European Sleepers - What routes would be feasible?

[43096]

even more skewed as an example of the alleged way ahead by a complete lack of bedvans... Just some hanging ex CNL couchettes and seats, plus many many crates of Bernard to give anyone a chance of enjoying/enduring it!

They must be doing something right, though. I saw the Rijeka service at Brno during August and it was load 13 and completely wedged.

 

[Austriantrain]

The PSO provider is receiving money which is not fare revenue from the users of the service. Whether the provider or the passenger is receiving the subsidy, it is still subsidy. If the Government did not pay the money, the service would not be provided.

So then whatever the UK government pays for police cars is a subsidy, because those cars would not be built if the government did not buy them?

As I see it, a subsidy would be paying for laptops (or cars) the government doesn‘t need. It doesn‘t matter though if it needs them for itself or to provide them to its citizens, since providing goods and services to citizens is exactly the business government is in.

 

[87015]

They must be doing something right, though. I saw the Rijeka service at Brno during August and it was load 13 and completely wedged.

Yeah was when I did it. Wasn’t the people that will support an all year city to city operation discussed upthread though! Lovely line of couchettes stored at Smichov now until next summer - OK when the Germans are giving away old coaches for pennies, not so much when you need to re-introduce a high quality network like the Swiss are attempting.

Vectrons now cleared to Rijeka I believe so they can save hiring SZ/HZ locos but will need an additional Vectron and probably a Rijeka banker from HZ.

 

[RT4038]

So then whatever the UK government pays for police cars is a subsidy, because those cars would not be built if the government did not buy them?

As I see it, a subsidy would be paying for laptops (or cars) the government doesn‘t need. It doesn‘t matter though if it needs them for itself or to provide them to its citizens, since providing goods and services to citizens is exactly the business government is in.

Transport can be operated as a commercial service, i.e. fares collected from users can cover the cost of providing the service. If the government pays in any money then this is subsidy.

It is not practicable to provide the Police service on this basis, as individuals cannot have a choice of how much service they buy, therefore buying police cars is an operating cost of government.

In your view , it appears there is no such thing as Government subsidy, as any public financing of services or goods is somehow a government service.

 

[AlbertBeale]

Transport can be operated as a commercial service, i.e. fares collected from users can cover the cost of providing the service. If the government pays in any money then this is subsidy.

It is not practicable to provide the Police service on this basis, as individuals cannot have a choice of how much service they buy, therefore buying police cars is an operating cost of government.

In your view , it appears there is no such thing as Government subsidy, as any public financing of services or goods is somehow a government service.

But mobility - in the sense of people's right/ability to move around (and to do so in a way which is equitable, and causes the least damage to the ecosystem) - is surely a public good or a public service. What's the difference between the government using the community's resources to help people's mobility, and doing so to provide - eg - healthcare? Healthcare can be operated as a commercial service, and is in some places; but having public provision via the NHS is fairer and more efficient.

And where did you get the idea that police services can't be provided commercially? There are places in Britain where an affluent local community, or a group of businesses, decides to pay for extra policing on their patch - it's certainly a regressive move, but that's the situation we've got to currently!

I'm afraid the suggested division between services which are inherently commercial and those which aren't is nonsense - it's a political decision which services are one and which are the other.

 

[Peter Kelford]

As we say here: Potato / Potarto!

Well -

A subsidy - does not exist if this train service does not run.
A PSO - would exist anyway even if OBB didn't operate it, probably given to someone else.

And as some others have said, PSO, is Public Service Obligation. The NHS costs billions a year. We don't say that 'The NHS posted a loss of billions this year', we say 'it costs the government £x'. Only the non-Austrian legs could be considered a true 'business-orientated' service. And in any case, virtually all governments would be quite happy to pay a PSO amount to a sleeper train operator for legs in that country.

 

[jamesontheroad]

Speaking of journey lengths, Praha - Rijeka isn't short, at over 15 hours, and has done rather well:

RegioJet’s train to Croatia is a sell-out summer success

EUROPE: Open access operator RegioJet's summer service linking the Czech Republic and Slovakia with Croatia's Adriatic coast carried more than 60 000 passengers on 120 trains during its first season of operation. RegioJet announced the summer-only overnight service on June 1, and 30 000 tickets...

www.railwaygazette.com

- albeit perhaps skewed by people delighted to escape Prague's lockdown!

