I've always been interested in Europe's motorail services, but am having a hard time finding out more about it. Do rail staff load your vehicle for you, or, like the Channel Tunnel, do you drive your vehicle onto the railcar your self? Would love to see pics and vids of this service.

Are there any motorail services left in Europe and Scandinavia, or has the service gone the way of the dinosaur.

Italy has a handful of those services, though widely cut from past. You can find a list here http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=1db211e84819a110VgnVCM1000003f16f90aRCRD . They have specific board stations, usually coupled with cargo stations. Bologna has a dedicated car terminal, so did (or still do, I'm not sure) Milano.

I know there are some cars for RO-RO transport of automobiles in 's-HErtogenbosch (NL), but I have no idea when and to where do services run. I've seen some likewise setup (parked rail cars, signs indicating entrance and so) in Salzburg.

Thanks.:) It's really sad that such a fascinating and useful service has all but disappeared.:ohno:

There are some Germany/The Netherlands-Italy services, with various origins and destinations.

There are then some short services like Eurotunnel throught other tunnel in Switzerland and Austria, and a service running on a dam in Germany (Syltshuttle). Similar services ran between France and Italy (Fréjus tunnel) and throught the Bohinj tunnel in Slovenia (I don't know if this is still operational or not).

Here the Wikipedia in French about swiss services: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_d'automobiles_accompagnées_en_Suisse

And an older thread on SSC: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=718934

Other pages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accompanied_combined_transport
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_shuttle_train
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_highway

This service, although not entirely gone yet, is only today a shadow of its
former self.

They are less and less used, basically because it costs now more to transport
a car on a train for 1000 km way and back, than to rent a car for 2 weeks on
your place of destination.

Transporting a car on such distances for just 2 weeks of holidays becomes
also less and less ecologically acceptable.

The only people that miss such a service are essentially those who travel with
lots of luggage. This is very convenient for them because the luggage can
stay in the car while travelling. You just need to keep with you the stuff
you need for the night on board (once loaded, you don't have access to
your car anymore until arrived to destination). People in this case are, for
example, couples with small children. But people young enough to have
small children are usually not wealthy enough to afford the service...
I also know someone who liked to take his motorbike with him for vacation,
and used "trains auto-couchettes" (french namping for motorail) to do that.

To answer the question : yes, you are supposed to load-unload your car
yourself, and it does not seem difficult to do so. But stations dealing with
this kind of traffic usually have someone who can do it for you if you are
afraid of it.

Also, it must be noted that this service is targetted at typical sedan or
station-waggon cars. Larger vehicles like pick-ups, monovolumes or SUVs
are typically to big, notably in height. We don't have the loading gauge for
tri-level autoracks over here...

Optima Express is probably the only train in the world that has more carriages for cars than for people:

DOxiPMr98es

Domestic Motorail services in Britain rapidly declined after privatisation in the '90s and finally disappeared in 2005. Only the Eurotunnel Shuttle to and from France remains.

When they were first started in the '50s, the state of the British road network meant that trains were still by far the fastest and most comfortable way to travel long distances. The enormous growth of the network(especially motorways) soon afterwards and the increasing comfort of cars reduced the gap so that taking Motorail was no longer worth the extra time and cost for most people, and the services became a big source of loss. After privatisation they were inherited by the various new train companies and quickly cut.

I'm not sure there is such a service over the Fréjus tunnel. They had while they were repairing the Mont Blanc (and later the Frejus itself), which create a choke point and restricted the traffic of (especially) trucks. But now I guess they only retain the Domodossola car shuttle.

There was a shuttle service Modane-Bardonecchia (near the portals of the Fréjus tunnel) until the opening of the road tunnel, and there is a shuttle for lorries between Aiton and Torino Orbassano (about 175 km with the 13.5 km Fréjus tunnel in the middle). This shuttle has only 4 trains per direction per day.

I'm not sure there is such a service over the Fréjus tunnel. They had while they were repairing the Mont Blanc (and later the Frejus itself), which create a choke point and restricted the traffic of (especially) trucks. But now I guess they only retain the Domodossola car shuttle.

