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Should the US build or improve it's HSR network?

  • Yes

    Votes: 620 93.0%
  • No

    Votes: 47 7.0%
2M views 10K replies 812 participants last post by  sacto7654 
#1 ·
Acela Express...a major disappointment?

This was once touted as an alternative to driving and flying between Washington and New York and Boston at comparable comfort and speed to flying. Is this a major disappointment, and does it have a negative effect on the future of train travel in the US?
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Amtrak cancels once-ballyhooed Acela Express because of brake problems
Saturday, April 16, 2005
By Devlin Barrett, The Associated Press


WASHINGTON -- The Acela Express, Amtrak's much-ballyhooed hope for high-speed train travel, was shut down indefinitely Friday because of brake problems, leaving thousands of travelers scrambling for other transportation.

The beleaguered rail service pressed slower trains into use along the Northeast corridor between Washington, New York and Boston.

All Acela service will be suspended at least through next Wednesday and most is likely to be shut down for much longer because of newly discovered cracks in disc brakes, said Amtrak chief operating officer Bill Crosbie.

"We're very early into this," said Crosbie, estimating it was likely to take more than two months to do all the repairs, depending on the availability of replacement parts.

Millimeter-sized cracks were found in 300 of the Acela fleet's 1,440 disc brake rotors.

Amtrak said the extra trains would not be able to compensate for all the lost Acela seats. People with reservations who cannot get a ticket on another train -- or don't want one -- are entitled to a refund, the company said.

Amtrak normally runs 15 Acela weekday roundtrips between New York and Washington and 11 between New York and Boston. Acela accounts for about 20 percent of Amtrak's Boston-New York-Washington weekday service, some 9,000 passengers. On Friday's that's usually about 10,000.

The cracked brakes come at a bad time for Amtrak. A Senate committee will debate next week whether to end the rail service's federal subsidy -- as the Bush administration has recommended -- and radically reshape train travel in the United States.

"We're always under political pressure," said Amtrak CEO David Gunn. "I don't think that this will be a factor per se."

When Acela service was launched Dec. 11, 2000, the trains were billed as the faster, brighter future of Amtrak. Running only in the Northeast corridor, the trains can reach speeds of 150 mph and feature amenities such as conference tables in passenger cars, pub-style cafe cars with expanded menus and three audio music channels with headphone outlets at each seat.

The manufacturer, Bombardier Inc., had no immediate explanation for the cracks found on the steel spokes of disc brakes on most coaches.

"We want to get them up and running as soon as possible, but until we really understand the issue fully that's going to be an open question," said Bombardier spokesman David Slack.

The cracks were discovered during routine inspections, and no brake failures or other safety problems had occurred, Amtrak said.

That was little comfort to stranded business travelers and those who had made weekend plans.

Standing in line at New York's Penn Station, accountant Linda Priebe feared she wouldn't make it home to Baltimore Friday.

"If they can't give me a ticket to go in a couple of hours, I'm going back to the hotel," she said.

Art curator Stanley Babcock wasn't ready to give up.

He said he was ready to ride sitting on the floor. "Otherwise all my hotel and restaurant plans will be ruined."

Most other Amtrak service was scheduled to operate normally, but the company added four more regional trains Friday to try to handle the displaced passengers.

"It's going to be a challenge for us because we have limited additional equipment," said spokesman Cliff Black.

Lawmakers already upset over the Bush administration's plans to end most funding for Amtrak argued the incident shows Amtrak needs more help, not less.

"When Amtrak is terribly underfunded and has to operate on a shoestring budget, these kinds of things will keep happening, which will really disrupt people's lives and our economy," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

The White House seeks to radically reshape what Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta had called "a dying railroad company."

A day before the Acela cancellation, the administration sent Congress a plan to reshape Amtrak as a private operator focused on running trains, not maintaining tracks or stations.

President Bush proposed in his 2006 budget eliminating Amtrak's operating subsidy. If the railroad ceased operating, the administration has offered to set aside $360 million to run trains along the Northeast Corridor. The current budget gives Amtrak some $1.2 billion in operating subsidies and capital investment.

Acela Express service also was halted in August 2002 after inspectors discovered cracks on a bracket holding a shock-absorbing assembly to one Acela Express locomotive. Additional cracks were later found around the assemblies of other locomotives.
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#1,030 ·
^^ Certainly. We are talking about the same thing: if you read the second part of what I wrote on post #541, you'll see that I actually said that sometimes bigger stations have to subsidize small ones.

However, like I also said earlier, comparing railroad stations to airports is not all that simple. In a rail system like Amtrak, the operator (Amtrak) usually owns the stations. Now with airports, the owner (usually local government) doesn't operate routes from there to nowhere, as they are not into airline business. Also, sometimes local government has to maintain a losing-money airport in order to offer more strategic services to its local community and the same thing goes for rail stations.

The bottom line is we (you and I) are agreeing here.
 
#1,031 ·
@Streetview:

I guess I didn't make my point clear. I would support, under certain restrains (like not diverting money from road or air transportation...), government-backed ownership of tracks and stations. There are a lot of airport which do not collect enough money to pay for their own operation through fees and concessions. Likewise, I see no major problems if the government decides to build stations without immediate perspective of high income generation.

I was refferring to train services themselves. Given the stations and the tracks, there is no point is subsidizing a given train serice if it cannot be itself profitable. Suppose there is a high speed rail from Miami to Atlanta, with some stations between, all of them government-owned. Then, private operators (likewise airlines) should lease/buy and operate trains at their will, paying use fees for stations and tracks to the agency who owns them, and competing for highest bid in case of timesXstretches in which there are more rail operators wanting to run trains than track capacity. By the way, brand new pure HS lines can accomodate up to 15 services per direction per hour (HSL-Zuid, Milano-Roma axis etc.).

In that scenario, what I meant is that if no train operator finds a service attractive, it should be not provided. If no one can/would run profitable trains between Daytona Beach and Jacksonville, there is no reason to "foce" a operator to run a service there as a compensation for being "allowed" to run Talahassee / Miami ones, for instance.

I'm assuming we are talking about high-speed rail, meant for medium distance. If we were talking about a metropolitan commuter rail (MARTA or PATH for instance), things would be different. I do not see a reason why specific train services should be offered once tracks ans stations are there for the use of private operators.

Then, likewise airport construction, it would be up to government entities who invest in tracks and stations to make informed guess (at least) about viability of routes and stations proposed, otherwise, they will end up empty with no services running, in the same fashion that building a 4 runways 12.000 ft each airport in Sheridan, WY, won't make it a major international passenger hub.
 
#1,032 ·
I guess I didn't make my point clear. I would support, under certain restrains (like not diverting money from road or air transportation...), government-backed ownership of tracks and stations. There are a lot of airport which do not collect enough money to pay for their own operation through fees and concessions. Likewise, I see no major problems if the government decides to build stations without immediate perspective of high income generation.

I was refferring to train services themselves.
It's funny, you're pretty much aligned with the prevailing attitudes here in France. When a new HS line is prepared there's (nearly) always a demand that the train SERVICES shall be expectecd to generate enough revenue to pay for the CONSTRUCTION of the tracks. Often the payback period is not that long either. Another story entirely is the acquisition of land and rights of way. This the government subsidies with big hands in the hope of, some day, getting the money back. The logic is not unlike yours ("...we also pay public money for roads and sea ports..."), plus the French have a high opinion of the staying value of land. If they ever regret having built a railway line (and assuming that the construction costs have been recouperated) they can always remove the tracks and sell the land at a profit. All good and neat, but...


