# EUROPE - Railways in Europe. What's the plan?



## Bulevardi (Jul 19, 2007)

Hi all,


Can someone tell me the advantage of the current European Commission's railway plan?

No citizen voted for this, only shareholders and lobby groups seem to have a lot benefit with this plan, isn't it?

Where's the "one union" vision, one policy where Europe stands for?

There should be only one European railway company with a transparent and fair rate system instead of 100 private companies who use more expensive and less democratic revenue/yield price systems.

Passengers first, CEO salaries last. Service to citizens instead of profit to companies.

No grants for pollution anymore: put higher taxes on kerosene and invest in railways at affordable rates instead (airplane tickets should cost more than the ecological alternative).

Stop forcing people to use cars or planes. Prevent railway workers to strike, act with a decent global solution.

Stop liberalisation of railways and work together.
(look at the regionalization in France right now, with a 3 months strike as result... )

A better European mobility plan where each country collaborates within a union is the key for a sustainable environment for the next generations.



Europe Needs Action


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## K_ (Jan 5, 2010)

Bulevardi said:


> There should be only one European railway company with a transparent and fair rate system instead of 100 private companies who use more expensive and less democratic revenue/yield price systems.


One railway company for the whole of Europe? That is a terrible idea.
It’s horrible. It’s how you’ll destroy railways in Europe. 

If I look at Europe is see that in countries where rail is making a lot of progress we see multiple companies, competitive tenders and involvement of the private sector. Then there are countries where they find keeping competition out more important than service to the passengers... 

Competetive tendering for regional services is good. That is how the taxpayer gets more public transport for his money. 
Competition on long distance services is good. That is how Trenitalia was forced to improve its act.
Yield management is good. That is how long distance services can survive without needing tax payer money.


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## Coccodrillo (Sep 30, 2005)

There isn't always a single answer. SBB is an integrated public company and works well (but they make many partly unnoticed mistakes recently), SNCF is also an integrated company but rail transport in France doesn't work well.

Yield management works on long distances (although I don't like it), but it destroys local travel. Milan-Turin HSL costed 8 billion euros, but because of yield management most people who cannot plan in advance a trip will use regional trains or cars instead. And on a 140 km route, most people do not and can not plan in advance. Both cities it connect have over a million inhabitants each, however this line doesn't have the traffic one could expect (around 4 trains epr hour per direction at peak hours).


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## Bulevardi (Jul 19, 2007)

I've seen situations in the past where different companies need to collaborate together to offer a good service, and it's mostly a mess, certainly if they're concurrents of each other. 

If it's all in one company, it's a lot easier.

A lot of night trains are not running anymore, car-trains the same story.

Since a few years, Deutsche Bahn and SNCF are scheduling a lot of bus routes too, mostly on lines where a rail-route was possible too before. Just to compete with other bus companies like Flixbus, Eurolines, ... and lots of others lately.

They really force people into oil transport.

Also for long distance, the train is always more expensive than an flight. 
I heard stories about airways that have to pay almost no taxes on kerosene to be able to offer cheaper tickets.
What's the real fact behind this... is there an oil lobby working on this?


If it continues with all private companies in the future, it needs to be offered on one platform for the customer.
Right now, there are already lots of different companies that aren't offered on the most known sales platforms. Customers don't know this and are in some cases missing connections because they don't know a private company is serving there. It needs to be regulated more, standardized, by Europe... one European platform ?


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

Polish Railway is often criticized for having been divided into multiple companies.

Often it's actually not the division to blame, but how this division was made.

In Germany such a division also took place. But in Germany it is still possible to buy a single ticket for a journey including a long-distance and a regional train, even though they belong to separate companies now (DB Fernverkehr - long-distance, DB Regio or companies totally independent of the DB - regional). In Poland, however, it is not possible. Furthermore, shifting the responsibility for the regional transport from the state to the regions caused in many cases breaking connections that used to connect sites on two sides of a regional border. And even if there still exist such a connection, you often need now two separate tickets because the trains in both regions are operated by different companies.

So people criticize just the division of the PKP, but they are wrong - not just the division was wrong but its realization.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

K_ said:


> One railway company for the whole of Europe? That is a terrible idea.
> It’s horrible. It’s how you’ll destroy railways in Europe.
> 
> If I look at Europe is see that in countries where rail is making a lot of progress we see multiple companies, competitive tenders and involvement of the private sector. Then there are countries where they find keeping competition out more important than service to the passengers...
> ...


Yield management is not necessarily good. Take a look at Japan. No yield management there and massive rail usage and a highly successful system. Competitive tendering is not always good either - take a look at Australia. It's all about local conditions and the way in which things are implemented rather than just the concept itself.


