Mastodawn

And if your response is “ah but rail firms will add more capacity”, I’d point you to Thalys that hasn’t upped capacity in 2 decades despite rising demand and sky high prices. And SNCF that runs just 2 TGVs to Barcelona a day. Both easy to solve, both not done.

jakob.pxi Aug 15, 2023

@jon This! Yet I remain marginally hopeful that public pressure can occasionally work: the budget for traditional low income (?) tourism SNCF night trains to the south of France got reinstated over uproar. Last year we even enjoyed new cars with comfy beds. But it did get pricey. Probably need EU level pressure for more capacity, but current German government a major detriment there. Sigh.

@jakob That was a job retention effort for a SNCF works in Perigeux to renovate those vehicles. But yes, public pressure made it happen - and that’s welcome.

Tristram Gräbener Aug 15, 2023

@jon appart from cross-border rail, do you know how other countries finance their infrastructure ?
French HSL are pretty well used close to max capacity, track fares are of the most expensive in Europe, yet apparently the network operator struggles, and SNCF barely breaks even on those lines.
Could EU-laws allow to finance tracks solely by the state (charging train operators only for saturation at specific times)

@tristramg Italy pretty much did just that. So yes that’s possible.

But I’d argue France’s HSLs are inefficiently used. You’ve got a morning and afternoon peak with saturation, but big gaps rest of the day. Also don’t underestimate station access charges too - that strongly mitigate against running only half full trains.

Colm Ó Donnchadha Aug 15, 2023

@tristramg @jon if french HSL were used close to max capacity, there'd be more than 2 trains per day through the Perthus tunnel...

@ColmDonoghue @tristramg Sure. But I hear all the time LGV Sud Est is at the limit. I’m not sure even that is - for more than a few hours a day anyway!

Tristram Gräbener Aug 15, 2023

@ColmDonoghue @jon “appart from cross-border” ;) When Clément Beaune talks about train prices, it’s mostly about domestic flights.

But the questions still holds for the Perthus. If the track charges just for the tunnel where 200€ instead of 2200, maybe SNCF would push the trains to Perpignan a bit further. But who would pay then?

https://www.lfpperthus.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/declaracion-de-red-2023.pdf

@tristramg @ColmDonoghue well except SNCF can’t now, as it sent half its Spain compatible Euroduplex to Spain for OUIGO and stripped out the French signalling. So given SNCF has literally 6 suitable TGVs, I’m not sure they can do more than 3 a day. Ok, better than 2, but still… And even at that cost they could run 4 or 5 profitably in summer.

@tristramg and more generally - I’d imagine SNCF Réseau makes a borderline profit out of the LGVs. But it will make a massive loss on Lignes Classiques - that have few TERs and little freight. So the LGV charges will cross subsidise that dead weight.

Quixoticgeek Aug 15, 2023

@jon I still don't understand why these rail cos are so short sighted. Why they run such a limited service. Esp on the Thalys routes. Those are clearly running at capacity, and have been for a while. But not even a modest change of a couple of extra trains a day. Or running double formations. Nothing. It makes no sense to me.

@quixoticgeek it’s hard work to change something. Why do hard work? (Or is that too cynical?)

Quixoticgeek Aug 15, 2023

@jon well that was my first guess. But it felt... Obvious...

Oskar im Keller Aug 15, 2023

@jon

Travelled to South of France in May. Started in Aachen, took ICE to Brussels, then caught direct TGV to Montpellier. Great train, changing in Brussels very convenient. But only runs once a day.

Montpellier Sud de France is a weird super modern station that only comes to life 2-3 times a day when the main trains arrive or leave. If you want to change to other trains (TER etc) to continue travel, you need to change to the main train station. There is no direct bus, taxi takes 30 minutes.

@OskarImKeller Right. A tram line is planned to Montpellier sdF but hasn't been built yet. But stations like that are typical in France - assumption is everyone taking the train ALSO has a car (or access to one).

Oskar im Keller Aug 15, 2023

@jon

All the big car rental companies are present at SdF. However, if you pick up a car there and want to return it to another station, they charge substantial extra fees (IIRC it was around 50 €). The station is surrounded by huge parking lots - sealed asphalt with little shade.

There is the occasional navette shuttle that gets you to the closest tram stop. The journey involves walking (with luggage) across some big square and takes at least an hour I calculated. We went for the taxi.

Oskar im Keller Aug 15, 2023

@jon

In Scandinavia (at least when I was still travelling there regularly) a bus service would be running between the two stations that would coincide with the arrival and departure of the main TGV services at SdF. It would cost a reasonable amoun of money, and be a reliable way of getting there and back, with space for people's luggage. Does France have laws against that?

@OskarImKeller no law against it. Just attitude.

Sic Transit PHL Aug 16, 2023

@jon How does Renfe's new BCN-Lyon service factor into all of this? Obviously not much right now (are they still only at 1 train per day?), but Renfe, despite their bad record on the subject MAD-BCN, is expressing interest in adding frequencies BCN-Lyon, and eventually extending their trains Part Dieu-GdL. Which is significantly more interest than SNCF has offered lately.

@SicTransitPHL at the moment Renfe + SNCF are *separately* running the same number of trains FR-ES they used to when collaborating. So so far 🤷‍♂️

Medium term Renfe does See opportunities in France though - and its Series 106 AVE ought to be approved for France. So medium term there’s a little hope.

Diego Aug 16, 2023

@jon @SicTransitPHL Also nice that Marseille-Madrid is back, even if 1 train per day is way too little. And I've never seen such a bad ticket purchasing website as Renfe's, I had to book through Trainline.