...what is less good and neat is, instead of paying the "land subsidies" up front as part of the fiscal budgets they rolled it into the track operating company RFF which is now buckling under an unmanagable debt burden.
 
#1,033 ·
Heres some recent Videos of the Acela form my Favorite NEC Railfanners

Kingston,RI






Heres a video form a barrowed NJT Train carrying ppl down to DC form the Obama inauguration.



Some things Amtrak Experimented with back in the 90s for HSR possibilities , and may now be purchased for future HSL , Because Amtrak is replacing 85% of there Fleet , with newer lighter Trains in Diesel & Electric forms.



~Corey
 
#1,035 ·
^^
Since nobody happened to answer my question as to whether service 1 should be discontinued or not, I will post a few reasons why it should be maintained even though it doesn't appear to be making money.

Suburbanist, I said that, in order to cover capital costs, Amtrak (on that fictional example) should "charge" from each service $20 per hauled mile. I also said that its trains run a total of 1600 miles per day (1200 from service 1 and 400 from service 2), so capital costs are about $32,000.00 per day. If we chose to discontinue service 1, it would reduce the profitability of service 2 by $24,000.00 per day, because then service 2 would have to pay for all capital costs, because even with only one service the company has to have maintenance depots, reservation systems, they have to pay for their stations and rolling stock and all of that.

However, if we were reasonable to say because service 2 accounts for only 40% of the daily departures, so only 40% of the capital costs would remain (it's just an supposition -- in the real world more than 40% would remain), then total capital costs would be $12,800.00 per day, reducing profitability of service 2 by $4,800.00 per day, making it lose $400 per day.


You can see all the (fictional) numbers organized on two tables, as follows.

----------- Distance-- Freq-- Dist/Day--- Cap Cost------ Spec Cost------ Total Cost
Service 1--- 200------ 6----- 1200------ $ (24.000,00)--- $ (60.000,00)--- $ (84.000,00)
Service 2--- 100------ 4----- 400------- $ (8.000,00)---- $ (20.000,00)--- $ (28.000,00)
Freq: Frequency / Dist/Day: Distance per day / Cap Cost: Capital Costs / Spec Cost: Specific Costs


-------Pass/Trip-- Trips-- Tot Pass---Fare------ Revenue------ Costs---------- Profit
Serv 1-- 200------ 6------ 1200------ $69,00--- $82.800,00-- $(84.000,00)-- $(1.200,00)
Serv 2-- 180------ 4------ 720------- $45,00--- $32.400,00-- $ (28.000,00)-- $4.400,00
Pass/Trip: Passengers per trip / Tot Pass: Total Passengers (day)

Moreover, there are other reasons for keeping a loss-making service. These reasons could be:

Connecting traffic: sometimes a few loss-making services provide connecting traffic that helps the most important services remain profitable (this applies more to airlines than rail service);
Schedules & Timetables: there are situations where a train is only profitable because an unprofitable train operates. For instance, the first departure of the day runs at a 95% load factor and 45% of this traffic returns on the last departure of the day. However, the last departure of the day operates only with a 50% load factor, which is not enough to break even. By discontinuing the last departure of the day, the first train of the day could lose as much as 45% of its passengers, thus becoming a loss-maker as well.

These are just a couple reasons why sometimes unprofitable services should be kept -- because they benefit the system. It is not rare for a company to look at each service individually and overlook the fact that even though some services don't appear to be profitable, they actually make the rest of the system more profitable.
 
#1,036 ·
Connecting traffic: sometimes a few loss-making services provide connecting traffic that helps the most important services remain profitable (this applies more to airlines than rail service);
This was something the railways in Britain discovered after the Beeching cuts. A lot of the 'mainline' passengers dried up after the under-used unprofitable branch lines were given the chop. Further undermining profitability of the whole.

Unfortunately cold hard statistics are normally focused on a specific as per your example, and it is hard to effectively explain the reality of passenger behaviour unless the model becomes necessarily complex. In part because it is quite easy to re-model a sepecific set of statistics to confirm most preconceptions. This is also what happened in the UK in the mid 20th century.
 
#1,037 ·
That is fair easy: set up a consistent origin-and-destination market research. There is no rocket science involved in identifying where people come from and go to. Sample, ask, analyze - and that is it.

Of course I do not ignore the importance of feeder services, akin of commuter short haul flights that feed main hub-to-hub traffic of so many airlines. Rail companies should and would analyze the overall income brought from passengers departing and arriving from a giving station, and impacts on overall demand for their services, likewise supermarkets usually sell generic groceries and basic food at a loss to they can atract costumers to buy profitable appliances for instance, yet they will not let a store open if its overall operation is not profitable.

That why we must have private rail operators for non-daily commuting traffic services, and let them compete against each other over the same tracks which would be owned by a public entity. I fear that public train operators would be pressured to provide "comprehensive" service over its economic feasibility. Sure, we need a backbone, go-everywhere transport network (government build roads even if its usage is very load because it is unconceivable to have, say, a village or a small city unconnected just because traffic doesn't justify laying tarmac over a dirt road), but this role is fulfilled by road transportation, not rail.

I see rail and air transportation as high capacity and supplementary networks that do not have to reach every corner of every state. In case of air transport, there is a program which provides some subsidize for some "strategic" air routes whose operation would be otherwise unnatractive or loss-generating for airlines. I do not see a compelling reason out of vanity or nostalgy for which passenger rail services (I'm not reffering to track laying) should be entitled to.

Amtrak should have died completely in early 80's, so we would be talking now about only HSR, state-of-the art fast rail services, not "enchanced" serices running at 100 mph in century-old railways as the last marvel of passenger transportation :( So bad that Reagan didn't shut down Amtrak altogether.
 
#1,039 ·
That is fair easy: set up a consistent origin-and-destination market research. There is no rocket science involved in identifying where people come from and go to. Sample, ask, analyze - and that is it.
Definitely. There's no better way of planning future products and service than asking your customers what they think. However, we cannot forget that in certain cases the demand is there, not too small to be left behind but not too big to justify high frequency service.

That why we must have private rail operators for non-daily commuting traffic services, and let them compete against each other over the same tracks which would be owned by a public entity. I fear that public train operators would be pressured to provide "comprehensive" service over its economic feasibility. Sure, we need a backbone, go-everywhere transport network (government build roads even if its usage is very load because it is unconceivable to have, say, a village or a small city unconnected just because traffic doesn't justify laying tarmac over a dirt road), but this role is fulfilled by road transportation, not rail.
In theory that would be perfect, but it reality we know that nothing is perfect. I'm sure it would be nice to choose from a non-stop service from New York Penn Station to Washington DC provided by another rail company, instead of the traditional 8-stop Amtrak service between those two cities. Of course people like to have choices. But in order to trains bypass each other, there has to be an extra track. United States law allows states' governments to charge property taxes on railroad tracks, so it's not just the expense of building and maintaining those tracks.

Airlines are different, because once the airplanes are in the air, they don't have to run on any structure. Air is free and it doesn't have to be built or repaired and maintained. Moreover, nobody owns the air, so no one has to pay property taxes.

