Something about Trains: Interview with Adam Something

How would you describe yourself to someone who’s never heard of you before?

I make videos on Youtube about urban planning and politics from a left perspective, and also dunk on Elon Musk a lot. Lately people started calling me the “Giga Chad of Urban Planning”, a moniker I can’t help but accept.

Why did you want to become a youtuber?

I had lots of things to say, and needed an outlet. What started as a tiny hobby project is now a 600K+ channel with millions of views. That being said, Youtube strictly remains a hobby for me. The audience will have fun watching my videos only if I also have fun making them. And I do!

What drew your interest towards transit?

As a libertarian leftist, I mainly care about equality and positive freedom*. A well-designed public transit system is an excellent tool in service of both. It’s inclusive, accessible, and gives you freedom of opportunities through the mobility it provides. I also like trains a lot, so transit is a perfect fit for me.

What’s it like living in Germany, and what are your feelings about Deutsche Bahn?

Germany is a nice place to live, I have no reason to complain. Now that we’re out of the CDU-CSU era however, hopefully the country will start shifting more towards the left. Sixteen years of Merkel’s status quo were more than enough.

As for Deutsche Bahn, it operates a massive system that works well enough in most places. However, it’s a common misconception that Germany is some sort of rail utopia. Don’t get me wrong, DB’s services are not bad by any measure. A better word would be lacklustre, considering it’s run by Europe’s largest economy. For the sake of perspective, Austria and Switzerland spend three and five times as much on rail per capita respectively. There is a lot to improve, but under the previous leadership trains were a secondary consideration. Crossing an unelectrified, single-track railway linking two 200K+ cities over a four-lane highway really makes you think.

Hopefully under the new government, the so-called “Traffic Light Coalition”, the issues surrounding DB will get more attention. Lord knows they should.

Well what do you think is needed to bring DB up to scratch?

To answer in layman terms, a useful first step is for DB to receive the same level of attention and relative funding as German highways.

Speaking of Austria, they seem to be running everyone’s night-trains now. What do you think the future of night-trains looks like? How do you think the decarbonisation of mid to long-distance travel will/should play out?

I’ve taken the Nightjet recently, they offer a good enough service. Night trains are a good idea, though in an ideal Europe we would connect cities with proper high speed rail, so night trains become unnecessary. For the time being they’re a good stopgap measure though!

The decarbonization of mid- and long distance travel is possible only through better cross-border policies. Right now EU countries treat their rail systems as islands for the most part, not as part of a larger European network. Think of the disaster-show the Connecting Europe Express ended up being: 26 border crossings, a complete halt at almost all of them, 55 different locomotives needed to haul the thing across Europe, the list goes on. In this regard I recommend the report titled “Derailed” from Investigate Europe. Very eye-opening in terms of where we are in Europe with mid- and long distance rail travel.

How do you think public funds should ideally be allocated between high-speed, inter-city rail such as the TGV; and regional, slower trains such as the TER? Which do you think provides more bang for its buck?

This is up to the financial planners of a given railway. In general, we shouldn’t forget that rail, as public transit in general, should be a subsidised social service. The ability to travel should be a basic human right, just like healthcare.

I can’t tell you exact numbers and percentages. We should agree on what a baseline, minimum level of train service is, and then make sure the service at the very least doesn’t dip below that. We already have this for roads: we expect major cities to be linked by at least a 4+2 lane highway. But when it comes to rail, the standard seems to be “it should maybe exist”.

As for whether high speed or slower trains would be worth it: both would, for the different groups they serve. This isn’t an either-or situation, both are necessary for a well-functioning rail system.

How do you think effective public transport can be set-up where there is none? What implications would this have for a European high-speed rail network?

Question: how do you eat an elephant? Answer: one bite at a time. The same applies to building transit systems from scratch. Set up a stable source of financing, identify the potential backbone network, and choose a transit method you can afford to purchase and operate.

Europe does have a high-speed network, however patchy and inconsistent it might be. Building a cohesive system out of it is a question of incrementalism. Nobody should expect huge top-down rail projects like in China; rather, a gradual improvement of cross-border links and interoperability through EU initiatives. This is the most realistic, politically feasible option we have right now, so let’s focus our efforts on that.