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## K_ (Jan 5, 2010)

Svartmetall said:


> Yield management is not necessarily good. Take a look at Japan. No yield management there and massive rail usage and a highly successful system. Competitive tendering is not always good either - take a look at Australia. It's all about local conditions and the way in which things are implemented rather than just the concept itself.


Yes, but the status quo was not an option in Europe. We would have seen a slow death of the train in stead of the current revival.

(And in Japan the motorways have lifted yield management to new levels unseen in rail or air...)


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## K_ (Jan 5, 2010)

Bulevardi said:


> I've seen situations in the past where different companies need to collaborate together to offer a good service, and it's mostly a mess, certainly if they're concurrents of each other.
> 
> If it's all in one company, it's a lot easier.


You know what big railway companies are good at? Closing lines. Small regional lines are not interesting for big companies. NMBS closed half it’s network since it was founded. SNCF has seriously neglected the regional network. 

There is one country in Europe we’re most of the historic railway network is still in operation. And that is Switzerland. In Switzerland there are 50 different railway companies. And it is because many small local lines are owned by local companies, with local roots and ownership, that all these lines survived. 



> A lot of night trains are not running anymore, car-trains the same story.


Yes, and in the case of Belgium it is because of the national railway company or being interested, and the trade unions blocking foreign operators.



> Since a few years, Deutsche Bahn and SNCF are scheduling a lot of bus routes too, mostly on lines where a rail-route was possible too before. Just to compete with other bus companies like Flixbus, Eurolines, ... and lots of others lately.


That is not a bad thing. It keeps customers for the railway company. 



> They really force people into oil transport.
> 
> Also for long distance, the train is always more expensive than an flight.
> I heard stories about airways that have to pay almost no taxes on kerosene to be able to offer cheaper tickets.
> What's the real fact behind this... is there an oil lobby working on this?


It is not that they do not have to pay taxes on kerosine. Most railways are heavily subsidised, so complaining that they are getting competition from air, which is not, is not entirely fair. 
The problem is that the old state railways are often very inefficient and not very commercially minded. You are not going to solve that with one big European company. On the contrary. 
What we need is that for example ÖBB gets a chance to expand its night train network. For that however a lot must change. 



> If it continues with all private companies in the future, it needs to be offered on one platform for the customer.
> Right now, there are already lots of different companies that aren't offered on the most known sales platforms. Customers don't know this and are in some cases missing connections because they don't know a private company is serving there. It needs to be regulated more, standardized, by Europe... one European platform ?


One sales platform would be nice. We are getting there. Thanks to private initiatives. You can for example compare Italo with Trenitalia on Trainline.


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## K_ (Jan 5, 2010)

Coccodrillo said:


> There isn't always a single answer. SBB is an integrated public company and works well (but they make many partly unnoticed mistakes recently), SNCF is also an integrated company but rail transport in France doesn't work well.


Infra, long distance and regional trains are all pretty much now separated. And there are about 50 other companies.



> Yield management works on long distances (although I don't like it), but it destroys local travel. Milan-Turin HSL costed 8 billion euros, but because of yield management most people who cannot plan in advance a trip will use regional trains or cars instead. And on a 140 km route, most people do not and can not plan in advance. Both cities it connect have over a million inhabitants each, however this line doesn't have the traffic one could expect (around 4 trains epr hour per direction at peak hours).


Most lines in Italy have less trains than one would expect. This is not just about yield management. On that route the walk-up fare of 33,- doesn’t seem exaggerated to me.


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## Trupman (May 17, 2010)

Is this socialist one-post fantasy really a reason to start a new thread?

Where's the "one thread for OT" vision? hno:


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## Kpc21 (Oct 3, 2008)

K_ said:


> What we need is that for example ÖBB gets a chance to expand its night train network. For that however a lot must change.


But it is happening 



K_ said:


> You know what big railway companies are good at? Closing lines. Small regional lines are not interesting for big companies.


It's a good point. It was also happening in Poland. Now some of them are being re-opened by new regional train operators instated of the state PKP which closed them.


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## Zaz965 (Jan 24, 2015)

by paradise at tagus


paradise at Tagus said:


> The color shows the maximal speed of trains.


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## havaska (Dec 26, 2005)

That map misses out HS2 in England, though granted, there isn't much room to fit it in.


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## Bulevardi (Jul 19, 2007)

Trains trains trains by Bulevardi, on Flickr


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## da_scotty (Nov 4, 2008)

havaska said:


> That map misses out HS2 in England, though granted, there isn't much room to fit it in.


Is HS2 build then, did that very quickly? :nuts:


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## havaska (Dec 26, 2005)

da_scotty said:


> Is HS2 build then, did that very quickly? :nuts:


If you look at the key there's a dotted green line for under construction/planned.


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## [email protected] (Jul 25, 2010)




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