Faster trains and cheaper tickets under new EU rail plans:
Faster trains, simpler tickets and support for international trips could be on the agenda for Europe's rail network, under new European Commission proposals revealed on Tuesday.
The planned Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) would see new high speed rail connections built by 2040, slashing journey times on trips including Budapest to Bucharest, Vigo to Porto and Hamburg to Copenhagen.
Core routes on the TEN-T network would have a minimum speed of 160 km/h (100 mph) for passenger trains and 100 km/h (62 mph) for freight, the Commission's action plan for boosting long-distance rail said.
The European Commission also promised "decisive action" to simplify the process of booking cross-border train travel, in order to make tickets "easier to find and book, and more attractive in price," it said.
"Today's proposals set European mobility on track for a sustainable future: faster European rail connections with easy-to-find tickets and improved passenger rights, support for cities to increase and improve public transport and infrastructure for walking and cycling, and making the best possible use of solutions for smart and efficient driving," Frans Timmermans, Commission vice-president for the European Green Deal, said.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday December 17 2021, @08:20PM (7 children)
Shouldn't faster trains have more expensive tickets?
The people who don't want to go as fast should move to the back of the train.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PiMuNu on Friday December 17 2021, @08:40PM (5 children)
If the main cost is driver/network maintenance, higher speed means more throughput and hence cheaper trains.
If the main cost is fuel, associated rail improvements and bigger engines, then not so much.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 17 2021, @09:13PM (4 children)
The cost is upgrading the track to handle the higher speeds. Once that's done, it's a matter of phasing out the old rattlers incapable of reaching 200km/hour.
When we look at cost in the Net-Zero epoch, think in terms of emissions per capita - one high speed train journey taking one plane out of the sky or 100 petroleum-fueled cars off the road.
And yes the EU is one big quantitative-easing socialist money tree that couldn't give a damn about multinational oil companies :)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @12:34AM (3 children)
f those petroleum-fueled cars become electric, it matters less, as long as the electricity comes from a low-carbon source (which is still decades away in practice, of course).
While trains emit less CO2 per mile than airplanes (by about half - some rail boosters say it's more like 80% reduction, but they have to fudge to get that), they have a much more intensive construction process, because airports are a lot easier to build than rail lines. The up-front cost isn't just one time, either, but you have to replace those rail lines when they wear out. The difference overall is not that great. Unless, as with the cars, the trains are powered by carbon-free electricity... which is also decades away.
Even high-speed rail is still a lot lower speed than airplanes, and that isn't irrelevant.
Of course, carbon-free airplanes are pretty much forever away.
In the end it really just isn't a clear win for anything, other than everyone agreeing that petroleum-powered cars aren't a great way to do long distance travel... except that you have your car with you when you arrive.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Nuke on Saturday December 18 2021, @10:09AM (1 child)
Sounds like you are in the USA or some 3rd world nation. Most inter-city and suburban railways in Europe run on electricity already, which can be generated how you like. Certainly the new lines proposed will be electric, that is part of the point of them - did you read TFA which said "train journeys, which are 81 per cent electric-powered in the EU" ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @07:28PM
Sounds like you misread or misunderstood the point he was making. It wasn't about trains not being electric, it was about how a train, even if electric, still isn't that great CO2-wise compared with airplanes, unless the electricity is sourced from a low-carbon production process - A process which he submits is still decades away in practical terms.
And he's not entirely wrong on that. Solar is great, wind is great, I'll even go so far as to say fission is great - and the three combined don't supply anywhere NEAR enough of our power to say, with confidence, that out electricity supply is largely low-carbon. That point in time is still, as he said, decades away.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19 2021, @08:05PM
i like the part where airplanes brake in the air and their fuel tanks magically refill when landing ...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gaaark on Saturday December 18 2021, @03:50AM
And if there's another train coming in the opposite direction, then they can do Grade 6 math problems!
Or delve into relativity...which train's moving, which is not? Are they both moving?
And can you join the mile high club if traveling in a train going over a very high bridge?
And if you look up, will you see Gomez Addams looking back? Should you jump before he blows up the train????
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 17 2021, @08:53PM (11 children)
How do you build new lines through heavily populated areas?
the US wants to know
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 17 2021, @09:03PM
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday December 17 2021, @10:26PM
eminent domain?
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Username on Friday December 17 2021, @10:27PM (7 children)
I'm guessing neo-aryanization, considering the socialists behind it, and their previous use of trains.
Also, how exactly does a passenger train travel 100mph behind a 62mph freight train? What speed does it travel when you mix cars? How do they prevent an allahu akbar express? Why name it so close to trinitrotoluene? How are they going to evict train bums? Will it play Johnny Cash?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 17 2021, @11:08PM (1 child)
Why don't you focus on your own country?
America is no stranger to hijacking trains at 88mph.
