 Euro if I pay the full price. Sometimes you get cheaper tickets but that's still too much. Just visiting each other twice a month cost about 400 Euro which woudl be better invested in a vacation or something similar.
- rixx 13y ago
  Prices won't go down, probably, but bus lines will diversify. They work really well and many people use them. Random comparison: Stuttgart–Berlin is 6 hours, 140€ by train and 8 hours, 25€ by bus, going two or three times a day.
- claudius 13y ago
  Train prices are not too high, the other means of transport are too cheap – both regular cars and coaches receive heavy subsidies and cause existential costs for the environment without having any advantage whatsoever. And if you get a BahnCard 50, the price cap for a return ticket is 140 € second class (~200 first class). The (underpriced) BahnCard 100 is at about 4000 €/year second class (and 7000€ for first), which is also a completely reasonable price to ask for a year’s worth of transportation.
  - mschuster91 13y ago
    Problem with the BC100 is that you have to put up the whole amount upfront and that it's for a full year only - I wouldn't mind something like a 1-month "Bahn Flat" for 350€ or such.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - switch007 13y ago
    €4000/year is incredible value. That's about the same price in the UK to commute 60 miles daily from Surrey to London.
hessenwolf 13y ago
Luckily, DB are raising their prices, in some cases by over 8%, to remain competitive.
darklajid 13y ago
Care to share some links? I just declined meeting my brother today, because the trip (70km) costs vastly more money than I'd spend on a train ticket and still a lot more than the route costs by car. We're talking about slow trains (Regionalverkehr) here.. That said, I haven't actually encountered those coaches before..
- mschuster91 13y ago
  Sure, just go on meinfernbus.de. ADAC/Deutsche Post have launched the "Postbus", and if you're into carsharing, I recommend mitfahrgelegenheit.de.
  - neokya 13y ago
    I recently used Meinfernbus to travel from Frankfurt Airport (yes airport) to Hannover. It's comfortable and very cheap, 15 euro.
CookWithMe 13y ago
I was really excited about the coach bus lines - until I took a trip with one. Did you take a (longer) trip with one yet? In an IC(E), I can open my 13" Laptop and work fine, even if the person in front of me lowers their seat. On the particular bus I was riding, the table was just too small. Plus, the bus has much more unexpected movements than a train, I couldn't even look on a tablet screen for too long without feeling some travel-sickness. It was a very long, very boring ride. The WiFi, btw, was a joke on the autobahn. It was working a bit in the cities... Also, the trip took more than an hour longer than was planned, and the traffic on the autobahn was absolutely fine (I did the same trip with a car a couple of times). Driving into the cities took lots of time, but again the traffic probably would have looked the same any other average day. It definitely is cheaper though...
- mercer 13y ago
  I regularly travel between Amsterdam and Berlin, and I have had the same experience. I avoid the bus because it sucks, I avoid flights because they actually feel longer and more exhausting, and because the door-to-door advantage is only two hours (out of 6 or 7 total). Whenever I can, I take the train.
  - pjmlp 13y ago
    Same experience here. Although I could live happier without "problems in course of operations". :)
- mschuster91 13y ago
  I've done lots of trips since the first coach lines started... and yes, the WiFi quality tends to suck (but so does your cellphone internet).
prawn 13y ago
The buses can be pretty decent in Turkey also.

delinka 13y ago

i.e. competition changes markets.

skrebbel 13y ago
Very little railroading in Europe have anything to do with markets and competition. Most rail companies are either state monopolies, or state-endorsed almost-monopolies. Replacing a cheap option by an expensive and just slightly better option is very typical monopolist behaviour, and that's what this article is about.
- d4rti 13y ago
  Or the UK's disastrous worst of all worlds system, of which the best run piece is run by the State! [1] Unless you're willing to build redundant train routes between cities it's not really possible to have competition for train journeys. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22700805 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22700805
stuaxo 13y ago
Although, often in perverse ways; if you are running the premium (high speed) service and the slower one, why not push everyone onto the premium service. Well, it might be really expensive for most consumers, perhaps they should be protected from this sort of thing - since the market inherently has no idea of morals or what is best for people, maybe we should decide ourselves.

