Haha I’m scared of sounding like I don’t like high speed rail, which I do! I love trains in general, I’m interrailing right now! Buuut I felt this was a relevant place to link this fascinating article (slightly click-baity headline) about how high speed rail in Europe is actually not constructed in a very good way, because it ends up eliminating many of the positive sides with the European railway network: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/12/high-speed-trains-are-killing-the-european-railway-network/
The problem isn’t how they’re constructed, it’s how they’re run, and this article is basically just complaining about SNCF without realising it. They run bad timetables and aim for high occupancy rather than transporting more people. Jon Worth has better writing on the topic IMO.
That’s really a great article, thanks for the link!
Still, there’s plenty of criticism in the article I linked that is not touched on, I hardly think it becomes irrelevant by reading Jon Worth’s writing! Even with his proposals I’m really not sure if we would get back the cheap and still relatively fast connections that have been removed. To me there’s not a clear benefit to getting rid of the old “low-speed” rail even if we fix SNCF.
It’s cheaper to run a high speed service than a low speed one. You can transport more people with the same number of staff and trains because it runs faster. The solution isn’t to run an artificially cheaper low speed service along side, it’s to run the high speed service in a sane way.
Is it really hurting the low speed networks? I would imagine there are many stations that high speed rail doesn’t go to. Let goods travel long distance low speed, let people go fast.
So the article is very long so let me TL;DR a little. It mentions that when high speed rail is build, existing low-speed rails are often removed. Those removes routes are a little slower but often MUCH cheaper. I would say, like the author, that more expensive trains that are a little faster doesn’t rhyme well with “let people go fast”. He also has examples of night trains being removed in favour of a high speed rail, which hardly is a time-save if you count sleeping at night! Great examples in the article.
High speed rail doesn’t have to hurt low-speed rail, it just has the way we’ve been doing it in Europe.
Hmm. I see the argument, but it seems to be more like an issue with pricing than a flaw with HSR. Once high speed track is in service it should be able to run plenty of trains all around the clock, I can see how it could make low speed rail seem redundant.
I’d think it would make more sense to keep the low speed tracks and use them for freight, and also make high speed rail cheaper to ride.
Haha I’m scared of sounding like I don’t like high speed rail, which I do! I love trains in general, I’m interrailing right now! Buuut I felt this was a relevant place to link this fascinating article (slightly click-baity headline) about how high speed rail in Europe is actually not constructed in a very good way, because it ends up eliminating many of the positive sides with the European railway network: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/12/high-speed-trains-are-killing-the-european-railway-network/
Edit: fixed typo
The problem isn’t how they’re constructed, it’s how they’re run, and this article is basically just complaining about SNCF without realising it. They run bad timetables and aim for high occupancy rather than transporting more people. Jon Worth has better writing on the topic IMO.
That’s really a great article, thanks for the link!
Still, there’s plenty of criticism in the article I linked that is not touched on, I hardly think it becomes irrelevant by reading Jon Worth’s writing! Even with his proposals I’m really not sure if we would get back the cheap and still relatively fast connections that have been removed. To me there’s not a clear benefit to getting rid of the old “low-speed” rail even if we fix SNCF.
It’s cheaper to run a high speed service than a low speed one. You can transport more people with the same number of staff and trains because it runs faster. The solution isn’t to run an artificially cheaper low speed service along side, it’s to run the high speed service in a sane way.
Is it really hurting the low speed networks? I would imagine there are many stations that high speed rail doesn’t go to. Let goods travel long distance low speed, let people go fast.
So the article is very long so let me TL;DR a little. It mentions that when high speed rail is build, existing low-speed rails are often removed. Those removes routes are a little slower but often MUCH cheaper. I would say, like the author, that more expensive trains that are a little faster doesn’t rhyme well with “let people go fast”. He also has examples of night trains being removed in favour of a high speed rail, which hardly is a time-save if you count sleeping at night! Great examples in the article.
High speed rail doesn’t have to hurt low-speed rail, it just has the way we’ve been doing it in Europe.
Hmm. I see the argument, but it seems to be more like an issue with pricing than a flaw with HSR. Once high speed track is in service it should be able to run plenty of trains all around the clock, I can see how it could make low speed rail seem redundant.
I’d think it would make more sense to keep the low speed tracks and use them for freight, and also make high speed rail cheaper to ride.