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Comment by supernova87a | Hacker News Reader

Honestly I'm a little skeptical that it will work out.

They're building custom train cars ($$$) that will generally serve people who are visitors to Paris (otherwise why would you pay extra for a hotel night on a train from a city that you live in, and not fly discount airlines instead?).

The trains will be in operation only 50% duty cycle (the train arrives in the morning, so I suppose it takes the return journey that evening and not immediate turnaround), since the outbound was 13 hours.

I'm guessing the tickets will be quite premium priced to make it profitable.

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In terms of business when you can buy a 30 euro easy jet ticket or a 200 euro train ticket, not a lot of people are going to be able to afford the train. In many parts of Europe, trains are not price competitive with air connections. And also a lot slower.

Here in Germany, there are a lot of domestic flights under 1 hour that connect places that would be 4-6 hours away by train. Even with the inconvenience of being treated like cattle, having to travel for an hour to get to and from the airport on both ends, etc. it's still a net gain. And often it's cheaper too. And it's the difference between needing a hotel or being able to travel back and forth on a single day. Early morning and evening flights are usually packed.

Trains should be dirt cheap but they aren't. A round trip to my parents with a 4.5 hour train journey costs me around 110 Euros every time I do it. The fuel expenses for the same journey by car are about the same.

Reason: Deutsche Bahn is a state protected monopoly that has little to no real competition and is run in a super inefficient way. So companies that have to burn enormous amounts of kerosene are able to compete on price. That's insane. There are buses competing with train journeys in Germany charging 30-40% of the train ticket price. Sometimes less. Do buses have better fuel economy than trains? Of course they don't.

So, yes, these luxury trains will be drop in the ocean in terms of actually cutting down on that. I doubt they will be profitable at all. At those prices, filling the trains will be a challenge. Though there is a market for people with a conscious and a wallet that want to go places but feel bad about flying there.

Might be like that way in Germany, but in mainland France and Spain domestic flights are almost unheard of as the train is nearly always a better option and price is the same if you book in advance as you would for a plane ticket.

For short, in-county trips the train station is normally more convenient than an airport, and there is less spent in security. Trains tend to run a lot more often, while planes are often only a few times per day. Thus a train is the same price, about as fast, and a lot more convenient.

France and Spain have both invested in High Speed rail. Germany is behind there, the lack of speed on their train network. For humans time is a very important consideration.

France has one major problem in that there are no transversal lines in the South (Bordeaux->Toulouse->Marseille or Bordeaux->Lyon) which makes a lot of the travelling in that direction incredibly inconvenient, to the point plane is the better means of transportation.

There was once a guy who traveled from somewhere in southern England to London by way of Berlin because that was cheaper than simply taking the direct train to London.

It's utterly ridiculous how much air travel is subsidized and train travel is not. Another problem is indeed that trains can't really compete with each other; even privatised, they still end up with local monopolies on specific lines, or else it would become chaos. I suppose there's some competition between high-speed rail and short flights, and sometimes, high-speed train tickets (to France at least) can get surprisingly cheap if you buy them at the right moment, but the competition remains unfair because of all the subsidies air travel gets.

Maybe EU governments should subsidise trains to the point travel becomes free. I'm sure that would cut down on traffic jams on roads too.

It isn't just the air travel is subsidized (it is, but not by enough to explain the cost), it is inherently cheaper to maintain an airport on either and, an airplane. While both of those costs are more expensive than a train station and train maintenance, track maintenance will kill you.

Tracks still is worth it, but only if you use the track a lot.

The infrastructure that is used by the planes (air) is way cheaper than the one used by the trains (rail). Air maintenance costs are about zero. Rails maintenance is far from it.

The nature is subsidizing air travel much more than any government ever could.

> otherwise why would you pay extra for a hotel night on a train from a city that you live in

Because if you stayed at home, you have to wake up early and deal with the airport to fly on the airline. This way, you can take your time, make use of the journey for some work or relaxation and arrive fresh in the morning.

So take up your personal time to travel rather than the company's during the day?

The point is that it's a more efficient way to travel. Both in time (you travel in your sleep), and energy/pollution. And it's more comfortable (or in this case luxurious) than the cattle-drive experience of air travel.

It is more expensive, though. But that's also because air travel gets lots of subsidies and doesn't pay for externalities. That should change.

It's not necessarily more expensive either. Instead of arriving in the afternoon, you have the whole day ahead of you, and you mostly spent down time for travel. To get the same amount of waking hours in a trip where you fly you would need an extra night in the accommodation of choice at the travel destination. That's €50 – €100 extra. And of course the costs of getting from the airport to a place you actually want to spend time, and the costs of your time in terms of leave taken from work!

For many sleeper trains already are cost effective. And as soon as governments finally give in and stop subsidising air travel it will only become more attractive.

And every train fan knows that there is one thing that can't be beat: get off the train in the early morning, take a few steps, and you're standing in front of the station and you're done. You can go visit a museum or do some other leisurely thing. No security, no delays in getting your luggage, not being stuck in airport getting ready for the train/taxi/bus to some place humans actually want to be.

Indeed, when comparing trains to airplanes, the time necessary to get from the city to the airport and the security checks & boarding time are generally forgotten (repeat at arrival). It's generally around 1 to 3 hours for a single flight.

So, for a short flight, using the train may take the same time than using the plane (particularly true in Europe with the speed trains).

For example, Paris-Frankfurt, next wednesday with Deutsche Bahn ICE 9553 it's 4 hours for 56€ from city center to city center (cheapest price for the week, it can go up to 350€). By plane, with Air-France it's 1h20 from airport (CDG) to airport (FRA) for 127€ the same day. From Paris center to CDG airport, it's around 30 mins, and for Frankfurt airport to Frankfurt center it's 40 minutes. Both ride by local trains (for 5~10€ each). All in all around 2h30 from city-center to city-center, but then you need to not forget the necessary time for security check & boarding. Let's say 1h30 only because you have no luggage... If you have a luggage add 40 minutes more.

All in all, for this ride, the time is around the same, but the stress is not...

9am meeting - would you a) fly the day before and stay in a hotel? or b) travel be train overnight?

I'd take the train.

I'd take the train.

Unless you actually want make sure you're on time for the meeting. Unless you are in Switzerland or Japan, if the train is supposed to arrive at 8am, the chance you'll make your 9am meeting on time is a coin toss at best, even if it's held right next to the train station.

Also the hotel is guaranteed to have a much more comfortable bed, a shower and a better breakfast.

I'm also interested in their train designs, the planned capsule trains from the austrian railways are quite interesting capacity wise (https://www.railtech.com/rolling-stock/2019/12/04/obb-will-i...), the default 4 bed compartment configuration but without sharing the compartment with 4 strangers. Let's see their pricing if they start rolling the stock this year.

To be honest, I like the idea. I have used night trains in Europe before and they are a great way to travel and save a day when on holiday.

The one thing they really need. To get right is the bed needs cannot be perpendicular to the direction of motion. That sucks.

I’ve slept on the aligned bunks and I agree, the perpendicular berths are a relic of the compartment era. Also a better packing efficiency, e.g. the ones in Thailand:

https://gotothailand.com/thai-sleeper-trains/

The duty cycle is indeed a problem. When I used to work for Intercity West Coast back in the day, the sleeper coaches got serviced and then sat in the yard for the whole day since they can't be used for much during the day.

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