That's a totally different business than the one the original poster is speaking
about. He was dealing with services that carry personal cars over 1000 km
along with sleepers and couchette cars in which occupants can sleep while
the train is travelling. You are speaking about small-distance services that
help motorists to go over (or better said, under, for that matter) short-distance obstacles that can not, or only with great difficulties, be made by
road. The former almost disappeared for the reasons I stated before. The
latter is also disappearing, but for different reasons : most of them were
there to avoid difficult roads in mountainous territory, but there are now road
tunnels available on that routes too, so the rail shuttles have become
redundant. The only operation of that style that will survive is probably the
channel tunnel. Or may be Maggie will finally have her way and a road tunnel will be digged out over there too...

^^ I know we are talking about different services, and I provided a link for Italian long-distance motorail (as the OP named them) on post #2.

It would be awesome to have a Road Channel Tunnel, but I don't think that is going to happen anytime soon. The distances involved and the impossibility of side rescue tunnels would render such bore too expensive if trucks are allowed to use it.

As a road geek I'd love to see one built as an economist, it makes no sense for now. So I stick to my vows to get the 2nd Gotthard bore done instead :p

This service, although not entirely gone yet, is only today a shadow of its
former self.


In France they have an interesting service where you hand over your car in the evening at a loading point where it is then forwarded overnight to its destination. You then take a TGV the next day and pick up your car again.


To answer the question : yes, you are supposed to load-unload your car
yourself, and it does not seem difficult to do so. But stations dealing with
this kind of traffic usually have someone who can do it for you if you are
afraid of it.


I think that in the Netherlands it was customary that the car was loaded by railway staff.

I like the rail shuttle to the isle of Sylt in Germany. I found several YouTube videos of it.:):bow::cheers1:

We have several of these in Austria. Basically there are three different types: Rolling highway, car shuttle trains and motorrail.

The most famous rolling highway is the one to the Brenner border with Italy. Unfortunately its hay-day is over. In the 90ties it was quite popular because Austria had an eco-point system that limited truck transit through the alps. Freight companies could save eco-points by using the rolling highway. The rolling highway is still used these days, but the business is not flourishing anymore as it used to.

I've never used the car shuttle service myself, but I used a motorrail train twice. There is a terminal quite close to here and we would drive with the car there, park it on the train and then go to our sleeping coach. That way we saved a whole night and in the morning we could drive with our car from the other terminal to our hotel, which was located in the countryside.

edit: Seems I was a little bit pessimistic. When I googled for the RoLa as it's nicknamed in Austria, I found a lot of vids and pics which show that the rolling highway is used quite well:
tr4IxxAtUGo

As a road geek I'd love to see one built as an economist, it makes no sense for now. So I stick to my vows to get the 2nd Gotthard bore done instead :p

What do you mean by "second Gotthard bore" ? Another road tunnel
parallel to the existing one, so that the 2x2 highway becomes continuous ?
I might agree with that one, provided the swiss do not relax their restriction
on lorries... After all, all rail line through alps are saturated too...

What do you mean by "second Gotthard bore" ? Another road tunnel
parallel to the existing one, so that the 2x2 highway becomes continuous ?
I might agree with that one, provided the swiss do not relax their restriction
on lorries...

Unfortunately the Swiss voted the second bore down. And to annoy Suburbanist even more the tunnel is going to be closed for at least a year somewhere after the new rail tunnel opens, so that it can be renovated. The intention is to set up a rail shuttle through the new base tunnel, which could be quite an impressive operation.

After all, all rail line through alps are saturated too...
Something is being done about that. And the Swiss are pretty good at running traffic levels that apparently defy the laws of physics...

Unfortunately the Swiss voted the second bore down. And to annoy Suburbanist even more the tunnel is going to be closed for at least a year somewhere after the new rail tunnel opens, so that it can be renovated. The intention is to set up a rail shuttle through the new base tunnel, which could be quite an impressive operation.

To the extent I know, two simultaneous relief measures are going to happen:

(1) the Gotthard lower road pass (the newer one) is going to be improved to make it almost year-round opened. Measures include artificial tunnels (for both avalanche protection and snow diversion) and special snowplowing operations. For summer traffic, directional use of the higher road pass (the older one) is being considered - for cars only of course.

