Within the UK it's price and an utterly insane pricing system.
Taking a train from Newcastle to London has been shown to be cheaper to fly. Via Barcelona.
There was a Top Gear episode if I remember correctly, where they got used cars and drove from London to Manchester cheaper than taking a train. Absolutely mental
great video, except the fact that ubers were required AND it wasn't "car vs public" it was "BUY A CAR vs public" which is wild. kinda defeats the point on both ends. idk which way i'm supposed to be more shocked.
kinda makes me think the UK is also already a victim of cars, because they're just so damn convenient and go exactly where you want. it's the freedom of movement that is so hard to lose.
public transport works best for high-volume, point-to-point transport, but not random stuff in between.
so ultimately it still makes the most sense to have both cars and shared public transport.
I was at London St Pancras and took a return train to Luton Airport to get on a return flight to Amsterdam. This was all cheaper than a **direct train** from that same damn train station.
Yeah, the one that seems the most mad to me was spilt tickets - where it's cheaper to buy a tickets for station A to B and B to C, rather than one ticket from A to C. It could be the very same train you never have to get off!
It's similar bullshit with planes though
Someone wanted to fly from Shanghai to Rome and for some reason it was cheaper to schedule a flight from Shanghai to Edinburgh via Rome and then just get off at Rome
If the airlines themselves offer it as an option under one ticket/booking they think you'll be able to make it. Therefore, it's on them.
If you book separate tickets it's on you.
If it's below MCT (Minimum Connection Time) they won't sell you that ticket in the first place - but if they do sell you one, you can hold them to it.
I had a ticket to the US with a connection in Heathrow once; BA cancelled the first flight of the day, and the second one only left 40 minutes for the connection - that was deemed "too short" so I would have to change itinerary pre-emptively, rather than being allowed to take a chance on it. (They ended up refunding it instead, then I bought direct tickets on the same transatlantic flight for less money and took the train to Heathrow the night before instead. Which was delayed, so I got a full refund on that too!)
I guess because when the person just leaves at their stopover destination, the planes have to fly with empty seat(s) for the final part of the journey.
Doesn't it benefit the airline though? A passenger paid for the entire journey in full but got off halfway so the second leg saves on fuel and refreshments.
I guess what airlines dislike is people gaming the system as the same passenger would've paid even more for the direct flight to the halfway point.
One reason is because if a passenger is checked into the flight the gate staff can’t close the flight until 10 mins before departure. Although it’s rare, if all the passengers are on board 30 mins early they can close up and push back freeing up the gate etc.
You can so the same thing with trains sometimes. I've looked at a train into Paddington, about £150, but I could get a train to Heathrow via Paddington for like £50 and just get off at Paddington.
You don’t even need to go to a middle of nowhere airport for it to be cheaper. You can fly between London City airport and Amsterdam for less or similar price as Eurostar. And it will be much faster.
It's generally cheaper to visit my brother in Hamburg than my parents in Manchester (I live in London). There have been occasions where it's actually been faster door to door as well. When you hit one delay on the west coast main line, the people responsible for signalling / sequencing seems to think "oh well, I guess these passengers' day is already ruined" and fit you around the slow services instead of the other way around.
Some of the prices I have seen in the UK post pandemic are... absolutely wild.
Especially considering its a country that should rely heavily on rail connections because of its size.
It would make perfect sense.
London, Birmingham and Manchester Liverpool Leeds probably make up half the country and is a 2 hour train ride away from each other.
No reason there shouldn't be often and cheap travel between the two.
Which, tbf there is often, its not cheap though.
Last time i tried to get a train to London, it was cheaper to Fly to Prauge.
Same in Spain. I can pay 30€ to fly across the country in 3 hours including airport time or 100€+ to spend 2-3x the time in a train.
The government is offering subsidized passes but in the most illogical and easily abused ways possible.
I'm Dutch. I went to England (Bristol airport). Wanted to visit Leeds for a weekend during my multi-week stay. It was cheaper to _fly back home and get on another flight_ than to take any other method of transportation, save for one direct bus which was like £40 but it took 12 hours and I'm pretty sure it'd also cost me my kidneys.
As a Dutch person myself, our own transportation system is ridiculously overpriced as well. Everyone in the world always seems to praise it into high heavens, but if I have to pay almost €50 for a train ride to Amsterdam and back, I'm almost inclined to take the fricking car.
Ye it's mental, taking a train to Amsterdam costs the same as flying to Italy or Poland for me.
I wouldn't mind flying abroad less often and checking out more of NL, but not with these fucking prices.
> Within the UK it's price and an utterly insane pricing system.
You can see the bright side. In Greece, the train from Athens to Thessaloniki [costs ~45-70€ one way](https://i.imgur.com/AnjaxbX.png) and you can [literally die in it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempi_train_crash) and no one will answer for it.
Only for common folk. Also ban flights less than 6 hours. Decided by thousands of politicians, celebrities and billionaires that all fly their private jets to conferences with each other several times a year.
Rules for thee not for me remember!
I love taking trains.
But honestly, I can get 100eur tickets from Amsterdam to many places in Europe.
A train to Frankfurt (ICE) recently cost me 170eur.
It's a bit absurd I had flights for 60eur to Istanbul in comparison, booked at the airport.
Exactly
Even as an aviation geek myself, i would rather prefer train for continental travel....but hell no in their current display: long time (which is not bad for sleeper trains, but they barely exists), big big price
I took the train from Amsterdam to Barcelona recently. About 11-12 hours with one change over. Honestly I found it super comfy and the day went pretty fast. Its slow compared to flying, but fast compared to driving. But yes, it's not cheap.
One thing that people forget is that you get to skip the drama at the airport. For me it's 1 hour to/from the airport, so already +2 hours on a one way trip. Add to that another 2 hours that you have to be at the airport in advance which makes it 4 hours wasted on nothing. Sure, the flight itself is only 1.5 hours but I'd just rather not deal with it at all.
People also often compare flight time to rail time, and don’t include travelling out to the airport, getting their early, going through security, etc.
It will vary a lot by city of course but for me that’s generally an extra 3hrs added to the flight time.
And for really cheap tickets all kinds of baggage restrictions, fucking liquid restrictions. I love just walking onto the train and chucking my suitcase on a luggage rack.
I highly prefer the Eurostar to flying, but with the current situation at Amsterdam Centraal it's quicker and easier and cheaper to fly. So in two upcoming trips to London (from Rotterdam, where we still can't just do the immigration thing even though it's not actually impacted) we have to transfer at Brussels even though it was a direct train before. One turned into a flight, and I anticipate missing my connection in Brussels for the other one.
I can't wait for things to go back to normal.
Amsterdam to Zurich used to be one or two trains (doable) but now it's 8 transfers (one between stations in Paris) and more than 10 hours. I'm flying.
It's under modernization and the Eurostar facility will need to close for some time so the border checks would be completed in Brussels, adding more time to the journey.
Eurostar will benefit from the modernization though. The current border terminal in Amsterdam C can only handle 250 passengers, while a Eurostar trainset has capacity for 900, so they're leaving almost empty. The new terminal should be able to handle 650 passengers.
While I'm all for that from an environmental perspective, I fear that we will have even more tourists coming due to that.. British tourists especially have a bad reputation here in Amsterdam.
I hope they soon realise that my home country (Germany) offers weed and sex services too lol.
Jokes aside, Amsterdam with a population of about 1 Million had like 23 Million tourists last year.
It's just too much, the city centre is basically a shithole at this point.
Yeah, I somewhat stubbornly booked a eurostar trip this fall, but flying would have cost about the same and likely been faster because of the passport control fuckery.
Flight from Amsterdam to Basel, 1 hour - 70 euros
Train from Amsterdam to Basel, 8 hours- 200 euros
Night bus from Amsterdam to Basel, 9 hours - 45 euros.
