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It‘s not. It is a regular commercial contract to buy laptops, in order to provide a social service. The laptop provider does not receive any subsidy at all. Neither does the PSO provider.

I know. Thing is, they are absolute not the same. Calling a PSO a subsidy is the same as calling „government buys laptops“ a subsidy. PSO are payments for services rendered, not a subsidy.

So what?

Of course. It is not a subsidy though, but a Public Service Obligation.

ÖBB say they break even.

Thank you for clarifying.

I would even argue that 8 hours is too short for most people, because you will barely get enough sleep (yes I know the Caledonian Sleeper to Glasgow/Edinburgh has a journey time of about 8 hours, but I would never take it, with daytime trains being so fast).

Which in many cases, they do not. And the upper limit for night trains is more around 14 hours.

As I pointed out in the parallel TEE thread, the only way to do this is to integrate different domestic trains to run internationally (or to link shorter-distance international trains). This way, trains will mostly be filled by passengers using them for shorter journeys and only a minority will...

Yes they are. I would estimate that here in Austria we are at about 70-80% of pre-Covid, in some cases much more. However, revenues lag behind, because business and international tourist travel is still very slow, and those are the Money-earners. The way to make this work is to integrate...

So what? A Berlin-Barcelona day train serves enough decently sized cities that it will be full along its entire trip. Provided of course that it is integrated into national timetables and, above all, ticketing systems (no „special tickets, reservation only“ absurdities).

Well, this is the way any long-distance day service operates, and outside of the almost-HS-only countries (France, Spain, etc), those are still very common. Those closer city pairs you mention need several services a day (at least, if there is demand between them; and if not, the whole point...

Thank you for the interesting exchange. I think we both agree that these privileges should go.

Not raising taxes on ticket sales (it does not matter if VAT or sales tax) is actually ICAO policy. See:https://www.icao.int/publications/Documents/8632_2ed_en.pdf Section IV. VAT is raised on some domestic flights in the EU, e.g. in Germany (Not for connecting tickets though, for obvious...

I am quite sure there are international agreements to this effect which bind many more countries than just EU members. In any case, I agree that this needs to change urgently.

That is a consequence of very specific Italien decisions a number of years ago, when there was not much interest in cross-border traffic, especially of the marginal kind (where some efforts are necessary to earn money). A similar approach by the French did not help. Services from Italy to...

Of course, in Disentis (and again in Chur, but that has to do with the change of direction).

Switzerland- since it is a direct democracy, actually the Swiss people - has long had a strong consensus that the railway network should be improved, even though it is not cheap. However, they also have been very focused: Each and every investment is appraised whether it makes long-term sense...

It opened in 1999.

They already have permission and are in service to Milan since August.