I see rail and air transportation as high capacity and supplementary networks that do not have to reach every corner of every state. In case of air transport, there is a program which provides some subsidize for some "strategic" air routes whose operation would be otherwise unnatractive or loss-generating for airlines. I do not see a compelling reason out of vanity or nostalgy for which passenger rail services (I'm not reffering to track laying) should be entitled to.
Yes. Personally I think that a complete transportation network should include short bus services (no longer than 100 miles), which would take passengers from small towns that cannot support train stations to the nearest town/city served by rail. Long-distance trains should move people between smaller towns and bigger cities and airports, for those who would be traveling really long distances (like 500+ miles). Main airports should have a ground transportation center attached to their terminals. This way, long-distance trains and local rail services could feed airline flights, allowing even code-share agreements between rail operators and airlines. It already happens in France, if I'm not mistaken, where American Airlines code-shares with SNCF. Continental code-shares with a few Amtrak services at Newark Liberty Int'l Airport. This could be a win-win situation, providing alternative routes to people who live in small towns poorly served by airlines and don't want to drive alone when traveling long distances. It could expand both the rail passengers market and the scheduled airlines market.

Amtrak already provides bus services connecting specific towns to train stations, called Amtrak Thruway Motorcoaches. The problem I see is that this service has taken over many train services, leaving big cities (like Las Vegas, NV) with no rail service at all.

Amtrak should have died completely in early 80's, so we would be talking now about only HSR, state-of-the art fast rail services, not "enchanced" serices running at 100 mph in century-old railways as the last marvel of passenger transportation :( So bad that Reagan didn't shut down Amtrak altogether.
I don't really think so. Unfortunately truth is that if Amtrak had completely died, long-distance train services in the United States would be almost non-existent nowadays. Should the government have left passenger rail service to privately owned companies, the only existing service today would be the Northeast Corridor. Almost nobody supports passenger rail service in the US (nobody meaning the people, government/politicians and private companies), therefore I believe that train speeds and technology wouldn't be any better than what Amtrak offers today. With the record-high gas prices in 2008, Amtrak gained a lot of attention as an alternative for travelers not willing to pay high gas prices or higher airline fares and baggage fees. Probably the economy would have hurt much more if Amtrak wasn't there.
 
#1,040 ·
complete transportation network should include short bus services (no longer than 100 miles), which would take passengers from small towns that cannot support train stations to the nearest town/city served by rail.
No need for that. With low driving and car ownership costs, everyone could drive 100 miles to the nearest station or renting a car in a station and driving 100 miles to a small town. It would be too costly to provide every single incorporated town a public transit connection.

How much intercity market share does Amtrak have? I doubt it is over 1,5%, but right now DOT site is under maitenance, so maybe I'll check later and edit this post.

As for long routes, I've read conflicting reports, but all from news outltes, that routes like the Sunset Limited operate at a loss equivalent at more than $ 200 per passsenger travelling the whole route from N. Orleans to California... Indeed, I'd say every multi-day transcontinental journeys are unprofitable. Does anyone have more detailed information in which Amtral services are profitable, and which are not?

Europe is cutting hard on overnight train services due to competition with both faster high-speed day trains and low-cost airlines. Amtrak should to, at least, the same and drop those routes leaving to Chicago all the way to the West Cost, the Sunset Limited, Florida - Virginia trains, Crescent express etc. Only vacationers are served with 72h train journeys departing 3 times a week. Concentrate operations in commuting and medium distance clusters in California, around Chicago, between Texas and Oklahoma, in the NEC, and that is it - no need to run biweekly trains just to have a nice route map.
 
#1,041 ·
No need for that. With low driving and car ownership costs, everyone could drive 100 miles to the nearest station or renting a car in a station and driving 100 miles to a small town. It would be too costly to provide every single incorporated town a public transit connection.
I'm not saying that every town and settlement should be served by Thruway Motorcoaches. Sometimes it's not worth driving because you'd have to pay for overnight parking and gas, so if a bus can take you from your town to the train station, it could be a good deal, especially because Thruway Motorcoaches' schedules are usually coordinated with train schedules.

How much intercity market share does Amtrak have? I doubt it is over 1,5%, but right now DOT site is under maitenance, so maybe I'll check later and edit this post.
I don't know the market-share numbers, but I know that last year Amtrak ridership was 28.7 million passengers. This is a historical record on Amtrak's life and ridership has raised for six years in a row. If Amtrak was counted as an airline, it would be the 8th in number of passengers served.

As for long routes, I've read conflicting reports, but all from news outltes, that routes like the Sunset Limited operate at a loss equivalent at more than $ 200 per passsenger travelling the whole route from N. Orleans to California... Indeed, I'd say every multi-day transcontinental journeys are unprofitable. Does anyone have more detailed information in which Amtral services are profitable, and which are not?
As far as I know, there are very few profitable services on Amtrak's network. I read somewhere that pretty much only the Northeast Corridor is profitable. Other than that, the Cascades service (Portland, OR-Seattle-Vancouver, BC) is also profitable along with some service operating from Chicago.

Europe is cutting hard on overnight train services due to competition with both faster high-speed day trains and low-cost airlines. Amtrak should to, at least, the same and drop those routes leaving to Chicago all the way to the West Cost, the Sunset Limited, Florida - Virginia trains, Crescent express etc. Only vacationers are served with 72h train journeys departing 3 times a week. Concentrate operations in commuting and medium distance clusters in California, around Chicago, between Texas and Oklahoma, in the NEC, and that is it - no need to run biweekly trains just to have a nice route map.
Right, but we can't forget that ridership has increased on services like the Empire Builder (Chicago-St. Paul-Montana-Spokane-Seattle/Portland) and the Silver Services (New York-Florida). I think they need to reorganize schedules and offer additional service in certain segments where there is demand (like Minneapolis/St. Paul-Chicago).

Overnight trains can still be a good option in the United States. It will take some time until the US can build up a high-speed rail network as extensive as Europe's. Some services like the Pennsylvanian take more than 9 hours to complete the journey. I have taken this service before and I would take it overnight if I was going from New York to Pittsburgh. Although I had booked a coach seat I was surprised to see how comfortable it was -- it offers a lot of legroom, decent recline and footrests. I think it is more comfortable than most first class domestic airline seats. Also, sometimes people paying for their own trips prefer to travel overnight, so they can save money that would be spent on an extra night at the hotel. Just a few overnight trains to a few different destinations should do it. There's no need to have more than one overnight departure (maybe two, depending on the demand) to the same destination, because you can always couple more cars to the trains, so if demand is high, you can run with 8 cars instead of 6.
 
#1,043 ·
^^
Interesting. I'm not really an insider when it comes to rail transport in Europe, as I don't really read much about it and I have never been to Europe, unfortunately. I can totally understand why France sees overnight trains as a "last century" solution -- France is a small country, compared to the US, and they have an extensive HSR network.

But things are different in the US & Canada, don't you think? Both countries are really large in territory, none of them has a well-developed HSR network and car-culture prevails in both countries (generally -- not talking about specific cities or regions).

On my previous post I meant to say that night trains could be a temporary solution while HSR is not available in places other than the Northeast Corridor. As the HSR network get improvements and expansions, night trains could be phased out, although I think that night trains could be kept in certain routes, so Amtrak's guests could have options of different service speeds and fare (based on speed). Other than that, I think what you wrote on the last paragraph can be pretty much applied to the United States scenario, considering that Midwest and Rocky Mountain states are not as densely populated as states of the East and West Coasts, Great Lakes region and Texas. For obvious reasons I'm not including Alaska and Hawaii on that scenario.
 
