Where there are high-speed routes today, hopefully 300 mph maglevs will be running in 50 years.
Not sure that is true.
When you have a high speed train, going from the centre of a city to the centre of another city... and can subtract time to get to airport, time in airport security, time to wait to board a plane, time to taxi, time to circle before landing, time to get to the city, time to safety margin most of the above... the train comes out at least comparable on time (not an order of magnitude off), cheaper, greener, and centre-to-centre.
For me... European trains are so nice in comparison to flying that unless there is a time penalty of more than double to triple the real time spent flying (which in this case does not feel true)... then the train wins.
It's also a very productive journey. I can't do meetings on a train, but 6-7 hours uninterrupted in a comfy chair with power and internet is still coding / making slides / etc.
Another con is this scenario: you need to go from Berlin to Paris for an activity that takes 2-3 hours (ex: paperwork that requires your presence on site or a very important meeting). With a plane you fly in, do the thing and fly out same day. With the train, you spend 2 days. I had to do this a lot 20 years ago between Bucharest, Romania, and Sofia, Bulgaria; about 370km, no highway, inconvenient flight times, train took ~ 6 hours each direction etc. I was driving there and back, 4 hours door to door each direction, the gas was a lot cheaper than the hotel and sometimes traveling 2-5 people in a car. Double the distance and the plane is the attractive option vs train.
Option 1 (plane + taxi) - taxi to BER (45m), check-in/security/wait (1h), BER-CDG flight 1h45m, exit (20m), taxi to the Paris office (1h) = about 5 hours.
Option 2 (plane + bus) - bus in Berlin takes 50 minutes, in Paris takes 1 hour, so about the same, but I'll add about 30 minutes because the schedules might not mesh so well = about 5.5 hours.
Option 2 (train) - taxi to Berlin Hbf (6m) or walk (25m), train to Gare de l'Est (7 hours), taxi (13m) or walk (28m) to the Paris office = about 7.5 hours.
Agreed, 5 extra hours makes a same-day visit tougher (10 hours of travel vs 15).
Plus, to start there's only one day-time direct train route, while there are more flight options.
To be very transparent: I dislike commercial planes. I worked several years in a large airport and I hate the airport experience (cannot disclose any details, but it is very ineffective); I hate the seats in the plane because I am tall and leg room is inadequate. I dislike sitting uncomfortably for hours and I dislike the sound pollution. At the same time I am a sport pilot and I am flying less and less, mostly because the seat (even more uncomfortable) and noise. But I am trying to be realistic when choosing train versus plane, beyond some distance the plane is much better.
To be clear, I'm saying that for your example there are clear reasons to go by plane, starting with there are currently only going to be one or two train trips per day.
> that is not there for most people
Certainly. But you were talking about people who would fly from Berlin to Paris for an activity that takes 2-3 hours and fly back on the same day. That's not most people either. Where do they live?
BER is in the southern part of the city, which means that for at least half the population it's easier to get to Berlin Hbf than the airport.
From Spandau, 18 minutes to the Hbf, plus the walking time to the station. By car, "typically 30-45 minutes" to BER. (This is for leaving home around 5.30am, expecting to get to Paris in mid-morning.) From Pottsdam and Hoppegarten, the times to Hbf is about 37 min. and "typically 35-50 min" by car to BER. That supports my assumption that over 1/2 the population finds it easier to get to the train station than the airport.
Google Maps says the expected mass transit time from Gare d'Est to Vincennes is about 25 minutes, while the driving time from CDG to Vincennes is "typically 45 min to 1 hr 15 min."
As a further complication, you earlier wrote "and you are not paid for that". I assumed someone was willing to pay for the taxis, for a quicker trip, and accepting as a given they weren't paying for your time, though I think that's odd.
You'll be interrupted once to show your ticket, that's all.
If I really need to be present at this "very important" 3 hour meeting in Paris then the best option might be to rent a meeting room at CDG. Then it's a 2 hour flight, 3 hour meeting, and 2 hour flight home - plus transit time in Berlin and going through security at CDG so call it another 3 hours = 10 hours total.
