[xwdv]

In Europe these night trains are useless IMO.

Air travel within Europe is cheap and easy, night trains are far more expensive, slow and run unreliable schedules sometimes, and they often don’t even take you to places you want to go.

In America though, night trains would be awesome, since air travel is expensive, hellish, and the country is built in a way that the destinations most people will want to go to are already laid out in an efficient layout due to the car focused culture.

[Beijinger]

"Air travel within Europe is cheap and easy"

1. This can change due to political reasons. E.g. "As part of far-reaching 2021 climate legislation, France proposed banning domestic flights where equivalent journeys taking less than two-and-a-half hours on its excellent and wide-ranging rail network are available."

2. Yes, you all know the USD 10 airfaires from Ryanair. But often destinations are very limited and often it is 3rd tier airports. Good luck getting there.

I welcome night trains. They were always cheap, good an convenient in China and Eastern Europe (legendary Prague -> Budapest -> Bucharest line e.g.). I hope this might get more convenient in Western Europe in the future. And why not add a nice bar and coffee place and internet when you are on it. Board at 8, have a few drinks, get up at 7, have a coffee, work and get off at 10am.

[jillesvangurp]

France has an excellent high speed rail network it has less need for domestic flights. Other countries in the EU could learn from that.

Germany particularly is a basket case. If you take the "high speed" train from Berlin to Köln, it takes nearly five hours, the train stops lots of times, and with the exception of a few tens of kilometers never hits anywhere near its maximum speed. Combined with all the delays, cancelled trains, strikes, etc. It makes for a bit unpredictable experience. Domestic flights are well under 1 hour, typically. Even with the hassle of getting to and from airports, it's way faster.

https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ has a nice map that you can show the maximum speeds on rail segments. Spain and France are the best. I've taken high speed trains in both and their high speed trains go the maximum speed most of the journey. Germany is notable for just not having a lot of rail suitable for its trains to drive their maximum speed.

Germany could do a lot better. But it will require massive investments.

I think the idea of a night train is more attractive than the reality of it being very slow, expensive, and relatively uncomfortable (at least I never managed to sleep well on one).

IMHO domestic flights in many countries can start transitioning to fully electric hops in the next decade or so. Anything under 700 miles is fair game for that. The battery technology is getting there. So, investing in lots of rail might not be the smartest thing.

[josephcsible]

> Air travel within Europe is cheap and easy, night trains are far more expensive, slow and run unreliable schedules sometimes, and they often don’t even take you to places you want to go.

And of course their solution to this isn't to try to improve the trains. It's to ban flying between anywhere that trains exist! In case it isn't clear, this isn't a hypothetical: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36046764

[croisillon]

* only between a couple cities

* except for private jets

* in fact except anything that would give this ban teeth, since Macron's cabinet members all end up working for shady companies afterward

[josephcsible]

> * except for private jets

That's not a defense. It makes it worse. The elites still get to pollute, but we don't. And it's especially bad since flying commercial is way better for the environment than flying private.

[t-3]

> since air travel is expensive, hellish, and the country is built in a way that the destinations most people will want to go to are already laid out in an efficient layout due to the car focused culture.

What? Air travel may be hellish, but it's super-cheap domestically compared to driving or trains. Both air and train share the issue of needing to rent a car or pay to be ferried about at $destination.

[nerdbert]

My at-destination-ferrying costs rarely if ever exceed €10/day, usually less, since unlimited metro/bus passes are widely available.