(2) Improvements will be done to the Simplon Pass road to allow increased traffic.

Simply put, it is impossible to haul anything near 60% of the local AADT on the Gotthard road tunnel by train, even if the Gotthard base tunnel AND the Loestchberg tunnel were BOTH dedicated only to handle diverted traffic. Those two base tunnels are not even fit for RO-RO transport of trucks (where the whole truck set goes by rail). The shuttles will be able to use only the older tunnels as they do now in Loestschberg tunnel, near Davos/St. Moritz and over the Simplon Pass. However, you can't just take all track capacity to transport freight, as in both ends there are cities served by passenger traffic that would get very annoyed to have their service cut.

In any case, the Swiss came forward with the odious AlpTrasit (but it's their choice anyway, though misguided) project calling not for an extensive transalpine network of RO-RO trains, but to piggyback operations where only the trailers/containers follow by train from Germany to Italy and vice-versa. EU made an agreement with Switzerland in which 40ton trucks would be allowed in Swiss highways, but the number of annual TRUCK crossings on the Alps would be limited and the Swiss would provide faster and cheaper freight trains instead and charge hefty road tolls for trucks. The opening of Gotthard base tunnel will allow such operations to begin, reducing the number of Alpine truck crossings of through traffic and ultimate freeing more space for cars.

The traffic car on Gotthard will be dealt like this during the 14 to 18-months renovation: during the summer, there are the San Gotthard road passes (lower and higher). Year round, there is San Bernardino tunnel, which has reasonable spare capacity and rarely gets jammed. In most of winter, the San Gotthard lower pass will be kept open. Unpleasant and somehow tricky, but better than nothing.

It is, however, absolutely impossible for a single-track railway, no matter how modern, to carry cars in train shuttles anything near the car traffic at Gotthard. This will not happen, so their priority is to take trucks out and send cars over the road passes. The completion of A96 in Germany already created better access to Brengez and Chur, help the prospect of a hellish, but not completely catastrophic summer traffic in CH.

After most trucks are unfairly (as I always like to remember) forced not to take Swiss highways but have their trailers shipped over tracks instead, maybe the Swiss will change their opinions on a second Gotthard road tunnel that doesn't increase the amount of truck crossing the Alps. Such limit for trucks will be decreased by almost 32% after the base tunnel opens. That will solve most congestion problems at Gotthard but those on summer.

Just as a matter of curiosity, when you see an info about Gotthar tunnel being full or congested, pay attention: it operates with a lower limit for truck traffic, so it is not unheard of situations in which trucks are lined for 30, 50 minutes on the left lane and cars are free flowing on the left lane, as cars are only prevented entering the tunnel in case its lanes (in each direction) are too crowded that would create congestions INSIDE the tunnel (far worse than congestions at the portals for obvious reasons). However, even if there are few if any car traffic (like a Winter Wednesday 2 AM), trucks will be hold at the portals to enforce unjust and unfair politically motivated restrictions.

A second Gotthard tunnel with 3 lanes and a widening of the Gotthard road would have cost far less and provided better trans-Alp traffic solutions than the Gotthard base tunnel itself, at least for the freight industry.

Those two base tunnels are not even fit for RO-RO transport of trucks (where the whole truck set goes by rail).

The loading gauge of the base tunnels is as big as Eurotunnel's one and there will probably a limited service for truck on the new tunnel, and for cars on the old one.

and charge hefty road tolls for trucks

Actually the toll is about 70€ less than the Italy-France motorways for a comparable distance.

during the summer, there are the San Gotthard road passes (lower and higher)

There is only one pass, even if there are two roads leading to it on the southern side and partly on the northern (the new one built in the 70s and the old, historic road). The old one is only about 6 metres wide, that is less than two standard lanes (usually around 3.5 m each)

However, even if there are few if any car traffic (like a Winter Wednesday 2 AM), trucks will be hold at the portals to enforce unjust and unfair politically motivated restrictions.

There are even more strict limitations on the two Italy-France tunnels.

There are even more strict limitations on the two Italy-France tunnels.

AFAIK, trucks from Aosta don't have any privileges crossing the Mont Blanc tunnel... while those from Cantone Ticino are singled out for limited waiting time, so they never stay idle 3 or 4 hours.