Kequc 13y ago

When you're looking at a 12+ hour train ride with two changes and 200€ vs a 1.5hr flight for 30€, as seem so often to be the options. To someone who hates visiting airports more high speed trains can't get here quickly enough.

danmaz74 13y ago

It's a bit disingenuous to compare prices from the 90s to today's without accounting for inflation.

k-mcgrady 13y ago
>> "Paris-Amsterdam over the same route (the blue line) would now cost 66 euro" The 'now' indicates he is probably accounting for inflation.
- danmaz74 13y ago
  Possibly, but it's a very important thing to specify. It wasn't at all clear to me he was :)
gvb 13y ago
His comparison on the "Paris - Brussels - Amsterdam" route is using today's prices: "The relatively modest time gain of the Thalys has a steep price. The fare for the Étoile du Nord was a fixed amount calculated according to a rate per kilometre. Converted to the current kilometre charges of the Belgian, French and Dutch railways, a single ticket Paris-Amsterdam over the same route (the blue line) would now cost 66 euro, regardless of whether you buy it two months in advance or right before you leave. [...] You can still travel cheaply by low speed train between Paris and Amsterdam -- over the same route that was covered by the Étoile du Nord. But you have to be very patient: the trip takes 7 to 8 hours and you have to switch trains 5 to 6 times (Paris-Maubeuge-Jeumont-Erquelinnes-Charleroi-Brussels-Amsterdam). A one-way trip costs €66, half the price of the most common fare of the Thalys. The "Barcelona - Paris" route was completed recently (December 15, 2013), so presumably both fare figures are current.

stuaxo 13y ago

This is sad. I wonder if the high speed trains need to be this expensive (through energy use etc). Also, if the lower speed ones are being shut merely to move people onto the higher speed lines. Certainly in the UK, with high speed one, they introduced an extra delay into the old line to make it seem less competetive. I'm guessing that nearly double the price for a 20%-25% decrease in journey time is more than a sane person would want to pay.

awjr 13y ago
I'm wondering if this type of analysis has been done for HS2 (http://hs2.org.uk/about-hs2/facts-figures/route-trains-cost http://hs2.org.uk/about-hs2/facts-figures/route-trains-cost). I can see a situation where routes are closed to force uptake of the HS2 route thus making HS2 a 'success'. I would highlight that the cost of air flights is kept artificially low by the lack of fuel duty or VAT on fuel. So flights do come across as cheaper. Of note, in the UK public buses are able to claim a fuel duty rebate. I am unsure on the situation with diesel trains.

lmm 13y ago

Most European rail networks are not profitable. Night trains have approximately never been profitable for anyone, anywhere. They survived only due to government subsidy, and those same governments are not subsidizing the high-speed trains. The price difference has nothing to do with high-speed vs low-speed and everything to do with government subsidy. Cheaper and easier transport will always increase demand; either you're for cheap transport or against it, and if you're for it you accept that it will be used by commuters living further away from the cities they work in. Making the rail networks cheaper, as the author seems to advocate, would only increase this effect. Or is the argument that leisure travellers care more about cost and commuters care more about journey time? Maybe, but the rail network would be completely unsustainable without commuter traffic. And as someone who travelled by EuroCity, they weren't the land of milk and honey this author portrays; they were (and still are, in Eastern Europe) frequently several hours late, leading to missed connections. I do think there are cases for some international trains to be scheduled more sensibly (Italy's high-speed trains that then sit for 30 minutes in each station on the way up are ludicrous; Eurostar has sped up by several minutes over the last few years by eliminating less popular stops), but at some point you simply can't match the speed advantage of true high-speed rail. The specific route complained about here is a dogleg for connectivity reasons; what you're not seeing on his map is the line from Calais (and thence from Britain) coming down to meet it at Lille. There are winners and losers in any routing decision (basically the high speed lines her are a tree centered on Lille, so rather than two distinct lines from Paris to Brussels and Calais there's one line that branches. Longer than a direct train, but it avoids building two distinct lines), but as a Brit I'm profoundly grateful for this one, which makes day trips to Paris or Brussels plausible in a way they simply weren't before.

joosters 13y ago
those same governments are not subsidizing the high-speed trains In the UK at the moment, the government is about to blow £50 billion on a high speed rail link. If that's not subsidizing, what is?
- Shivetya 13y ago
  usually these projects are pandering to donors and expected donors. There have been numerous reports that many high speed rail lines only serve to allow the very well off to live where they want with access to other places they need. The build out costs are not the same as funding day to day operations. Usually subsidizing implies the fare is lowered because of government spending.