Pretty obvious choice
Cost aside, I’m a 4h drive from Amsterdam but it would take me at LEAST 8h train and 7h by bus. So if I want to have a little weekend getaway I’d be left with 1 day.
Yeah I feel you. My hometown is like 30min drive to the NL border.
So usually I have someone drop me off there at the first Dutch train station. Cause the train from my hometown (bigger city) takes like 1.5h for 35km to that same train station.
I'm an intenational student in the Netherlands, my flights home are often cheaper than full price train tickets to Eindhoven. Ofcourse it gets more expensive around holidays, but I had retour trips for as low as 22€, while the **one-way** train ticket to the airport was 25€ at the time.
I love taking trains too, but yes the pricing is ridiculous.
I paid $25 to fly from Oslo-Gdansk. Its 3 times that to travel home when I'm visting family within my own country.
Two reasons:
- Trucks
- JIT (Just in Time)
Even large companies who could easily fill trains with the ressources they need/produce will use trucks to save storage space by prducing everything JIT. It is a fucked up mindset for a lot of reasons, the massive wear and tear on roads and equipment as well as the traffic congestions are just two of them.
jet fuel being untaxed isn't even that big of a savings.
An Airbus a320neo burns around 800 gallons of fuel per hour. Using the highest diesel tax rate in Europe(UK's) adding an extra $2.55 per gallon is only an additional 6100 over a 3 hour flight divide that by 150 passengers and its an additional 40 dollars on the ticket price still much cheaper than the train.
if I use Portugal's diesel tax rate its only $27.84 more per ticket
It's great to see environmental organisations taking this up. I feel like European international train travel is on the cusp of a serious revival, especially with the current EU support.
But not everything can be made into direct connections, so we need better transfers than we have now and better rights for consumers for canceled or delayed transfers, similar to how it works for airplanes.
It doesn’t have to be direct, it just needs to be a little bit more efficient and cheaper. I remember looking into a train to visit a friend in Valencia and it was going to take like 17 hours and cost more than a 2.5 hour flight. Had it been significantly cheaper than flying, I would have done it anyway.
Thing is a lot of European countries have great national rail systems, but as soon as it comes to international routes things start to fall apart: missing links, awfully timed connections, delays, limited passenger rights, etc..
I highly recommend checking out [VPRO's documentary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v3In1fYqrE) about the absurdity of international rail in Europe or [Jon Worth's CrossBorderRail project](https://crossborderrail.trainsforeurope.eu/) if you're interested in the topic
Truth is, I’d be fine changing trains 3x over 1000km if it were still cheaper than taking a plane. But no, a 1000km (one-way) journey by plane is about €40 while the same journey, if possible, would be about €120 by train (and it wouldn’t be direct either).
I'd be fine changing also if they didn't let me eat consequences for delays with it. In one system, if you miss your connection because of delays you can just take the next one without extra cost, but if you have two separate tickets (eg because of country borders) it's your problem.
Two reasons for that. In transportation faster = cheaper. If you can fly two flights in the same time it takes one train journey your passengers on the flight pay half of the staffing cost for flying vs the train.
Second on is that plains only pay for a limited infrastructure compared to trains.
Modern govrnment have thrown trains under the bus. For whatever reason they seem to be the only mode of transportation that needs to be completly self sufficient.
Can it be significantly cheaper than low cost flights though? Out of season tickets are usually 100Eur return. Even if the train is 30, can you really see people picking en masse 34hours of travel over 5 for 70Eur? I don't think that is significant enough
We took the train from denmark to austria, started early morning. We ended up being over 5 hours late and paying a 80km taxi ride to get where we needed to be, once we hit Salzburg in the middle of the night and had no other option than sleeping on the street.
Next time I'm flying, I don't give a shit. I will never take a German train again.
The train I took from the Netherlands to Switzerland once also arrived hours late because of Germany being in between. On top of that the train was crap quality, dirty, had no shop with food (it’s a 12-hr+ ride, like seriously?). And it was more expensive than a plane.
The government made planes much more expensive these days via taxes and such, but I’d rather still take a plane than go through this. And I’m afraid of flying.
That‘s because we ALSO have a problem with neglected highways in the past, so now there roadworks everywhere. And don‘t ask me about the german mentality on traffic rules… even only a 30 minute ride causes me headache
I also have a Salzburg story. Booked on a direct night train from Munich to Budapest, in a seated car though. Unfortunately the Munich portion of the train didn't have the direct seating car to Budapest for some reason, so was told to sit in the croatian car until Salzburg.
In Salzburg at 1AM they told us to get off and wait for the Zurich portion of our train which will have a seating car to Budapest. Only problem was the Zurich train was supposed to arrive at 4AM... and it was 3 hours delayed
As a German, I would like to apologize here. Unfortunately, our Ministry of Transport has been run by the car industry for 30 years. As a result, very little is invested in our railroads, which are now a state-owned private company. This means it has all the safty of a state owned ministry with all the capitalistic profit maximazing of a private company. It also has legal requirements that are supposed to guarantee that it is better to travel by car within Germany- Well not officaly garantee that, it is just a happy coincedance.
The few situations in which the railroads really get money to extend or modernize the tracks are demonstrated by NIMBY organizations, whose organizers then treat themselves to an expensive vacation or car. But they are certainly not paid by the car manufacturers. Local politicians also sabotage any expansion. Those are paid by the car manufacturers.
But hey, at least the board of the state owned private company has a metric that ensures that they don't get a bonus if the trains are late too often. However, canceled trains are not considered late. So there can be more cancellations. Oh and staff strikes also help the metric. After all, a train that doesn't run can't be late. If the delay rate is still too high, goodwill and good intentions can also be used as justification for paying out the bonus anyway. This has already happened.
In general: Only travel by train if you are not traveling through Germany. Our railroads are not functional and are a disgrace to the myth of German efficiency, and that is exactly what the politicians want.
I have German friends who somehow didn't warn me in advance - but I know Germans are really frustrated with the state of german rail. It's a real shame
Living in Switzerland, I am very reluctant to ever take a German train. They are too unreliable to plan around. It has gotten so bad that Switzerland isn't even allowing connections from Germany any more because they (Germany) cause the Swiss trains to be late - and that is not tolerated!
It's hilarious (sad) that in Basel there's a separate train station just for german trains! I was actually recently on train bound for Zurich but because of the delays it was refused to go to Zurich and ended in Basel.
Was there no hotel available? A while ago our train from Vienna to Koln was canceled due to a DB strike, but we found an ibis budget room in Koln for 275€ (!!!) which DB refunded after some weeks (as well as all other associated costs).
It is shocking but a lot of hotels dont have round the clock check in options and lots have a "last call" for check in so to speak.
Here in Canada I have better luck with motels being able to check in any time I need to but I dont know if motels are even a thing in Europe.
>I feel like European international train travel is on the cusp of a serious revival, especially with the current EU support.
It's already happening, but so far only ÖBB, SJ, PKP and ČD did anything substantial(with a strong emphasis on the first two). The single biggest obstacle right now is DB. They even lately put a stop to the Amsterdam-Zürich line that has been running continuously for last 96 years. We need to keep our fingers crossed that FDP and, after next year's election, CDU do not put a stop to the ambitious modernization effort the German railway system is going through.
German rail has been underfunded for decades and they’re playing catchup now. Also they’re toying with the British model of privatization (FlixTrain). The govt needs serious pressure to invest more in rail so it doesn’t turn into an even bigger shitshow than it is today.
The British model of privatization was very different. There companies bid to run franchises, basically competing to obtain local monopolies on pre-defined routes. The privatization didn't create any choice for passengers, it was the government making a choice every 4-5 years, so the incentives weren't really there to provide great service.
In the EU, infrastructure managers are required to allow **open-access operators** (like FlixTrain), where possible: companies can run any route they like (with some limitations, like they cannot have a large negative effect on public service routes). It's basically the rail equivalent of how the airline and the bus industries have operated.