The Gotthard tunnel is also far more modern than the Fréjus and Mont Blanc, safety-wise.

AFAIK, trucks from Aosta don't have any privileges crossing the Mont Blanc tunnel... while those from Cantone Ticino are singled out for limited waiting time, so they never stay idle 3 or 4 hours.

They are only a small part of truck traffic. Northern Switzerland-Italy traffic doesn't have this privilege.

T Those two base tunnels are not even fit for RO-RO transport of trucks (where the whole truck set goes by rail).

You are wrong. Even the old Lötschberg tunnel can handle RO-RO. I see RO-RO trains there every day.The new one can handle it too, and the new Gotthard tunnel will have sufficient clearance too.


However, you can't just take all track capacity to transport freight, as in both ends there are cities served by passenger traffic that would get very annoyed to have their service cut.

However the Swiss are pretty good at running lots of trains on just a few tracks. Running 2 fast passengers services and 10+ freight trains per hour should not be to big an issue.


It is, however, absolutely impossible for a single-track railway, no matter how modern, to carry cars in train shuttles anything near the car traffic at Gotthard.

The Gotthard railway is double track. Soon there will be _four_ tracks crossing the Alps at that spot. I could imagine that they could organize the following: Freights keep using the old tunnel, together with one passenger train per hour (the current IR service).
The new base tunnel sees one fast passenger train per hour (the current ICN/EC service) and an intensive car/truck shuttle.
The Base Tunnel will allow 1400m long freight trains. A RO-RO shuttle of that length will fit about 70 trucks. The road tunnel currently allows the passage of 180 trucks per hour, Looks like three trains per hour will be sufficient to transport all the trucks.
Cars can ofcourse be carried on two levels. Eurotunnel needs a train every 15 minutes to carry up to 500 cars per hour. To carry 2000 cars per hour you would thus need four times as many.
So thechnically it is possible. Run 20 shuttle trains in two groups at 2 minute intervals, then you also have two 10 minute windows to fit in other freights, or a fast passenger train. So your claim that it is "absolutely impossible" isn't true.
The real problem will be finding the needed rolling stock. But then the real problem is not going to be that big, as a lot of the traffic will be diverted

Edit: I exagerated a bit. It is asumed that the replacement RORO shuttle needed would have to transport about 400 cars and 60 trucks per hour on average when the road tunnel closes.

^^

As far as I'm aware, virtually all freights will go via the base tunnels. Certainly all the intermodal services will be doing so - both the ones carrying unaccompanied trailers and swap bodies/containers, and those carrying tractors-and-trailers in combination (the RO-RO trains).

I'd imagine that all of the companies operating freights trains via the Gotthard route will prefer that ALL of their trains go via the new base-tunnel route, as it will almost certainly cost them less to operate trains via this route. For example, I think I'm safe in saying that freight trains going via the new base tunnels will not require the addition of banking locomotives at their rear.

I seem to remember reading somewhere long ago that while the intention of the Swiss is to keep open the classic Gotthard route once the base tunnel route is complete, the traffic levels along these tracks will be much lower than they are currently.

I also remember there some speculation that the classic route may be made to be a single track route at some points, but I think this had just been some chap speculating (in the same way that many of us do here on SSC).

The most reasonable service due to the short duration of the service would be...

...a shuttle for cars throught the old tunnel (being four times shorter, it will require less trains to maintain the same frequency) using material loaned from the Simplon or Lötschebrg services (or as an alternative, new material to be transfered to these after the temporary service on the Gotthard).

...a shuttle for trucks throught the new base tunnel using stock from today's RoLa services, capacity will probably not eb a problem but in this case a few light freight trains could go via the summit line for a few months more

Road traffic during winter is only around 10.000 vpd so considering diverted traffic the shuttles will suffice. There will be problems during some summer days when traffic epaks at 40.000 vpd but you can't dimension a service (especcially if temporary) for just a few days a year (even in summer traffic is around 23.000 vpd).

I think I'm safe in saying that freight trains going via the new base tunnels will not require the addition of banking locomotives at their rear.

That's one reason of building the new railway.

