
France’s new high-speed trains - Osiris30
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/02/france-high-speed-rail-new-trains-tgv-2020-sncf-cost-ticket/583624/
======
supernova87a
SNCF is fiddling with the wrong things.

It doesn't need to separate train operations from rail track network
maintenance. It doesn't need to open up the network to competition.

What it needs to do is cut the number of excessive public sector workers,
reduce costs, and stop running the business like a political arm of the
government.

I can bet that the reason they think they need to do all these things is that
cost pressure is rising on them, and they think they need to branch out / cut
off compartments of the business to make it better. But this is tinkering
rather than addressing the fundamental issues (inability to fire people,
change cost structure, etc. due to political interference).

Public rail is a money-losing venture, in every country (except Hong Kong).
That's what "public" means. But it's important to have. Just how much money-
losing depends on the political environment and skill of the management. UK
tried this sort of thing and it left everyone with a shittier experience,
though they could claim that they successfully privatized the industry --
everyone knows that's a total lie.

At least France has a history of pride in the speed of the trains, so that
will keep things in check a bit. They'll pay through the nose for it though.

~~~
speedplane
> Public rail is a money-losing venture, ... But it's important to have. Just
> how much money-losing depends on the political environment and skill of the
> management.

Arguably, all public rail _should_ lose money. Quality transportation is a
huge economic driver of regional economies. If a rail service is making money,
it likely means governments are underinvesting in their own economies.

~~~
kmlx
> TOKYO -- East and West Japan Railway have both forecast record profits for
> the fiscal year ending March 2018, anticipating more bullet train passengers
> and higher income from real estate and other noncore operations. > West
> Japan Railway said Friday it expects a group net profit of 109 billion yen
> ($978 million) for the fiscal year through March 2018, up 19% on the year.

Full article: [https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Japan-Update/JR-
East-...](https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Japan-Update/JR-East-West-on-
track-for-record-profit)

JR East annual report:
[https://www.jreast.co.jp/e/investor/ar/2018/pdf/ar_2018-all....](https://www.jreast.co.jp/e/investor/ar/2018/pdf/ar_2018-all.pdf)

~~~
adev_
JR rails makes an important part of its benefits from the huge commercial
centers (Atrée & others) they run in their stations. That's a model that works
in Japan, but cannot run everywhere. Not every country is a tiny island with
such a dense urbanisation.

~~~
Silhouette
I read an interesting article about this a while back.

Something distinctive about the Japanese rail culture is that they build lots
of communal facilities right next to their stations. For example, people
routinely stop and do their shopping on the way home from work, even though
they're getting home by train (though this idea isn't just about shops).

Compare that to typical Western railway stations, where a huge amount of the
prime real estate right next to the trains is used for giant car parks, and
you can see that the success of their model is no accident. Of course, we
couldn't trivially adopt the same strategy in the West. Unlike the Japanese,
we haven't been designing our towns and cities around this principle for a
long time, and as the parent comment notes, we also don't have the same
density. That means we do need ways for people to get to the station from the
surrounding area.

Often good alternatives to the car are still lacking in the West, which then
creates an unfortunate chicken and egg scenario. But that doesn't mean the
Japanese model isn't potentially better than ours, if only we could find a
viable path from one to the other.

~~~
magduf
It's not just Japan. German train stations are also mini-malls, frequently
with grocery stores in them, along with restaurants, clothing stores, etc.
(depending on the size of the station of course).

------
nerpderp82
Quote:

    
    
        That doesn’t necessarily mean an end to SNCF’s dominance of 
        high-speed rail. As things stand, most TGV lines don’t turn 
        a profit but are made feasible by subsidies, paid by a 
        state that clearly sees the economic advantages of an 
        extensive high-speed network. Competitors would either need 
        to make substantial savings on operational costs, or limit 
        themselves to the most lucrative connections, such as the 
        profit-making Paris to Lyon route.
    

This sounds like a perfect way to have private operators take the profit from
the cake routes and leave the subsidized routes for the state. Handing over
monopolies on a region by region basis doesn't seem like it change much if
anything.

~~~
devcpp
That's why it's a monopoly. The region can tell companies "who can make these
lines (some profitable, some less) for the lowest subsidies, while fulfilling
these other requirements?" Then the private companies compete, one wins and
has to serve cake routes as well as empty ones, because the contract with the
region makes them do it.

Everyone wants your region? Great, you can lower the subsidies, or even tax
the company. No one wants it? Ask for more money from the state, or consider
eliminating some useless routes.