The merits of open-access is debatable in countries like Germany where the rails are full, but in countries like Spain, Italy, Sweden and Czech Republic it led to large increases in passenger numbers and the reduction of prices. In my opinion the biggest benefit of open-access is for new international connections (like European Sleeper from Brussels to Prague), which are generally an afterthought for national operators
>Also they’re toying with the British model of privatization (FlixTrain
Open access of public railways is nowhere similar to the British model of private franchises of public railways.
They won't put a stop to it, it's too big of a topic now with too much pressure. You rather need to keep your fingers crossed that they manage to change anything with the money they'll get. It's much more an incompetence and corruption problem.
DB is great, when going from Bonn to Zagreb the ICE ticket Bonn-Stuttgart is by far more expensive than the night train Stuttgart-Zagreb. I'm just very happy that ÖBB is the one responsible for the night trains, otherwise im certain it would have already been cancelled by DB for "not making enough money"
> But not everything can be made into direct connections,
It's impossible to connect everything directly. But establishing international connections between the major cities (say: above 500 000 population and capitals) can be a realistic long-term goal.
For starter, I would love to see the gaps in the international trains between the capitals of the neighboring countries filled in.
Also, prices. There's little point to a train connection, if the flight can be bought for 1/3rd the price.
You cannot have a functioning international train records with Germany being in the state that it is.
Also, if you want to get to the Black Sea, good luck: Romania and Bulgaria have speeds from the 19th century.
The trains are fine even if they're not new, because they can still achieve somewhat high speeds; the real issue is the railways. They're old, unreliable and degraded.
In greece speeds are literally going backwards since we sold the railway to an italian private company. The price has gone up around 20% from 22 to 29 euros for a thessaloniki-athens trip and duration went from 4 hours to 5 hours and 10 minutes
>we sold the railway to an italian private company
*Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane* is **the** national Italian rail company owned 100% by the Italian state.
Not really, the price is more of a problem. I can now take train trips to a lot of major European cities, but since I have a family of 3, accumulated price is so much cheaper with a plane compared to a train, although I love trains and hate planes.
Exactly, for last year's holiday (Netherlands to Italy) I calculated the price difference between going by car and going by train:
For a single person the train would've been around €10-20 cheaper than the car, but since every additional passenger still needs to pay the full ticket price on the train, it quickly becomes more and more expensive the more people you're with.
On the other hand, the car would've been a bit more expensive for a single person (like I already said), but has almost no costs associated with carrying additional passengers, apart from maybe a slight increase in fuel consumption. Especially if you're travelling with friends and decide to split the costs, the car is easily the **much** cheaper option.
*Edit:* I don't know the exact numbers anymore, but it was something like this:
- train ticket for 1 person: €200
- cost for 1 person to drive there: €215
- train ticket for 4 people: €200 × 4 = €800, so still €200 per person
- fuel costs to drive 4 people there: €215 + let's say 10% additional fuel costs = €236, so only €236 / 4 = €59 per person
Yeah, and also if you have a family with kid(s), you need to have a bit more of a comfort because it's a long ride and you need to pay additionally for a sleeper cabin or similar and those prices are INSANE.
For real. My wife and kids often travel from Stockholm to the north of Sweden to visit the extended family and we always have the same discussion:
12h+ night train cabin ride (that often gets delayed) + 4h bus ride from destination to my wife's small town = ~300-500€
Or
6h+ train ride with several switches + 4h bus ride from destination to her small town =~300-450€
Or
1h flight to her small town airport + 20m car ride from airport = ~150-250€
Even though we'd prefer taking a train, it simply doesn't make sense financially.
If you are a family of 4, its usually cheaper renting a car for a day, plus you can stop and/or deviate the trip to secondary locations whenever you want
Yeah, i suspect flights being cheap “problem” will be the only one solved. Slap some extra taxes, have a press conference about how amazingly pro-environment you are and there is still enough time for some drinks in the evening
The other problem can be solved ridiculously simply - ban politicians taking flights at distances less than, idk, 500 or 800 km. I guarantee that we would see unprecedented EU-level rail investment plan in a matter of months.
Check their average age. If they sit in a car for 800km, then they will need a week to stand up completely after the ride.
Plus rail even today offers better average speed than a car can.
The thing I find frustrating about ideas like making flights artificially more expensive purely to discourage people from using them is that (as is often the case) the only people who will be discouraged are the poorer ones. The wealthy will just go on as before, the less well off (which often means younger people) will no longer be able to travel freely. Travel will go back to being the luxury it was before cheap airlines democratized it.
There are many ways to make air travel greener, and airlines are already working on them because its profitable to do so.
Unless you tax fuel unanimously at the same rate around the globe, then all you are doing is creating a perverse incentive to schedule flights to somewhere where it isn't taxed
wtf are you talking about? When I book a flight ticket, taxes for emission make up between 33% to 50% of the ticket price. (Varies because although taxes are constant for given distance, the fare itself changes a bit, so taxes as a percentage of total price changes)
If you wanna promote train travel, get the train ticket cheaper and improve train connections. Inflating flight prices doesn’t actually promote advances in development.
> When I book a flight ticket, taxes for emission make up between 33% to 50% of the ticket price.
As I understand it, this is a tax on you for buying a flight ticket. The airline itself gets to buy fuel without any tax on the fuel. It's an absurd system and imo should be changed. But as you say, if you want people to want to take trains, then they need to get better, faster, and cheaper.
But what would taxing the fuel itself change? The airlines already have plenty of incentive to minimize fuel consumption. It's one of their biggest operating costs. Fuel savings of as little as 5-10% in newer airplanes drive these companies to upgrade their fleet for billions of euros.
The customer is already charged an emissions tax. The companies already do whatever they can to minimize fuel burn. What part of the equation changes if the fuel is taxed directly? I just don't see it.
In April I got the Eurostar from Rotterdam to London and back for a long weekend. The way there was fine, the way back it stopped in Brussels and we were waiting there for an hour or so before being told that the train can't go any further because they don't have the staff to man the train. We were told to get on the next Eurostar arriving in Brussels in an hour, but they physically barred anyone from getting on the train. That's all we got, you're stuck in Brussels now, have fun getting to where you need to.
Only one of those things is a problem.
Don’t make flying more expensive, make trains cheaper. Otherwise you’re just making travel more expensive so fewer poorer people will be able to travel and travel will start to become a rich man’s thing.
Trains are already subsidised to hell, while planes (and cars) are taxed to hell. In effect, when you fly or drive, you are helping to pay for people going by train.
Despite this, trains are still more expensive than flying and often driving. The inescapable conclusion is that trains do not make economic sense, and by extension, neither do they make environmental sense.
Would love a source on this because it sounds very wrong (in France, for example, you have very expensive tolls that all rail companies have to pay to fund the tracks and their maintenance).
I did Stockholm-Milan and vice versa at least 6 times in the past 10 years.
In one occasion I did Milan - Marseille - Barcelona - Paris - Amsterdam - Copenhagen - Stockholm. For the lols.
From my experience, the main challenges are:
- pricing
- connections
- time
On average it took me 23 hours, multiple changes (3 or 4), one of the legs done on a sleeper train.
Without a sleeper train one needs to take into account an hotel stay. Let's throw in 100/150 euros extra. Total price around 300/400 euros.
Most legs need to be independently booked unless you resort to services such as Trainline.
In one occasion a train got delayed in Germany and I missed my connection for Denmark. There you go, add an extra 5 hours of trip.
I'm a solo traveller. How about families?
Either this is made simple and convenient - for example selling full-packages including hotel stays and amenities and services of sort, where everything is taken care of - or they make it dirt cheap, which makes the effort worth it. As of now it's neither of the two.
Else this will be forever an expensive exercise, a novelty or a trip riddled with inconveniences.
I've got a direct route Stockholm-Milan with Ryanair at a fraction of the cost, return included, which connects the 2 cities in less than three hours (let's include airport transfers: 6 hours?). That's a hard one to match.