#1,044 ·
^^C'est que... please don't misunderstand my purpose, Streetview. If anything I wanted to say that North America need to keep their nighters alive for ex-act-ly the same reason that the Russians do so: the distances are simply 3x bigger than in Europe. On a corridor of less than 1,000 km (i.e. a corridor of "European" rather than "American/Russian" length) I'd persist in calling it a bit "last century", but, again, I agree with you that if the clients are there then whyever not? It may as you say serve as a stop-gap until something more modern has been developed.

My second point was that "habitual scoffers" such as La Vie de Rail may yet have to eat their own words for a second reason, namely - as I argued in a good many words - that the sleeper trains may yet gain a renaissance in the form of night HS trains.
 
#1,046 ·
Guys, air travel doesn't know borders. No one (except for rail fans) would travel LAX-ORD or MIA-BOS in a multiday journey. Full HSR is a very intersting concept, but it is not suitable for >1500 km journeys as it is not suitable for regional commuting (<50 km, say).
 
#1,081 ·
Family of 5 on vacations = pick the "overnight" express sleeper (running at 200/225km/h 125/140mph ?) Depart from BostonHSR station at 21h(9pm) and arrive at Miami HSR at 8h (8am)

Business Executive (option A) = depart from Boston Airport as early as 6am and catch a plain that LAUNCHES at 8am to Miami ... arrive at 12h ... do your business and calmly return on the nightly train ..

Business Executive (option B) = depart from BostonHSR at 6h00 in the morning DIRECT HST to Washington (use the time to sleep?) ... arrive in Washington at 8h00 (roundabound HSR bypasses in NYC and Phillie?) have your instant comute checkin on board and hop into the folowing Washington-Atlanta HST arriving at 10h30 (breakfast and some 2 hours of work on the laptop) ... jump into the nearest Miami bound HSand arrive at 13h just in time for the meeting ... time can be used for on-the-run meetings with coworkers/clients from other areas ... when all work is done just catch the evening flight back home.

^^ When the options DO EXIST things start to revolve around a much different star ... :lol:

I had that idea myself already but it seems its not realistic, which is a pity. The reason is that high speed tracks need a lot of regular maintenance which is carried out during the nights, when there is no service. That's what I was told at least.
An early departure (let's say 5h45) can cover a lot of ground before breakfast ... connecting DOT's make the longer routes feasible ... but they are not the MAIN purpose of the long routes creation.

Boston-NYC-Phillie-Washington = 650km ... de-saturate the NEC
Washington-Richmond-Raleigh-Charlote-Atlanta = 850km ... a good excuse to de-saturate the airspace in the east ???
Atlanta-Jacksonville = 450km ... a good "pure" HSR ???
Florida "mirrored" F HSNetwork = 500km north-south ... trains each 10 minutes along it's tracks ??? :lol:

think about DUPLEX high speed trains 400m long (16 double deck coaches carrying some 6000 pax each in those long-hauls ... now think that If you leave NYC at 6am by 11am you would be in the sunny beaches of Florida (1400km between NYC and Jacksonville). :cheers:

Exaclty Slartibartfas. I'll talk a little about the situation in Europe.

Demand for night trains is falling fast, and with the annualy timetable adjustment (done in mid-December yearly) for 2010, a lot of night services have been axed. For instance, in Italy they cut more night trains past December, they are down to 34% of services offerred 10 years ago.

Night trains interfere excessively with freight operation that dominate most Western Europe railways. For a freight train, it is not big deal to be held for 2 or 3 hours, or to operate under "strange" schedules if that is what optimizes traffic. Same cannot be said for passenger traffic. Indeed, passenger traffic is very disruptive to freight traffic as peak-holiday car traffic (Christmas, summer weekends etc.) severely disrupts truck traffic in Western Europe.

Assuming night trains are not operating regular seat cars, they need to be very long and thus operate with extended platforms.

There is, also, a cultural change: shared compartments are not longer vastly tolerated as something civilized. Many people that wouldn't mind be stranded on an airplane seat for 3 or 4 hours would not accept the idea of sleeping in a bunk bed, in the dark, in a 500m-long trains in a compartment filled with strangers. It is a pattern with consequence in other areas, like demise of hotels with shared bathrooms, end of organized tours that offered "shared accomodotation" to people travelling alone, children having their own bedroom from early age etc. Private night compartmens can be luxurious, but they are expensive.

Finally, as Slartibafpas said, high speed rail is desgined to operate without restrictions during peak/day hours, like a subway, but then they need to be partially or totally closed during the night to allow space for cleaning maitenance etc. It is not feasible to operate a round-the-clock high-speed line with the extremely high reliability we have today.
Freigh in europe doesn't run in "dedicated" HS trackage... in the east (in USA) there is so much population scatered around everywhere to serve that a nightly (read early morning) operation would be like having rush hour from 5am to 10pm ... :lol:

I don't think so. First, people usually don't driver overnight expecting to enjoy the whole following day. I've done some overnights driving trips (Irún-Genova, Amsterdam-Firenze, Los Angeles-Salt Lake City for instance), and they worn you out once you arrive. Even more important is the fact that group car travel (4 people in the same car) is fairly cheap even with insidious gas taxes and overpriced tolls in Europe. Families take the car to their vacations because it allows them to make short trips once they arrive in their destinations, giving them unmatched flexibilty once you arrive.

When it comes to price, it is unfeasible that an overnight train will ever match low-cost airfares. If I were an airline CEO, I'd put my prices as low as possible in any new overnight train route to fight it to the death, if I ever felt that it were to be a threaten to my business. Same for speed: no comercially competitive 500 mph trains are expected to be in service for the foreseeable future.
Most low cost airline CEO's look into HSRoperations as if looking at a sacrificial pig ... others look at it as a pot of gold. :cheers:

A) Fly Boston-Orlando ... leave home at 5am in a CAB or your own car ... arrive at 15h in Disney with the kids ... un-automobilized

B) leave home in your car ... pack it into a Auto-train at 8pm and boar the night express (probably even with a McDonalds restaurant on board) ... arrive at Orlando at 7h in the morning ... get up ... pick up your own car ... happy hollidays.

The potential for seasonal travelling (be it leasure or business) is enormous in the USA ...

So the only advantage of a (non subisidized) night train would be delivering passengers willing to pay premium fares for single/double compartments so they can travel overnight. Moreover, many night routes are purposedly "slowed down" in order to increase total travel time. This is the only reason to explain why some night trains take as long as 40 years ago to travel in conventional rail where extensive modernization was done in past decades, yet who wants to arrive at 3 AM in Berlin?

Even in Europe, after cars became comfortable and more reliable in the mid-60's, night train travel never accounted for a significant part of long distance travel. It was, is and will always be a niche that will be never profitable in many routes.

In Italy, when they cut down the "espresso" night services up to 80%, there was an outcry far beyond reasonable. It was a kind of "entitlement" those 1500km+ routes linking different regions, and journalists complained that it would be "unfair" to target cheap services that catered for the poor Italians and students who couldn't otherwise afford holiday trips to their hometowns to have luch with mama. These trains had a lot of seat compartments that allowed one to travel from Milano to Reggio Calabria, for instrance, for less then 40 euros (1880km...) in 15 to 17 hours! An absurd, Third-World service indeed.
Night trains IN THE OLD "standards" ara thing of the past ... just like slam door / 2 axle COMUTER coaches is nowadays ... night trains travelling at 200km/h ARE NOT a thing of the past ... a big diference.