Recall the incident at Shonash Ravine in 1885.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Username on Friday December 17 2021, @11:13PM
Oh, come on, we all know trains time travel at those speeds.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday December 18 2021, @10:15AM (4 children)
Freight can be moved mostly at night. Lines can also be built with quadruple tracks (or more) with a fast and slow in each direction like the main lines out of London for example.
For the benefit of those here ignorant of railway practice, which seems to be many (I know most Americans have never been on a train in their lives), it is like multiple lanes on a highway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @01:42PM (3 children)
I don't think you understand how much it costs to lay new track. Your ideas that work in principle are very expensive and require a major infrastructure commitment. There are all sorts of great ideas one can do besides lay parallel tracks: why not elevate them on platforms to run over top of each other like the trains in Chicago? Or dig tunnels and have them still run over top of each other, but now one is underground? The New York subway system has parts of all three ideas in place: express tracks, and trains running above and below each other. If you throw out concerns of costs and schedules, there is no end to the great ways to handle this. If you don't have the money to duplicate, triplicate, or even quadruplicate your rail as you suggest, how practical is it to mandate all freight to be carried during only one-third of the available time? You really want to mandate a train running only 25% capacity to dictate the schedules of a massive amount of goods that need to be moved around? I don't think you should be so quick to paint people with an ignorant paintbrush because they can't think "outside of the box" like you do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @07:35PM
In practice, it's even worse than that, at least in canada.
Long-distance passenger service effectively doesn't exist, and the trans-continental tracks we do have, are generally running at 110% capacity. All freight, all the time, day or night, and we still can't keep up and have to move Too Much Shit by truck.
More track is a great solution, until you remember that picking any one track to twin/quadruple means opening negotiations with literally thousands of different legal entities along the route in order to get the land required. That's.. a lot of paperwork. Like, a Lot. A LOT. and any one of them (Native American 'nations', I'm looking squarely at you) can completely torpedo the whole process and delay the project for decades, just by switching between agreement and opposition a few times along the way. We see it often enough with pipelines, after all.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday December 19 2021, @07:51PM (1 child)
That's funny, I was involved in building railways in my previous job (with London Underground).
Sounds like a USA perspective where freight dominates. That is not the case in the UK or even most of Europe. In the UK, moving freight by night (not exclusively) has always been a thing. In any case,new high speed lines will not be built where no railway has ever gone before, they will parallel (functionally, not literally) existing prime routes. For example HS2 Stage 2 is being built from London to Birmingham and there are already two main lines doing that, one of them wit six-tracks some of the way and four-tracks for most of the rest. Therefore a new high speed line can carry passengers releasing paths on the old lines for slower freight.
Apart from that, freight train speeds in the UK are somewhat higher than what I have seen of the USA.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday December 19 2021, @07:54PM
Typo, HS2 London to Birmingham is Stage 1 (or Phase 1) not Stage 2.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday December 18 2021, @09:15PM
The US has far more unpopulated area than populated area. I see you never left the big city, or visited America.
Impeach Donald Palpatine and his sidekick Elon Vader
(Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Friday December 17 2021, @09:02PM
Access Denied
[sadface]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 17 2021, @10:25PM (1 child)
The UK seems to go in the opposite direction:
(Score: 2) by Username on Friday December 17 2021, @11:10PM
At least that direction makes sense. "green trains" require money to purchase them, which means higher fares. Locking down people so they cannot get on trains means less people to cover that additional cost.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @09:59AM (2 children)
Let me introduce you the situation of the new (2004) members of EU with trains. Many countries of these new members, including Czech Republic, Baltic countries, Poland, Hungary or ex-Yugoslavian countries, were controlled by socialist governments. Let's not go deep to Yugoslavia in this aspect. Generally, socialist governments with planned economy were doing everything to keep the rail running and growing - as it was the only affordable transport, both for industry and for passengers. I can tell that these were the gold years of railway.
Fast forward to the fall of communism. In Czech Republic, they closed significant number of industrial train relations. In Poland, lots and lots of lines became closed. For industrial transport, railway is now known as the one which will damage everything they transport. In passenger transport, you have to pay 4-5 times more than going by the bus and you still go slower because the train stops in very small villages and sometimes can stay for 20 minutes because it must wait for some other train to go the same or intersecting rails - of course parallel or alternative tracks which solved this problem have been dismantled as a part of "relations slaughter" a few years after government change.
Poland had a specific situation with train tracks in the city - there were some normal (not streetcar) rails in cities, made to provide transportation between factories. When trucks started to cause problems with street traffic and pollution, many people were thinking that this is a possibility to use these tracks - but no, most of them are unmaintained because courts cannot rule whose tracks are these... and they can't rule it since 1989!
So trains, from affordable and popular medium became something overly expensive, problematic, slow and bug-ridden. No, not the errors. Literally, bed bugs. Sometimes I see 6-8 car trains with 2 people in it.
