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Old 12th August 2003 | 19:47
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ettore
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From: Arroyo
Quote:

Slightly off topic, why not invest in high speed magnet trains to FRA and MUC?

Unquote

That's precisely what the French did with their TGV. Since Brussels Zuid opened for high-speed trains from Paris, AF do not fly Brussels anymore, but code-shares with the French Railways company SNCF. But France decided itself for an extensive High-Speed train network more than 20 years ago!

In Switzerland the process of decision taking for such investements is even longer. Add to it that the topography of the country is not as easy as it is betwenn Paris and Brussel or betwenn Paris and Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Bordeaux...

Today, FRA remains 4 hours by train from ZRH (forget about MUN with the train). Improvements would be lenghtly, costly and might not bring the competitive advantages required to divert flying pax to the train.

Basically, it would be – or should have been – a political decision. But Swiss politicians hate making decisions. That's one main reason for the presumed vitality of the so-called "direct democracy" in Switzerland. The more "the people" is said to "decide", the less responsabilty the politicians have to bear. Even if only 30% of the population go to the pooling station, they just ignore it.

This fear of decision making is also explaining why Swiss International Airline is now going down the drain. But it's another story...
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