^^

As far as I'm aware, virtually all freights will go via the base tunnels. Certainly all the intermodal services will be doing so - both the ones carrying unaccompanied trailers and swap bodies/containers, and those carrying tractors-and-trailers in combination (the RO-RO trains).


Eventually Yes. A RORO shuttle could be organised through the old rail tunnel during the renovation of the road tunnel. Only for some high trucks a shuttle would have to be organised through the new base tunnel.

That's one reason of building the new railway.



Well I knew that, silly billy.

Road traffic during winter is only around 10.000 vpd so considering diverted traffic the shuttles will suffice. There will be problems during some summer days when traffic epaks at 40.000 vpd but you can't dimension a service (especcially if temporary) for just a few days a year (even in summer traffic is around 23.000 vpd).
.

Of course you can't, or shouldn't, design any transportation infrastructure project around the 1% peak usage or so (that is something you do with electricity maximum production and distribution capacity, for instance).

I know the topic is about Europe, but have a look at this one:

http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer/AM_Route_C/1241245666320/1237405732511

You can even take a trailer with boat with you....:nuts:

There is a dutch company EETC (http://www.eetc.nl/) running motorail trains from 's Hertogenbosch to the south of France and Italy.
english leaflet in pdf (http://www.eetc.nl/motorail/ukast.pdf)

Also a good link is the seat61 page about motorail
http://www.seat61.com/images/Motorail-map.jpg (http://www.seat61.com/Motorail.htm).

€ 1.230 for a Den Bosch-Livorno return ticket for car and private compartment for 4? Too expensive IMO. But they surely have a market for that.

Looking on ViaMichelin this trip costs 350 € in tolls and fuel (2 x 175) for 2 x 1285 km in 12 hours one way. Adding the cost for a night in an hotel if you make longer breaks and considering that not all like driving this may be interesting for someone.

Looking on ViaMichelin this trip costs 350 € in tolls and fuel (2 x 175) for 2 x 1285 km in 12 hours one way. Adding the cost for a night in an hotel if you make longer breaks and considering that not all like driving this may be interesting for someone.

Sure it is, otherwise there wouldn't be services like this running, as they are purely private and non-subsidized :)

By the way, what's the reason beyond your Cisalpino, no, Grazie on your signature? Didn't you like the idea of a separate company to handle Switzerland-Italy traffic?

^^ The Cisalpino plan was to reduce Zürich/Basel-Milano trains from 14 to 9 per direction per day. Actually they reduced them to 7 and they are 1 time out of 3 late. And, as you don't like subsides, I assure you that these trains can't be subsized and they have enough traffic to desserve more trips (sometimes there aren't free places and one has to travel standing, that on an EuroCity train is not really good).

(comunque perché ti vedo raramente -o mai- sul forum italiano?)

Wow.. Maybe it's not as dead as we thought. Sure, the long distance ones aren't as numerous as they once were, but they still exist. :)

The local shuttles are certainly interesting too. I should look and see if I can find vids on them, as I certainly enjoy the vids of the Sylt service.

No, its not dead. Even Amtrak is running a service along the East Coast to Florida. ;)

Anyone know if there were or are any plans for a long distance motorail going through the Channel Tunnel? I think there would be a market for driving onto a train in Kent and getting off in the south of France. Obviously there would be some technical issues as the car carriers in the tunnel are too big for anything but the tunnel and smaller motorail carriers would have to pass tunnel safety regulations. However it would combine the cost of driving through France on tolled motorways, the tunnel and fuel so could have a market if the cost wasn't too high.

Anyone know if there were or are any plans for a long distance motorail going through the Channel Tunnel? I think there would be a market for driving onto a train in Kent and getting off in the south of France. Obviously there would be some technical issues as the car carriers in the tunnel are too big for anything but the tunnel and smaller motorail carriers would have to pass tunnel safety regulations. However it would combine the cost of driving through France on tolled motorways, the tunnel and fuel so could have a market if the cost wasn't too high.

I'm not sure. The Autorail services from Calais to Nice and Marseille were cancelled in 2009.

By the way, what's the reason beyond your Cisalpino, no, Grazie on your signature? Didn't you like the idea of a separate company to handle Switzerland-Italy traffic?


