Search results

Plenty of examples of rail companies with (legal or de facto) monopolies offering a vastly better service. Look at Switzerland, the Benelux countries etc.

E* is majority-owned by SNCF. What else did you expect? Offer a terrible service, but hinder competition is their entire playbook.

Ah, but that is not inevitable, merely bad regulation (which admittedly is often the rule). Obviously unregulated competetion on a scarce resource (=the most attractive and therefore the most congested lines) that has largely been paid out of public funds is a bad idea. It doesn't mean that...

RENFE I can see, but why is Trenitalia in a bad state?

Being strongly opposed to cherry-picking in rail competition, I do see your point.* However, you might need to allow competitors in on the crown jewels if you want to entice them to run elsewhere too. Let's see how Velvet does; the demand is surely there, but they need to earn money. *And...

I absolutely don't deny that operating conditions in France are more difficult than elsewhere, but most of it is either a political choice (sky-high access charges) or an SNCF one (artificially restricting capacity by operating/ordering too few sets). The "single manufacturer" has been disproved...

It is. But Spain has enabled - real and fair - competition on the most important HSL, so they are in front of France here.

Well, it is a shambles now; hard to see how it could get worse (unlike the long-distance competition plans in Germany which likely *will* make things worse).

All of what you write is really an argument for why France is one of the prime countries in Europe that really, really need real competition.

… and hinder any attempt at competition… 8-)

You don't need the space to be there already to quadruple. You just need to spend more (either to tunnel or to do compulsory purchases). In any case, Ireland has the money, so it is a question of political will.

About once a month, there is also a steam-hauled train using a class Mh (later ÖBB 399, now back to Mh), built for the Mariazellerbahn before its early electrification.

Knowing Germany, there will likely be court proceedings now… I find it hard to see how on lines with an hourly base frequency, giving away 25-40% of paths away to a competitor with presumably separate ticketing will really improve provide overall consumer benefits. Yes, you will have a certain...

They and their competitors will, through user charges. Airports aren’t funded differently. It might be that the station operator doesn’t believe they can, but it is a bit self-defeating. If they don’t expand the station enough, not enough passengers will be able to travel. In any case, that...

As I wrote before: If the underground station is cheaper, go for it. :lol:

That was indeed my point. But it should not be forgotten that Berlin Hbf - opened 2006 - was planned in the early 1990s. It is not much use criticizing what was decided 30 years ago based on the world at it is now. Also no use building something which might only work 30-40 years later, as I said...

If everything you do is just run NPR-related services through such a station, and if - logically then - there is only a single station for Manchester at Piccadilly, the only advantage of a through station is a minor and in the end irrelevant time saving. In particular, there is no advantage at...

Even without ATO, you can turn a train around in 4 minutes if you exchange the driver (who, on a high frequency railway, could simply "step back"). So almost no time lost. All approaches would be new built anyway, so you could avoid the max 15 oder 20 or 25 mph on approach which hampers many...

I don't think anyone could justify the massive expenditure for 400 m underground platforms only for that. Yes, but overground terminus-style 400m platforms as originally planned are enough for this.

It really depends what you want. Neither HS2 nor NPR need a through station, and there is no reason to build a terminal underground. What Manchester presumably wants is for the HS2/NPR projects to pay for an underground through station which will really be used for other things. I can imagine an...