Originally Posted by
creber
I don't know about for instance Heathrow Express and its business case, which is the most comparable case: big airport, big city, bad traffic on roads for big parts of the day, service limited to one mainline station in one part of the town, service in parallel to a dirt-cheap (or rather "cheap but dirty") option (RER in Paris, Tube in London). Has it paid off?
Is the HEX the most comparable? Or the two express trains from Milano to MXP?
IMHO we should simply be comparing every major Euro city, not just modern train projects. AMS, FRA, ARN, etc. Is Paris competitive? The amount of income from tourism would say that yes, Paris is very competitive. But I think the business community would say otherwise. Ideally there would be express trains from CDG to La Defense, central Paris, and several of the business areas in the suburbs. You can take the TGV from CDG to Disneyland, so why not other key areas?