Most of those trains were cut and nobody (save for rail fans or eldery retirees "too old to start flying" Easyjet at 60 y.o.) misses it. I don't like the idea of government stepping in to finance backpacker's transportation too (so they can maximize the # of cities they visit during their winter break by taking as many night trains as possible...).
this is b0ll 5hit ... 60yo are the main age target of Easyjet/Ryr ... in fact low cost IS favorite amongst retirees/youngsters.



Freeing up the tracks for freight-only operations during the night would be an AMAZING thing to do. Suppose it were possible to run only frieght trains, innovative route planning and service scheduling schemes could be placed to increase efficiency and speed of European cargo rail service, which is lagging behind US in many aspects.

In case of US, the share of overnight train trips is so, so small that increasing it 10-fold would be still negligible.
Night trains usually are run in 2 (two) different ways in europe ... you either get a city-to-city night train or you get a rolling hotel serving a lot of intermediate cities ... those of the former usually just dump you in a freight sidding somewhere between the night to kill some time ... the others just hop as fast as they can to run and run hundreds of miles ... :bash:
 
#1,047 ·
^^Suburbanist, you don't quote me/us correctly. I agree with you that there is no mass market for multiday train journeys. We were speaking of night trains. Let me give you a concrete example: 15 years ago I lived in Switzerland. My mother, then still a busy and quietly successful business woman, would drop in from Denmark and visit me occasionally. Her time was not to be wasted, WHICH IS PRECISELY WHY she always took the night train back and forth. She slept (unlike yours faithfully, BTW) excellently in a moving train, so for her the best of all worlds was getting into a train after the end of a working day (I think it left around 8 pm) and arriving to Basle just after 8 am. Conversely, had she taken the plane she would have wasted the better part of half a working day in each direction. (Admittedly it was before the days of Internet, mobile phones and Blackberries: You couldn't work in an airport.)

All I'm saying is, in those days of slow-moving trains this "good-night's-sleep-and-arrive-in-the-morning" was possible on distances of 800-1200 km. In the brave new world of cross-border HS trains it may be possible on distances of 2000-2500 km?

Finally, I'm perhaps a bit more sceptical of the potential for this concept in the United States. It would work in Europe because the HS links between related cities (e.g. Paris-Lyon; Madrid-Barcelona) is slowly coming together to a network. In the US I'd say HS is for "local use". San Francisco-LA, Boston-NY-DC and some sort of "HS star" around Chicago make excellent sense to me. (I'm sure some other prospective local HS projects could be added to the list. Florida? Texas?) Trying to connect these to a nation-wide network, however, would for the reasons you mention, seem a bit futile.
 
#1,048 · (Edited)
All I'm saying is, in those days of slow-moving trains this "good-night's-sleep-and-arrive-in-the-morning" was possible on distances of 800-1200 km. In the brave new world of cross-border HS trains it may be possible on distances of 2000-2500 km?
I had that idea myself already but it seems its not realistic, which is a pity. The reason is that high speed tracks need a lot of regular maintenance which is carried out during the nights, when there is no service. That's what I was told at least.
 
#1,049 ·
Exaclty Slartibartfas. I'll talk a little about the situation in Europe.

Demand for night trains is falling fast, and with the annualy timetable adjustment (done in mid-December yearly) for 2010, a lot of night services have been axed. For instance, in Italy they cut more night trains past December, they are down to 34% of services offerred 10 years ago.

Night trains interfere excessively with freight operation that dominate most Western Europe railways. For a freight train, it is not big deal to be held for 2 or 3 hours, or to operate under "strange" schedules if that is what optimizes traffic. Same cannot be said for passenger traffic. Indeed, passenger traffic is very disruptive to freight traffic as peak-holiday car traffic (Christmas, summer weekends etc.) severely disrupts truck traffic in Western Europe.

Assuming night trains are not operating regular seat cars, they need to be very long and thus operate with extended platforms.

There is, also, a cultural change: shared compartments are not longer vastly tolerated as something civilized. Many people that wouldn't mind be stranded on an airplane seat for 3 or 4 hours would not accept the idea of sleeping in a bunk bed, in the dark, in a 500m-long trains in a compartment filled with strangers. It is a pattern with consequence in other areas, like demise of hotels with shared bathrooms, end of organized tours that offered "shared accomodotation" to people travelling alone, children having their own bedroom from early age etc. Private night compartmens can be luxurious, but they are expensive.

Finally, as Slartibafpas said, high speed rail is desgined to operate without restrictions during peak/day hours, like a subway, but then they need to be partially or totally closed during the night to allow space for cleaning maitenance etc. It is not feasible to operate a round-the-clock high-speed line with the extremely high reliability we have today.
 
#1,062 ·
Exaclty Slartibartfas. I'll talk a little about the situation in Europe.

Demand for night trains is falling fast, and with the annualy timetable adjustment (done in mid-December yearly) for 2010, a lot of night services have been axed. For instance, in Italy they cut more night trains past December, they are down to 34% of services offerred 10 years ago.
I am skeptical though if this was done due to a lack of customers. The ÖBB and the Italian railways for example are involved in some turf war currently. That seems to be the reason why the train between Vienna and Venice was axed for example, rather than low demand.

I think that night trains are a great way to travel, superior to any other mode for distances up to a bit above 1000 km where you don't have high speed connections.

Night trains interfere excessively with freight operation that dominate most Western Europe railways. For a freight train, it is not big deal to be held for 2 or 3 hours, or to operate under "strange" schedules if that is what optimizes traffic. Same cannot be said for passenger traffic. Indeed, passenger traffic is very disruptive to freight traffic as peak-holiday car traffic (Christmas, summer weekends etc.) severely disrupts truck traffic in Western Europe.
Well, thats probably the reason why they are everything else than popular among train operators. So you can add this to above argument.

Assuming night trains are not operating regular seat cars, they need to be very long and thus operate with extended platforms.
Why? But anyway, I can't see a problem here. The infrastructure obviously exists, otherwise, they could not have been run in the past and I seriously doubt that the railway stations experience capacity problems during the night.

There is, also, a cultural change: shared compartments are not longer vastly tolerated as something civilized. ...
No? During my last trip I shared my cabin with a journalist and his wife. Very distinguished people and great conversation partners. If you are four people on a trip (in many cases not an unrealistic number) you can without paying a lot more have a cabin all for yourself btw. A couple can have a 2 person cabin as well, even though it costs somewhat more.

I agree with the rest of your post though.
 
#1,050 ·
^^Suburbanist, you speak like a very "thrifty" (if not to say pernicious) person. Are you by any chance Dutch? :lol:

Your reservation about shared cabins is, to some extent, well taken, but already the experience of my old mother that I cited played out in first-class sleeping cabins with a bed of her own, a private wash basin, etc. etc. I remind you that, outside the Germanic parts of Europe, plenty of "ordinary folks" travel first class with their whole family including three children and grandmother. Let us admit that in countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and my native Denmark people buy luxuries only because they're either filthy rich or showy airbags. In many other countries like, say, Italy people buy luxuries because, since they can afford them, it would be silly not to. Summing up, I'd expect future HS sleeper trains to have single and double cabins only.

