dialkove vlaky ako indikatorovy druh civilizovanosti
https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/11/11/how-trains-could-replace-planes-in-europe

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In some respects European cross-border rail has gone backwards. The trip from Brussels to Luxembourg can take an hour longer than it did in 1980. Along the German-Czech border some timetables are not much better than those in Hendschel’s Telegraph of 1914. When Germany’s transport minister last year announced “Trans Europ Express 2.0”, it raised the question of why the original Trans Europ Express trains immortalised by Kraftwerk in 1977 were abandoned by the early 1990s.

One difficulty in reviving them is compatibility. Europe’s electric railways use four different voltage levels. Signalling and safety systems are even worse: almost every country initially had its own. The European Rail Agency is gradually enforcing common specifications, but that effort has been under way since 1996. At Europe’s edges, even the width of the track varies: the Baltic countries use the Russian Empire’s wider gauge, and Spain and Portugal have one of their own.

Private rail entrepreneurs say that traffic would rise if countries actually lived up to their obligations to allow competition. Under eu law all member states have unbundled their rail infrastructure from their train operators, and must let outside players run on their tracks. But some countries are in practice more open than others. Germany’s track owner is an arm of Deutsche Bahn and charges high service fees, which tends to deter competitors. Sweden charges only for the added maintenance that new users require, fostering competition from newcomers such as FlixTrain and mtr that has cut prices.

Then there is ticketing. Because systems are incompatible, only a few agencies sell rail tickets across the entire continent. As for refunds, operators are responsible only for the portion of the trip on their own trains. High-speed rail tickets typically cost far more than a budget airfare on the same route. That is unlikely to change while jet fuel and most airline emissions are tax-free.

If Europe wants passengers to shift to rail, it will need to tax airlines’ carbon emissions properly. Until then, many passengers will think of trains nostalgically. At a Connecting Europe Express event in Berlin, Christopher Irwin of the European rail passengers’ union reflected that he first travelled to the city by rail from Britain in the 1960s. “It was easier back then.”