A commenter on yesterday’s post The European Air Shut-Down: A View From the Front Lines brought up an excellent point: Was the complete failure of aviation in Europe a boon for high-speed rail? With all those continental Europe flights canceled, it was certainly a golden opportunity for passenger rail to step in and save the day.
And to a certain extent, it did. Progressive Fix reports that the U.K.’s Eurostar added more trains to its daily roster of 32 trains from London to and from Paris, and 18 trains to and from Brussels. And since so much of travel in Europe is already covered by rail, PF notes, the aviation disaster had a silver lining for trains:
In fact, if there’s any winner in the crisis that began when a cloud of ash from an Icelandic volcano drifted over the continent, it’s Europe’s railways. They have operated with few disruptions at the same time air flight was grounded by authorities over safety concerns.
Since trains handle a large portion of commercial traffic between many cities, the average European has not been hurt by the “transportation tsunami”….
An estimated 50,000 passengers took the trains between Thursday and Sunday, a 30-percent jump from normal bookings. Eurostar’s website says trains are sold out through the end of this week, but that special service will be added to accommodate still-stranded air passengers.
Elsewhere in Europe, trains have been packed. A EuroCity train from Italy to France was so crowded over the weekend that people could barely squeeze through the doors. A Swiss Federal Railways spokesman said trains have been reconfigured with twice as many cars as normal to handle the increased patronage.
Granted, no train will do you much good if you’re trying to get home from Tokyo, or New York, or any other trans-continental location. But still, it was a chance for HSR to alleviate some of the aggregate pain of this mess. And who knows — maybe a few inter-European travelers will be inspired to take the train next time.
April 20th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
HSR is already alive and well in Europe. That HSR service continued while air travel did not shows the resilience of the centuries-old way to travel. The exposed fragility of air travel could lead to an increased demand for rail network capacity in Europe over the next five years. However, this combined with China’s relentless rail pursuits shall push global demand–and thus cost–for rail construction materials to record levels; resulting in an expensive HSR system for the USA.
April 20th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
North America would be at a stand still with the same situation here. What HSR is there as an alternative to travel across North America? I would not like to take the bus.
April 20th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
I made the comment!
April 20th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Silver lining for Eurostar, black eye for SNCF and labor unions. My partner is stuck in London and was offered a flight out of Madrid if he could get himself to Madrid … Bravo to Eurostar for adding trains, he got to Paris no sweat. Now try to get a train to Madrid … there is a FRENCH RAIL STRIKE!!! Who’s the genius who thought they should continue their ongoing strike when they could have looked like heroes by calling it off when the chaos in the air began??? They must have the same consultants as the folks who advised the British Airways flight attendants to strike over Christmas!
April 20th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Rail construction materials are steel and concrete, whose cost is trivial compared to the cost of putting the raw materials together and building a railroad out of them.
April 20th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
The Chinese are working with the Russians and Germans on a highspeed rail link, and they seem to have even more ideas on how to use ground transport.
If you’re unsure about the distances, take a look at a map, the distance from Beijing to Berlin is quite some.
In probably ten years time you can travel in two or three days from Berlin to Beijing on a train.
April 20th, 2010 at 11:34 pm
Now if only the German government got their act together and invested in direct high speed rail connections, such as the ones that SNCF has proposed between Frankfurt and Hamburg, without all the intermediate stops in Bremen, Cologne, etc.
Also, while I agree that a similar situation in the United States would be dire, I do believe that Americans are much more willing to simply take a car and drive, even if it takes them three days. Maybe not business travellers, but tourists coming back from a Eurotrip? For sure.
April 21st, 2010 at 1:45 am
[...] High speed rail the winner in European air [...]
April 21st, 2010 at 1:58 am
“North America would be at a stand still with the same situation here. What HSR is there as an alternative to travel across North America? I would not like to take the bus.”
North America has a much, much better bus fleet than most of Europe. The UK has a decent amount of intercity buses, but they barely exist in places like France and Switzerland.
And why would you not want to take the bus? More leg room than a plane, free wifi and bigger windows.
April 21st, 2010 at 5:01 am
I don’t know if N.A. buses are “better” than European ones, but the customer base is decidely more “downscale”, so to speak, enough to affect the peace of mind of more sensitive souls. Sitting next to an ex-con fresh out of his prison blues is not everyone’s idea of a pleasant journey (though potentially enlightening). Oh, and Switzerland doesn’t need a fleet of intercity buses. The railway network does just fine covering the whole of that small country.
April 21st, 2010 at 7:58 am
I had a roommate in college who told me his bus story. While he was riding he kept hearing strange noises. First a sort of rattling noise, and then a hissing noise. A bit of a delay, and then a repeat. He eventually became curious, and found that someone behind him was huffing spray paint, and part of his face around his mouth and nose had paint all over it.
April 21st, 2010 at 8:08 am
I guess I would say that airlines in the U.S. are in a slow death spiral. Service is gradually being degraded as time goes on - service to smaller airports is being cut back, and the service that remains is using smaller and less comfortable aircraft. And on top of all of this, the fees for various are reaching abusive levels.
A few months ago we had a flight from DC to Newark, and they put us on what I called a “flying coke can”. Some little 37-seat turboprop with small seats, no heat, and it bounced around like crazy in the turbulence, and to top it off we had a long layover to take this crazy thing. When it came time to go home, we just took Amtrak instead.
We have a friend who is a pilot for one of the majors. Even he no longer enjoys flying - to him it is all an ordeal.
April 21st, 2010 at 9:12 am
Its an example of modal redundancy - its like energy security, just for mobility security.
April 21st, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Ironically, there is no high speed rail in Iceland. Poor guys.
When the power is out, I switch to candles, by necessity. This happened most recently during the 2003 blackout in the northeast U.S. This may sound odd to many of you, but the use forced use of candles just makes me appreciate electric light even more when its restored.
April 21st, 2010 at 7:53 pm
There’s no rail of any kind in Iceland, or any controlled-access, grade-separated freeway. The country’s population is way too small to justify either investment.
April 22nd, 2010 at 12:07 am
> Granted, no train will do you much good if you’re trying to get home from Tokyo, or New York
Not necessarily. Perhaps the bigger takeaway here should be about how HSR needs connectivity to be an effective alternative. Maybe someone can offer up their experience of riding south into Spain and escaping via Barcelona.
April 22nd, 2010 at 12:52 am
Andrew in Ezo, have you been on a modern bus in the eastern half of the country? Business folk, college students, retired couples, all on their laptops, enjoying free wifi or listening to music. No hobos.
April 22nd, 2010 at 11:40 am
Switzerland has also many buses but they are not intercity, they go from railway stations to
almost any remote village. The outstanding thing about public transport in Switzerland is the
(yearly) GENERAL Ticket which allows to hop on any train, bus, boat any time you want with
half hour service in every direction.
Greetings (its my first comment) J.-P. Egger, Neuchâtel
April 22nd, 2010 at 12:45 pm
stranded in tokyo and trying to get back to london? take a semi-weekly ferry back to shanghai, grab a train to beijing, then take the trains-siberian railway to moscow, then take a russian sleeper car to cologne, then take the high-speed train to brussels, and then the eurostar back to london! simple, and it only takes about two weeks…
April 22nd, 2010 at 10:47 pm
JJ, the premium buses run on short-hop routes, where they compete with driving and sometimes with Amtrak and Chinatown buses. They do not compete with air travel much.