I'd love overnight trains to come back to Europe.

Are they gone? I've gone backpacking in Europe a couple times with a rail pass or tickets in the last ten years, and regularly used overnight trains.

The last is the biggest. You need to close track regularly to maintain it, and closing all tracks for 8 hours at night is the easiest for people to figure out.

> first, what do you do with the train during the day when nobody wants a bed (regular trains park at a station overnight and are ready to go the next morning).

Most trains are taken (empty) to a depot for cleaning and maintenance — the schedule is generally planned around this. It's also where the drivers turn up for work, and it's easier to cope with illness etc this way.

A few trains will be left near a station to run the first train(s) towards the depot in the morning.

Nevertheless, I imagine there are places where costs have been cut to the bone, and there aren't spare sidings for a night train.

> Third, how will you maintain the track if there are trains running on it

You plan the night train with sufficient slack in the schedule to take an alternative route. This can also help with the second point.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25420455 from 7 months ago, etc.

Which is a plain idiocity. A train derailment, even of a non-high speed train, will make for a many times bigger bodycount than an even A380 crash.

Three fatalities. Seventy-two people transported to hospital.

Fun fact: I was on the first fire engine that arrived on that accident.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Washington_train_derailme...

There's a lot of adrenaline. I think even the most seasoned, salty veteran would be lying if they said they responded to that call all cool, calm and collected.

But you go back to training. Which is instilled into you as "don't train until you get it right, train until you can't get it wrong".

Scene safety. For yourself, crew, bystanders, the involved.

Resource needs. More ambulances? Cranes?

Then setting up for a mass casualty incident - usually broken down into triage, treatment, and transport - assigning resources to those.

You're right though, it's hard - you want to not be bored, to have something to do, but you don't want someone to have a horrible day. There's a mental balancing act going on.

I remember one of my EMT students, on her first ride along, was for a bad trauma (felled tree bounced and hit someone in the back, causing significant spinal damage and chest injuries). We rendezvoused with a helicopter, intubated, did needle decompressions of the chest, and off they went. My student was a little 'off' afterwards. I asked if she was okay. "I feel so guilty!". I completely misread her, told her nothing was her fault, and said it was okay that she didn't participate as much as possible in patient care versus assisting. "No, I feel so guilty because that guy is so sick, but that was f-ing awesome to see!"

So yeah...

On the other hand, an aircraft crashing into a populated area will definitely kill everyone on board plus all the unlucky folks on the ground who happen to get hit by it.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Compostela_derailm...

A subversionist can easily sabotage the railway over a bridge, on a slope, or time it to have a collision with another train.

This is pretty much the worst-case kind of derailment: the train derailed mid-switch, causing half the train to go down one track and the other half to go the other track. The sideways car then crashed into the immediately adjacent road pillar, destroying the car and the road on top of it. The rest of the train then plowed into the carnage and folded up like an accordion.

Total death count: 101, of 286 passengers.

An A380 will carry more passengers (500-600, I think), and a typical plane crash will have a much higher death train.

Otherwise, yes, trains are almost as safe as air travel, if not even safer.

Trains also are electric which is a plus.

You can get to the station 2 min before it leaves and jump in.

In Europe, Japan and Taiwan etc, it's a good idea to be there a few minutes before (especially if you're not familiar with the station), but it's always less time than required for getting on a plane.