@pony ICEs are one plug per two seats.

@Alon with Czech railways it usually depend on the mood and supplier of whoever did the retrofit, when it’s new long distance ish rolling stock, it tends to be a plug per two seats as well, however, shockingly enough, commercial open access ops almost always go for a plug per seat because it doesn’t cost much more and people like it

@pony I think when I rode the TGV there were no outlets in second at all? Or maybe it was some trainsets but not others? Cc @jon

@Alon @jon yeah Western European railways are weirdly stingy when it comes to that, probably historically tried to make it a first class benefit

@pony @jon Proposal: abolish first class, make second class better. In exchange for FDP's support for this plan, pass a YIMBY law, reduce every C2 language requirement to C1, require government offices to speak English, and, I don't know, announce a new nuclear plant somewhere (it doesn't need to actually go through with how high the construction costs are, but eh, it's FDP).

@Alon @pony @jon First class on HSR seems to work fine? It's lolzy on regional trains where it's always an empty waste of space.

@Alon @DiegoBeghin @pony @jon I’m very curious if it actually makes money for the RRs.

@bklyngap @DiegoBeghin @pony @jon Regional trains here are generally underfull, except specifically when they're either ersatz intercities for D-Ticket holders or ersatz commuter rail to suburbs beyond the S-Bahn. So usually first class is just charging more for the same service...

@Alon @DiegoBeghin @pony @jon what about on HSR?

@bklyngap @DiegoBeghin @pony @jon I don't know. I don't fully get what the point of it is - can't tell if it's just a more straightforward way of doing market segmentation than airline-style yield management or RENFE-style differential pricing for different speed classes. So it boils down to extra revenue vs. fewer seats, and I think that depends on the railroad. I think the first class fare premium on the TGV is on the low side?

@Alon @DiegoBeghin @jon @pony yeah the pricing model itself seems to depend on the RR. A low premium for TGV seems silly given their general ticket structure.

@DiegoBeghin @Alon @jon @pony I sorta have to assume that JR gets the business model right with no yield mgmt, reserved, unreserved, business-travel class (green car) and a high end first only on under capacity routes…

@Alon @pony @DiegoBeghin @jon that being said you couldn’t do 5 abreast in Europe, so I’m not sure how you translate it.

@pony @Alon @jon @DiegoBeghin maybe slightly more pitch?

@jon @DiegoBeghin @pony @Alon and on the US side I have to assume Acela first exists solely as a loss leader to capture politically influential VIPs.

@bklyngap @jon @DiegoBeghin @pony Where were you when you read Paul Krugman's blog post mocking George Will for riding the Regional business class after writing about how trains are a plot to make Americans more amenable to socialism?

@pony @DiegoBeghin @Alon @jon hahaha — regional business actually has a point now! You can pick your seats (which is worth a lot sometimes).

@bklyngap @pony @DiegoBeghin @jon We get that here with only a few euros' extra charge (and they still don't indicate the direction of the train's travel, so I accidentally booked backward-facing seats on the train to Munich; why is Europe).