As for the argument about tracks having to be closed all night because of maintenance, I have heard that argument as well. I'm not sure if I believe in it, though. Sure, "technicians" such as SNCF, DB and all the others will tell you that these things are ab-so-lute-ly necessary to secure themselves an easy li... ah, sorry, I meant to secure the safety of passengers. :lol: OK, of course it's easier for them if they have the tracks to play with all night, but I think their verification and maintenance work can, realistically speaking, be done in a couple of hours per night. (Anyway, I guess the problem would be bigger in France than in most other countries: our gravel-and-stones ballast is more delicate than the cement trackbeds of countries like Germany and Netherlands.) It's like the airlines: they couldn't POSSIBLY fly between London and Paris for less than 200E and if Easyjet is allowed to do that then it wil SERIOUSLY imperil passenger safety. Governments told the airlines to stuff it, and... voila, two months later Air France and BA were flying between Paris and London for less than 200E. What a miracle!!! :lol:

And, anyway, if this exercise is so futile, how come Bombardier is currently working flat out on an order from the Chinese Ministry of Railways on sleeper trains enabled for 250 km/h? Have the Chinese made a colossal blunder? Have they failed to understand that these things are just not possible? :lol:
 
#1,051 ·
The point of sleeper trains is not to compete with air travel, really. It is to compete with car travel.

People make cross country trips all the time... and I have no doubt that expanded long distance trains in the U.S. would see expanded ridership as well. Already the sleeper cars on Amtrak are booked solid months ahead of time.. yet they can't expand service because they are beholden to government subsidies and politicians that have no problem with highways being a money pit... but expect Amtrak to turn a profit.
 
#1,052 ·
Minnesota just published its first draft of a comprehensive state rail plan:

http://www.dot.state.mn.us/planning/railplan/files/DraftSRPFinalReport.pdf

Of course I don't think it goes nearly far enough. They are pushing for paltry 110mph service from the Twin Cities to Duluth and to Milwaukee/Chicago.

If the line were to go through Rochester, Minnesota's 3rd largest metro and fastest growing city, new tracks would need to be built, enabling speeds "up to 150mph".

While any passenger rail plan in the U.S. is bold, this is kind of anemic. But they need to set realistic goals in order to get federal funding, I guess.
 
#1,055 ·
Minnesota just published its first draft of a comprehensive state rail plan:

Of course I don't think it goes nearly far enough. They are pushing for paltry 110mph service from the Twin Cities to Duluth and to Milwaukee/Chicago.

...

While any passenger rail plan in the U.S. is bold, this is kind of anemic. But they need to set realistic goals in order to get federal funding, I guess.
In your place I'd worry more about the politics of this than the Vmax. The "beefy" part of this proposal is the almost-high speed link between the Twin Cities (I assume this means Minneapolis/St.Paul?), Milwaukee and Chicago. If I can read a map then only about one third of that route is the state of Minnesota.

The proposal is basically about getting federal co-funding to (1) enable Minnesota's participation in the integrated Midwestern traffic initiative; and (2) getting ditto for an upgrade of the monocentric networks lining the rest of the state to the Twin Cities. The proposal throws in as a bonus ("...and if you want to see REAL highspeed, then...") the greenfield link via Rochester.

In brief, it looks to me (and I've spent 18 years close to politics) as a scheme to leverage the "H-word" to get federal funds for a pragmatic upgrading of the intra-Minnesota railroads. If the States of Michigan and Illinois get moving, great, then there will also be a fast connection to Chicago - but if they vacillate (like they have been since the early 1990s) then the Governor of Minnesota can throw up his hands and say "Hey, we were preparing for HS. It's not my fault it didn't get built".
 
#1,054 ·
People make cross country trips all the time... and I have no doubt that expanded long distance trains in the U.S. would see expanded ridership as well.
I don't think so. First, people usually don't driver overnight expecting to enjoy the whole following day. I've done some overnights driving trips (Irún-Genova, Amsterdam-Firenze, Los Angeles-Salt Lake City for instance), and they worn you out once you arrive. Even more important is the fact that group car travel (4 people in the same car) is fairly cheap even with insidious gas taxes and overpriced tolls in Europe. Families take the car to their vacations because it allows them to make short trips once they arrive in their destinations, giving them unmatched flexibilty once you arrive.

When it comes to price, it is unfeasible that an overnight train will ever match low-cost airfares. If I were an airline CEO, I'd put my prices as low as possible in any new overnight train route to fight it to the death, if I ever felt that it were to be a threaten to my business. Same for speed: no comercially competitive 500 mph trains are expected to be in service for the foreseeable future.

So the only advantage of a (non subisidized) night train would be delivering passengers willing to pay premium fares for single/double compartments so they can travel overnight. Moreover, many night routes are purposedly "slowed down" in order to increase total travel time. This is the only reason to explain why some night trains take as long as 40 years ago to travel in conventional rail where extensive modernization was done in past decades, yet who wants to arrive at 3 AM in Berlin?

Even in Europe, after cars became comfortable and more reliable in the mid-60's, night train travel never accounted for a significant part of long distance travel. It was, is and will always be a niche that will be never profitable in many routes.

In Italy, when they cut down the "espresso" night services up to 80%, there was an outcry far beyond reasonable. It was a kind of "entitlement" those 1500km+ routes linking different regions, and journalists complained that it would be "unfair" to target cheap services that catered for the poor Italians and students who couldn't otherwise afford holiday trips to their hometowns to have luch with mama. These trains had a lot of seat compartments that allowed one to travel from Milano to Reggio Calabria, for instrance, for less then 40 euros (1880km...) in 15 to 17 hours! An absurd, Third-World service indeed.

Most of those trains were cut and nobody (save for rail fans or eldery retirees "too old to start flying" Easyjet at 60 y.o.) misses it. I don't like the idea of government stepping in to finance backpacker's transportation too (so they can maximize the # of cities they visit during their winter break by taking as many night trains as possible...).

Freeing up the tracks for freight-only operations during the night would be an AMAZING thing to do. Suppose it were possible to run only frieght trains, innovative route planning and service scheduling schemes could be placed to increase efficiency and speed of European cargo rail service, which is lagging behind US in many aspects.

In case of US, the share of overnight train trips is so, so small that increasing it 10-fold would be still negligible.
 
#1,056 ·
I don't think so. First, people usually don't driver overnight expecting to enjoy the whole following day. I've done some overnights driving trips (Irún-Genova, Amsterdam-Firenze, Los Angeles-Salt Lake City for instance), and they worn you out once you arrive.
You're not saying anything other than what's obvious. Of course that if you spend a night driving instead of sleeping you'll have to sleep sometime, earlier or later -- during the day, probably. But if you take a train at night, you don't have to be awaken to drive -- all you have to do is seat back and relax, then be awake before your final destination.

When it comes to price, it is unfeasible that an overnight train will ever match low-cost airfares. If I were an airline CEO, I'd put my prices as low as possible in any new overnight train route to fight it to the death, if I ever felt that it were to be a threaten to my business.
So I guess if you were an airline CEO in the US, you'd drive any airline to bankruptcy. Airline is the most troubled industry in the United States and, except for Southwest and jetBlue, none of the airlines are doing well. Also, we're talking about the US. Flying has become too much of a hassle for many people, with all those new security rules, baggage fees, low service standards and much more, so people are opening their minds to travel options that offer more convenience.

