European Railroads Kept Continent Moving

Iceland's volcano may have disrupted global air traffic, but Europe's upgraded high-speed railroads kept the continent moving.


Despite the worst global air-traffic disruption since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Europe is running remarkably smoothly. Since Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano started spewing ash into the sky on April 14, airports have been shut down in 30 European countries. A total of 95,000 flights have been canceled across the continent, affecting some 7 million passengers. April 20 was the first day that some semblance of normalcy returned. European Air Control in Brussels says about 50 percent of flights are operating again, including most transatlantic and intercontinental flights.

But in these situations, it is arguably easier for Europe to operate business as usual. The reason is the continent's dense network of high-speed trains, expanded massively over the past two decades and increasingly a viable alternative to air travel. Between 2000 and 2010 alone, the Europeans approximately doubled their high-speed network, to almost 3,500 miles of track laid out for trains going as fast as 250 miles an hour. That infrastructure was put to the test recently as hundreds of extra trains were added onto the major European corridors. On the London–Paris route, Eurostar deployed 10 extra trains a day, shuttling some 80,000 more passengers than usual underneath the Channel.

The German railway was also running all available trains and operating at 30 percent above its usual capacity over the weekend, when all flights over Germany were shut down. The country's biggest airline, Lufthansa, passed out vouchers for the superfast ICE train to passengers stranded in Berlin, Munich, or Frankfurt, where the airport has its own high-speed train station. Extra trains were in service between Italy and France, Denmark and Germany, and Russia and Finland. British vacationers trying to get home from South America flew to Madrid and from there hopped on one of the extra trains running between Madrid and Paris.

And the trains are fast. Even before the volcanic eruption, Europe's list of transport corridors where trains have replaced aircraft as the most convenient way to travel has been growing. The most obvious case is Paris–London, where the 2-hour, 185-mile-an-hour Eurostar service has taken some 70 percent of the market. Air travel on the same route, including check-in, security, and airport transfer, easily takes twice as long. Between Paris and Brussels, air travel has been all but replaced by the 82-minute Thalys line. In Spain, travel is now an hour faster by train than plane between Barcelona and Madrid.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/236688?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+newsweek%2FTopNews+%28UPDATED+-+Newsweek+Top+Stories%29&utm_content=My+MSN



That couldn't happen in America. We don't have any railroads and forget High Speed, any mention of funding of High Speed gets shot down because it won't stop in my town says Congressman Jim.

they have just decided to extend passenger rail service to our town, but the rails and equipment are maybe 100 years old in places and huge rebuliding is required - here is a source of many good jobs, Mr. Obama - let's spend some money on the railroads as you were talking about last year....

mark

From Cleveland to Columbus then Cincinnati.

When completed the train will have an average speed of 39 miles per hour and stop in every community along the way using old rail lines. A trip from Cincinnati to Cleveland will take 90 minutes longer than by car.

http://www.lancastereaglegazette.com/article/20100421/NEWS01/4210306/1002/Lawmaker-questions-3C-rail-plan

What happened? All the state lawmakers for every district the train potentially could travel through had to vote on it and they made damn sure it was going to stop in their district.

Being able to travel without putting the wear and tear on your car, unclogging the highways, being able to relax during the trip, making longer-distance travel affordable and possible for those who might not otherwise be able to drive, creating good union jobs in a state hit particularly hard by the tough economy -- sorry, but 90 extra minutes to travel from Cincy to Cleveland seems like a minor inconvenience, all things considered.

even the intercity trains.

Most will look at 90 minutes and not having a car on the other end and say, I will drive.

To make the Americans use trains they have to be convenient, affordable and have a big advantage over the automobile.

Sorry to say, 90 minutes would not be enough for me to be inconvenienced on the other end without a car. It is a 250 mile trip and if high speed rail cut that from 4 hours to 2 hours (maybe 2 1/2 hours) it would be worth it. But an extra 90 minutes is not worth the inconvenience of time plus lack of transportation on the other end.

real high speed rail has its own tracks and avoids all crossings, has concrete ties and fused track.

What that was, was America's really lame response to high speed rail. Nothing more than light rail with a fancy name.

The closest thing we have in this nation to high speed rail is the eastern seaboards NYC to Washington Corridor. Even that isn't really HSR. That still has to slow at a few crossings.

We are so woefully behind the rest of the world it's disgusting.

we are building exactly one HSR system in this nation, at the moment. It won't be ready until 2014. At the same time China is building 43. They too are to be ready by 2014.

Europe and Japan has had HSR for decades.

We are pumping in pints of blood while slitting our throats.

On all counts. :-)

you can read, sleep, watch things go by the window, eat, just relax and not worry about traffic. I am hoping we will take the trouble to develop a good system of rail passenger transportation here - it seems everyone else on earth has a better rail system than we do, courtesy of the car and oil companies in the post WWII road building boom...

mark

We would be sunk here. There aren't enough Greyhounds to carry everyone. And rental cars? There would be chaos.

I've been following the European approach to the flight disruptions - social democracy is ten times more reliable every day of the week since there will always be crises - natural or man-made.

we are so screwed here.