Cisalpino was a running joke in Switzerland. In general a separate company running Switzerland - Italy trains is a good idea, but the problem was that Trenitalia owned part of Cisalpino. It's just not possible to run an efficient reliable train service with Trenitalia involved.
The other attempt at putting cross border Italy - Switzerland traffic in a separate company (TILO) is also a big failure, and again because of incompetence by Trenitalia.

^^ Trenitalia is the worst railway company in Western Europe, but I think SBB used Cisalpino to discharge itself from its faults (one of them is that SBB wanted absolutely to introduce the new timetable that required 23 multisystem EMU trains, having only 9 of them this caused a lot of cancelled trains and improvvised timetable, SBB could have instead proposed an alternative timetable with conventional trains, but didn't have done that).

^^ Trenitalia is the worst railway company in Western Europe, but I think SBB used Cisalpino to discharge itself from its faults (one of them is that SBB wanted absolutely to introduce the new timetable that required 23 multisystem EMU trains, having only 9 of them this caused a lot of cancelled trains and improvvised timetable, SBB could have instead proposed an alternative timetable with conventional trains, but didn't have done that).

You have a point. SBB was a bit ambitious too. When the (Italian) manufacturer was late in producing the trains they could have investigated an alternative timetable. However changing the timetable is not that easy in Switzerland. The international trains also provide domestic transportation, and the design of the timetable is a lengthy process that involves many stakeholders. Contrary to how it is done in some other countries the timetable is not something "decreed" by the railways, and "discovered" by the public towards the second weekend of december.
Trenitalia's maintance practices also mean that you need more trains than when you follow Swiss practices. You see that now that the fleet has been split. The Swiss sets do a lot more km than the Italian ones do, yet they are more reliable.

But we're getting way off topic here...

^^ Trenitalia is the worst railway company in Western Europe...


Clearly this is totally off-topic, but I'm sure if there's a thread on Italy's railways it will be in Italian, so I thought I may as well as here.

If Trenitalia is, in laymans terms, a crap operation, what are the chances of it undergoing some serious reform in the next ten years or so?

We read much about the plans to change and modify SNCF, but I've never read anything about Trenitalia.

If necessary someone could move the emssage to the two appropriate discussions...so I answer in two posts.

The 7.31 and 8.31 trains from Zürich end in Chiasso, but they are in the same time slot that the now defunct Bellinzona-Milano IR/EC. This means that trains like Zürich 7.31-Milano 11.50 may have been possible using existing (but unused) slots. Al alternative could have been maintaining the same departure time from Zürich, but arriving in Milan exactly 30 minutes later allowing the use of traditional hauled stock with change of locomotive (in Milan there is a slot for EC trains to the Gotthard at 10 and 40 minutes past each hour, arriving at 20 and 50, but only one out of four is used).

Actual management of FS group managed to reduce its debt, but in Italy there is lack of mentality about public transport. There wa sone famous example near Milan, where a railway and a bus line meet each other. Trains and buses ran exactly every 30 minutes, but buses leaved the station 5 minutes before arrival of the trains, causing an useless 25 minutes waiting time (the busline was isolated and didn't had other correspondances to respect). When the responsbale (bus operator? mayor? I don't know) was asked to do somethig, his response was that it would have increased the bus frequency from 30 to every 15 minutes. That is, nobody thought that the simplest solution was delaying bus departures of 10 minutes (if the bus were every 15 minutes, only the ones connecting with trains would have been heavily used causing a waste with the others). Now timetables have been corrected (and trains run every 15 minutes at peaks), but only because a national television presented the situation to the general public and responsibles were obliged to solve it...

Actual management of FS group managed to reduce its debt, but in Italy there is lack of mentality about public transport.

Both are good signs IMO. Trenitalia was a cash bleeding machine, hemorrhaging € 2,1 bln. in 2002 alone. After that, they decided to focus on profitability, cut many long-distance, slow-speed trains (once there were 18 domestic daily night trains in Italy), passed the bill for regional services to the regional governments, severely reduced service in some lines (though recent lines closure were not that impressive and there are 400km that could be cut overnight without making a dent either in road traffic or overall rail traffic) and decided to go for 2 expensive projects: renovations of 18 major train stations and the High Speed main axis, speeding up plans of what once was envisioned to be completed only by 2020 and is already running.

