Hacker News Reader

Comment by dzhiurgis | Hacker News Reader

They are not that comfortable. Sure you've got slightly more leg space than Ryanair, but difference is minimal. The only train I've really ever liked was Amtrak, but unsure whether I was somehow upgraded to their premium seats. Taking Canadian train after that was a torture.

Also they are much more expensive. Which makes sense as tech itself is legacy. The cost of maintaining, lack of competition (especially with buses) is killing them.

Honestly I don't see how we can't replace trains with electric buses...

View on HN

I don't know which trains you took but here in europe even the less costly trains (regional trains) are far far far more comfy than any ryanair airplane (saying this as a 193cm man), especially if you want to stand up often or just want to have more than two bathroom every 150 people. If you take a fast train the experience is not even remotely comparable, they are more spacious, cleaner and offer more optionals. Yeah they cost more but not really a lot more. If you have to put some extrabaggage the ryanair airplane is gonna be the loser even in the cost side.

Also, personally, I prefer trains even just for the fact I have not to lose 2 extra uncomfortable hours between checkin and security checks.

As a 187 I hate pretty much every piece of transport (even most cars miss my femur length)...

I used to travel Southampton to London a lot (that's like 150km or so). IIRC renting a car used to be cheaper.

At 200cm, I will choose trains whenever possible. Aeroplanes are a nightmare for me.

I'm 196cm and airplanes are actually not as bad as fellow tall people always complain. I think I might have relatively short legs for my height.

Southampton to London is £41 return for 160 mile round trip. Petrol alone will set you back half that. If there's a company willing to rent a car for 300 miles for £20, they're making a loss, and that's before you get onto parking charges.

Either way the train is far faster.

Plus, train stations are often in the city centers, while airports are on the outskirts and are often not easy to reach.

I've never been on a train and wished that I'd taken the bus instead (or that the line was replaced by buses). The ride is much smoother, I have more space for myself and my baggage and I can more or less comfortably use the toilet.

Nor did I. But many times I've looked at train prices and bus boy did I consider.

I've once missed my train in UK. Next one was something like 120 pounds vs 8 pounds for bus. I think it's the last time I've ever took bus.

IMHO difference in price should start to increase as electric bus TCO is already lower than diesel. The difference in XP should increase as less noise and pollution is added. Plus adding premium seats, air suspension would make a massive difference.

Ok, seems like you didn't ride European trains yet.

They are on a vast spectrum. Going from Frankfurt to Cologne second class in a train of soccer fans is very different from taking a first class ride in Switzerland.

Or riding in Ukraine or Eastern Hungary. (Europe isn't just Western Europe...)

Sure, and flying up front on Cathay is a bit different from flying on, say, RyanAir.

https://www.express.co.uk/travel/articles/816431/Ryanair-fli...

I haven't done sleeper trains or really long trips. I did spend quite some time in NL and UK and took trains (2-3 hrs) in Sweden, Belgium, France, Germany and Switzerland. Probably some other countries (and many more outside of Europe). Sure it's slightly nicer than pack of sardines in an airplane, but also I'd rather negotiate armrest for 1 hour than 5.

> Honestly I don't see how we can't replace trains with electric buses...

Oh geez. Even with our pretty crappy trains in Australia, I'd still take a train every time. Trains are faster, offer much smoother rides and are much more efficient than busses.

You can't run electric buses at >100mph for one thing.

But you can operate them 2-5x cheaper.

Source for that? You need ten buses to replace a single medium-length train. To my understanding trains trade higher up-front costs (infrastructure!) to lower per-passenger-km operating costs.

I mean just based on UK ticket costs I'd say they're not too far off the mark. If you catch a coach rather than the train it's often half the price, but the trade-off is you get stuck in traffic, they're infrequent, if they're oversubscribed there's no standing room (although coach operators rarely face this issue) and they're usually just not as fast as trains. I commuted to work by intercity coach for a couple of weeks and believe me it was no picnic - 5:30am wake time to catch a 6am coach and I often didn't get back until 8pm. Admittedly I was at the end of a route with a number of stops in several small villages nearby which exacerbated things a lot, but still! Some people do this on a long term basis and it blows my mind.

Consumer ticket prices seem like a poor proxy for operating expenses per passenger km. For one, as you said, the quality of service is better.

Even if so, you'd want electric buses to replace the kinds of routes currently served by regular buses - they'd hardly be a replacement for inter-city trains.

Also besides more leg space you get to walk around and go to the cafeteria. And a better view i would say, thought that's debatable, view from the plane is pretty tripy the first few times.

Trains go at 400km/h

> Honestly I don't see how we can't replace trains with electric buses...

I suspect you've never taken a train, or a bus.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com