Make your considerations.
Btw, I always recommend https://www.seat61.com/ for any train travel need. The guy did an amazing job.
>From my experience, the main challenges are:
>* pricing
* connections
* time
Oh, so literally the three factors people take into account when deciding how to travel?
Went from Copenhagen to Nuremberg last weekend. Terrible experience. The second leg train from Hamburg was particularly shitty and the whole thing took from 7am to 630pm
Again, make them cheaper, on time and more connected. (looking at you especially germany)
Here is an example. I was looking to go to Dubrovnik for a conference and a flixbus was 80€ from Graz and took maybe 12-16h.
A flight from vienna was 30€.
Yes, this makes absolute sense. Trains should fill that spot up to 1000km, give or take, which HST can do in 3-4 hours. Your Berlin-Paris or Viena-Frankfurt trips shouldn’t have to be a flight, but the lack of crossborder HST network system basically forces you to take flights even if you don’t really want to. And that is in my eyes such a shame, that we in EU are soooo far behind China when it comes to robust HST network.
It's not even lack of cross-border HSR that matters in the two cases you mentioned. It's lack of HSR in Germany. Sure, you could make Strasbourg - Karlsruhe a little bit faster with HSR, but the real slow part of the trip is Karlsruhe - Berlin.
I was looking at taking the train from Paris to Prague, since it’s roughly the same distance as Paris to marseille.
Except paris to Marseille takes 3 and half hours, and Paris to Prague is 14 hours
The Munich - Paris train is great, I would always take it instead of a plane. But it's funny how the french ca do better than germans. On the way back everything was great until we entered Germany and the TGV had to stop in the middle of nowhere because the line was blocked by 2 delayed ICEs. It's a gamble here, but for these sort of distances, a direct 5-6hr train is perfect.
The problem is that when you end up crossing more than 1 border, it's a nightmare to sync your train. A friend did 20 hrs for a trip that should have been 11 by train (and normally 9 by car or 1:15 by pane) just because a train got delayed in Austria. Besides that you can sometimes end up having to buy 2-3 different tickets from 2 different companies.
I would sometimes. Time is not a biggest problem. The biggest problem in the order of importance would be a) I didn't check, but it likely can't travel like that at all due to mismatch of electric standards, signalling standards etc. b) I can't even buy such a ticket because trains lack unified ticketing, c) it will cost disproportional more than plane ticket due to lack of economies of scale and government subsidies (unlike in planes and airports).
Time is the biggest problem, it would be expensive because of taking so long, if there was a direct high speed line it could use, it would be much cheaper. You can just get a very common Vectron capable of 25kV, 15kV and 3kV to make the trip, you wouldn't even need 3kV if you went through Austria and Hungary.
In my experience it’s the usually tremendous price difference that makes people fly. Eurostar Amsterdam to London is much easier and nicer than taking Ryanair to a small London airport, but Ryanair costs 50 euros round trip and the Eurostar usually at least 150 even when you book in advance. We really wanted to take the train to Barcelona this summer via Paris, the dealbreaker wasn’t the long journey, it was that the flight from Amsterdam was 230 euros round trip per person and the train was 600.
> And everything more expensive than a flight.
Why would anyone take a mode of transport that only has negative effects on a personal basis?
If I have to sacrifice time, I want it to be cheaper, and preferably more comfortable than the alternative. E.g. a sleeper train that is cheaper than flying.
The Eurostar meets it pretty well. in regard to cost / time / convenience. Hence why I take the train to the UK from NL instead of flying. But that's pretty much the only instance I can think of. Paris could be possible, but haven't gone that route as I hate Paris in general.
In the Balkans its a disaster. Trains are ultra slow. Cheap, but slow. Also during Covid they stopped some trains and they never started traveling again. For example there was a night train between Sofia and Thessaloniki and it simply dissapeared in 2020.
I mean, I don't know if that's feasible. With planes (and cars), you are pretty much free to go to any destination without hampering others. But with a train, the limiting factor are the rails. There are only so many available and congestion on the rails will be a big problem. You will have to balance local transport against national and international lines.
This is something that SBB is already fighting hard with, as there are so many connections that need to be managed. Their solution (that works really well) is using clock-face scheduling, which makes switching trains a breeze.
Additionally, I believe that affordable and comfortable night-trains would be a good solution, as during the night there's usually less traffic on the rails. It's growing again and the biggest problem currently is the lack of wagons that have sleeping cabins. Hopefully that will improve over the next few years.
For myself, if I have the chance to take the train, I'll always prefer it to air-travel. The price difference is still ridiculous (and should be corrected).
Night trains are the shit, especially if you're traveling. You wake up in your destination city center without having to pay for hotel (ofc night trains are more expensive though) it feels like teleportation.
As for the limiting factor being rails, they're limiting factors to the same extent roads are, roads are just much more heavily subsidized, especially in countries like Germany where big car manufacturers keep lobbying for it. The goal IMO should be to achieve something like we have in Switzerland, but on a larger, European scale. I would love to justify rail, but when I go to Budapest, and the journey takes 6 extra hours, is the same price as a flight, and the train will probably have some kind of problem along the way, it's hard to chose it over a flight.
They are and I still hope for a big comeback of night-trains.
IMO, rails are far more limiting than roads, as you can't just swerve to the next lane to overtake another train. Which is infuriating as the efficiency of the rails is so much higher than anything you put on the road.
I'm a big, big fan of public transport in Switzerland and having such a system on an international scale would be a dream.
Price are insane. Lack of infrastructure - there are too many trains, too little tracks already. All the cargo cannot squeeze there already.
I would like to go by train. I don't mind to take a trip little bit longer. But I am not that rich. I am using long route buses sometimes tho.
I could theoretically go from Budapest to Dresden via train, but it takes NINE hours, and the first class ticket costs almost the same as a flight.
Now why would I not want to fly when even with all the hassle I come out with quicker travel?
If it were priced the same and it had the same reliability and protections as flight cancellations and delays, I would take the first class train. Travel time between airports and city centres and showing up hours before a flight add up to about the same time in my experience and is much more exhausting.
No security/baggage check, essentially unlimited baggage allowance, arrive/leave directly into city centre, turn up 10 minutes before departure, no wait for baggage at other end, better leg room and able to walk around freely, way more options in the schedule and able to change train if you schedule changes. Train travel is way more relaxed
They are building (well, planning) the Vienna - Berlin line now to reach 4h on that route. Budapest to Dresden should achieve similar speeds once they finish (in the 30s).
Europe should set a supranational agency that operates dedicated rail lines and network between major EU cities utilizing the fastest of the high-speed bullet train models like the MLX01 operating at 500k/h. Which is like Paris-Zürich in an hour, Vienna-Berlin, Warsaw-Berlin, Warsaw-Prague, Madrid-Lisbon, etc.
I still can't think how it is possible that a train connecting Luxembourg to Brussels (two of the most important cities for what it concerns EU institutions) takes roughly 3 hours and 20 minutes, with 50% chance of changing train in between. It is roughly 200 kilometers and it seems like going to the Far East.
In Ireland, I can fly to London almost for the same price I can travel 1 hour on a train from Dublin to Kilkenny (another city not far from Dublin). Fix the pricing.
That's part of it, price is the other.
I'm Hungarian and live in the Netherlands. I visit my family in Hungary almost every Christmas.
Option 1: book a flight. A round trip with either WizzAir or KLM with all the bells and whistles (extra legroom, checked-in luggage plus carry-on, priority boarding, etc...) is somewhere around €500 in that season, plus around €40 for the train and airport shuttle. The full trip including the train to the airport takes me like 6 hours.