^^ The result are holes of three hours without trains between intermediate cities between Milan and Bologna (each from 50.000 to 300.000 inhabitants and spaced 40 km between each other), something that in the Netherlands or Switzerland would have a train every 15-30 minutes.

^^ The result are holes of three hours without trains between intermediate cities between Milan and Bologna (each from 50.000 to 300.000 inhabitants and spaced 40 km between each other), something that in the Netherlands or Switzerland would have a train every 15-30 minutes.

They just enlarged the A1 and more lanes are coming there like the Modena-Piacenza widening!

I respect your arguments, even disagreeing with them. Still, this specific case appears to be a broadcasting of the rant of Piacenza, Modena and Parma and Reggio Emillia for having lost more than half of their non-regional train services when the HSL Milano-Bologna came to life couple years ago. They regained almost 70% of the original # of non-Regionale trains calling there already, including fast connections in rush hours with Rome (Frecciarossa) that are AV sets running on classical line up to Bologna and from then onwards on HSL. Frecciabranca, semi-fast services capable of operating on HSL and classical ones, runs 12 times daily. There are no trains (save for crappy regional ones) running from 10h30 to 13h30, but this is the least traveled time. A1 never gets congested that time!

There are no trains (save for crappy regional ones) running from 10h30 to 13h30, but this is the least traveled time. A1 never gets congested that time!

It's a classic chicken and egg problem: It there are no trains there will be no travelers. However Trenitalia seems to miss that the marginal cost of increasing frequency to hourly all day is rather small. (Or they are, as I suspect, horrendously inefficient) Don't forget that most people travel twice a day, and that someone leaving at 7h30 might well want to return at 12h30. And when there is no train at that time decide not to travel, or travel via some other means.
When you abolish a train that has 50 customers on it, you thus usually end up losing more than 50 customers.
There are railways in Europe that manage to make money with classical IC services. They all run hourly, patterned, co-ordinated services, with no gaps in the pattern. Why would you think that would be?

It's a classic chicken and egg problem: It there are no trains there will be no travelers. However Trenitalia seems to miss that the marginal cost of increasing frequency to hourly all day is rather small. (Or they are, as I suspect, horrendously inefficient) Don't forget that most people travel twice a day, and that someone leaving at 7h30 might well want to return at 12h30. And when there is no train at that time decide not to travel, or travel via some other means.
When you abolish a train that has 50 customers on it, you thus usually end up losing more than 50 customers.
There are railways in Europe that manage to make money with classical IC services. They all run hourly, patterned, co-ordinated services, with no gaps in the pattern. Why would you think that would be?

Coordinated operations are per nature monopolistic (privatizing a rail company and giving it a schedule to run doesn't help much). I fiercely oppose the idea of the State setting schedules for people to travel (though I don't mind the State keeping tracks, runways and roadbed open and fit to traffic AS LONG AS IT DOESN'T MESS WITH VEHICLES, FARES AND DRIVERS/PILOTS).

Therefore, the idea of a centralized network is anathema for me, so gaps in the network provide opportunity to competition and new entrants on the rail market, which is a good on itself, regardless of the results.

The purpose of government investment in airports is not to provide a national coordinated flight schedule to minimize travel times and fuel spent, it is, indeed, to provide slots so private airlines can fly where/when they want unconstrained. Same goes for roads. Same should go for tracks.

You're wrong.
Coordination isn't monopolistic at all. You can find them in every industry and every economy, no matter how regulated it is.
If a cooperation can lead to a win-win result for all involved companies, why wouldn't they do it?
In the case of rail operators its rather simple: If coorinated schedules provide better services and make passenger numbers grow more than it could be achieved by every company on its own, they will most probably cooperate - even without regulation by government.

It seems your understanding of free markets (or lets say economy in general) is quite limited. :cheers:

My wife and I took the DB Autozug from Hambug in Germany to Bolzano/Bozen in northern Italy in September 2008. I think it cost about €470, which worked out a bit more than the cost of fuel and hotels, but was definitely worth it from a relaxation and novelty perspective. Since we'd already driven from Dublin, Ireland across the UK, through Belgium, and up to Hamburg, it was a much more relaxing way to head down to Italy.

