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461 points axelfontaine | 7 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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thih9 ◴[] No.44039085[source]
> will cost billions of euros, affect more than 9,200 km of track, and take decades

How is a change like this going to be implemented? E.g. are they going to mainly update some tracks everywhere (and have two systems running in parallel), or all tracks in selected areas (and have passengers change), or something else?

Was there a comparable large scale rail infrastructure change in some other country?

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Al-Khwarizmi ◴[] No.44039365[source]
In Spain it's ongoing, very slowly, since the first international gauge high-speed rail line started operation in 1992.

It's a slow and quite annoying process. For example, to reach my region, trains from Madrid have to change gauge because my region still has the old one. Apart from spending around 10 minutes doing this, this has caused a lot of problems because it essentially means there is a single model of 300 km/h train that can make it here (others don't support gauge change) and to top it, said model turned out to be highly unreliable. This created a lot of political tension because of course we wanted 300 km/h trains like other regions, but now we're stuck with these lemons and our regional politicians push for gauge change, but the national government doesn't want to do it yet as it affects freight trains.

I hope at some point we get the change done in the whole national network, although generally it moves at a glacial pace. It makes sense to have seamless connection with France and the rest of Europe, and to be able to use the same trains everyone else does.

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RileyJames ◴[] No.44039540[source]
You lost me at ‘single model of 300km/h train that can make it here’

Meanwhile here in Australia our “fast rail” trains go 160km/h. Unless it’s over 32 degrees, then they slow down. And if it hits 36 degrees they slow down even more (90km/h)

And it gets that hot here a lot…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V/Line_VLocity

https://www.vline.com.au/heat

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john-h-k ◴[] No.44039649[source]
Don’t OBB Railjet trains travel at 230km/h?
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1. detaro ◴[] No.44039662[source]
Australia, not Austria ;)
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2. Akronymus ◴[] No.44039823[source]
I can count on one hand how often I've seen that mixup happen in that direction.

As an austrian, I am amused.

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3. dotancohen ◴[] No.44039852[source]
Is it Austria that has the stands in the airport for tourists who thought they were buying tickets to Australia, or is it the other way around?
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4. Akronymus ◴[] No.44039865{3}[source]
I am not familiar enough with air travel that I can say either way.

But austria and australia regularily exchange mail that got sent to the wrong country.

5. Al-Khwarizmi ◴[] No.44039919{3}[source]
I think it's a myth that originated from an ad: https://www.vol.at/2023/11/397526796_1104257417472438_811840...

I suppose it's difficult to make that mistake because plane tickets are to cities, not countries as a whole.

As a real story, I knew a guy who had a B&B near a beach called San Francisco, in Spain, and he regularly had to cancel bookings from people who thought it was in the US city of the same name, though :)

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6. thih9 ◴[] No.44044943{4}[source]
Apparently people confuse cities when flying too, here’s an article about a passenger going to the wrong Sydney, and more examples:

https://simpleflying.com/ameican-airlines-passenger-flies-si...

7. john-h-k ◴[] No.44046716[source]
Wow not even a verbal slip up I literally read Australia as Austria. Equally impressed and horrified with myself