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just because we screwed up once
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2025
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what about short-haul flights? Routes such as Berlin-Copenhagen seem to make sense, as in: Not as fast as a plane but faster than a train and possibly cheaper than both (using hydrogen airships). I don't know much about airships but that is what came to my mind (besides obviously the freight side of things that is being researched).
I doubt it would be faster than a train though. The Hindenburg had a maximum speed of 135 km/h, and even if we were generous and assumed that a hypothetical modern airship would go twice that speed, 270 km/h is still not as fast as high speed trains, many of which can run at 400 km/h, with 300-350 km/h being the most common in Europe. There's also the same issue of takeoff and landing as with planes. While trains can just pull into a station, open its many doors to exchange passengers, and pull right out of the station, all types of aircraft have complex takeoff and landing procedures that take a significant amount of time. On short flights, the takeoff and landing time accounts for a big portion of the total flight time, so it's an even bigger issue.
Again, I'm not flat out saying that airships will never see a revival, but these are the problems that need to be overcome for that to happen.
fair point, though using high speed rail speeds as a comparison is kind of unfair as high speed rail still is pretty rare in europe (excluding france and spain I guess), in germany for example a train journey that only makes use of high speed tracks is basically non-existent and expanding high speed rail infrastructure takes a long time. It makes a lot more sense imo to use 160 km/h as a speed for comparison.
Your point probably still holds, as although it takes an insane amount of time to build hsr infrastructure it is happening and will continue to happen.