I was living in Germany in 1999 and rode night trains all over Europe. Even then I was amazed at how much better the air travel experience was in Europe compared to the U.S. (much more competitive) and it seemed the Europeans I knew were more inclined to fly than I was, since taking the train is a novelty to an American.
High-speed rail became dominant in the next decade and I think it was the cynical kind of of ‘competition’ that if there is an affordable option and an astronomically expensive option (HSR is often 2x or 3x the cost of flying) why should the provider offer the affordable one? (It’s like how a car dealer has no M or L cars but they have rows and rows of unsold XL, XXL, and XXXL SUVs)
The EU is trying to do to rail travel what the U.S. (and the EU) did for plane travel by deregulating it, breaking down monopolies so the private sector could enter and drive down prices.
They passed a bunch of rules requiring the separation of the track ownership from the train ownership which means any private company can come in, lease some track time, lease some trains, and become a train operator overnight.
Similar rule changes have led to tremendous improvements in Italy for example, which had the unfortunate (?) side effect of bankrupting the national plane carrier Alitalia (not sure if it’s really unfortunate considering it was heavily subsidized by the govt, much like plane travel throughout the world, where govts inevitably subsidize plane travel by bailing out plane companies on a regular basis, and even the companies that don’t need bailing out benefit because they share costs with highly unprofitable companies essentially running on govt bailouts).
High-speed rail became dominant in the next decade and I think it was the cynical kind of of ‘competition’ that if there is an affordable option and an astronomically expensive option (HSR is often 2x or 3x the cost of flying) why should the provider offer the affordable one? (It’s like how a car dealer has no M or L cars but they have rows and rows of unsold XL, XXL, and XXXL SUVs)