drill_sarge 13y ago

The price model of the rail company doesn't make much sense here (germany). I can travel from Berlin to Paris cheaper, than I can from Frankfurt to Munich for example. But then they have special offers for certain regions sometimes, which you can combine with regular tickets for the rest of your route, which makes it cheaper again. Or in combination with a flight ticket. Or traveling in groups with special ticket, or traveling in a certain region with a specific train and so on. It is so complicated and confusing that even the staff at the train station can't always tell you whats the best ticket.

vmlinuz 13y ago

In about 6 weeks, my girlfriend and I will be flying into Frankfurt - because that was an available cheap flight via China from Hong Kong, where we live. We will be travelling from Frankfurt to Strasbourg (fast train, 1 change), from Strasbourg to Brussels (fast train, change in Paris), from Brussels to Amsterdam (fast train, direct), and from Amsterdam back to Frankfurt (fast train, direct). Total price for these train journeys, for two people, is €330 - because I booked the apparently hard-to-get cheap fares. Compared with travelling by plane on low-cost carriers: We will mostly be going from city centre to city centre. We will have power at our seats in at least some cases. We will be free to get up and walk around for comfort. We will be able to bring our own food and drink onboard. We will get to see some of Europe passing by the window. And we will have to be on the platform a couple of minutes before departure time, not an hour or more... Trains make more sense, in terms of service and cost, over short-to-medium distances. Barcelona to Amsterdam is probably over the line where flying makes more sense. Our Strasbourg to Brussels journey will take around 5 hours, but over 1 hour of that is time to change trains - and stations - in Paris, so I think that still falls before said line.

rowyourboat 13y ago

I never understood why HSTs are supposed to be in competition with planes. For short trips (<500km), HSTs generally win against planes when comparing door-to-door times, but so do cars. For longer trips, planes win. Period. To me, the HST is what makes the train able to compete with the car for medium-distance travel. Let's take an example from Germany: Hamburg to Frankfurt. It's about 500km, which takes 4-5 hours by car. The HST link takes 3:30h - if you take the time from station to station. But that's not a fair comparison, because generally you do not want to go from station to station but from some place in Hamburg to some place in Frankfurt. If we add an hour of traveling by local public transportation, we arrive at a local trip time of 4:30, in the same range as the car. The HST has made traveling by train a viable option - not insanely fast, but comparable to the car. Mass transit is slow compared to cars. HST is fast. Combine those, and HSTs make public transport a viable alternative to going by car, time-wise.

antr 13y ago

The title to me is link bait, and the post considerably biased towards pricing, which is an important factor, but not the main reason I use high-speed rail. Not to mention that the author fails to mention how important, in passenger volume terms, are some of the routes he mentions e.g. Barcelona-Paris, come one, +800km on a train it isn't going to be cheap nor fast. High-speed travel works for shorter distances under 500-600km, not this. I travel on high-speed rail 2-3 of times a month, and this is my choice over air travel because: > Pricing: On average the train price is c. 20% more expensive than the plane, but that is one side of the story. > Travel time: the fact is that the time I require to go to the airport is a minimum 30min ride (if I'm lucky) from city centre to airport. Add to that the need to be there 45min before the plane departs, and any of the usual delays. That's at least 1h 15min of my day gone in commuting to travel. If I travel by train my commute is not that different than that of going to work by bike, needless to say that the train gate closes 2min before departure, not 45min. > Location: the train station being located at the city centre is extremely convenient, forget about getting a taxi and bumping into traffic, paying arbitrary "airport" fares, etc. > Comfort: the leg space, seat width, baggage allowance, etc knocks out air travel. I can open my laptop on a tray way bigger than those on planes and comfortably work all the journey with my 3G/4G connection and get real work done. > Flexibility: train frequency is much higher than that of planes, so finding a time that fits my agenda is not a problem. Add to that the fact that you can catch an early train if, for example, you finish your meeting/work early, without paying additional fees.

joosters 13y ago
I think the article is really complaining about the difference between high-speed and normal trains, rather than the train<->plane comparison. In your own example, you could be catching a slower train and still get there faster than the plane. It's not really the 'high speed' bit of the train that matters much. You can also argue that nowdays it matters even less. With WIFI/3G, as you say, you can get useful work done on a train journey, so even if it takes a bit longer, the travel is not dead/wasted time for business. This weakens the case for high speed trains even more. I agree with your points though, I've commuted London<->Paris by plane and train, and the train is so much nicer.