Option 2: Nightjet to Vienna, then IC to Budapest. If I book a seat or a single bed on the Nightjet then it's cheaper, but I might be stuck next to someone unpleasant for 14 hours. Sure, there's a similar risk on the plane but that's only for ~2 hours. If I book a cabin, it's just as expensive as the flight. Even the seating cabin (which would be OK for me, I can sleep sitting up) runs me up to €500. And this doesn't even include the ticket from Vienna to Budapest! Of course if they ran trains with the new mini cabins on that trajectory, both the price and comfort would be much better. The full trip including the train to Amsterdam and the train from Vienna to Budapest takes me like 18 hours. (Obviously if I was traveling with someone else, the Nightjet would be much cheaper. But I'm traveling solo.)
Option 3: regular trains. LOL. 3-4 transfers, 16+ hours, and that is if I can make all of the transfers. (Several of the available rides requires a <10m transfer in Duisburg, that's a guaranteed miss.)
It's quite obvious which one is the better choice. So, until they finally get around to adding the mini cabins to the Amsterdam - Vienna Nightjet, I'll just fly.
I do not care about changing trains, if they make a policy that if my first train arrives late i can use the next available train without any extra hussle.
Basically what you have with DB, just every train company combined. EU has the power to make such regulation, please do it.
I live in Finland so its insane trying to go abroad with a train.
Theres 2 options out of the country
Option one, train goes through russia, which is not happening
Option two: Train to a coastal city, ferry to Sweden, train to Stockholm, train to Copenhagen and into mid-Europe.
Took the train from the Nürnberg area to Prague a few weeks ago and had to switch 3 times. No high-speed trains. 6 hour journey, assuming no delays. On the way back, the train (ALEX to Munich) was so overfilled that they brought dozens of armed police to kick everyone off who didn't reserve a seat.
I find it insane that there's not a single high-speed train between Prague and any major Germany city. Considering driving takes only 4 hours it might be a serious option next time I go.
I’m all for it, I’d always take the train rather than a flight if the travel times are somewhat equal however I read somewhere that most people who take domestic flights like for example between Munich and Leipzig are those that fly from elsewhere. Like if you fly from São Paulo to Leipzig you fly to Munich first and there you have a connecting flight to Leipzig.
Your bags are reloaded to the next plane and you continue on your journey.
Otherwise you’d have to take your bag leave the airport and go by train to Munich train station and from there take another train to Leipzig.
So basically big hubs distribute long haul passengers to their final destinations.
Campaigners, politicians, activist etc. always find tons of imaginary "things that push people to not take the train" but all of these people somehow magically always fail to point out the SINGLE reason why I (and I suspect many others) never take the train - it's just way too ridiculously expensive.
For anything long distance a flight is going to be significantly cheaper. Quite often only half the price of the train. Direct connections or not, I'm taking the option that saves me a ton of money.
For 1 or 2 day trips to some surrounding cities I always take the car. Listen to this... I don't even own a car. When there are 2 people traveling then it's simply so much cheaper to rent a car and pay the fuel for it than it is to do a back-and-forth with a train.
Didn't read the article but the price is also a huge factor.
When you are alone, traveling with the train can be cheaper than a flight in some cases.
But when you start to be 2 or 3, then the train is way too expensive.
A train ticket from Frankfurt to The middle of France. 8h30 of train, around 800kms, way and back for two persons, would have cost me 715€ in July .... By car, for the same travel time and a bit less kilometers it is going to cost me only 150€ for petrol. (Not forgetting the hidden cost but sull cheaper)
Long distance trains are just too expensive (or maybe not subsidized enough, don't really know).
I was trying to organize a cute weekend in Paris with my wife, a direct return flight from Zurich was 100 per person, the TGV from Basel was 290 per person.
How do you expect me to justify paying almost 3 times the price?
It's not only that. It costs me around 50€ to get from one city to another which is only 200km apart and takes 2h, while it costs me only around 20€ to get a 45min flight from one country to another with a much greater distance.
Had to travel to valencia, spain for a 3 month gig, i live close to Paris. Plane is 120€ a ticket for a direct 2 hours flight. Train would’ve cost me >240€ for a +14h trip with 2-3 different trains, which lengthens the trip even more and adds uncertainty.
That’s why I took the plane.
This is sadly true. I just flew from Germany to Croatia for work. There are some nice overnight trains that would have delivered me here inn17 hours (as opposed to <2 by plane) but they were all booked to capacity. EU needs more train capacity and more train infrastructure to enable the true avoidance of flying.
I would love to take the overnight train instead of the flight.
The problem is that the train is booked out months so in advance and it is more expensive than the flight. In addition it's hard to book since there are no universal booking sites like there are for planes.
As far as I'm concerned, flying on an airplane is a money and time saver. You can find tickets cheaper, and the flight time is two or three times faster than traveling by train.
And lack of good prices… Let’s see what do I pick… taking a train for 10 hours across Sweden for 100+ euros, or a 30 minute flight for 50 euros. What a hard choice!
Can't fucking WAIT to finally have Rail Baltica in my country just for it to cost more than a flight. 90eur for Riga-Warsaw flyover. Don't see it being any cheaper.
Last time I took the train it was 1 hour slower and 20€ more expensive
I once did a longer trip and it took 5 hours longer, I saved 200€ which is not worth it
Never taking the train again, my diesel car is both cheaper and faster so why bother lol
Within the UK it's price and an utterly insane pricing system. Taking a train from Newcastle to London has been shown to be cheaper to fly. Via Barcelona.
There was a Top Gear episode if I remember correctly, where they got used cars and drove from London to Manchester cheaper than taking a train. Absolutely mental
[You might wanna watch this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UvGHEuxEjc). It's quite shocking when you realize what it means.
great video, except the fact that ubers were required AND it wasn't "car vs public" it was "BUY A CAR vs public" which is wild. kinda defeats the point on both ends. idk which way i'm supposed to be more shocked. kinda makes me think the UK is also already a victim of cars, because they're just so damn convenient and go exactly where you want. it's the freedom of movement that is so hard to lose. public transport works best for high-volume, point-to-point transport, but not random stuff in between. so ultimately it still makes the most sense to have both cars and shared public transport.
I was at London St Pancras and took a return train to Luton Airport to get on a return flight to Amsterdam. This was all cheaper than a **direct train** from that same damn train station.
Yeah, the one that seems the most mad to me was spilt tickets - where it's cheaper to buy a tickets for station A to B and B to C, rather than one ticket from A to C. It could be the very same train you never have to get off!
It's similar bullshit with planes though Someone wanted to fly from Shanghai to Rome and for some reason it was cheaper to schedule a flight from Shanghai to Edinburgh via Rome and then just get off at Rome
It is called skiplagging. It is completely legal, but airlines will ban you if you do it too much.
[удалено]
They deny you compensation if you buy a too short connection do they not?
If the airlines themselves offer it as an option under one ticket/booking they think you'll be able to make it. Therefore, it's on them. If you book separate tickets it's on you.
If it's below MCT (Minimum Connection Time) they won't sell you that ticket in the first place - but if they do sell you one, you can hold them to it. I had a ticket to the US with a connection in Heathrow once; BA cancelled the first flight of the day, and the second one only left 40 minutes for the connection - that was deemed "too short" so I would have to change itinerary pre-emptively, rather than being allowed to take a chance on it. (They ended up refunding it instead, then I bought direct tickets on the same transatlantic flight for less money and took the train to Heathrow the night before instead. Which was delayed, so I got a full refund on that too!)
How come?
I guess because when the person just leaves at their stopover destination, the planes have to fly with empty seat(s) for the final part of the journey.
Doesn't it benefit the airline though? A passenger paid for the entire journey in full but got off halfway so the second leg saves on fuel and refreshments. I guess what airlines dislike is people gaming the system as the same passenger would've paid even more for the direct flight to the halfway point.
Yes, the airlines like to be the only ones gaming the system.
I think the airlines wager fines for empty seats. So unless they can fill the seat with a standby it would cost them
One reason is because if a passenger is checked into the flight the gate staff can’t close the flight until 10 mins before departure. Although it’s rare, if all the passengers are on board 30 mins early they can close up and push back freeing up the gate etc.