While it's a minimum of 17 hours by train.
An ICE is no different than a bus in this regard. A flight is a totally different story, probably planned weeks in advance and stress starts on the morning the day of.
Trains need to provide consistent connectivity and then they can be mobile offices. Maybe add some rentable phone booths, too.
This is very different when it comes to airports as even small tier 2 airports are somehow clean and safe due to tightened security of them being airports and not train stations.
I live in Dresden. Could you elaborate on what you find unclean or unsafe about Dresden Hbf? I travel from there quite often, and don't recall any experiences that would make me feel unsafe or uncomfortable like you seem to allude to. If anything, the one thing I notice is that there is the high density of police patrols, since the border police for trains going to Czechia and Poland operate out of Dresden Hbf.
It's not like I've never seen a homeless person in a city center (which includes train stations, though usually they're not inside) but I'm not sure that crime rates are actually that high. With cameras all over the place, it sounds like it would be a hard place to operate at more than a handful of times until they know what you look like, but IANAC.
Airports are much better! No squatters, beggars or drug dealers!
Unfortunately ICE is very expensive to date
The thing with economy, as always, is the price of an alternative. If these cost the same, it's one thing. Usually though, trains are more expensive. And for a good reason — maintaining the tracks costs a lot of money, while maintaining the air is free.
Maintanence of planes is way more expensive than trains, and maintanence of airports is way more expensive than train stations.
Also, the biggest reason is tax free plane fuel.
Which is the reason that the bigger the distance, the cheaper flying is compared to trains. Constant costs are the same, but per-kilometer costs add up, and not in trains' favor.
> Also, the biggest reason is tax free plane fuel.
I guess the solution of making planes as expensive as trains are won't be very popular.
Or, at the very least, not tax electricity used by trains?
Also, I think you overestimate the importance of plane ticket prices on people's voting patterns.
This. Most people don't realise that the biggest reason flying is so cheap, is it's subsidised by the state in every contry in accordance to rules of international aviation, whereas train companies must pay taxes on any fuel they use.
Kinda doubt if you count per passenger mile. Also, planes (and rockets) are _kind of_ simple when compared with trains or cars.
Not even the largest A380 are comparable to ICE4 which are presumably going to be used on this route.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/v15f0ux8dk07ap7/ICE4.pdf?dl=0
>Also, planes (and rockets) are _kind of_ simple when compared with trains or cars.
In which context? I very much doubt that maintanence costs are similar or even cheaper for planes - for one, the plane maintanence has to be more thorough.
Also, I would say that electric engines for trains are relatively simple compared to jet engines.
Even cost supports this thesis: Poland bought 400-seat Pendolino for 400 millions for 20 trains.
Comparable 777 costs 400 million... for one plane. 737s start from 100 million.
What's expensive is infrastructure.
For a cost of 737, you can have five trains. But a 737 can make a 1000 km flight, be back, make another 1000 km flight, and be back — in the time it takes a train to make one-way 1000 km ride.
Your points are valid, but it takes more 400-seat trains to provide for a good intercity connection where one plane can do it.
Additionally, in the time the plane flights from point A to point B, the air has lots of space to accommodate other planes. But trains need to share the limited tracks resource — e.g. one one-way tracks, you can't have two trains going in opposite directions, or they will crash into each other.
We have a one-way regional rail line that has double tracks only on the stations, so that's where the trains can pass one another. A failure of any train to be there on time wrecks the whole day schedule.
Seems to be the case:
> In 2011-2015 the Warsaw-Gdańsk-Gdynia route underwent a major upgrading costing $3 billion, partly funded by the European Investment Bank, including track replacement, realignment of curves and relocation of sections of track to allow speeds up to 200 km/h (124 mph), and modernization of stations.
Note it was an "upgrading" of existing tracks.
I assume most of the equipment is supposed to last decades, and maintenance itself can be automated to a degree (use the trains themselves to run track diagnostics for example).