For the map enthused!
Rules:
post relevant content: interesting, informative, and/or pretty maps
be nice
The US absolutely needs more and better trains. But also, the US has large areas with no population. That's why when you look at electoral maps you need to control population density.
Even with a high quality rail system with support for populated areas of the US the map would still have large gaps and wouldn't be nearly as full as the EU map.
Simply putting two maps side by side and saying "this one bad" isn't great. Yes, it's absolutely bad, but for the exact reasons this map shows.
US also has the advantage of being one big federation with established standards bodies and a federal budget. A train that goes Between Belgium, Netherlands, Germany has to pass through 3 different electrical standards (yes, they are very different), 2 traffic regulations (left or right side), and 3 signalization standards. And they make it work.
Yeah, but excluding entire states is ridiculous.
Exactly. Every state has a major population hub. Excluding major cities is pretty bad. Except Wyoming. No one fucking lives in Wyoming. Why are they even a state...
In the vague defense of Wyoming and the other great planes states, quite a lot of their population growth was hindered or outright shrank due to the dust bowl which they haven't recovered from. It's kinda like how Russia goes through a population dip every 20 years or so due to the sheer number of people who died during WW2.
South Dakota only has two cities with populations over 50,000.
Another state that shouldn't exist
Is it? There are entire states with populations less than that of major cities.
Germany used to have more 30 years ago. Scheiß Kohl und Schröder
And still here in Europe they are not a meaningful alternative to the plane. Taking for example an Amsterdam to Barcelona is an exhausting 12-14h deal (almost 10x as long) and 5x more expensive.
What we need is express trains that go from A to B without stopping anywhere, avoiding city centres and constantly running max speed. If I'm going to Barcelona I don't want to stop in Schiphol, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, and various cities in France. There should just be a dedicated departure just for that (and judging by how many planes go back & forth daily these trains could certainly be filled). This would cut down on that exhausting travel time a lot. But we lack the high-speed network capacity for that. And won't have it for at least 15 years even if they decided to build them now :( So planes it is.
honestly I wouldn't mind it taking 12 hours, but it also being more expensive just doesn't make any sense at all. Europe needs to stop subsidizing air travel and needs to up its rail subsidies
Yes. In Italy train travel, and especially bus travel, is still somewhat affordable. In most other places you feel just stupid in paying 100€ to cross 300 kilometres when you can go much farther with 30€ on a plane...
Twelve hours to get across a whole continent is fine.
I think we must stop thinking of the whole world being just a few hours away. Travel has to include some actual travelling again.
The will never be enough capacity to connect capitals with no intermediate stops. And let me tell you, it's in general a stupid idea.
12h is not a big deal if travelled overnight. Which is currently not possible. So this what we really miss, not constant 300 km/h direct connections.
And of course, we need to stop taxing passenger rail companies. And maybe re-nationalise them, while we are at it. Forcing free market in the railway has been one of the biggest mistakes of the European Union.
The will never be enough capacity to connect capitals with no intermediate stops.
Do you mean demand? Currently there is not enough capacity.
Counter-examples to your negativity are found in Japan, Korea and China.
There was a concept I thought was neat. Imagine around stops you had a parallel set of tracks with cars that would connect to the train and passengers would have X number of minutes to transfer between the parallel trains before they decouple.
So a 'fast lane' train wouldn't actually stop, it would just couple to another train that does pretty much nothing but transfer passengers to and from the stop.
Though the reality is that would require a lot of work when the counter argument can be "fly a plane direct instead"
The Nightjet trains from La Spezia (Italy) goes both to Wien and München, as it splits in Villach.
On the opposite direction, the train from München is coupled with the one from Wien.
Why is it not done more often? Because coupling trains is a security operation, and it takes time (1h+).
On top of that, modern trains are a fixed composition that you cannot couple and decouple as you like.
Note this concept was about a hypothetical design and infrastructure. That coupling would be horizontal and occurring while moving and using train designs that didn't yet exist.
I said interesting, not necessarily practical. It's something we might have tried to do if we didn't have direct flights as a viable option.
The LowTech Magazine disagrees
Interesting, well-written and nerdy report from 2013! I wonder if the aspects of the trans-European rail situation (pricing, travel times, frequencies, interconnectivity, train changes etc.) have gotten better or worse since then.
Interconnectivity did not increase at all. Ironically it's countries like Slovakia which still have a parvence of that.
And Switzerland, of course, is doing fine.
Is this joke?
No :(
And Europe is zoomed in too
And, living in enclaves as I have, I always think we don't have much. But it's kinda terrifying how bad the US have it.
It gets cut off here, but Estonia only has like 4 lines or something, all from the capital in the north. No interconnection between the other cities except through the capital, and for two of the lines about 30 km away from the capital. It really sucks, I wish there was more and I'm also hoping for Rail Baltica to be ready sooner rather than later. And I REALLY wish there was a way to connect Tartu, Viljandi and Pärnu to each other directly - right now you have to make a near 200 km detour to get between the first two, and Pärnu is disconnected altogether until Rail Baltica is finished, the Tallinn-Pärnu line is dead. Sadly though, that dream route of mine (which would connect two culturally significant cities (Tartu and Viljandi) to each other and to the future Rail Baltica line in a slightly less detour-y fashion) will likely never exist because of all the wetlands in between those cities. I am glad they're being preserved, but... trains would be nice.
My baby doesn't take the morning train?
In Europe there is definitely a difference between TGV quality lines and the regional ones which are rarely better than taking the car, sadly (speaking from my years of experience).
I wonder what the map would look like if you at least greyed out the slow lines.