jzwinck 13y ago

In Italy, you can arrive at the station without a ticket, and go to a machine. The machine supports multiple languages. You can buy a ticket in multiple classes on multiple speeds of service (roughly "regular", "fast", "high-speed"). These trains are frequent, well-connected to regional buses, and clean. The high-speed ones are fairly expensive, but the regular ones are fairly cheap. This is the way to do train service. And it's heavily used. P.S.: if you really want a slow night train for cheap, visit Zimbabwe. A "first class" sleeper cabin is about $10 from Bulawayo to Victoria Falls, and it's beautiful. But every part of the 1970's British train has long since been stolen--the lights, the faucets, the toilets, etc. Still, $10, and it goes to interesting places.

colanderman 13y ago
LOL. Last time I was in Italy (on a trip across Europe), I wanted to get a ticket to get to France. I tried one of those machines… wouldn't let me buy tickets for the route I wanted (commuter rail to Paris). Actually tried two or three; there were several kinds. Stood in line for an hour plus. Guy at the desk claims no-one there speaks English (fine, but that was a lie as the attendant next to him was). We use our phrasebook to order tickets. Walking away from the counter, we realize they're for a train that leaves in ONE MINUTE. Of course we don't make it. Eventually we found customer service tucked away in a dirty corner. They were able to right everything, but seriously… my experience getting train tickets in Italy was NOT as rosy as you paint it. (Only place worse was France, where the damn airport tram ticket machines needed 18€ of COINS.)
- ricardobeat 13y ago
  I think the parent was referring to trains within Italy. It's train system is really good, you can go almost everywhere, easily buy a ticket on the spot for a fixed fare, and they are quite comfortable.
  - colanderman 13y ago
    Yes, to be fair, I didn't have trouble within Italy. It was only trying to get out that I had trouble. (And I had been through nearly every country in western Europe by that point without any trouble, despite some convoluted plans.)

epaladin 13y ago

I haven't been to Europe yet, but after living in Japan for a year and then returning to the US, there's nothing I miss more than trains that go fast and go everywhere. I could wake up, walk down the street, hop on the train, and be 350 miles away before getting bored of staring at the back of the seat. They've managed to get by without much cannibalization of other services (you can still get to anywhere on normal-speed trains) and it seems that revenue ends up being at least more than operating costs. They obviously make a great deal of sense in Japan, and perhaps less so in Europe and the US, at least for cross-country service. Regional services would be fantastic for key areas, and I don't see why we couldn't make it work. Unless we just skip right to Hyperloop?

m_mueller 13y ago
The big reason why Japanese high speed trains are so good and why they haven't cannibalized anything, is that they've built new tracks for them everywhere. Shinkansen aren't even compatible with normal tracks, they are wider (another reason why they're so spacious and offer such a smooth ride). There's simply nothing in the world that even comes close to the Japanese train system. As an indicator, here's a list of the 50 most frequented train stations in the world: http://www.japantoday.com/category/travel/view/the-51-busiest-train-stations-in-the-world-all-but-6-located-in-japan http://www.japantoday.com/category/travel/view/the-51-busies....
- ggreer 13y ago
  A clarification: Shinkansen use the same 1.435 meter standard gauge as the continental railroad. Other trains in Japan use a narrower gauge. In modern times, wider gauges don't have much of an advantage in comfort. For example, the notoriously loud-and-shaky BART uses a 1.7ish meter gauge.
  - rdl 13y ago
    Broader gauges generally do allow wider cars, which is a plus for comfort. Wide 2x2 seating with a wide aisle is nice to have; wide 3x3 or 3x2 is probably not going to work on standard gauge.

yread 13y ago

I think a lot of the differences boil down to once-a-day point-to-point connection of classical or EuroCity trains versus corridors for frequent high-speed trains. Thalys goes every 2 hours, Etoile de Nord once a day. That's why bullet trains work so well in Japan, you can basically have 2 corridors one on each coast and they will pass through most of the important cities removing the need for direct links. I do agree with the article in most of the points. I have traveled Amsterdam-Perpignan (the last french city before Barcelona) with Thalys and low-cost night train (and TGV and Thalys on the way back) and I can attest that the night train is indeed quite uncomfortable. At least I could take a gas canister (for hiking) with me...