Then the monopoly part makes it easy to calculate the profitability of the
package and get concrete offers.

~~~
atoav
But you could then just go, give the same plan to different competing teams in
the public railway network and you will get a similar effect. Because over all
the private companies will also have to carry the cost of a lost competition
to their customers.

I just don’t think it is good to give public infrastructure into the hands of
_any_ entity that has to generate profit. It is not a good idea for trains
(look at the German Bahn where it now turns out they neglected infrastructure
for years just to look profitable), it is not a good idea for water and not
for cellular networks or internet (the German market is again a good example).

If you have a monopolist it will also leverage the fact that they are the only
one. They essentially will blackmail you by strategic problems that will fall
back onto you as the responsible governing body. They will put lobbyists into
every possible spot and suddenly you live in a world where the only people who
understand railways are on the monopolists payroll and a politician should
decide about a topic they have no idea about.

And if put up too high requirements, everybody loses. In Germany the
frequencies for 3G were auctioned for way to much money. How did the mobile
networks compensate that loss? By essentially halting any infrastructure
investment and changing the requirement from “has to reach 99% of the area” to
“has to reach 99% of the households”.

The effects: broken train infrastructure with 1 in 5 trains arriving late, the
worst mobile network of Europe, the slowest internet of Europe.

I am convinced a public train, mobile and internet infrastructure would be
expensive — but I might get reception 10km outside of Berlin — I might be able
to catch that next train and I might be able to get fibre in the middle of the
German capital.

------
solidsnack9000
_While high-speed trains are struggling to gain a foothold in some parts of
the world (looking at you, California), France’s superfast rail services are
looking at a very active, more competitive future._

 _SNCF’s new trains should help it meet the challenge posed by new
competitors. Simply called the TGV 2020, these trains offer some clear
improvements, as illustrated in the video above. For a start, the train’s
shorter engine (59 feet instead of the current 72) opens up as much as 20
percent more space for passengers (740, as opposed to the current 556), while
also delivering a high maximum speed of 220 miles per hour._

It's great how this publication wants to inspire the US to learn from the rest
of the world. What if they started by using the metric system, maybe putting
furlongs and leagues in a tool tip?

~~~
ams6110
As a writer, one writes for one's audience. It's a US publication, targeting
mainly US readers. Using metric units would be less understandable.

It's not like the reason high speed rail doesn't work in the US is because we
talk about speed in miles per hour.

~~~
baroffoos
Its part of the US attitude of ignoring modern engineering

~~~
chillacy
Your Intel chips were probably specced out in mils (milli-inches). All the
screws are various fractions of an inch. A surprising amount of "modern
engineering" uses imperial still.

Science at least is all metric.

~~~
stephen_g
Actually, in most of the world we use pretty much just metric screws. It’s
always bloody annoying to occasionally have to integrate some piece of
equipment that we have to specially get in UNC or other imperial screws for.

As for Intel chips, while wafers used to be specified in inches, I beleive
they are generally fabricated on 300mm diameter wafers now. All the die sizes
I’ve seen doing some quick research appear to be in millimeters (could
possibly be approximations of values in mils) but I doubt either millimeters
or mils would be useful for actually laying out ASICs - I expect they are
mostly using microns and/or nanometers.

PCB design is still mostly in mils in the US, but I’ve heard from colleagues
who moved from there of some big companies starting to switch since it’s more
convienent for working with China etc. to just use metric.

~~~
baroffoos
Yep, all of the hobby electronics stuff I have worked with has been M3 and M4
screws. Really convenient

------
ucaetano
Worth remembering that France hasn't fared very well in rail competition
lately: the French-Government-controlled Eurostar chose the Velaro train sets
from German Siemens to replace the existing TGV-derived train sets.

It sparked a national outrage (because a company controlled by the French
government should, in their opinion, only buy French) and a lawsuit from
Alston (who makes the TGV).

~~~
mc32
If I were French and our rolling stock were competitive, I’d be upset if the
government gave a leg up to the competition given the strong unions and jobs
the TGV provides. It may save a buck or two but it also is a blow against
local producers.

~~~
ucaetano
You're essentially advocating for tariffs and "buy local" requirements.

Not only they are bad for the economy, they're also mostly illegal in the EU.

> If I were French and our rolling stock were competitive

Well, it just wasn't as competitive as the German one.

~~~
mc32
It’s from your taxes (unless the Germans are donating from their coffers), so
yeah you should have a local preference if it’s competitive (near as good or
better). It adds to local economy and also staves off monopolization of
producers.

~~~
ucaetano
Nope, it is anti-competitive and bad for the economy, as it creates trade
barriers and stifles innovation, as well as using your taxes badly.

It essentially accounts to government subsidies for a certain company.

And that's why it is illegal in the EU.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
If we take this to it’s logical extreme we can see how absurd it is.

Why stop at the EU?

If Tau Cetians can produce trains cheap we ought to buy trains from Tau Ceti.