So the only advantage of a (non subisidized) night train would be delivering passengers willing to pay premium fares for single/double compartments so they can travel overnight. Moreover, many night routes are purposedly "slowed down" in order to increase total travel time. This is the only reason to explain why some night trains take as long as 40 years ago to travel in conventional rail where extensive modernization was done in past decades, yet who wants to arrive at 3 AM in Berlin?
This statement shows that you either don't understand the purpose of overnight trains or that you pretend not to understand. First of all, if it's overnight it's not meant to "arrive in Berlin at 3 AM" -- 3 am is in the middle of the night. You're supposed to spend the overnight part of the day on a train. Overnight trains should be arriving at 6am or later (maybe 5am or 5:30 the earliest, depending on the destination). Also, you don't need to reserve a compartment to travel overnight, because coach cars offer seats comfortable enough to sleep (good recline, armrests, footrests, legrests, reading lights, etc).

Also, you are the one who is always saying that people have to have options to choose from, so why can't people have a choice to travel during the day by HS train, car or flying and have an option to travel overnight by train? They can't have an option because they are not driving and you only support initiatives that favor driving somehow?

Freeing up the tracks for freight-only operations during the night would be an AMAZING thing to do. Suppose it were possible to run only frieght trains, innovative route planning and service scheduling schemes could be placed to increase efficiency and speed of European cargo rail service, which is lagging behind US in many aspects.
Nobody is saying that there should be a high-frequency overnight service, we are just saying that there should be overnight service. As little as it would be, it wouldn't hinder that much freight operations, especially considering that freight trains also run during the day, no matter what.

In case of US, the share of overnight train trips is so, so small that increasing it 10-fold would be still negligible.
It is indeed small, but it doesn't mean that it cannot change to a greater number.
 
#1,058 ·
Flying has become too much of a hassle for many people, with all those new security rules, baggage fees, low service standards and much more, so people are opening their minds to travel options that offer more convenience.
Everybody is closing eyes for the (lack of) security in high-speed travel. I hope we don't have to see the first coordinated high-speed trains suicide bombing with 2000 or more deaths before Europe beefs up, harshly, security in long-distance train travel, even if it means creating dedicated stations with airport-like sterile areas that do not share platforms with more risky, but less terror-attractive, commuter/regional rail.

It is a complete stupidity to allow, as in Italy, Germany and The Netherlands, someone without a ticket, without even an ID, to approach a HSR platform and BOARD the train. They don't even need to be suicidal: it would be enough to hop on at Milano Centrale, leave a time-delayed bomb in a bathroom, leave the trains and create wavock.

Sooner or later HSR will be subject to some restrictions like airplanes, such as carrying liquids etc. I hope this day come sooner rather than later.
 
#1,066 ·
Everybody is closing eyes for the (lack of) security in high-speed travel. I hope we don't have to see the first coordinated high-speed trains suicide bombing with 2000 or more deaths before Europe beefs up, harshly, security in long-distance train travel, even if it means creating dedicated stations with airport-like sterile areas that do not share platforms with more risky, but less terror-attractive, commuter/regional rail.
Train travel is very safe. Terrorism is very rare, although Carlos tried to bomb a TGV (with very unimpressive results). Since the security regime now in place for air travel actually does very little in adding any real security why would we have to emulate it for train travel?


It is a complete stupidity to allow, as in Italy, Germany and The Netherlands, someone without a ticket, without even an ID, to approach a HSR platform and BOARD the train. They don't even need to be suicidal: it would be enough to hop on at Milano Centrale, leave a time-delayed bomb in a bathroom, leave the trains and create wavock.
Why would requiring an ID and ticket make travel safer? Are you assuming terrorists don't have photo ID or don't know how to buy a ticket?
Leave a time delayed bomb in a toilet and the result is a train car with a toilet sized hole in the side, and an emergency application of the brakes. if someone would happen to be on the toilet he would be toast.

Remember the bombs in Madrid. From the point of view of the terrorists this was actually a dismal failure...

Sooner or later HSR will be subject to some restrictions like airplanes, such as carrying liquids etc. I hope this day come sooner rather than later.
I hope it never does come to this. Over the holidays I travelled to my parents. To get there I need to cross two national borders. I just walked to the station, bought a ticket with cash, hopped on the train and got of after 8 hours (trip including 3 changes and a short strol between two stations in Paris) at my destination. All without having to show any form of ID whatsoever.
That is how travel in a free society should be.

I doubt that we will ever see airline style security on trains. The security theatre at airports does not exist to stop terrorism. It can't be effective, so is not expected to be effective nor is it designed to be effective. It exists becuase it is possible, and because "something must be done". Doing the same thing in a railway environment is impossible, so it will not be done.
 
#1,059 ·
^^Careful, now. You're on a slippery slope: if you decide to provoke people then you're condemned to provoke stronger and stronger still for eternity to make yourself heard. :lol:

I confess that personally one of the things I like about HSR is the relaxed attitude to security. The one exception is, of course, Eurostar, but among normal European nations (which in my vernacular means excluding the United Kingdom) trains are not subject to any more restrictions that cars and busses. I grant you that trains COULD be subject to terrorist attacks. Recent experience in Russia includes a derailment because of a bomb, and in the Netherlands there was a train-jacking in the 1970s. However, I fail to see that any of these incidents could be best prevented by hassling the passengers with body searches, etc.

In France there's extensive security around the tracks - and especially the bridges - to prevent people from placing bombs there. But... what damage could a terrorist do by carrying 5 kg of explosives onto a train? It would kill himself and a handful of other people (he could obtain the same effect in a cinema) but definitely not derail the train. If he carried a handgun he might attack the driver, but these days the drivers are shielded from direct contact with the passengers as well, so that route also IMO seems closed. If you can think of any way in which a train passenger could wreck havoc from within the train, please let me know. Because...

...that case would apply equally to, say, Greyhound busses. Perhaps we should also have strip searches and early check-ins at all the bus stations across the United States? :lol:
 
#1,060 ·
A small bomb in a train would do little damage indeed. Airplanes are pressurised aluminum cilynders and composite materials, very lightweight and fragile.

Try toput 5-8 kg of explosives into a train that weights hundreds of tons, and unless you manage to take out the bogie or a couple of wheels (unlikely with that charge).
 
#1,061 ·
^^
It is exactly like what hans280 and Ternarydaemon have said: even with a relative large amount of explosives, you wouldn't cause too much damage and wouldn't kill more people than if the explosion had happened in a movie theater. Harassing rail passengers in search of weapons and explosives would not be effective to improve security in rail travel and passengers would start avoiding train travel as well. Otherwise, we'd better demand from movie theaters to have security screening facilities, so we can feel safer.

The vast majority of terrorist attacks against railroad have happened on the tracks (bridges, etc) and not on the trains themselves.

Suburbanist, it makes me sad to know that you actually hope that rail travel will be subject to the same security rules that airline passengers have to subject themselves in order to board a flight. I am all for safety and security, but only when it's really necessary. Unnecessary security measures only make people feel frightened rather than safe, sometimes even leading many people to become paranoid.
 
#1,069 ·
Train travel is, as of today, the most safe form of long distance transport, period. Plane is very safe too, but less safe. Cars are the worst form of transportation when it comes to safety.
 
