At one level the answer to the question posed in the title of this tweet is obvious: very green. This 2020 report (PDF) by the European Environment Agency puts some numbers on it, summarised in this graph: I might quibble with some of the numbers here, but the overall picture […]
Jon is quite right, in many places they are not trying to significantly increase modal share, the problem is lack of trains to use the capacity of the network, plus some gaps/bottlenecks in that network.
Also the business model of SNCF is particularly bad (should be called SNCP - just designed for small elite living in Paris), while DB suffers from years of underfunding infrastructure. Situation is improving in some other corners of europe, but too slowly to pull enough traffic from air and road.
Compare with the expansion of chinese railways over the last decade.
[ By the way, is that photo the Meuse (Dinant-Givet) ? I’d like to use that line if it would reopen ]
Jon is quite right, in many places they are not trying to significantly increase modal share, the problem is lack of trains to use the capacity of the network, plus some gaps/bottlenecks in that network.
Also the business model of SNCF is particularly bad (should be called SNCP - just designed for small elite living in Paris), while DB suffers from years of underfunding infrastructure. Situation is improving in some other corners of europe, but too slowly to pull enough traffic from air and road.
Compare with the expansion of chinese railways over the last decade.
[ By the way, is that photo the Meuse (Dinant-Givet) ? I’d like to use that line if it would reopen ]