Never mind that it puts the locals out of a job, diminishes local pride in
locally manufactured goods, and what do the Tau Cetians care if the trains are
unreliable and in comfortable.

Economics doesn’t occur in a vacuum, and it doesn’t matter if my opinion is
economically factually incorrect: the National morale _does matter_.

But, if you hold _competition_ above all else, then we have an ideological
mismatch, and no amount of fact or opinion sharing is likely to help.

~~~
ucaetano
> it doesn’t matter if my opinion is economically factually incorrect: the
> National morale does matter.

I don't even know how to reply to that. Not only you're completely wrong, but
you're a nationalist who would sink your country for "national pride".

Kinda like North Korea.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Is there something fundamentally problematic with me want a say in how my tax
dollars are spent, and that I would rather the majority go to my fellow
citizens so that I have to support fewer of them with welfare?

~~~
ucaetano
No, you can want it as much as you want.

Won't make it good, but you're still free to want.

------
l9k
The author mentions the similarity between the name InOui and "ennui"
(boredom), but seem to ignore that "inouï" is an actual word that means
unprecedented/incredible/unheard-of.

[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/inou%C3%AF](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/inou%C3%AF)

~~~
a3_nm
Yeah -- I'm French and I had never realized that "inoui" was somewhat close to
"ennui". In French pronunciation the two first vowels are really different
("ennui" in French starts with a nasal 'a' sound which doesn't resemble an 'i'
at all, to French ears at least).

Another point missed by the article is that in French "ennui" usually doesn't
have the philosophical undertones that it has in English. Outside of a
philosophical context, in French "ennui" (as a feeling) just means "boredom"
and that's it. In everyday French you also use "ennui" to mean an annoyance or
trouble, i.e., "avoir des ennuis" means "run into trouble", or "l'ennui c'est
que ..." means "the problem is that..."

~~~
microcolonel
> _In French pronunciation the two first vowels are really different ( "ennui"
> in French starts with a nasal 'a' sound which doesn't resemble an 'i' at
> all, to French ears at least)._

Yeah, I was confused when I tried to understand the connection they were
trying to make.

> _Another point missed by the article is that in French "ennui" usually
> doesn't have the philosophical undertones that it has in English._

Fatty liver is a disease, foie gras is a delicacy. ;- )

~~~
aidenn0
At my D&D table we pronounced "Coup de grâce" as someone french might
pronounce "Coup de gras" for years the latter of which translates to something
along the lines of "Blow of fat (or grease)" (rather than "Blow of mercy")

[edit]

For non-francophones, the correct pronunciation is roughly "Koo day grass" and
we were saying "Koo day grah"

~~~
moviuro
Hmm, more like "Koo de grass", where "e" is pronounced as in "err"
(hesitation): listen to
[https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=fr&t...](https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=fr&tl=en&text=coup%20de%20gr%C3%A2ce)

------
Camillo
> In 2021, France will be trying something completely new with its high-speed
> services. For the first time, rival companies will be allowed to vie with
> SNCF, competing with the national provider on major routes.

Completely new for France, I guess? This has been reality in Italy for years:
Trenitalia and Italo both operate high-speed trains on major routes.

> In its double-decker carriages, moving around by wheelchair will be far
> smoother, thanks to platforms that can lift and rotate at the end of each
> wagon.

Why would you even want to go to the upper deck on a wheelchair?

~~~
apexalpha
The double deck means you have to either go down or up from the 'balcony'
where you enter the train.

------
AltmousGadfly
Italy has had an open-access competitor on high speed service for years:
ItaloTreno. The policy of forcing national state railways to separate track
management from train operations is essential in opening up high speed rail to
competition and preventing cross subsidization of service operation (since it
requires subsidized services to be done so in a transparent manner and not out
of other profits from railway operations)

------
fabianhjr
¿Anyone knows why SNCF/Alstom keep favoring two locomotives over an EMU design
like the Stadler KISS 200? Seems like more passenger space would also help
reduce per-passenger cost and increase efficiency.

(Speed difference aside; the current Alstom Euroduplex does 300 kmph and the
Stadler KISS 200 does 200 kmph)

~~~
peferron
Alstom EMU:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGV_(train)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGV_\(train\))

SNCF doesn't want it because they believe locomotives are cheaper to maintain
and they want double-deckers anyway.

------
IdontRememberIt
The design of the alfa-x is so more futuristic and they build with earthquake
constraints:
[https://www.nippon.com/en/currents/d00428/japan%E2%80%99s-sh...](https://www.nippon.com/en/currents/d00428/japan%E2%80%99s-shinkansen-
moving-on-to-the-next-generation.html)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up2efe46N0Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up2efe46N0Y)

------
GrryDucape
Inouï in French is a well-understood word that means "unheard-of" or
unbelievable. No French person would mistake it for "ennui."