1. We checked in at Hamburg-Altona station. Here's a shot of us waiting in the line to board after check-in for the 14.00 service to Italy. When the train was ready to board, any passengers go on foot to their carriage, while the driver drives his/her car onto the train.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_nqjnogKfNLs/TI_K0nES9sI/AAAAAAAAAww/-H5kaPE6F6U/IMG_0785.JPG

2. The train itself was made up of the car carriers, couchette carriages, a dining car, and sleeper carriages and was hauled by an electric DB locomotive.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_nqjnogKfNLs/TI_J-Pu01BI/AAAAAAAAAwY/-kdPDuMI_NE/IMG_0793.JPG
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_nqjnogKfNLs/TI_J9gim9VI/AAAAAAAAAwU/0-oup8rRoi0/IMG_0791.JPG

3. There was one intermediate stop before we hit Italy, at Dusseldorf to load more cars and passengers. We were there for about 40 mins.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_nqjnogKfNLs/TI_J_6u8oTI/AAAAAAAAAwk/rNBuASi8RF4/IMG_0808.JPG

4. We had a private sleeping compartment for three people (even though there was only two of us. Here are some shots of it set up for daytime use (ie the bunk beds folded away). There was also a hand wash sink in our compartment, and a shared shower at the end of the sleeping car. A fold-down table was perfect for the laptop, so we could watch movies as the countryside rolled by. The dining car served good meals, but could get crowded at dinner time and we had to queue for 20 mins for a seat.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_nqjnogKfNLs/TI_J_JCkP6I/AAAAAAAAAwc/jeMYz58IP-g/IMG_0797.JPG
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_nqjnogKfNLs/TI_J_na-HfI/AAAAAAAAAwg/GPZTTQF9Jpk/IMG_0802.JPG

5. After we returned from dinner, the steward had converted our compartment for night time operation.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_nqjnogKfNLs/TI_KAVvLPFI/AAAAAAAAAwo/xSXLpT6_qwc/s720/IMG_0829.JPG

6. There were two stops to offload cars in Italy. Ours was the first, in Bozen/Bolzano. You could also have continued to Verona. The car carriers for Bozen were decoupled from the end of the train, and a shunter came to bring them to the unloading ramps.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_nqjnogKfNLs/TI_I9DUncuI/AAAAAAAAAvg/G28HXuqYEeQ/IMG_0877.JPG
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_nqjnogKfNLs/TI_I9x7uHmI/AAAAAAAAAvk/2tB5u7zKy2s/IMG_0879.JPG
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_nqjnogKfNLs/TI_I-5a2CII/AAAAAAAAAvo/LJ2QwJCqP4Q/IMG_0886.JPG

7. Once the carriers were shunted into position, drivers were allowed onto them and drove their cars off.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_nqjnogKfNLs/TI_JB8PCQ7I/AAAAAAAAAv0/xgpkZBSVuzg/IMG_0901.JPG
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_nqjnogKfNLs/TI_JCY0xtUI/AAAAAAAAAv4/zLnpzNULNu4/IMG_0902.JPG
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_nqjnogKfNLs/TI_JDtcQH2I/AAAAAAAAAv8/b5Q4n2Ks3KA/IMG_0905.JPG

Hope this was useful.

/csd

You have a point. SBB was a bit ambitious too. When the (Italian) manufacturer...

The manufacturer of the ETR600/610 is not italian anymore.

AWESOME pics CSD. :) :bow: :cheers:

The intention to introduce a federal bill bringing about obligatory piggyback trains was reported on about a decade ago, yet nothing's been said since then. The corresponding corridor was to alleviate the autoroute between Montreal and Toronto of its too many trucks, 24/7. The following footage doesn't illustrate the truck problem all that well, for it shows the six-laning in and around southern Ontario (Toronto?); most of the autoroute's merely four lanes (captured in the last couple of minutes although missing trucks, comparatively-speaking :uh: :uh: :uh:) plus most of its truck traffic originates in either one of the two cities - driving that autoroute as a regular motorist is wearying:

ZvbhaRkm4p8

pCWlfLkRxh4
:shocked: oh crap, plus it's on an autoroute ...