▲ | Freak_NL 11 hours ago | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sleeper trains are held back by flying getting subsidised heavily by not having kerosene taxed, and national governments giving airports effectively unlimited room to grow; happily externalising the environmental cost. Why take a train if you can fly for a fraction of the cost? Trains in general are held back by governments not investing in rail infrastructure, because the pork barrel of another motorway link is so hard to resist (and we're not properly maintaining these either). Sleeper trains are held back, because cross-boundary collaboration between the various semi-national rail companies is tough (for Europe). Sleeper trains are held back, because there is a lack of modern rolling stock. Not completely new concepts; just up-to-date sleeper wagons (the ÖBB has the leading edge here now with their new wagons). There is room for improvement in the wagon designs, but it is almost irrelevant in the face of the other challenges. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | gruez 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
>Sleeper trains are held back by flying getting subsidised heavily by not having kerosene taxed Is whatever fuel trains use taxed? If not, I don't see how this is relevant. >and national governments giving airports effectively unlimited room to grow Which countries are those? For instance in UK they wanted to expand Heathrow since as early as 2006, yet due to various government shenanigans isn't due to complete until 2040, assuming it doesn't get backtracked again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_of_Heathrow_Airport Moreover since you're comparing against trains, don't trains need land as well, for the tracks and stations? Why do trains seemingly get a free pass from you on that? >Trains in general are held back by governments not investing in rail infrastructure, because the pork barrel of another motorway link is so hard to resist (and we're not properly maintaining these either). What makes motorways more of a "pork barrel" than train tracks? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | ant6n 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
You start off by essentially claiming the unit economics of night trains being too poor compared to aviation is the largest hurdle, then finish off by claiming that unit economics are not that major issue. Our perspective is that with much improved unit economics, the problem overall becomes much more easily solvable. You can compete with aviation on price. You can pay for prioritized track access. You can operate trains privately without direct involvement of national operators. Finally, the refurb approach skirts the rolling stock bottle neck. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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▲ | bluGill 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
You missed a couple other points against night trains. first trains work best if they stop many times - how will you wake people up at 3am for their stop? For that matter who would agree to that? Without that churn many destinations are not in range. second, track needs maintenance. If the track is running at night as well when will you repair it? I makes sense to just close nost track every night for repairs. For busy two rail sections you can close on track and run very reduced service on the other - but this reduction means you don't want people sleeping as you can fill your trains just on people working night shifts. all of the above are challenges. They can be worked around in various ways however they to be considered to see if it is worth it- | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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