Not everyone in Croatia is entirely pleased with this, however. From the WSJ:

Croatia was a rare European country to bring daily new Covid-19 cases to zero back in May. Now it has become an example of how summer tourism triggered a second wave of infections sweeping much of the continent.

The fall from poster boy to hot spot came after the government, motivated by economic concerns, decided to open the coastal nation’s borders early this summer and woo the foreign tourists who have been a pillar of its economy. After becoming infected, the tourists returned home, taking the virus with them.

 

[edwin_m]

The business about subsidy versus PSO is largely irrelevant. Virtually no passenger train service anywhere operates without some sort of public funding, whatever you call it. We've already changed the topic of this thread to recognize that a sleeper that is profitable without that funding is a virtual impossibility.

In principle it's reasonable to provide public funding for train services because they promote economic prosperity and have lesser environmental downsides compared with other means of transport. Arguably also it levels the playing field against the hidden subsidies to road (policing, treatment costs and economic losses of accidents) and air (little/no fuel tax, airports offering favourable terms) transport.

Whether those exist and how big they are is a topic for another thread if anyone wants to start one, but the question here is if putting money into sleepers in a similar way is worthwhile. Other things being equal it would be much more funding per passenger than day travel.

 

[RT4038]

But mobility - in the sense of people's right/ability to move around (and to do so in a way which is equitable, and causes the least damage to the ecosystem) - is surely a public good or a public service. What's the difference between the government using the community's resources to help people's mobility, and doing so to provide - eg - healthcare? Healthcare can be operated as a commercial service, and is in some places; but having public provision via the NHS is fairer and more efficient.

And where did you get the idea that police services can't be provided commercially? There are places in Britain where an affluent local community, or a group of businesses, decides to pay for extra policing on their patch - it's certainly a regressive move, but that's the situation we've got to currently!

I'm afraid the suggested division between services which are inherently commercial and those which aren't is nonsense - it's a political decision which services are one and which are the other.

I do not think the analogy with the Police is relevant at all - yes it is possible to buy additional security services, but it is not possible to charge individuals purely on the basis of use.

The question that was asked (in post #137) was 'Does Nightjet make any money'?. There is no need to get into any argument about whether subsidies are appropriate etc. This is just getting off topic.
The normally accepted basis of an activity 'making money' is: does revenue from users exceed costs? In this case, would an open access operator, with the same costs and the same ticket money from riders be able to remain in business?

The business about subsidy versus PSO is largely irrelevant. Virtually no passenger train service anywhere operates without some sort of public funding, whatever you call it. We've already changed the topic of this thread to recognize that a sleeper that is profitable without that funding is a virtual impossibility.

In principle it's reasonable to provide public funding for train services because they promote economic prosperity and have lesser environmental downsides compared with other means of transport. Arguably also it levels the playing field against the hidden subsidies to road (policing, treatment costs and economic losses of accidents) and air (little/no fuel tax, airports offering favourable terms) transport.

Whether those exist and how big they are is a topic for another thread if anyone wants to start one, but the question here is if putting money into sleepers in a similar way is worthwhile. Other things being equal it would be much more funding per passenger than day travel.

The question asked (in post #137) was 'Does Nightjet make any money'? So presumably the answer is no, because PSO (aka subsidy) is being paid by the Austrian government. So that is the answer to the question.

There may be good reasons to provide subsidies, but that has no relevance to the question. It appears that the so called renaissance of Sleeping car trains has little basis in commercial terms, but is a political decision. So be it. On this basis there is unlikely to be a rash of unfunded open access operators starting such services.

 

[HSTEd]

I suppose everyone (virtually) accepts that sleepers must likely be subsidised.
The question that remains is one of degree.

What kind of subsidy is acceptable?
€1 per passenger journey? €10? €20? €50? €100?

 

[Bald Rick]

I suppose everyone (virtually) accepts that sleepers must likely be subsidised.
The question that remains is one of degree.

What kind of subsidy is acceptable?
€1 per passenger journey? €10? €20? €50? €100?

€1000?

 

[HSTEd]

€1000?

I was going to say that but decided I didn't want to get hounded.

 

[AlbertBeale]

I do not think the analogy with the Police is relevant at all - yes it is possible to buy additional security services, but it is not possible to charge individuals purely on the basis of use.