What European train project are you most excited about right now?

Currently the Czech high speed rail projects, in particular the Prague-Dresden corridor. I look forward to its completion in the year 2157!

I heard the EU rail liberalisation directives were partly put through to integrate the national networks, if so, do you think it has worked? What are your opinions on it?

That very well could have been a reason, but it didn’t really work. State railway companies are basically in a cartel right now, and have divided the rail market between themselves based on informal agreements. In practice, this means most of everything stays the same, only national companies now tick the “won the competition” checkmark next to the line they always ran, and won without competition.

There are lots of ways national carriers can hinder private rail companies. We had cases of the Austrian and Czech railways colluding to prevent Regiojet from buying used cars from them which could be run on their networks later. In Austria, when Westbahn entered the market, the Austrian Railways dumped more than a million cheap tickets into the market that were valid for the entire network.

Many state railway companies also weren’t separated properly from their infrastructure subsidiaries: many (France, Germany, Hungary, etc) are still in one holding, meaning such state railway companies pay the track usage fees to themselves, while private operators have to pay them.

Another choice method is setting usage fees ludicrously high. For a train to stop in Vienna, an operator pays 10€. In Paris, they pay 1000€. For SNCF the latter isn’t a problem, because of the aforementioned holding structure. If a TGV stops at Gare du Nord, SNCF pays 1000€ to SNCF. If a Regiojet stops at Gare du Nord, Regiojet pays 1000€ to SNCF. This is how the grift works.

High-speed rail can have disadvantages too: for example the TGV to Paris here in Strasbourg has flooded us with Parisians, ruining the housing market among many other things. How can we make sure high-speed rail benefits the many and not the few?

With adjacent policies, for example: housing. I assume Parisians flooded Strasbourg because the Paris real estate market is incredibly expensive. This is a question of social housing, rent policies, and so on. If someone blames rail in this instance, I’m afraid they’re sitting on the horse backwards.

Speaking of getting rail equal funding and attention to road, the liberalisation of freight trains in France has been nothing short of a disaster, partly because lorries don’t have to pay for road maintenance whereas the SNCF has to maintain the railways (and has to run at a profit). How can we alleviate these problems in a way that doesn’t unfairly impact countries with less rail infrastructure?

Once again, with policy. Your question already contains the answer: have a coherent infrastructure use fee for all transport participants. I guarantee you, trucks do far more damage to their infrastructure in monetary terms than freight trains, so the situation is rather unfair. In an ideal world, fee policy must direct freight to rail, first and foremost.

What are the biggest risks of the liberalisation of rail, in your opinion?

The prosaic answer is “doing it wrong”. It’s rather rare though, since EU countries have largely figured out the issue. Carriers can either run lines on their own financial risks (like the new Regiojet from Budapest to Prague), or they can apply as a regular communal operator, i.e. they can get state compensation per passenger-kilometre. Otherwise just don’t do what the UK did, and you’ll be fine.

There seems to be a lot more talk than warranted surrounding privatisation given that there’s far more correlation between quality-of-service and funding than any correlation that may exist between quality-of-service and whether the provider is private or not. Why do you think that is?

Our political systems in the developed world have been run by neoliberal politicians for the most part. This is of course a generalisation, but I think it bears out, since we see similar tendencies in virtually all countries (cutting back public services, introducing the free market to more aspects of life, etc). In some circles, the myth of the “efficient private company” vs the “wasteful, corrupt state” is still alive, which I’d imagine would spur politicians to focus on privatisation more in their rhetoric. I could be wrong, but this is my assessment at the moment.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

Car bad, train good. Electric bus – questionable.

Finally, do you think Thomas the Tank Engine has influenced you towards transit?

It’s a common misconception that I was inspired by Thomas. In reality, my main influence was Gordon.

You can watch Adam’s many videos here: Adam Something You can watch his far fewer second-channel videos here: Adam Something Else

*Positive freedom: my taxes subsidise a train network that goes everywhere, so I can get   everywhere (freedom of opportunities)

Negative freedom: no one can force me to pay for anything, it’s up to me to handle and organise my own transportation (freedom from outside influences)