------
fyfy18
Meanwhile, the UK is still trying to get trains to run on time...

[https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-
advice/train-t...](https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/train-
timetable-change-schedule-commuters-disruption-chaos-thameslink-
northern-a8673951.html)

~~~
isostatic
Thameslink is a private franchise run for the government by a contractor to
government specs.

Northern's timetable problems seem to stem from overrunning engineering work
by the nationalised provider, coupled with stock shortages, and an insistence
by the government on getting rid of guards

Admittably they don't help themselves by refusing to employ enough staff to
run all the trains without requiring overtime, a hangover from the BR days.

------
benj111
"the train’s shorter engine (59 feet instead of the current 72) opens up as
much as 20 percent more space for passengers"

Does it? Why?

The max percentage increase is going to be for the shortest trains, where
space isn't an issue anyway.

But then even ignoring that, does the driver _need_ a platform? Why not have
the two motor units overhang the platform?

~~~
francilien
It was once tried at Gare de Montparnasse, but wasn’t too successful.

Most of the TGV traffic is at Paris, where all stations in the city are
terminus stations. So you’ll always have one power car at the platform and on
the other side you are often constrained by signals.

------
StreamBright
"That will give France the most modern high-speed fleet in the world, and the
trains will arrive during a critical period for the country’s rail systems."

I think China has that.

~~~
ggm
Japan apologises for <1min lags in arrival and departure time.

China has much, and the train I was on was fab, and they have maglev too, but
I don't think _all_ the moment of force here has moved to China. I still rate
JR east and JR west.

------
throw2016
The US does not have a rail and wider public transportation culture that is
prevalent in 99% of the world. Predictably the discussion here will be
preoccupied with the kind of 'metrics' that other countries that take for
granted they exist and are run for the benefit of citizens do not need to
have. That is a wide ideological divide.

The US seems to want to run a business for 'consumers', not a country for
citizens. Part of this culture has leaked to some countries via the classic
neoliberalism playbook of demonizing government services and public
infrastructure, defund, create chaos and sing the praise of privatization to
transfer resources and business to the private sector. All these experiments
have failed miserably to deliver better services, promised efficiency or costs
savings. Notice the absence of economic studies and wider dissemination of
these failures compared to the ever flowing 'economic studies' demonizing
public services and government. No one to fund it.

On the other hand public spends that benefit business like subsidies,
bailouts, a wildly excessive military industrial complex do not generate the
same ideological fervour. Think tanks, economists and the business press do
not talk about inefficiency and size of the public workforce when it comes to
the agricultural subsidies regime, bank bailouts, corporate freebies, the
massive security state and endless wars and its attendant inefficiencies in
the pentagon, NSA, TSA, in this case its 'grin and bear it'. Why does the NSA
need to spy on everyone, how much is it spending, how many workers does it
employ? How much does the TSA cost? Lament but make no changes. This is not
how a democracy works.

------
masonic
You can do a lot with electric trains where electricity is cheap (75% nuclear
generation).

~~~
Scoundreller
Except when the transformer next to its central artery (aorta?) and
maintenance facility gets too hot:

[https://www.thelocal.fr/20180727/fire-blocks-montparnasse-
tr...](https://www.thelocal.fr/20180727/fire-blocks-montparnasse-train-
station-in-paris-at-height-of-holiday-exodus)

~~~
_fizz_buzz_
Accidents happen. Not sure what your point is here.

------
QuamStiver
I like how Mr O'Sullivan saw fit to mention California in the first sentence.
If he hadn't, I would have.

------
l9k
Related, in France as well: Hyperloop TT is developing, in Toulouse, the
futuristic hyperloop idea: [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/26/hyperloop-firm-
unveils-first...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/26/hyperloop-firm-unveils-
first-images-of-its-new-test-track-in-toulouse.html)

~~~
__m
Not exactly something to be proud of. Also "The idea was envisioned by Tesla
CEO Elon Musk in a white paper in 2013". No, it was hyped by Musk, the idea
dates back to 1904

~~~
rsynnott
Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous how much credit Musk gets for this idea. I
remember one being a plot point of an old (70s-ish?) Larry Niven novel.

~~~
icebraining
It's an interesting phenomena that seems to happen all the time.

Generic idea exists for a while, then someone proposes a more specific
implementation and gets known for that, then people start rethinking those
details and arrive at the generic idea again, but still think of it as coming
from that person.

Another example is how plain-old Merkle trees are now being called
"blockchain": Satoshi combined them with other ideas (like POW) to arrive at
Bitcoin, then other people started separating those off and got back at just
Merkle trees, but still think of them as originating from Bitcoin.