It obviously is possible to charge individuals on the basis of use of the police [and the related legal system - and indeed it is the case for people wanting to assert their legal rights in court, which poorer people can't do in many cases]; the point is that society mostly decides not to go down that route in this country these days. It's not inherent or inevitable, it's a political choice that we're all better off by not doing so.

 

[RT4038]

It obviously is possible to charge individuals on the basis of use of the police [and the related legal system - and indeed it is the case for people wanting to assert their legal rights in court, which poorer people can't do in many cases]; the point is that society mostly decides not to go down that route in this country these days. It's not inherent or inevitable, it's a political choice that we're all better off by not doing so.

I'm not sure how this is relevant to answering post #137 in any way.

 

[AlbertBeale]

I'm not sure how this is relevant to answering post #137 in any way.

It's relevant since I was pointing out that what you asserted is not the case.

 

[37201xoIM]

Dearie me! There seems to be a lot of messy thinking here... There seem to be some market-force purists around here who feel that any rail service should be a commercial one (or possibly any sleeper service?). Very hard to see the logic - if you want a pure free market where consumers pay a price that covers the cost (plus whatever profit margin) of a commodity and there are no external benefits or disbenefits to society, you are in the wrong place in transport!

And if we are competing against road and air, as clearly we are in rail, and the objective is to achieve modal shift in the context of the climate crisis, then the most direct fiscal options to deliver this policy / strategic aim are (a) to subsidise (in some form) the rail operation beyond what it already gets directly or indirectly - or to remove artificial costs such as where tickets bear VAT or train operators have inflated costs due to vertical disintegration or the like; or (b) to reduce the subsidy or increase taxes on cars and aviation.

You may object to that policy of course, but it's perverse to think that in transport any tax / subsidy changes are anything other than a rebalancing exercise, rather than removing all taxes and subisidies, to "purify" the market to fit an A-Level economics textbook!

Dare I speculate that in fact those who object to subsidy / grant / PSO / whatever for rail (sleeper, local, intercity, freight, whatever!) are actually objecting to the implication that environmental and social objectives should drive a move away from road and aviation for the journeys in scope...?!

 

[Bald Rick]

The point is, that the level of subsidy / government support for sleeper operations is typically far greater per passenger carried than for day trains. Therefore if the laudable aim of mode shift from car / air to rail for environmental reasons* is to be pursued, then you will get a much better return for society by spending the money on day trains rather than sleepers.

*on the assumption that rail is more environmentally friendly than car / air, which isn’t always the case, particularly for sleepers.

 

[HSTEd]

Dare I speculate that in fact those who object to subsidy / grant / PSO / whatever for rail (sleeper, local, intercity, freight, whatever!) are actually objecting to the implication that environmental and social objectives should drive a move away from road and aviation for the journeys in scope...?!

I don't object to subsidy.
I just want value for money.

I think recent history has shown that improvements to day train journey times are a better way of driving modal shifts than paying for trains to crawl across the continent at night.

Europe is fundamentally a small place.
A High speed train could do Warsaw-London in four hours in theory.
This isn't America.

 

[AlbertBeale]

A High speed train could do Warsaw-London in four hours in theory.

Yes, and a glorious Intercity 125 could do London-Warsaw in about 8 hours in theory ... but this isn't the Very Speculative Ideas section.

 

[HSTEd]

Yes, and a glorious Intercity 125 could do London-Warsaw in about 8 hours in theory ... but this isn't the Very Speculative Ideas section.

Well there is an awful lot of high speed track available between London and Warsaw now - in fact most of the distance to the Polish border, and most of the rest is far from slow.

The kind of investment necessary to prop up a significant European sleeper system, especially one that goes to Britain, would pay for significant stretches of new high speed line that would do far more to generate modal shift.
EDIT:

Currently Bahn.de says London-Warsaw takes 22 hours or so.
However, peiceing together legs (thus representing what a through train could achieve) gets you a rather shorter journey.

About 8hr13 (rolling) to Berlin and and then ~5hr50 from Berlin to Warsaw. About 14 hours rolling.

Which is an average speed Berlin-Warsaw of under 60mph.

And I dont think thats the fastest you could make Berlin.

The investment to fix this is tiny and can be used by many more people than the subsidiest o prop up your sleeper system.

 

[Peter Kelford]

by spending the money on day trains rather than sleepers.