Good luck with this.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Saturday December 18 2021, @11:40AM (1 child)
I did travel a bit by train in Czechia in the mid-90s: cheap, and extensive connections. Also, you could keep open the doors while the train was driving, and the guys who'd come to check your train ticket were armed, their status apparently directly related to the size of their gun. (They were friendly, though).
The trains were, at least in my eyes, kinda antique -- while at the same time the highways looked brand-new, with a supported by the EU billboard next to them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Saturday December 18 2021, @01:56PM
In some former Soviet-bloc countries train travel hasn't changed much since the 1950s. Slovakia, where all trains are 10-30 minutes late but the schedules are run as if they were on time with only a few minutes to make a connection, meaning you mostly miss the connection. Hungary, with slow, erratically-timely mostly-empty trains. Czech trains, built in East Germany in the 1970s, mostly OK. Slovenia, efficient, fast trains but slowed by random stoppages due to congestion or... something. Then outside the former Soviet bloc, Germany and Austria, fast trains you can set your watch by. French trains, either fast or on strike.
Prices are also highly dependent on where you book, the same train booked via DB or OBB can cost several times the amount it costs when booked via ZSSK even though it's a code-share. So I think some of this regulation is to even out artificial price differentials.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18 2021, @10:57AM
looks like you need about ...uhm...ahhh... 100 million dollars worth of goods transported per meter of rail-track (and train) to break even.
how else can we explain the horrendously expensive train tickets in europe?
maybe if you buy a train ticket, half of the price is used to subsidize oil-imports and thus fancy buildings and artificial islands in some far away fairytale desert paradise?
(Score: 4, Informative) by quietus on Saturday December 18 2021, @11:28AM (6 children)
Here's an alternative link to the proposed Action Plan [europa.eu], and a summary [eubusiness.com] (from a business viewpoint).
The plan focuses on cross-border and long-distance travel -- it has long been a stated aim of the EU to redirect passengers (and haulage) from air travel towards trains.
The first phase of the plan focuses on ticketing. If you've tried booking cross-border train travel as an EU citizen, you know what a mess this is.
You might just be able to book a ticket from your own country into a [limited set of trainstations in a] neighboring country through the website of your national train service, but that's about it. So, in this phase, the EU is going to try to enforce the exchange of data (train schedules, connection possibilities) between national rail networks.
At the same time, they propose dropping the VAT requirement i.e. you (and the train companies, supposedly) wouldn't need to pay VAT on international train travel anymore: a reduction which could shave as much as 21% off the cost of your trip.
Additionally, getting young people used to taking the train, instead of a cheap RyanAir flight, is crucial: hence the proposal to make travel for Erasmus students between home base (say, Munich) and study center (e.g. Barcelona) essentially free.
The first phase is for the coming year. The second phase focuses on building out the core high-speed travel network. This involves upgrading the rail network between main cities to a minimum speed of 160 km/h, and ensuring that all airports with more than 4 million yearly passengers have a direct link into this network.
As long as the proposed first phase remains pie-in-the-sky, here's a useful website [seat61.com] for those of you planning to do international travel in the EU. Note, btw, that you're better off booking your train travel from the United States, at least for the international train travel passes.
<rant>In that same vain: the pricing of train tickets does not work completely like with air travel: if you try to book a ticket a couple of weeks before your trip, do not be surprised that ticket will cost you 3 (three) times as much as when you'd bought it 3 months before, and twice as much as you'd bought it 2 months before. There's also no such thing as last-minute prices, no matter how many empty seats are still left over. In short, it's still medieval times for international train travel in the EU, price wise.</rant>
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday December 18 2021, @02:00PM
For the Seat61 site, here's the direct link to the info you need for train travel in the EU [seat61.com]. This is an incredibly useful site if you're planning to travel by train in Europe.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday December 18 2021, @02:02PM (4 children)
Another thing where they differ from air travel is that airlines will stop selling tickets when all the seats are taken. This issue doesn't seem to stop train operators, they'll just keep selling tickets on the assumption that passengers will find somewhere to squeeze themselves in.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday December 18 2021, @08:39PM (3 children)
Given that many tickets are not bound to specific trains, there's no way to pre-determine if a train will be full.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday December 19 2021, @07:51AM (2 children)
Sure, but this wasn't some regional train, from memory it was an ICE and you definitely had tickets for one specific train. I just didn't feel like giving OBB even more money for the privilege of choosing a particular seat... until I got on and there were people crammed into every available space. Next time I'll try booking it through MAV in case they give you a seat without charging extra for it.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday December 19 2021, @08:20AM (1 child)
That you had a ticket only for that train doesn't mean everyone had. You probably took the cheapest ticket; the cheapest are usually the ones bound to a specific train. But some people prefer not being limited to a specific train, and are willing to pay more for that.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday December 19 2021, @08:21AM
Yeah, good point. And it was a Sunday evening train, lots of people wanting to get home.
Quite a few of them somewhat drunk.