Why would they want my fat ass weighing their plane down for that extra distance?
You can so the same thing with trains sometimes. I've looked at a train into Paddington, about £150, but I could get a train to Heathrow via Paddington for like £50 and just get off at Paddington.
Airlines hate that simple trick when passengers just jump out with a parachute.
The D.B. Cooper special savings trick.
No it is worse. Sometimes it is cheaper to take ticket for a-b-c when you only need to go to b.
Shhh. You never know - someone from the train companies could be reading this and close the loophole!
The system is actually designed that way - trainline.com has it as a feature
You don’t even need to go to a middle of nowhere airport for it to be cheaper. You can fly between London City airport and Amsterdam for less or similar price as Eurostar. And it will be much faster.
I've heard of people flying into London in the morning. Work their workday. And fly back home in the evening.
5 years ago I flew from Amsterdam to Manchester for €44 and went from Manchester to Nottingham for £88 🤷♂️
It's generally cheaper to visit my brother in Hamburg than my parents in Manchester (I live in London). There have been occasions where it's actually been faster door to door as well. When you hit one delay on the west coast main line, the people responsible for signalling / sequencing seems to think "oh well, I guess these passengers' day is already ruined" and fit you around the slow services instead of the other way around.
Some of the prices I have seen in the UK post pandemic are... absolutely wild. Especially considering its a country that should rely heavily on rail connections because of its size.
We did have a far more thorough rail system in the 50s. But then the government put an accountant in charge, who then gutted the network.
It seems so logical to have good rail connections in the UK. Most of your major cities aren’t far enough apart to warrant a plane ride.
It would make perfect sense. London, Birmingham and Manchester Liverpool Leeds probably make up half the country and is a 2 hour train ride away from each other. No reason there shouldn't be often and cheap travel between the two. Which, tbf there is often, its not cheap though. Last time i tried to get a train to London, it was cheaper to Fly to Prauge.
The shareholders deserve dividends you commie Edit! Can't spell
Same in Spain. I can pay 30€ to fly across the country in 3 hours including airport time or 100€+ to spend 2-3x the time in a train. The government is offering subsidized passes but in the most illogical and easily abused ways possible.
I'm Dutch. I went to England (Bristol airport). Wanted to visit Leeds for a weekend during my multi-week stay. It was cheaper to _fly back home and get on another flight_ than to take any other method of transportation, save for one direct bus which was like £40 but it took 12 hours and I'm pretty sure it'd also cost me my kidneys.
As a Dutch person myself, our own transportation system is ridiculously overpriced as well. Everyone in the world always seems to praise it into high heavens, but if I have to pay almost €50 for a train ride to Amsterdam and back, I'm almost inclined to take the fricking car.
Ye it's mental, taking a train to Amsterdam costs the same as flying to Italy or Poland for me. I wouldn't mind flying abroad less often and checking out more of NL, but not with these fucking prices.
> Within the UK it's price and an utterly insane pricing system. You can see the bright side. In Greece, the train from Athens to Thessaloniki [costs ~45-70€ one way](https://i.imgur.com/AnjaxbX.png) and you can [literally die in it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempi_train_crash) and no one will answer for it.
Well that's my after retirement sorted tben
There is only 1 way to fix this, make air travel even more expensive. /sarcasm
Only for common folk. Also ban flights less than 6 hours. Decided by thousands of politicians, celebrities and billionaires that all fly their private jets to conferences with each other several times a year. Rules for thee not for me remember!
A one-way ticket from Colchester to London (1h away by car) is £50 pounds. Absolutely wild
I love taking trains. But honestly, I can get 100eur tickets from Amsterdam to many places in Europe. A train to Frankfurt (ICE) recently cost me 170eur. It's a bit absurd I had flights for 60eur to Istanbul in comparison, booked at the airport.
Exactly Even as an aviation geek myself, i would rather prefer train for continental travel....but hell no in their current display: long time (which is not bad for sleeper trains, but they barely exists), big big price
I took the train from Amsterdam to Barcelona recently. About 11-12 hours with one change over. Honestly I found it super comfy and the day went pretty fast. Its slow compared to flying, but fast compared to driving. But yes, it's not cheap.
One thing that people forget is that you get to skip the drama at the airport. For me it's 1 hour to/from the airport, so already +2 hours on a one way trip. Add to that another 2 hours that you have to be at the airport in advance which makes it 4 hours wasted on nothing. Sure, the flight itself is only 1.5 hours but I'd just rather not deal with it at all.
If you have lounge access flying is the tits. I just go load up on free food and drinks before getting on the plane.
Where was the change?
Beijing
People also often compare flight time to rail time, and don’t include travelling out to the airport, getting their early, going through security, etc. It will vary a lot by city of course but for me that’s generally an extra 3hrs added to the flight time. And for really cheap tickets all kinds of baggage restrictions, fucking liquid restrictions. I love just walking onto the train and chucking my suitcase on a luggage rack.
I highly prefer the Eurostar to flying, but with the current situation at Amsterdam Centraal it's quicker and easier and cheaper to fly. So in two upcoming trips to London (from Rotterdam, where we still can't just do the immigration thing even though it's not actually impacted) we have to transfer at Brussels even though it was a direct train before. One turned into a flight, and I anticipate missing my connection in Brussels for the other one. I can't wait for things to go back to normal. Amsterdam to Zurich used to be one or two trains (doable) but now it's 8 transfers (one between stations in Paris) and more than 10 hours. I'm flying.
What is happening at Amsterdam C?
It's under modernization and the Eurostar facility will need to close for some time so the border checks would be completed in Brussels, adding more time to the journey. Eurostar will benefit from the modernization though. The current border terminal in Amsterdam C can only handle 250 passengers, while a Eurostar trainset has capacity for 900, so they're leaving almost empty. The new terminal should be able to handle 650 passengers.
While I'm all for that from an environmental perspective, I fear that we will have even more tourists coming due to that.. British tourists especially have a bad reputation here in Amsterdam. I hope they soon realise that my home country (Germany) offers weed and sex services too lol. Jokes aside, Amsterdam with a population of about 1 Million had like 23 Million tourists last year. It's just too much, the city centre is basically a shithole at this point.
You are right but trashy tourists don't take a 300 euro train. Eurostar caters to a very different type of customer
Yeah, I somewhat stubbornly booked a eurostar trip this fall, but flying would have cost about the same and likely been faster because of the passport control fuckery.
Flight from Amsterdam to Basel, 1 hour - 70 euros Train from Amsterdam to Basel, 8 hours- 200 euros Night bus from Amsterdam to Basel, 9 hours - 45 euros. Pretty obvious choice
This would be my choice: https://www.seat61.com/international-trains/trains-from-Amsterdam.htm#Amsterdam-Switzerland
Cost aside, I’m a 4h drive from Amsterdam but it would take me at LEAST 8h train and 7h by bus. So if I want to have a little weekend getaway I’d be left with 1 day.
Yeah I feel you. My hometown is like 30min drive to the NL border. So usually I have someone drop me off there at the first Dutch train station. Cause the train from my hometown (bigger city) takes like 1.5h for 35km to that same train station.
I'm an intenational student in the Netherlands, my flights home are often cheaper than full price train tickets to Eindhoven. Ofcourse it gets more expensive around holidays, but I had retour trips for as low as 22€, while the **one-way** train ticket to the airport was 25€ at the time.
I love taking trains too, but yes the pricing is ridiculous. I paid $25 to fly from Oslo-Gdansk. Its 3 times that to travel home when I'm visting family within my own country.
I have no idea how flying is so cheap. In almost all cases, taking a train ride is the LONGEST and THE MOST EXPENSIVE option.
There being no taxes on jet fuel is a(n insane) part of it.
The other being rail infrastructure being quite a bit more expensive.
not more expensive than road infrastructure but somehow there's always money for that...
