More trains are great, but whai really needed is a unified, EU-wide booking system.
Currently, each operator has their own site, with its own pricing structure and sometimes its own loyalty bonuses. Cross-border trains sometimes have dramatically different prices when you buy tickets in the origin vs destination country.
But worst of all, you often can't buy one ticket for complex routes across Europe, as you can with flights. Instead, you're forced to piece it together yourself from individual tickets. The problem with this is that since you haven't bought a ticket from anyone for the entire route, it's your own responsibility if a train is delayed and you miss your connection. Until we fix this, trains will never be a viable option for many trips.
I have travelled through Europe quite extensively. IMO cheap flights like Ryanair and Wizz beat train hands down - pricewise especially if you are carrying light luggage and also because most airports are now connected from city center by train in Europe (something which is a huge issue in US making you rely on your own transport or taxi.)
> I have travelled through Europe quite extensively. IMO cheap flights like Ryanair and Wizz beat train hands down
Europe is fighting hard short haul flights, many of which are now just plain down illegal. Several countries, including France, have already banned short haul flights of less than 2h30.
I see this "high speed trains" push as related to the attack by the EU on short haul flights.
So no matter if we find that cheap flights do beat trains hands down or not, in a near future there may not be any choice: and the choice seems like it's going to be train.
I recently flew for 2 hours between two capitals in Europe. I had a one hour train ride to get to the departure airport, one hour train ride from the destination to my accommodation. I had to be at the airport one and a half hours before the flight departure, because I had to go through all the demeaning practices that make a flight "safe". At the destination the airline lost my luggage so it was another 2 hours to submit a claim.
Tell me how riding a sleeping train for 10 hours is worse than that. Even though my example is a little exaggerated for drama purposes, I still would prefer a night train to the 5-6 hour middle of the day disruption and stress that flying is. I'm pretty sure that there are many like me.
Flights are such a waste of time though. When I take a train I can use my laptop or read a book comfortably the entire time.
With a flight there is 2 hours of standing queueing or waiting in a "gate", then another 30 minutes of dead time at takeoff and landing where you can't do anything either.
Also it's not always much faster. Italy's high speed network eventually won with their national airline. And no wonder - a trip going halfway across the peninsula takes roughly as much time, but is generally more pleasant.
Assuming you actually don't miss the connection and are left in the middle of nowhere, if lucky to be able to travel wihout changing trains that it doesn't get one hour delay, or enjoying standing up three hours in a high speed train, because it is overbooked, or getting additional passegers from another high speed one that broke down.
i missed a connection because a plane was late by half an hour. (it departed an hour late but caught up some time). the connecting flight was by the same airline. we absolutely could have made the connection, but the airline decided to reroute us anyways which added 6 hours and an additional transfer to our trip which meant that i was awake for 48 hours by the time we finally reached our accomodation and i got sick and had to rest some days from the exhaustion.
i absolutely would have preferred a multi-day train trip over that experience.
Except in most European countries, unless you went with the more expensive train ticket option there is no reroute done by the train company, you get to buy new tickets for everyone.
i do not believe that is true. do you have an example where this happened? at least in germany if you miss a connection you can take any other train that follows with the same ticket.
what doesn't work is, if you have a regional pass, and you buy a ticket from outside that region, but you are late for the first leg of that ticket, then your ticket may no longer be valid. it would be the same for flights.
This seems like an impossible claim to me. Surely it depends on many factors, off the top of my head:
- the occupancy of the trip
- the distance
- the number of stops
- the form of “last mile” transportation required
- the age and model of the vehicle
- the specific fuel source
I mean, I believe the statistic is true in aggregate. It’s like saying “vegan food has lower carbon emissions” which is true in aggregate. But wild game is often astronomically lower emissions (not to mention lower cruelty) than typical vegan food.
So these aggregate statistics are interesting points to ponder, but we don’t live in aggregate. We eat specific foods and we travel specific routes.
And at the individual level these statistics become... well not “mostly false” but certainly “frequently false”.
To me, the base statistic is a great starting point but the next questions we need to ask is: when are flights lower emission? When is hunting more humane? Etc. That’s how we can really drive better individual decisions. “Just ride the train and eat vegan” won’t get us to a globally sufficient decision framework.
Except the tiny detail they don't travel everywhere, mostly connections are needed, some countries don't impose reservations so travelling standing up is to be expected, and they don't always hit connection time slots.
When there are lines between places they generally work very well. The last time I used HSR in Europe it was within Italy and they let you pick seats and the trains were very direct, I had 1 connection but that was because I started at a small town that only had a local train line and not a major hub and the connection was quick.
My last train travel in Italy, a month ago, I had the pleasure of a 30m delay on local train, and then running like a fool across Milan main station, alongside 15 train platforms, to still catch my connection.
Contrary to airport connections, if one looses it, it is lost. There aren't last calls, or help to get another one. Unless one has bought the more expensive ticket with flexible trains.
I mean, an electric train that goes to the middle of the city or town you are going to and then a walk or a bus or taxi at the other end, it's no comparison really.
If you don't have a car you choose where to live based on this, when I used to commute I always lived never more than 7 minutes walk from a station.
Look at bullet train network in China, which is probably inspiring EU now. Today it’s about 40,000 km. Total amount of time spent traveling is about same as with airplanes (less time waiting on airport but more time on vehicle) but price is cheaper, ride much more comfortable.