In many cases no. The following are two main examples:

Where there is very good rail infrastructure (i.e. HS lines) - Distances that are inconvenient to the passenger (e.g. Beijing to Shanghai in 6 hours by daytime HSR, 12 hours by conventional express sleeper, London Nice at 10 hours by day train alone whereas a more reasonable timing would be to leave London at about 7 or 8pm, take the LGV Nord to Paris then rejoin the sleeper line, arriving the following morning in Nice.

Where the infrastructure is not so good (No HS lines, much of the route at ≤200km/h) - Building a HS line would not be viable in all cases and may be extremely expensive but journeys may be too far between common city pairs. The sleeper, making time usage more acceptable would increase market share over road and air.

 

[Bald Rick]

London Nice at 10 hours by day train alone whereas a more reasonable timing would be to leave London at about 7 or 8pm, take the LGV Nord to Paris then rejoin the sleeper line, arriving the following morning in Nice.

I must have dreamt doing Nice - London in around 9 hours, and I can comprehensively state it was much more preferable (and reasonable) than doing a sleeper.

 

[RT4038]

Dearie me! There seems to be a lot of messy thinking here... There seem to be some market-force purists around here who feel that any rail service should be a commercial one (or possibly any sleeper service?). Very hard to see the logic - if you want a pure free market where consumers pay a price that covers the cost (plus whatever profit margin) of a commodity and there are no external benefits or disbenefits to society, you are in the wrong place in transport!

And if we are competing against road and air, as clearly we are in rail, and the objective is to achieve modal shift in the context of the climate crisis, then the most direct fiscal options to deliver this policy / strategic aim are (a) to subsidise (in some form) the rail operation beyond what it already gets directly or indirectly - or to remove artificial costs such as where tickets bear VAT or train operators have inflated costs due to vertical disintegration or the like; or (b) to reduce the subsidy or increase taxes on cars and aviation.

You may object to that policy of course, but it's perverse to think that in transport any tax / subsidy changes are anything other than a rebalancing exercise, rather than removing all taxes and subisidies, to "purify" the market to fit an A-Level economics textbook!

Dare I speculate that in fact those who object to subsidy / grant / PSO / whatever for rail (sleeper, local, intercity, freight, whatever!) are actually objecting to the implication that environmental and social objectives should drive a move away from road and aviation for the journeys in scope...?!

I don't think that there is anybody in this thread that is believing that any form of transport is operating in a market that fits an A-Level economics textbook.

However, there are two points being made:
1. In the current economic framework, the revenue from users of Sleeping Car services do not cover the cost of operating such services. In which case, the current expansion of such services is a political decision rather than a commercial decision. There is not a 'renaissance' of Sleeping Car services based on normal commercial principles. Government subsidies can be easily turned off.
2. Transport services being funded by governments have to compete for those funds with other activities, both inside and outside of transport. Within (rail) transport, is subsidising Sleeping Car travel (at a relatively high cost per passenger) the best use of this money compared to improving day trains, infrastructure, re-opening or new lines etc?

In many cases no. The following are two main examples:

Where there is very good rail infrastructure (i.e. HS lines) - Distances that are inconvenient to the passenger (e.g. Beijing to Shanghai in 6 hours by daytime HSR, 12 hours by conventional express sleeper, London Nice at 10 hours by day train alone whereas a more reasonable timing would be to leave London at about 7 or 8pm, take the LGV Nord to Paris then rejoin the sleeper line, arriving the following morning in Nice.

Where the infrastructure is not so good (No HS lines, much of the route at ≤200km/h) - Building a HS line would not be viable in all cases and may be extremely expensive but journeys may be too far between common city pairs. The sleeper, making time usage more acceptable would increase market share over road and air.

For the small number of passengers, either travel by day train or, if inconvenient, travel from London to Paris in the evening, get a good nights' sleep in a hotel, and continue on a fast day train in the morning.

It would be not be value for money paying such subsidies to capture the tiny amount of market share that a Sleeper train would get.

 

[HSTEd]

Where there is very good rail infrastructure (i.e. HS lines) - Distances that are inconvenient to the passenger (e.g. Beijing to Shanghai in 6 hours by daytime HSR, 12 hours by conventional express sleeper, London Nice at 10 hours by day train alone whereas a more reasonable timing would be to leave London at about 7 or 8pm, take the LGV Nord to Paris then rejoin the sleeper line, arriving the following morning in Nice.