paddy_m 13y ago

He states that there was more air travel in Europe, and more trips taken in general because of HSR on routes that used to be serviced by air, thus there was no decrease in pollution, instead an increase. This is such a regressive attitude towards transit. Travel makes us all richer, more of it is a good thing (commuting is a different beast). My understanding is that overnight trains and the other trains that were less expensive were heavily subsidized and unprofitable. My guess is that HSR in Europe is less subsidized and closer to profitable. Many forms of transportation are subsidized (highways for cars, TSA for planes, HSR projects). The subsidies distort choices and encourage inefficient waste by not letting consumers decide with true information as to the costs of their mode choice.

jonsen 13y ago
Travel makes us all richer, more of it is a good thing Sure, this world can now afford constantly to have about one million of its people sitting in a chair in the sky.

furyg3 13y ago

For European HNers (or travelers) I plea for you to use the night trains, keep them alive. One example: Between Amsterdam & Bern - Skybus flies for €86 (1.5 hours) and the CityNightLine train is €80 for a bed (11.5 hours). Other routes are comparable, you can pay a bit more for your own (non-shared) compartment. Economically it seems crazy to take these night trains, and I never even bothered until a recent business trip from Amsterdam to Munich. It was great for many of the reasons mentioned in the article and other comments here: leave and arrive in the city center, no security, no gate closing time, no baggage restrictions/pick-up/lost luggage, have a beer or dinner on board at a real bar or table, use your laptop/phone/ereader whenever you like, lie down, take a shower, whatever. Basically it's like flying the night before with a free (albeit basic) hotel stay thrown in. I'm worried that too many people dismiss the night trains too easily (like I did), and that these will be relegated to the history books. In my opinion that would really be a tragedy. Plane travel has turned into a elementary school bus trip. The train is still a grown-up alternative.

csmuk 13y ago
My one experience of a sleeper (London-Scotland) was horrid. Farts, sick, snoring, alcohol noises and smells all night. I hope things are better on the mainland. If not, I'd rather take a plane. I flew back from Glasgow to Stansted for a small fortune to avoid the experience.
- tpholland 13y ago
  I take the London-Edinburgh sleeper fairly regularly, and have only ever had good experiences. That said, although in theory standard-class passengers have to share, this has only ever happened to me once. I can imagine that if you drew the short straw it could be terrible. The other big down-side is that you can't have a proper wash on the train; luckily there are some pretty good public swimming baths between Waverley station and our client's offices.
- leothekim 13y ago
  Somewhat off-topic - I found EasyJet to be a cheap alternative to trains going from London to Edinburgh. RyanAir is another one, though they have a reputation of claiming to fly you to one city, only to land in a different one because its airport fees are slightly cheaper [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair#Alleged_misleading_advertising http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair#Alleged_misleading_adve...

lispm 13y ago

German here. I have a Bahncard 100, which allows me unlimited train travel (plus unlimited local public transport in many cities) in Germany with most trains for one year. Fast or slow. I don't care. I usually pick the faster one. http://www.bahn.de/i/view/DEU/en/prices/germany/bahncard.shtml http://www.bahn.de/i/view/DEU/en/prices/germany/bahncard.sht... Deutsche Bahn also advertizes that they use renewable energy for my Bahncard travel and they will expand this over the coming decades to 100%.

sami36 13y ago
It also costs close to 5000 euros per year. That's a little more than you'd lose to depreciation if you owned a luxury car. If you have to travel that much inside Germany to make that card worthwhile for you, then you have a problem. Either you need to relocate or inject some telecommuting into your existing work habits. I'm going to go out on a limb here & suggest that many people travel for travel's sake as a way to give themselves an inflated sense of their own importance...or just find some glamour in being on the road all the time.
- pjmlp 13y ago
  > Either you need to relocate or inject some telecommuting into your existing work habits. Not always an option. As an example, I live in NRW but our customers are scattered around Germany. Luckily I am located on our headquarters, but many of my colleagues need to go everywhere and not all clients appreciate phone conferences.
- lispm 13y ago
  Travel with a car long-distance is not an option. I'm not going to drive 400km early in the morning with a car and be relaxed in the office at 9:30. > If you have to travel that much inside Germany to make that card worthwhile for you, then you have a problem. The 'problem' is called 'WORK'. A little bit more than 40000 people have such a card. > Either you need to relocate No option. > some telecommuting into your existing work habits. Sure, I do that. > I'm going to go out on a limb here & suggest that many people travel for travel's sake as a way to give themselves an inflated sense of their own importance...or just find some glamour in being on the road all the time. Maybe it's not that good to 'go out on a limb here and give useless suggestions. You seem to fail to understand that a lot of people have to travel as part of their work to meet customers. In my case I work with people which are located in different areas of Germany and I have to meet them face to face quite often.

