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Comment by guard-of-terra | Hacker News Reader

"no-one wanted to be on a train for more than three hours" Why is it so?

People easily tolerate 3h on a plane, and trains are much more comfortable than planes (more space, free to roam).

And you don't have to get to airport, get from airport, check in, wait for baggage.

I would say 5 hours should be non-issue.

"As a rail enthusiast I would love to see trains to Berlin or Milan or even Moscow. But realistically that is many years away."

Remember there's already a direct train connection between Moscow and Paris.

Most people choose to fly these days, of course.

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Because past 3 hours the time/cost savings compared to air starts to look really unfavorable. Air travel has a high "fixed cost" (getting to the airport, going through security, picking up any checked luggage) but a low "variable cost" (it's much faster than a train), while the reverse is true for trains. Anything longer than 3-4 hours and the lower variable cost of air travel overcomes its higher fixed cost.

A critical factor here is how far away you live from an airport that services your destination. That can work out to be quite unfavourable, to the point where even a 6 hour car trip is preferable over a 3 hour plane ride.

Trains have the advantage of being in city centres too where light rail and buses are concentrated.

For me, the general PITA and loud departure/security announcements of airports is a huuuge fixed cost. Train stations just feel much more civilized.

The one that annoys me most is: "This is a safety announcement. Due to today's inclement weather, please take extra care whilst on the station. Surfaces may be slippery."

http://www.soundsurvey.org.uk/index.php/survey/soundacts_of1...

Falling down the stairs is a leading cause of death or injury on Britain's railways (no-one has died on a train since 2007), but I'd like to see some proof that the announcement makes any difference to people's behaviour. They play it pretty much any time it rains!

Its like an elderly aunt reminding you to take your umbrella. What does she take you for, a child? Especially annoying if you've forgotten your umbrella.

From what I see here in Germany, 5h train rides are not an issue for many people. It's just that on major routes, flying is very competitive.

I don't like the fact, but flying is cheaper in many cases, and inside the EU security is (in my experience) not that annoying. I mean, I have a 50% rebate card and even inside Germany, there are quite a scenarios where trains are only cheaper than flying if I take regional trains, at which point the time advantage of flying suddenly is quite large, and coaches become an agressivly priced alternative. And that despite the fact that I have a 50% rebate card for trains.

Start to cross borders and it gets worse.

EDIT: not to say that trains are not used, but especially among young people coaches, ride shares or flying are strong alternatives. Trains are great for short distances and if you want to go somewhere that is hard to reach otherwise.

This may definitely be an issue. Increased prices leading to decline in ridership leading to even more increased prices until it's dead.

At least in Germany this is not true, train ridership is on a steady rise [0]: DB serviced 14 million passengers more in 2014 compared to the previous year.

[0] http://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/im_blickpunkt/9010944...

We still need to separate commuter rail, regional and intercity. Intercity is smallest on the basis of ridership but it makes up with distance travelled, ticket prices and economic importance.

I have also taken a night train from Vienna to Paris (and then a regular TGV to La Rochelle).

Night trains are wonderful, they save you a night at the hotel, and they basically make the journey take no effective time from your holidays... but SNCF wants to get rid of them entirely, or so I heard.

That must have been the official Orient Express, which was reduced from its original Paris-Istanbul route to Paris-Bucharest in 1977, then Paris-Vienna in 2001, Strasbourg-Vienna in 2007, and cancelled in 2009.

I thought it was DB who wanted to do away with them. But maybe SNCF too. Due to European railway regulation and thoughtless implementation of the same by the individual countries, international (night) trains have become quite expensive to run. (This in addition to the obvious factors of fast daytime TGVs and irresponsibly cheap airplane flights.)

They recently built a really large tunnel near Vienna, which is supposed to be a part of the planned high-speed connection from Bratislava/Budapest to Paris.

It will be "completed" in 2020, so we will probably see Trains going in this direction soon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magistrale_for_Europe

It was a lovely journey, although the scenery meant that it was worth doing in the daytime...

People easily tolerate 3h on a plane, and trains are much more comfortable than planes (more space, free to roam).

I trained around the eastern US a bit, and while north of DC the trains are heavily-used and a 'normal' experience, south of DC the trains were very laid back and comfortable. They're subsidised, so the tickets are dirt-cheap, few people use them, they're comfortable and spacious, have power for laptops, and even have an entire car dedicated to sitting in a lounge chair facing outward to watch the scenery roll by ("oh, more kudzu..."). The only downside is that the stations were only at major locations, so not many stopping points, which was fine for what I was doing.

+1 for trains, one of the best ski trips I went on involved London St Pancras to the south of france via train, roamed around, took pretty unlimited baggage, a real pleasure (even at around 8 hours) - would not fly again (2hr flight + travel, security etc).

This is why I'm skeptical about the importance of high speed rail. Normal speed rail is fine in today's world because the main thing people need is solid broadband. Just make the cars really comfortable provide rock solid broadband. Business class passengers wouldn't even mind six hour trips if pretty much the whole thing was billable and comfortable, and the schedule was totally reliable with fast boarding.

It depends on your definition of "normal speed". If it's 80 km/hour, then it is limited to regional rail or sleeper overnight trains. If it's 150 km/hour, it's already kind of fast if you ask me.

Normal speed is up to 200-225kph in the UK. Commuter rail up to 160kph. Metro 60-100kph

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