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> Germany -> Car loving country with a highly efficient railway system, and a well serviced road system as well. So it should be achievable. Germany has a high

by lgbr 11y ago

> Germany -> Car loving country with a highly efficient railway system, and a well serviced road system as well. So it should be achievable. Germany has a highly efficient railway system and the country is so small that I can cross the entire country in a day, and still, I take the car everywhere I go. I think what some people miss is this: Trains are just worse. They're slow, not because they don't have a high top speed, but they have to stop so much that their average speed is just worse than a car's. I think there's a couple city pairs (Berlin <-> Frankfurt) where if I was racing a train I would lose by some small margin to one of the non-stop trains, but not by much, and this would only be a true win if on my trip I was going from one city center to another city center, which I'm never doing. They're still really expensive. Air travel around Germany is always cheaper, and so is the cost of fuel for most cars. You can sometimes find a discount on the train, but those travel at pretty inconvenient times and are quite rare anymore. They leave only so often. So unlike a car, I can't just set off whenever is convenient for me. I have to find a train that leaves when I want and make sure I get to it on time. So if you live in Frankfurt and want to go visit family outside of Munich for the weekend, leaving after work at 18:00 on a Friday you're going to end up sleeping in a train station in Bavaria overnight as opposed to a car which can continue driving after 12:00 unlike a rural train. And they never get where I want. For half of the places I regularly travel, when I get there, I need to have someone pick me up with a car or I need to rent a car. There just are no other choices. As densely populated as this country is, it's just still really difficult to get to a huge portion of the country with public transit. I really find it no wonder the US does not have a decent passenger train system. Every single one of these problems is hugely exacerbated by its sparse population to the point where passenger trains just aren't feasible.

TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
Is there anywhere in the world where the train system is 'really good' for a majority of people? Trains need tracks and if you don't live near the tracks and need to go where the tracks go the train isn't much use to you. So it follows that the US doesn't have a 'good' passenger train system because there is not such thing.
- paganel 11y ago
  > Is there anywhere in the world where the train system is 'really good' for a majority of people? I think Switzerland comes pretty close to this. Granted, I was only a tourist, but was really nice seeing how you could take a train from Geneva to any of the towns bordering Lake Geneva almost all night long, at pretty good intervals. And they were always on time, at the minute.
- mozumder 11y ago
  What happens is that development happens around train/subway stops. You can see this right now around the Washington DC area, where cities and sky rises have been popping up over the last 30 years, centered around individual metro stops. You build the rail first, and the city builds around that.
yitchelle 11y ago
I sought of agree with you. Car is definitely more convenient than train. I just returned for a weekend trip to Saarbrücken and I live in Köln. It is about a 3hour trip. Train would be have been great if I was staying in the centre of town, but car is much better as my accommodation is about 20mins out of Saarbrücken. Having said that, I love the train because I can much less stressful, I can read, have an engaged conversation etc. Things I can't do while driving the car. edit: clarity
lorenzfx 11y ago
No, they are not really expensive. Let's take your example of Frankfurt -> Berlin. A 2nd class ICE ticket (without any reductions) is 123€ (1st class is 203€). Going the 550km (Google Maps estimate) by car will cost 247€ (estimated by the ADAC, the largest German automobile club, for a VW Golf VII). While you might want to argue that if you drive a lot by car, those costs per km will decrease, the same goes for travelling a lot by train.
- lgbr 11y ago
  This 247 € factors in vehicle costs, taxes, maintenance, and insurance. Keep in mind that actual fuel costs for this stretch with a VW Golf VII would be 25.4 € (3.3 l/100km * 550km * 1.40 €/liter). So you're right. If you go out and buy a brand new VW Golf VII, insure it fully, and regularly drive this stretch, you're probably going to experience an average cost of 247 € for this stretch. But there's two problems with this: The actual marginal cost of the trip is still 25.4 €, plus let's give it a generous maintenance cost putting it at around 50 €. That's still less than half of the cost of the ICE. Add to this that you now have a car which can carry five people and the costs don't increase at all per person. A trip with 5 people is still going to cost you that 500 € instead of 615 €. The second problem is that this is when you're buying a new car. Buying a used car would very easily bring your 247 € cost down below that 123 € even with the increase maintenance costs.
  - claudius 11y ago
    If you sink ~7000 Euro into a Bahncard 100 first class, you can go mostly anywhere for free. So by the logic of only counting marginal costs, it’s 25.4 € more expensive to travel from Berlin to Frankfurt by car as opposed to railway. Berlin to Frankfurt takes about 4 to 5 hours. For the car, this is time spent driving. For the train, we may have to subtract about 30 mins waiting in Leipzig or Hanover for a connecting train, leaving you with 3.5 to 4.5 hours in the train. At a modest 15€/hour, your car trip is now 77.9 to 92.9€ more expensive than the train journey.
- abrugsch 11y ago
  That calculation seems a little off... I don't know what ADAC takes into consideration for that calculation, but either of the cars in my family operate at around 16 Km/L on long distance, mostly motorway/autobahn (and neither will be as efficient as a Golf VII which may be closer to 20) and I don't know how much petrol/diesel costs in Germany right now, but it's probably not too far off £1.15-1.20 per litre in the UK at the moment (quick google suggests 1.43€, exchange rate of 1.4 so actually a little cheaper.) 550 Km/16 = 34.4 Litres of fuel at 1.43 a litre gives around 50€ per direction. I don't know what the tolls are like but I wouldn't cost in vehicle cost or insurance (both sunk costs) but maybe a portion of servicing costs (1/30th of a 15000Km service interval) so let's say worst case allow 20€. So actual cost of journey more like 70€ per direction, which is A LOT less than 247€ that ADAC is suggesting, and still 50€ less than the train. I'm not trying to advocate for the car, (I much prefer train travel - especially on DB) but based purely on costs, it doesn't stack up... BTW, train prices are similarly stacked in the UK, with it rarely being more cost effective to take a train unless the convenience factor is a major part, like going to central London...
wyclif 11y ago
Good point about air travel. I didn't even bring that into the equation, but the efficiencies and economics are relevant. Particularly trans-continental flights between major cities, like NYC -> LA, or PHL -> Seattle.
mozumder 11y ago
Cars are slower because they have to deal with so many stoplights and traffic jams. Also, cars are FAR more expensive than trains. How much do you pay a month for your car? $800/month? People in spend $116 for unlimited train/bus rides. The biggest problem with cars, though, is that it requires manual labor to operate. You can't take a nap, or work on the computer, like you can on a train. You basically lose 2 hours a day because you need to drive. Multiply this by hundred million people, and it becomes an drain on the US economy. That's 200 million man-hours wasted per day.

by lgbr 11y ago

TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago

Is there anywhere in the world where the train system is 'really good' for a majority of people? Trains need tracks and if you don't live near the tracks and need to go where the tracks go the train isn't much use to you. So it follows that the US doesn't have a 'good' passenger train system because there is not such thing.

paganel 11y ago
> Is there anywhere in the world where the train system is 'really good' for a majority of people? I think Switzerland comes pretty close to this. Granted, I was only a tourist, but was really nice seeing how you could take a train from Geneva to any of the towns bordering Lake Geneva almost all night long, at pretty good intervals. And they were always on time, at the minute.
mozumder 11y ago
What happens is that development happens around train/subway stops. You can see this right now around the Washington DC area, where cities and sky rises have been popping up over the last 30 years, centered around individual metro stops. You build the rail first, and the city builds around that.