squozzer 13y ago

I like trains. Really! But maybe the proper question is not, "Why build high-speed rail?" but "Why travel at all?" Especially the example given about those who live in Barcelona and commute to London by air. Probably not just because it's cheaper -- I'm sure the differences in weather had a minor influence too. But you might have heard about this thing we have in Bonerland called the Internet. Al Gore invented it, so it has to be green. Maybe you Euro-peons should check it out.

walshemj 13y ago
Realy - you have been drinking the video conferencing salesmans cool aid FTF beats the internet hands down for 90% of all workers

Theodores 13y ago

If I owned a railway I would like to use shipping containers to provide a night train service. The shipping containers would be self contained and appointed to budget hotel chain standards - clean, smart and to the point functional. Each would contain a small kitchen, toilet and shower. The beds would be bunks but with a bit more space as there would not be a shared walkway as happens on existing rolling stock. You would also be able to stow bicycles and other bulky luggage items without blocking up the train walkway if you were willing to go without much kitchen area. During the day the mini-hotel shipping containers would sit at the docks, out of the way, whilst the train went about its business delivering normal shipping containers to wherever is needed. Then, early evening, the mini-hotel shipping containers would be loaded up and the train would head off to London/Glasgow/Plymouth to pick up customers. The train would trundle at a nice sedate pace through the night with minimal stops and starts to arrive at a sensible time at the other end (5.30 a.m. is too early, 7 is good). Thereafter, back to the docks, unload and regular freight service for the train. To cope with seasonal demand and different passenger service levels (1st, 2nd class), the train could be loaded up with a mixed load of regular shipping containers and their mini-hotel variants. Modern IT niceties such as wifi, 'swipe' door locks and mobile telephony would make sure that everyone had a nice and secure journey. With 'aerogel' style materials and double glazing the inside of the mini hotel would be insulated from the noise of the train and the weather. Current night trains in the UK do not provide a good night's sleep, you also expect your belongings to be potentially stolen. With 'containerisation' problem solved. Would there be any takers? It all depends on price, however, if you are expected to be in two places at once or work on a North Sea oil rig then a decent night train would be quite tempting. If the business did not work out then a buyer could be found for the deluxe shipping containers, they could be transported by road to somewhere where a temporary workforce was needed or even used as a hotel.

mschuster91 13y ago
A nice idea - yet technically unfeasible. First problem is the time and storage you need for loading/unloading a whole train worth of carriages - I expect at least 30-60min, if not longer. And most container facilities are not equipped with large storage areas, just for short-term storage. Second problem is power: a freight train carriage usually just has two connections to its neigboring carriages: torque and the pneumatic brake line. Basically you'd need to somehow add electricity infrastructure (which 'd then again require specially modified freight carriages, and likely even different locomotives. I'm not sure if freight-only locos carry the 1kV heating power, which is (ab)used to provide electricity in passenger trains). Third problem is maintenance and cleaning: container load/unload facilities are not equipped with the place and the necessities for properly cleaning the containers, and even less maintaining them.

stcredzero 13y ago

What unintended effects would the Hyperloop have? My limited experience with the California train system is that it's no good unless you are in no hurry, or your travel just luckily happens to coincide with the right time and place.

auctiontheory 13y ago

Anecdote: In France, the system sold me a ticket for a non-existent day. I knew I was returning to Paris on a Saturday, so to buy my ticket I clicked on Saturday the 24th of May on one of those typical select-a-date web map UIs you've all seen. Except that the 24th of May was Sunday - I didn't double check my purchase against a calendar. So on "Saturday," ticket in hand, I was evacuated from my seat and had to stand for a couple of hours - of course everyone pretended not to speak English - and I suppose I should be grateful I wasn't defenestrated into the French countryside. Earlier, at the small station, I had let a woman who was obviously in a hurry pass ahead of me to buy a ticket. She said to me "obviously you are not a French man." :-)

rdl 13y ago

It was pretty amazing pricing DB train tickets vs. Eurail passes (I'm going to 30c3 and will probably be in Europe 25 DEC to 12 JAN). A single 2nd FRA-HAM-BER trip costs more than a 5-travel-day pass, in first on ICE.