If we have enough traffic to justify a Nice-London sleeper, we can also justify a ~130m or 100m day train (like a 7-car AGV or the 4-car 100m OARIS) which only consume a third or a quarter of a path.

If we peice together legs from Eurostar to Lille Europe (1hr22), Lille Europe to Marseille (5hr04) and Marseille to Nice (2hr40) you can get the journey time to nine hours pretty easily.
Also worth noting that a rather large fraction of the entire journey time is on the last 100 miles, where the average speed is on the order of 40mph!

The Lille EUrope-Marseille leg is also the "stopping" TGV. It loses to trudging across Paris - so the 9 hours can be done rather faster.
Conservative estimate of around 8.

 

[Bald Rick]

The Lille EUrope-Marseille leg is also the "stopping" TGV. It loses to trudging across Paris - so the 9 hours can be done rather faster.
Conservative estimate of around 8.

Indeed. Some of the Nice-Paris TGVs avoid Marseille, or at least used to. When I caught it, we missed out Marseille, and were last stop Aix en Provence TGV. Under 5h30 to Paris IIRC.

 

[HSTEd]

Indeed. Some of the Nice-Paris TGVs avoid Marseille, or at least used to. When I caught it, we missed out Marseille, and were last stop Aix en Provence TGV. Under 5h30 to Paris IIRC.

If you break the legs at Aix en Provence TGV, I make Lille Europe to 7hr33, avoiding Marseille (although still with the local stops at Toulon et al)
Which puts the entire journey at like ~8hr50, even with the stopping pattern being suboptimal.

Cuts like 15-20 minutes off.

Without a French realtimetrains I can't do better - but I think the point is made.
If LGV Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur actually happens we could be looking at 6 hours London-Nice.

 

[Bald Rick]

If you break the legs at Aix en Provence TGV, I make Lille Europe to 7hr33, avoiding Marseille (although still with the local stops at Toulon et al)
Which puts the entire journey at like ~8hr50, even with the stopping pattern being suboptimal.

Cuts like 15-20 minutes off.

Without a French realtimetrains I can't do better - but I think the point is made.
If LGV Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur actually happens we could be looking at 6 hours London-Nice.

Given that there are only 4 Paris- Nice through trains daily, and no sleepers, I think the idea of a London - Nice through train is a little fanciful, let alone it being a sleeper!

 

[HSTEd]

Given that there are only 4 Paris- Nice through trains daily, and no sleepers, I think the idea of a London - Nice through train is a little fanciful, let alone it being a sleeper!

Yes, but paying for one is probably less of a money pit than paying for a sleeper!
Even doing the whole four-train pack thing and going to 4 places in the south of France is a better deal than a sleeper!

 

[Austriantrain]

If you break the legs at Aix en Provence TGV, I make Lille Europe to 7hr33, avoiding Marseille (although still with the local stops at Toulon et al)
Which puts the entire journey at like ~8hr50, even with the stopping pattern being suboptimal.

Cuts like 15-20 minutes off.

With an end-to-end journey time of 8 to 9 hours between London and Nice, 15-20 minutes more or less (even an hour more or less) will not make the slightest difference in whether to choose the train over the plane.

In General, over longer distances, people will choose the train because they don‘t like flying, or because of environmental concerns, or because (in case of a day train) they appreciate a slow, comfortable journey with the chance to see the landscape.

Also, in not so few cases, origin and/or destination might not be served by a plane and the hassle and time of reaching an airport makes the train journey much less stressful and not longer, than flying. Of course, that will seldom be the case between major cities, but can easily be a factor for trips to and from smaller places.

Since some of the lines involved are also very congested, I highly doubt that the shortest possible journey time between Lille and Nice is the most important of SNCF‘s concerns.

 

[edwin_m]

In General, over longer distances, people will chose the train because they don‘t like flying, or because of environmental concerns, or because (in case of a day train) they appreciate a slow, comfortable journey with the chance to see the landscape.

Also, in not so few cases, origin and/or destination might not be served by a plane and the hassle and time of reaching an airport makes the train journey much less stressful and not longer, than flying. Of course, that will seldom be the case between major cities, but can easily be a factor for trips to and from smaller places.

Your text is a little ambiguous. All of the above are indeed reasons to use the train, but over longer distances many more people will choose to fly because it's usually quicker and cheaper.