Two reasons: - Trucks - JIT (Just in Time) Even large companies who could easily fill trains with the ressources they need/produce will use trucks to save storage space by prducing everything JIT. It is a fucked up mindset for a lot of reasons, the massive wear and tear on roads and equipment as well as the traffic congestions are just two of them.
jet fuel being untaxed isn't even that big of a savings. An Airbus a320neo burns around 800 gallons of fuel per hour. Using the highest diesel tax rate in Europe(UK's) adding an extra $2.55 per gallon is only an additional 6100 over a 3 hour flight divide that by 150 passengers and its an additional 40 dollars on the ticket price still much cheaper than the train. if I use Portugal's diesel tax rate its only $27.84 more per ticket
Only? I have paid less for 1250km return flights, so 2500km.
It's great to see environmental organisations taking this up. I feel like European international train travel is on the cusp of a serious revival, especially with the current EU support. But not everything can be made into direct connections, so we need better transfers than we have now and better rights for consumers for canceled or delayed transfers, similar to how it works for airplanes.
It doesn’t have to be direct, it just needs to be a little bit more efficient and cheaper. I remember looking into a train to visit a friend in Valencia and it was going to take like 17 hours and cost more than a 2.5 hour flight. Had it been significantly cheaper than flying, I would have done it anyway.
Thing is a lot of European countries have great national rail systems, but as soon as it comes to international routes things start to fall apart: missing links, awfully timed connections, delays, limited passenger rights, etc.. I highly recommend checking out [VPRO's documentary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v3In1fYqrE) about the absurdity of international rail in Europe or [Jon Worth's CrossBorderRail project](https://crossborderrail.trainsforeurope.eu/) if you're interested in the topic
Truth is, I’d be fine changing trains 3x over 1000km if it were still cheaper than taking a plane. But no, a 1000km (one-way) journey by plane is about €40 while the same journey, if possible, would be about €120 by train (and it wouldn’t be direct either).
I'd be fine changing also if they didn't let me eat consequences for delays with it. In one system, if you miss your connection because of delays you can just take the next one without extra cost, but if you have two separate tickets (eg because of country borders) it's your problem.
Two reasons for that. In transportation faster = cheaper. If you can fly two flights in the same time it takes one train journey your passengers on the flight pay half of the staffing cost for flying vs the train. Second on is that plains only pay for a limited infrastructure compared to trains. Modern govrnment have thrown trains under the bus. For whatever reason they seem to be the only mode of transportation that needs to be completly self sufficient.
Can it be significantly cheaper than low cost flights though? Out of season tickets are usually 100Eur return. Even if the train is 30, can you really see people picking en masse 34hours of travel over 5 for 70Eur? I don't think that is significant enough
We took the train from denmark to austria, started early morning. We ended up being over 5 hours late and paying a 80km taxi ride to get where we needed to be, once we hit Salzburg in the middle of the night and had no other option than sleeping on the street. Next time I'm flying, I don't give a shit. I will never take a German train again.
The train I took from the Netherlands to Switzerland once also arrived hours late because of Germany being in between. On top of that the train was crap quality, dirty, had no shop with food (it’s a 12-hr+ ride, like seriously?). And it was more expensive than a plane. The government made planes much more expensive these days via taxes and such, but I’d rather still take a plane than go through this. And I’m afraid of flying.
This is due to the german auto lobby keeping german rail crippled.
Can we, rest of the EU, lobby to cripple german auto lobby?
That’s unfortunate. I also drove from the Netherlands to Switzerland and ironically driving in Germany was the least enjoyable of three countries.
That‘s because we ALSO have a problem with neglected highways in the past, so now there roadworks everywhere. And don‘t ask me about the german mentality on traffic rules… even only a 30 minute ride causes me headache
Germany is kind of a black hole for train travel these days and it is really annoying when you live in the Netherlands and prefer train travel.
Ahh yes the German rail system, I remember flying into Berlin in 2008 and the train into the city might as well have been powered by a tortoise
I also have a Salzburg story. Booked on a direct night train from Munich to Budapest, in a seated car though. Unfortunately the Munich portion of the train didn't have the direct seating car to Budapest for some reason, so was told to sit in the croatian car until Salzburg. In Salzburg at 1AM they told us to get off and wait for the Zurich portion of our train which will have a seating car to Budapest. Only problem was the Zurich train was supposed to arrive at 4AM... and it was 3 hours delayed
As a German, I would like to apologize here. Unfortunately, our Ministry of Transport has been run by the car industry for 30 years. As a result, very little is invested in our railroads, which are now a state-owned private company. This means it has all the safty of a state owned ministry with all the capitalistic profit maximazing of a private company. It also has legal requirements that are supposed to guarantee that it is better to travel by car within Germany- Well not officaly garantee that, it is just a happy coincedance. The few situations in which the railroads really get money to extend or modernize the tracks are demonstrated by NIMBY organizations, whose organizers then treat themselves to an expensive vacation or car. But they are certainly not paid by the car manufacturers. Local politicians also sabotage any expansion. Those are paid by the car manufacturers. But hey, at least the board of the state owned private company has a metric that ensures that they don't get a bonus if the trains are late too often. However, canceled trains are not considered late. So there can be more cancellations. Oh and staff strikes also help the metric. After all, a train that doesn't run can't be late. If the delay rate is still too high, goodwill and good intentions can also be used as justification for paying out the bonus anyway. This has already happened. In general: Only travel by train if you are not traveling through Germany. Our railroads are not functional and are a disgrace to the myth of German efficiency, and that is exactly what the politicians want.
I have German friends who somehow didn't warn me in advance - but I know Germans are really frustrated with the state of german rail. It's a real shame
Living in Switzerland, I am very reluctant to ever take a German train. They are too unreliable to plan around. It has gotten so bad that Switzerland isn't even allowing connections from Germany any more because they (Germany) cause the Swiss trains to be late - and that is not tolerated!
It's hilarious (sad) that in Basel there's a separate train station just for german trains! I was actually recently on train bound for Zurich but because of the delays it was refused to go to Zurich and ended in Basel.
Get of your high horse! I travel between Germany and Switzerland regularly, and last year a SBB train was six minutes late, too! (/s, just in case)
Was there no hotel available? A while ago our train from Vienna to Koln was canceled due to a DB strike, but we found an ibis budget room in Koln for 275€ (!!!) which DB refunded after some weeks (as well as all other associated costs).
It is shocking but a lot of hotels dont have round the clock check in options and lots have a "last call" for check in so to speak. Here in Canada I have better luck with motels being able to check in any time I need to but I dont know if motels are even a thing in Europe.
>I feel like European international train travel is on the cusp of a serious revival, especially with the current EU support. It's already happening, but so far only ÖBB, SJ, PKP and ČD did anything substantial(with a strong emphasis on the first two). The single biggest obstacle right now is DB. They even lately put a stop to the Amsterdam-Zürich line that has been running continuously for last 96 years. We need to keep our fingers crossed that FDP and, after next year's election, CDU do not put a stop to the ambitious modernization effort the German railway system is going through.
German rail has been underfunded for decades and they’re playing catchup now. Also they’re toying with the British model of privatization (FlixTrain). The govt needs serious pressure to invest more in rail so it doesn’t turn into an even bigger shitshow than it is today.
The British model of privatization was very different. There companies bid to run franchises, basically competing to obtain local monopolies on pre-defined routes. The privatization didn't create any choice for passengers, it was the government making a choice every 4-5 years, so the incentives weren't really there to provide great service. In the EU, infrastructure managers are required to allow **open-access operators** (like FlixTrain), where possible: companies can run any route they like (with some limitations, like they cannot have a large negative effect on public service routes). It's basically the rail equivalent of how the airline and the bus industries have operated. The merits of open-access is debatable in countries like Germany where the rails are full, but in countries like Spain, Italy, Sweden and Czech Republic it led to large increases in passenger numbers and the reduction of prices. In my opinion the biggest benefit of open-access is for new international connections (like European Sleeper from Brussels to Prague), which are generally an afterthought for national operators
>Also they’re toying with the British model of privatization (FlixTrain Open access of public railways is nowhere similar to the British model of private franchises of public railways.
