Word: railings
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...same time, countries including Spain, Italy and France are spending billions of dollars on new high-speed railroads and rolling stock to compete with airlines. All this means one thing for travelers in Europe contemplating a switch from increasingly stressful and time-consuming air travel to more civilized rail: all aboard. (See pictures of Paris...
...most radical change arrives this December, when European Union regulations will for the first time allow all rail operators to compete with one another for passengers on international routes. The change, which comes four years after similar moves in the freight sector, is designed to open up routes that currently are controlled by state monopolies. For travelers, deregulation will mean lower prices, faster trains and greater convenience - for example, passengers now are usually forced to change to trains run by the incumbent state-owned operator when they cross into another country. Under the new rules, railroads will be able...
...opening up the market, regulators hope to give rail companies room to offer more frequent and diverse services, like special business-class cars. "Our experience has shown that choice is important to travelers, and when you increase the range of choice with new products, services and suppliers, you increase the number of clients who want to explore those new options," says Mireille Faugère, president of domestic and international passenger services for France's state rail company, Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF). "For a company like ours - which derives...
Even before deregulation, Europe's rail industry has been modernizing and expanding. France, which has Europe's largest high-speed rail network, plans to more than double its track length from 1,200 miles (1,900 km) to 2,500 miles (4,000 km) by 2020. Spain is aiming to leapfrog France as high-speed leader with a $130 billion expansion; when completed in 2020, 90% of all Spaniards will live no more than 31 miles (50 km) from a station served by Alta Velocidad Española (AVE) trains, which have a top speed of 218 m.p.h. (351 km/h...
...high-speed networks is allowing trains to challenge airlines on shorter trips even before deregulation comes into force. The Eurostar service - the lucrative 21⁄4-hour route between London and Paris - already controls 70% of the travel market between the two capitals. Opened in 2007, a high-speed rail link between Madrid and Barcelona that cut intercity travel time to 21⁄2 hours has grabbed 50% of that market. Similar effects have been seen in Paris-Lyon, Paris-Brussels and Hamburg-Berlin transport links, where domination by fast trains has led airlines to reduce or drop services altogether...