bane 13y ago

I've ridden through bits of Central and Northern Italy, Rome to Florence to Venice all on regular 'old trains. And little tiny bits of France as well. I've also ridden trains in the U.S. from D.C. to Miami. Italy was an absolute pleasure. An easy walk to the stations, even with luggage. In Rome the rail network is an easy connection off of the subway system and in Florence lets you off and on so near the old parts of the city (which are fantastically walkable) that you don't even need a cab to get there. Seats were comfortable for the 2 or 3 hours the trip took, had a table to setup a laptop, read a book whatever. I sat in group of four seats that faced each other and had a lovely chat with an elderly couple from Scotland on holiday. Florence to Venice was similar, except my destination was outside of Venice and took a little more to get to from the station. No big deal and it beat having to deal with a rental car for a few weeks. Importantly, the ride was unbelievable smooth compared to other rail trips I've taken. Amtrak was my first long distance rail trip and was very bleh, seats were okay, but nothing to do on the 20+ hour ride from D.C. to Miami. This was back before laptops were common, but even with a pack full of gadgets I would have run out battery long before I ran out of boredom. Impossible to sleep on the train as it's noisy and jostles all over the place since we were on old freight rails for the entire trip. People also get so bored they start pacing the length of the train and with numerous stops were cars are split of and rejoined to other trains, and waits of a couple hours each time this happens, you feel like you make no progress at all. Trains were old, but in decent shape and generally well maintained. I've heard sleeper cars provide for a moderately better experience, but there's still the hours of boredom. I also didn't see any scenery of note, either mile after mile of overgrown weeds or industrial sections or really bad parts of towns we passed through. The worst, stations are hard to get to/from at the end points without prearranged transport and they aren't really all that nice. I regret the trip as flying would have only been $100 more and much faster. Every once in a while I think about taking the train North towards the better run North-East corridor parts of the system, but that one experience kind of waived me off the whole thing and with the stations so hard to get to and flying to my destinations faster (even with security hassles included) and about the same cost it just isn't worth it to me. My experience in France was on much shorter, hour or two trips, and they were "ok" if a bit run down. Graffiti on the trains, that sort of thing. Felt more like extended commuter trains (which they probably were) then proper passenger rail. It was somewhere between Italy and Amtrak in terms of comfort, but more towards the Amtrak side in terms of desirability.

yoloswaggins 13y ago

Cars are killing Horse Drawn Trolleys.

jff 13y ago

Low Tech Magazine: Drawing arbitrary boundary lines sells. 150 year old technology (trains) = ok, 100 year old technology (airplanes) = not ok.

PhantomGremlin 13y ago

So many comments but only one passing mention of "Eurail" in this discussion. http://www.eurail.com/ http://www.eurail.com/ So, help an American (potential tourist) out. Does using Eurail for a European vacation make sense? For a family of 2 adults and 2 children? E.g. getting the "15 days continuous" pass is $548 + $548 +$276 + $276 = $1648. That doesn't seem unreasonable for being able to go pretty much anywhere except UK. Does that make sense?

yodsanklai 13y ago
I think it really depends on your itinerary. 15 days is a short time to visit Europe. Maybe it could make sense if you plan on visiting only one or two countries and smaller cities. But if you want to see let say, Paris, Roma and Berlin. I don't think it's a good option.
codfrantic 13y ago
How many countries do you expect to visit, doing 4 / 5 countries in 15 days would seem like the best idea. Any more and you'll be on the train non-stop.. https://www.google.com/search?q=US+vs+EUROPE+size&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X https://www.google.com/search?q=US+vs+EUROPE+size&tbm=isch&t...
CookWithMe 13y ago
In addition to the itinerary, it also depends on your planing. If you want to be very flexible, it's most likely cheaper than buying a long-distance ticket at the station/in the train. If you want to plan and book your trips ahead of time, it may well be that, with early booking discounts, it's cheaper to book ahead of time. This would also allow you to reserve seats/a table, which I'd recommend if you travel with kids. Also note that in Germany, and maybe in other countries as well, kids < 15 years travel for free with their parents if noted on their tickets. If you travel a lot within one country, you may also want to check their frequent traveler programs. E.g. in Germany, the DB sells cards that give you 25%, 50% or 100% off of the ticket price. The 25% one can be ordered for a duration of only 3 months and costs 19 Euros, so it should pay off quickly! Note, however, that it is an subscription that you need to cancel. Enjoy Europe :-)