#1,070 · (Edited)
Cars are the worst form of transportation when it comes to safety.
Good point. This is precisely why I'm pretty depressed at the thought of the new "security measures" that are going to come into force because of the infamous "underwear bomber": even WITHOUT these measures I could travel happily between the US and France every week, facing less threat from nasty terrorists than the threat I face from the rush hour traffic in Paris. This is, I have been told, an actuarial fact. OK...

...it doesn't follow from the fact that road traffic in Paris is very dangerous that I want to volunteer to an additional risk each time I fly. But it does follow that I cannot accept the argument that any governmental measure that reduces the risk I face is - therefore and for that reason - perfectly justified. Otherwise, what's next? Reduce the speed limit on roads to 20 km/h? That would also reduce risk. My point is, safety is not absolute. It can be purchased too dearly.

As for trains, well, I agree that bombs can be detonated on trains. But, so what? They can also be detonated in shopping malls, in cinemas, in schools... Ultra-security minded people like the Israelis have people outside malls, cinemas and schools as well as outside train stations to look into every handbag and every parcel. They fear suicide bombings in any confined space. Should we do likewise? I'd accept security controls in Union Station if - and only if - there are (like in Israel) also security controls to get into Macey's and restaurant Del Monico. Otherwise security around railways would be little more than a thinly disguised plot to harass railway passengers.
 
#1,071 ·
Some CityNightLine services from The Netherlands were actually cut with the new timetable. Moreover, the only reason by which the company can stay afloat are generous conditions offered by DeustchBan to allow CNL trains to run over their tracks at night.

SNCB already increased traffic fees on the 10-fold scale, so did Trenitalia. I don't know what about SNCF and Renfe.

I don't see why Trenitalia would me "mismanaging" their services. From a company that used to cost Italian taxpayers more than € 2 bln. in deficits, annualy, in the late 90's it is now on the vicinity of break-even point (€ 140 mln. deficit in 2008 only), even considering the early revenue stages of its high-speed services.

Some people are complaining that Trenitalia is not collaborating with foreign train operators anymore, which is true to some extent. They decided to charge market-rates for all international station and track services, including theirs. Moreover, now they are not publishing foreing "hostile" services on their website, nor selling tickets from operators that are not associated with Trenitalia (and they are no longer obliged to do so).

So, there are some DB trains running from Bologna to Munchen that doesn't appear on Trenitalia website, and people cannot buy tickets in Trenitalia vending machines or ticket counters because DB and OBB refuse to pay the fees for general operators (they could rent floor space at stations and put their own ticket machines if they wanted though).

For me, it is called competition. If both KLM and American Airlines were flying from Amsterdam-Schiphol to Chicago-O'Hare, and they don't have a code-share, alliance or any other agreement, why in this capitalist earth should I expect to be able to buy American Airlines' tickets at KLM counters?

Unfortunately, there is some complain in Italy that Trenitalia would be "boicotting" DB and ÖBB, when they are still doing what is required: announcing trains at the stations, informing them on departure/arrival boards etc. People just don't understand that it is to give money away for a competitive rail opeartor to promote actively competitors' services.

As US don't have a HSR system yet, they could draw from this experience to promote truly competitive systems, in which track and station ownership are completely separated from rolling stock ownership and train operations. So, you can have multpile carriers fighting for passengers, and the result would be lower fares - exaclty as it happened when air transport was deregulated in the late 70's.

Train travel is, as of today, the most safe form of long distance transport, period. Plane is very safe too, but less safe
According to the DTER studies, average fatality rates per billion-passenger-km for 1997-2007 in North America + Europe + Australia are:
AIR - 0.08
RAIL (from trams to HSR) - 0.64
CAR - 9.84

However, despite the widely known greater risk of car travelling, people can somehow accept it and dealt with it, especially when it is known that driving has never been safer than nowadays. On the other side, the public has very different perceptions on whether a number of deaths were caused by mishaps or crashes or by an act of terror.

Finally, tragedy size matters: 2.000 people killed throughout US in 1.500 car crashes/hits: a number, a statistic. 300 people killed in an air crash: public outrage, demand for accountability, NTSB arriving on the scene etc.
 
#1,072 ·
SNCB already increased traffic fees on the 10-fold scale, so did Trenitalia. I don't know what about SNCF and Renfe.
In case of the NMBS/SNCB the problem was not really the rates, but a requirement of the trade unions that trains be staffed with NMBS staff while in Belgium... That's what drove the last CNL train out of Belgium.


I don't see why Trenitalia would me "mismanaging" their services. From a company that used to cost Italian taxpayers more than € 2 bln. in deficits, annualy, in the late 90's it is now on the vicinity of break-even point (€ 140 mln. deficit in 2008 only), even considering the early revenue stages of its high-speed services.
Many railwaycompanies in Europe are profitable when one considers (as all do) subsidies as revenue...
What I saw in Italy last time I was there (half a year ago) was a network that only carried a small fraction of the traffic it theoretically could.

Some people are complaining that Trenitalia is not collaborating with foreign train operators anymore, which is true to some extent. They decided to charge market-rates for all international station and track services, including theirs
They also decided to make it next to impossible to get foreign rolling stock certified in Italy, and insisted that foreign companies follow the same outdates practices they use (like two man engine crews).

So, there are some DB trains running from Bologna to Munchen that doesn't appear on Trenitalia website, and people cannot buy tickets in Trenitalia vending machines or ticket counters because DB and OBB refuse to pay the fees for general operators (they could rent floor space at stations and put their own ticket machines if they wanted though).
Actually it is DB and OeBB together with FNM, which is an Italian company. We wil see how these trains fare. OeBB is also running buses to Italy, as these are more reliable than trains...


For me, it is called competition. If both KLM and American Airlines were flying from Amsterdam-Schiphol to Chicago-O'Hare, and they don't have a code-share, alliance or any other agreement, why in this capitalist earth should I expect to be able to buy American Airlines' tickets at KLM counters?
What if KLM managed to convince the Dutch governement to only allow Airbuses to land in Schiphol. What would you think of that?
 
#1,073 ·
What if KLM managed to convince the Dutch governement to only allow Airbuses to land in Schiphol. What would you think of that?
That would be a problem, uncompetitive. Subsidizes are not revenue, for sure. As for certifying rolling stock, same rule should apply to foreing and national carriers. Even better, we should have an European unified set of rules.

As for FNM, Trenitalia is usually at odds with it (FNM's major shareholder is Lombardia region government), but they publish its schedule.
 
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That would be a problem, uncompetitive. Subsidizes are not revenue, for sure. As for certifying rolling stock, same rule should apply to foreing and national carriers. Even better, we should have an European unified set of rules.
We're far from there however, that is the problem. And another problem is that in some countries (France is another, but Belgium is problematic here too) different rules are still applied to foreign and national carriers. Not officially ofcourse, but in practice, yes.
And the requirement of two man locomotive crews in Italy must go.

Subsidies however can be revenue. If a governement "buys" a service from a train operator, that is just revenue from the point of view of the operator. It is up to the governement agency to make sure they get value for money.

As for FNM, Trenitalia is usually at odds with it (FNM's major shareholder is Lombardia region government), but they publish its schedule.
Even SBB publishes Trenitalia's schedule... That's just a matter of data exchange.
 
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