Especially since the cheaper plane flights in Europe are absolutely painful, dropping you off 2 hours away from the city centre into some minor airport.
Taking the TGV from Paris to Zuerich in comparison is such a relief.
Wouldn't it be better to connect major european economic and cultural centers? Also, I doubt they are going to connect to dublin or reykjavik. So not all.
And the Swiss have important differences. Compared to many countries, Switzerland is politcally weak at federal level with the power in regional areas.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 105 ms ] threadCurrently, each operator has their own site, with its own pricing structure and sometimes its own loyalty bonuses. Cross-border trains sometimes have dramatically different prices when you buy tickets in the origin vs destination country.
But worst of all, you often can't buy one ticket for complex routes across Europe, as you can with flights. Instead, you're forced to piece it together yourself from individual tickets. The problem with this is that since you haven't bought a ticket from anyone for the entire route, it's your own responsibility if a train is delayed and you miss your connection. Until we fix this, trains will never be a viable option for many trips.
(I haven't really needed it myself, the longest journeys I've made have only covered two countries at most.)
Maybe they can achieve what we had in America back in the 60's with SABRE [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_Corporation
However, train travel isn't really properly integrated as far as I can tell.
https://youtu.be/Yyj5cv5FPWA
Europe is fighting hard short haul flights, many of which are now just plain down illegal. Several countries, including France, have already banned short haul flights of less than 2h30.
I see this "high speed trains" push as related to the attack by the EU on short haul flights.
So no matter if we find that cheap flights do beat trains hands down or not, in a near future there may not be any choice: and the choice seems like it's going to be train.
“Many” is a complete misrepresentation.
Three routes within France and 2 within Austria. This is an absolutely minuscule percentage of EU flights.
(Austria’s latest “ban” of Vienna-Salzburg was part of a bailout deal so probably was to do with cost cutting too.)
Tell me how riding a sleeping train for 10 hours is worse than that. Even though my example is a little exaggerated for drama purposes, I still would prefer a night train to the 5-6 hour middle of the day disruption and stress that flying is. I'm pretty sure that there are many like me.
With a flight there is 2 hours of standing queueing or waiting in a "gate", then another 30 minutes of dead time at takeoff and landing where you can't do anything either.
And you travel from city center to city center, rather than middle-of-nowheres named after a city.
>And you travel from city center to city center, rather than middle-of-nowheres named after a city.
When you land you can rent a car... when you arrive on a train you are forced to either pay for a taxi or take pub... pu... public transportation
Also it's not always much faster. Italy's high speed network eventually won with their national airline. And no wonder - a trip going halfway across the peninsula takes roughly as much time, but is generally more pleasant.
Do you think the Barcelona metro is only for plebs who are below you in the pecking order?
In a lot of ways, I understand why Deutsche Bahn sucks, a lot of politics ruined the company.
i missed a connection because a plane was late by half an hour. (it departed an hour late but caught up some time). the connecting flight was by the same airline. we absolutely could have made the connection, but the airline decided to reroute us anyways which added 6 hours and an additional transfer to our trip which meant that i was awake for 48 hours by the time we finally reached our accomodation and i got sick and had to rest some days from the exhaustion.
i absolutely would have preferred a multi-day train trip over that experience.
what doesn't work is, if you have a regional pass, and you buy a ticket from outside that region, but you are late for the first leg of that ticket, then your ticket may no longer be valid. it would be the same for flights.
Germany it used to also be like that until around a decade ago.
I definitely remember time lost in Reisezentrum arguing for new tickets and how I wasn't to blame for an ICE to be parked 1h outside Frankfurt.
I travel by train in Europe since late 1980's, while interesting alternative, let's not forget the not so nice parts.
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-right...
- the occupancy of the trip
- the distance
- the number of stops
- the form of “last mile” transportation required
- the age and model of the vehicle
- the specific fuel source
I mean, I believe the statistic is true in aggregate. It’s like saying “vegan food has lower carbon emissions” which is true in aggregate. But wild game is often astronomically lower emissions (not to mention lower cruelty) than typical vegan food.
So these aggregate statistics are interesting points to ponder, but we don’t live in aggregate. We eat specific foods and we travel specific routes.
And at the individual level these statistics become... well not “mostly false” but certainly “frequently false”.
To me, the base statistic is a great starting point but the next questions we need to ask is: when are flights lower emission? When is hunting more humane? Etc. That’s how we can really drive better individual decisions. “Just ride the train and eat vegan” won’t get us to a globally sufficient decision framework.
Contrary to airport connections, if one looses it, it is lost. There aren't last calls, or help to get another one. Unless one has bought the more expensive ticket with flexible trains.
If you don't have a car you choose where to live based on this, when I used to commute I always lived never more than 7 minutes walk from a station.
What are you, European?
/s
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/china-high-speed-rail-cmd...
Especially since the cheaper plane flights in Europe are absolutely painful, dropping you off 2 hours away from the city centre into some minor airport.
Taking the TGV from Paris to Zuerich in comparison is such a relief.
Actually I can't really think of a country where that's not the case - only countries with a very strong second city.
https://ec.europa.eu/transport/infrastructure/tentec/tentec-...
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...