this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025
36 points (97.4% liked)
Public Transport
498 readers
1 users here now
Everything about public transportation!
founded 6 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Sounds like gadgetbahn.
If we want to solve for capacity we have this.
There are no sleeping wagons during the day because people rarely sleep during the day.
Also having narrow ladder to get to half the wagon for sure will be great for elderly and disabled people.
What specifically about this solution makes it a gadgetbahn? Specifics are important here - what makes it less practical than current night train solutions?
How does a bilevel car improve the comfort and unit economics of the night train experience?
These wagons are intended to be operational specifically during night, when beds are vital. It's not a solution made for daytime travel, where we already have good configurations.
Having half of the spaces being accessible for elderly and disabled people seems like a good enough ratio, given their relative share of the population.
More walls means less wagon space, also if it was interested only for night travel, why half the wagon is seats? How is that better than a night wagon filled with multiple story beds and one filled with seating? And why are there giant screens if the wagon is interested for sleeping?
From their site:
Their website shows and mentions daytime travel as well. If it is intended only for night travel makes a bit more sense, but still seems like a gadgetbahn.
I don't think it's good engineering practice to just decided half your product will be unusable/unacceptable.
The seats recline into beds, similar to business class seating on long haul flights.
A typical night train will probably run for something like 12 hours, meaning that you won't want to be lying down fully for the whole trip.
On night trains, you typically book either a seat or a bed. The seats are an downright awful experience for anyone spending the night on the train. Seating-only wagons really have no purpose on night trains.
See the previous note about night trains typically running for both sleeping hours and non-sleeping hours.
Again, I don't think these trains are intended for general purpose travel, they are specifically designed to be a better experience for overnight trips. I would not want to see them replace regular trains, that would clearly be a mistake.
This is provably false - if this were true, then every bathroom would be built to full accessibility standards, but they are not. Some bathrooms get built to full accessibility standards, and the others only accommodate the majority of the population.
Good accessibility engineering means that your product can accommodate people with different requirements. With half of the seating being available without having the ability to climb ladders, this certainly fulfils that requirement.