Re:Europe is investing heavily in trains
by petesergeant on Tuesday April 12, 2022 @01:09AM
(#30998853)
I think this is probably the most accurate answer in this particular thread. There's essentially unlimited capacity in airspace, and while some airports are massively oversubscribed (LHR!) most are not. You can just keep putting planes up in the air in 3 dimensions where increasing the number of trains needs laying more excessively expensive physical infrastructure in 2 dimensions
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Re:Europe is investing heavily in trains
by evandijk70 on Tuesday April 12, 2022 @05:59AM
(#31000580)
I think it is actually the other way around and also not what GP said. Trains need more scale than planes.
Example: From Amsterdam Airport to Palermo, there are 2 flights per week (Friday and Monday). That is 300 passengers per week. It is a profitable to fly planes between these two cities, but a direct rail route including maintenance of the railway system would be far to expensive. This is partly resolved by stops along the way, but definitely not completely. The busiest direct railway routes (AMS-PARIS, AMS-LONDON, PARIS LONDON) in Europe are far from full, with one train an hour.
So the problem is not insufficient capacity, but rather that the scale is to small. I see electric buses playing a big role in the future to allow for better point-to-point connections.