yitchelle 11y ago

I sought of agree with you. Car is definitely more convenient than train. I just returned for a weekend trip to Saarbrücken and I live in Köln. It is about a 3hour trip. Train would be have been great if I was staying in the centre of town, but car is much better as my accommodation is about 20mins out of Saarbrücken. Having said that, I love the train because I can much less stressful, I can read, have an engaged conversation etc. Things I can't do while driving the car. edit: clarity

lorenzfx 11y ago

No, they are not really expensive. Let's take your example of Frankfurt -> Berlin. A 2nd class ICE ticket (without any reductions) is 123€ (1st class is 203€). Going the 550km (Google Maps estimate) by car will cost 247€ (estimated by the ADAC, the largest German automobile club, for a VW Golf VII). While you might want to argue that if you drive a lot by car, those costs per km will decrease, the same goes for travelling a lot by train.

lgbr 11y ago
This 247 € factors in vehicle costs, taxes, maintenance, and insurance. Keep in mind that actual fuel costs for this stretch with a VW Golf VII would be 25.4 € (3.3 l/100km * 550km * 1.40 €/liter). So you're right. If you go out and buy a brand new VW Golf VII, insure it fully, and regularly drive this stretch, you're probably going to experience an average cost of 247 € for this stretch. But there's two problems with this: The actual marginal cost of the trip is still 25.4 €, plus let's give it a generous maintenance cost putting it at around 50 €. That's still less than half of the cost of the ICE. Add to this that you now have a car which can carry five people and the costs don't increase at all per person. A trip with 5 people is still going to cost you that 500 € instead of 615 €. The second problem is that this is when you're buying a new car. Buying a used car would very easily bring your 247 € cost down below that 123 € even with the increase maintenance costs.
- claudius 11y ago
  If you sink ~7000 Euro into a Bahncard 100 first class, you can go mostly anywhere for free. So by the logic of only counting marginal costs, it’s 25.4 € more expensive to travel from Berlin to Frankfurt by car as opposed to railway. Berlin to Frankfurt takes about 4 to 5 hours. For the car, this is time spent driving. For the train, we may have to subtract about 30 mins waiting in Leipzig or Hanover for a connecting train, leaving you with 3.5 to 4.5 hours in the train. At a modest 15€/hour, your car trip is now 77.9 to 92.9€ more expensive than the train journey.
abrugsch 11y ago
That calculation seems a little off... I don't know what ADAC takes into consideration for that calculation, but either of the cars in my family operate at around 16 Km/L on long distance, mostly motorway/autobahn (and neither will be as efficient as a Golf VII which may be closer to 20) and I don't know how much petrol/diesel costs in Germany right now, but it's probably not too far off £1.15-1.20 per litre in the UK at the moment (quick google suggests 1.43€, exchange rate of 1.4 so actually a little cheaper.) 550 Km/16 = 34.4 Litres of fuel at 1.43 a litre gives around 50€ per direction. I don't know what the tolls are like but I wouldn't cost in vehicle cost or insurance (both sunk costs) but maybe a portion of servicing costs (1/30th of a 15000Km service interval) so let's say worst case allow 20€. So actual cost of journey more like 70€ per direction, which is A LOT less than 247€ that ADAC is suggesting, and still 50€ less than the train. I'm not trying to advocate for the car, (I much prefer train travel - especially on DB) but based purely on costs, it doesn't stack up... BTW, train prices are similarly stacked in the UK, with it rarely being more cost effective to take a train unless the convenience factor is a major part, like going to central London...

wyclif 11y ago

Good point about air travel. I didn't even bring that into the equation, but the efficiencies and economics are relevant. Particularly trans-continental flights between major cities, like NYC -> LA, or PHL -> Seattle.

mozumder 11y ago

Cars are slower because they have to deal with so many stoplights and traffic jams. Also, cars are FAR more expensive than trains. How much do you pay a month for your car? $800/month? People in spend $116 for unlimited train/bus rides. The biggest problem with cars, though, is that it requires manual labor to operate. You can't take a nap, or work on the computer, like you can on a train. You basically lose 2 hours a day because you need to drive. Multiply this by hundred million people, and it becomes an drain on the US economy. That's 200 million man-hours wasted per day.