Diego Aug 16, 2023

@jon @SicTransitPHL Renfe first claimed there were no trains corresponding to my request, then wanted to sell me a 290€ one way fare (2 months in advance!). Trainline sold me a seat in the same train for 37€.

No clue how Renfe is so incompetent at the most basic things.

@DiegoBeghin @SicTransitPHL Spain is pretty much the only country I can solidly recommend using Trainline 🙂

Patrice Aug 16, 2023

@jon True. But it can happen. Austrian ÖBB has been adding more trains and is still increasing capacity as demand has grown.
All a matter of will

I think, an important issue has been the privatization of the rail network in the last few decades.

@patrice ÖBB is ace. I wish others would follow their approach!

AGTMADCAT 🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼🇵🇸Aug 16, 2023

@jon In theory this is what open access regulations are supposed to help solve - these underserved routes are clearly popular and profitable, so a private company should be able to lease some trainsets and station slots and get a service going.

@AGTMADCAT In theory. But if there are no suitable trains to lease (and generally there are not), then what?

AGTMADCAT 🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼🇵🇸Aug 16, 2023

@jon then I guess you go to Alstom or Hitachi or Siemens or Talgo or whomever and work something out with their financing department, and you get in line for new stock. Queues are a couple of years but not too bad.

@AGTMADCAT you know that cracking this problem is part of my work, right?

The issue is scale. There’s no leasing market for passenger stock. The operators who’d lease passenger stock are small. So a leasing company has never dared go to Alstom or Siemens (or more likely FPS in Poland or Astra in Romania) and ordered 300 carriages.

AGTMADCAT 🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼🇵🇸Aug 16, 2023

@jon I did not! That's super cool.

I was making assumptions that the broader European rolling stock market had some parallels with the UK market, which for all the faults of franchising (and there are many), seems to have created a norm of leasing, with leasing companies seeming to always have something knocking around.

I'm thinking in particular of Grand Central in the UK, which started off very small and still only has 50 carriages. Obviously old high speed stock is going to be thinner on the ground, but I'd think that a cheap 200kph service would probably still draw customers.

@jon > If you reduce ticket prices on those routes you WON’T TRANSPORT MORE PEOPLE. Just different people.

Yes, trains should be accessible for poor people as well. This is good?

Absolutely also build more capacity so that there's enough for everyone.

@pettter that assumes the rail company will add more capacity. Naive.

@pettter and sure, mobility for people on a limited budget matters. But rail’s modal share also matters. To get prices down you need capacity up as a matter of utmost importance *at the start*.

@jon It takes time to add capacity. In the meantime, prices should be lower.

@jon As for "assuming the rail company will add more capacity", if it doesn't voluntarily it should be made to do so. By nationalising it, if necessary.

@pettter LOL. You looked at who owns the capacity limiting firms?

Yeah, states.

@jon OK, so that means there should be levers for political control, and less barriers to imposing democratic mandates than working through market mechanisms.

@pettter Maybe… https://crossborderrail.trainsforeurope.eu/belfort-delemont-yes-crossborderrail-to-france-can-always-get-worse/

Belfort-Delémont - yes, #CrossBorderRail to France can always get worse - #CrossBorderRail

It was one of the weirder experiences of my #CrossBorderRail project last year. I had arrived in Belfort in eastern France from Besançon, and needed to get to Delémont in Switzerland. There is a line between the two, but Swiss trains mostly depart from the TGV station that is 10km […]

#CrossBorderRail

Walter van Holst Aug 15, 2023

@pettter @jon The member states simply don’t care enough about public transit, let alone cross-border rail. The ownership of the rail companies is pretty orthogonal to the matter.

@jon Also, to be clear, the article states that the increased taxes on air traffic should be used to _invest in the rail industry in order to lower prices_, not that those price reductions should come about (only) through straight transfers to ticket prices.

KimV Aug 15, 2023

@pettter @jon I’m not sure poor people would benefit as much as that. It’ll be people who can book far in advance and companies block booking.

Rob McGregor Aug 15, 2023

@jon Along a similar line, remarkable the way this is dressed up as being the commuters fault...

lj·rk Aug 15, 2023

@jon In the meantime, there's a cheap overnight train from Paris to Perpignan which can be combined with a regional train ticket from there to Barcelona.

The broad problem isn't solved that way, but maybe it helps some people ITT.

@ljrk Or via Latour de Carol. But both of those have another problem: no through tickets, and some of the Cerbère-BCN, and ALL of the Latour-BCN trains do not show in international timetable planners…

Helianthus Aug 15, 2023

@jon Also, it's beyond my comprehension why they are using a picture of a Swiss train in Switzerland if the article is not about trains in Switzerland...

@theseeduneed In a Telegram group of rail nerds we have a sort of ongoing “oh there's another wrongly chosen stock image" series going on. If you don't know what you're on about in your article, do you know enough about trains to choose the right picture? Doubt it.

Helianthus Aug 15, 2023

@jon Fair point.
However, I'm not a railway nerd. 😆

@theseeduneed You know it's a Swiss train. That's nerd points in comparison to a photo editor of a publication! 😀

Helianthus Aug 15, 2023

@jon Yes, unfortunately those publishers don't care too much what their photo editors are doing. I mean, why would a photo editor need to be able to read if his job is about photos. And why would a journalist need to know about the railway system if he only writes about ticket prices...
As you said, everything fits together there. 🤷‍♂️