Right, plenty of numbers - but none of them actually directly comparable: time to take the gloves off
OeBB 7-car train: for 260 passengers, 14M Euros if we take Bald Rick's numbers. That's 53k per person for the hardware.
(I'd previously estimated 18M per train, but my split across day/night trains was wrong.)
A320: 42M Euros for 180 passengers, that's 233k per person for the hardware.
The aircraft is almost 5x as expensive per person - although the aircraft can be used more than 5x as much. The aicraft wins - but not by anywhere near as much as some are claiming. Admittedly, night trains aren't 100% occupied since people can book a 3-bed room for themselves, but then that passenger also gets charged more. In theory, the seated carriages on sleepers can be reused during the day - although that doesn't seem to be done all that much.
Now for a fair comparison, you'd need the full operating costs. I suspect that maintenance costs are also higher for aircraft (higher standards, needs to be disassembled more regularly than a train, etc.), but don't have numbers on that. And we all know how much more fuel flying uses. I'm not buying that flying is actually cheaper.
As you said you don’t have numbers about aircraft operation and maintenance I can help you.
An A320 has 3 standards of check, with increasing levels of intrusion, A being the lightest, C being the intermediate and a ‘Heavy Check’ being the most intrusive, basically strip down the aircraft and rebuild.
The checks required for A and C can be spread around the maintenance cycle to reduce downtime. But, typically, a aircraft will have some form of A check every week or so, such that they are all covered every 600 flying hours (roughly 8 weeks); each ‘part’ A check every week or so will see the aircraft out of service for 6-24 hours, but usually overnight. C checks need to be done every 6000 flying hours - about every 18months. Were the C check to be done all in one go the aircraft would be out for 3 weeks, but again activities are split up throughout the 18 month period. Airlines have discretion as to how this is done so long as the checks are done within flying hours limit.
The Heavy check is done every 6 years, many airlines will combine this with the C Check to save a trip to the workshop. The aircraft will be out for up to 8 weeks spending on the scale of repairs needed, and if a cabin or systems refit is taking place concurrently, but usually less.
The reason I’ve said all this is that it is reasonably close to rolling stock maintenance principles, ie light maintenance, heavy maintenance, overhaul & refurb. Looking at the airbus schedules, I would say they are out of revenue service for less time, and I suspect the maintenance cost on an A320 is cheaper than on a rake of sleeper coaches. It’s also fair to say that because of the higher standards in the airline industry, critical components go wrong much less often, and need less time out for unscheduled repair. (Compare the number of times trains have a complete failure of all traction equipment to airlines having complete engine failure).
What is reasonably certain is that the operational cost of a plane is cheaper, including fuel. The fuel cost of a London - Scotland A320neo will be about £1100. Barcelona would be about £1500.
A London - Glasgow/Edinburgh Sleeper will use electricity, obviously, and it is not easy to estimate how much. I’ve done it two ways and come up with a range of costs between £800-£2000. London to Barcelona (say) would be twice as much, and that’s assuming conventional rather than high speed.
And sleepers need a lot more staff to run and service. All those rooms need cleaning, beds need making, laundry needs washing, etc.
And then there’s track access charges, which are much higher than airlines equivalent (airport landing / terminal processing charges), as there’s a lot less infrastructure to maintain and replace.
There is absolutely no doubt that if you want to shift 500 people from London to, say Barcelona, it would be cheaper in cost terms to use 3 aircraft than two night trains (that would necessarily have a lot of seats), or four ‘sleeper heavy’ night trains. I also suspect it would be cheaper than one day train, but that will be a closer call.
Indeed. Although member states may apply their relevant rate to domestic air travel, as long as otherwise compliant. I think the Germans do.
Many do. The Germans, notably, also charge VAT on train tickets, albeit this has recently been reduced.