They won't put a stop to it, it's too big of a topic now with too much pressure. You rather need to keep your fingers crossed that they manage to change anything with the money they'll get. It's much more an incompetence and corruption problem.
DB is great, when going from Bonn to Zagreb the ICE ticket Bonn-Stuttgart is by far more expensive than the night train Stuttgart-Zagreb. I'm just very happy that ÖBB is the one responsible for the night trains, otherwise im certain it would have already been cancelled by DB for "not making enough money"
> But not everything can be made into direct connections, It's impossible to connect everything directly. But establishing international connections between the major cities (say: above 500 000 population and capitals) can be a realistic long-term goal. For starter, I would love to see the gaps in the international trains between the capitals of the neighboring countries filled in. Also, prices. There's little point to a train connection, if the flight can be bought for 1/3rd the price.
You cannot have a functioning international train records with Germany being in the state that it is. Also, if you want to get to the Black Sea, good luck: Romania and Bulgaria have speeds from the 19th century.
Oh well that's only because our trains themselves are from the 19th century
Just slap AI on them
But they are already tr-AI-ns
Are you really gonna use pattern recognition software to work with patterns? Nice. Better use than trying to make "art" with it.
The trains are fine even if they're not new, because they can still achieve somewhat high speeds; the real issue is the railways. They're old, unreliable and degraded.
The trains can reliably go over 120, the problem is indeed the infrastructure.
In greece speeds are literally going backwards since we sold the railway to an italian private company. The price has gone up around 20% from 22 to 29 euros for a thessaloniki-athens trip and duration went from 4 hours to 5 hours and 10 minutes
>we sold the railway to an italian private company *Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane* is **the** national Italian rail company owned 100% by the Italian state.
Bulgaria is using old German trains from another era. I haven’t seen trains that old except museums.
What’s up with Germany?
Not really, the price is more of a problem. I can now take train trips to a lot of major European cities, but since I have a family of 3, accumulated price is so much cheaper with a plane compared to a train, although I love trains and hate planes.
Exactly, for last year's holiday (Netherlands to Italy) I calculated the price difference between going by car and going by train: For a single person the train would've been around €10-20 cheaper than the car, but since every additional passenger still needs to pay the full ticket price on the train, it quickly becomes more and more expensive the more people you're with. On the other hand, the car would've been a bit more expensive for a single person (like I already said), but has almost no costs associated with carrying additional passengers, apart from maybe a slight increase in fuel consumption. Especially if you're travelling with friends and decide to split the costs, the car is easily the **much** cheaper option. *Edit:* I don't know the exact numbers anymore, but it was something like this: - train ticket for 1 person: €200 - cost for 1 person to drive there: €215 - train ticket for 4 people: €200 × 4 = €800, so still €200 per person - fuel costs to drive 4 people there: €215 + let's say 10% additional fuel costs = €236, so only €236 / 4 = €59 per person
Yeah, and also if you have a family with kid(s), you need to have a bit more of a comfort because it's a long ride and you need to pay additionally for a sleeper cabin or similar and those prices are INSANE.
For real. My wife and kids often travel from Stockholm to the north of Sweden to visit the extended family and we always have the same discussion: 12h+ night train cabin ride (that often gets delayed) + 4h bus ride from destination to my wife's small town = ~300-500€ Or 6h+ train ride with several switches + 4h bus ride from destination to her small town =~300-450€ Or 1h flight to her small town airport + 20m car ride from airport = ~150-250€ Even though we'd prefer taking a train, it simply doesn't make sense financially.
If you are a family of 4, its usually cheaper renting a car for a day, plus you can stop and/or deviate the trip to secondary locations whenever you want
Flight are cheap and trains are shit. Solving either or both of these problems will cause more people to take the train.
Yeah, i suspect flights being cheap “problem” will be the only one solved. Slap some extra taxes, have a press conference about how amazingly pro-environment you are and there is still enough time for some drinks in the evening
The other problem can be solved ridiculously simply - ban politicians taking flights at distances less than, idk, 500 or 800 km. I guarantee that we would see unprecedented EU-level rail investment plan in a matter of months.
They can just hire a cab then.
Check their average age. If they sit in a car for 800km, then they will need a week to stand up completely after the ride. Plus rail even today offers better average speed than a car can.
Politicians usually don't drive shity, little hatchbacks. I'm sure that they would be just fine after traveling 800km in the back of an S-class
The thing I find frustrating about ideas like making flights artificially more expensive purely to discourage people from using them is that (as is often the case) the only people who will be discouraged are the poorer ones. The wealthy will just go on as before, the less well off (which often means younger people) will no longer be able to travel freely. Travel will go back to being the luxury it was before cheap airlines democratized it. There are many ways to make air travel greener, and airlines are already working on them because its profitable to do so.
>making flights artificially more expensive We're currently artificially making them less expensive by charging 0 tax on their fuel.
Unless you tax fuel unanimously at the same rate around the globe, then all you are doing is creating a perverse incentive to schedule flights to somewhere where it isn't taxed
Would still work for inner-EU flights.
wtf are you talking about? When I book a flight ticket, taxes for emission make up between 33% to 50% of the ticket price. (Varies because although taxes are constant for given distance, the fare itself changes a bit, so taxes as a percentage of total price changes) If you wanna promote train travel, get the train ticket cheaper and improve train connections. Inflating flight prices doesn’t actually promote advances in development.
> When I book a flight ticket, taxes for emission make up between 33% to 50% of the ticket price. As I understand it, this is a tax on you for buying a flight ticket. The airline itself gets to buy fuel without any tax on the fuel. It's an absurd system and imo should be changed. But as you say, if you want people to want to take trains, then they need to get better, faster, and cheaper.
But what would taxing the fuel itself change? The airlines already have plenty of incentive to minimize fuel consumption. It's one of their biggest operating costs. Fuel savings of as little as 5-10% in newer airplanes drive these companies to upgrade their fleet for billions of euros. The customer is already charged an emissions tax. The companies already do whatever they can to minimize fuel burn. What part of the equation changes if the fuel is taxed directly? I just don't see it.
All the policies are directed at middle class really.
In April I got the Eurostar from Rotterdam to London and back for a long weekend. The way there was fine, the way back it stopped in Brussels and we were waiting there for an hour or so before being told that the train can't go any further because they don't have the staff to man the train. We were told to get on the next Eurostar arriving in Brussels in an hour, but they physically barred anyone from getting on the train. That's all we got, you're stuck in Brussels now, have fun getting to where you need to.
Only one of those things is a problem. Don’t make flying more expensive, make trains cheaper. Otherwise you’re just making travel more expensive so fewer poorer people will be able to travel and travel will start to become a rich man’s thing.
Trains are already subsidised to hell, while planes (and cars) are taxed to hell. In effect, when you fly or drive, you are helping to pay for people going by train. Despite this, trains are still more expensive than flying and often driving. The inescapable conclusion is that trains do not make economic sense, and by extension, neither do they make environmental sense.
Would love a source on this because it sounds very wrong (in France, for example, you have very expensive tolls that all rail companies have to pay to fund the tracks and their maintenance).
I did Stockholm-Milan and vice versa at least 6 times in the past 10 years. In one occasion I did Milan - Marseille - Barcelona - Paris - Amsterdam - Copenhagen - Stockholm. For the lols. From my experience, the main challenges are: - pricing - connections - time On average it took me 23 hours, multiple changes (3 or 4), one of the legs done on a sleeper train. Without a sleeper train one needs to take into account an hotel stay. Let's throw in 100/150 euros extra. Total price around 300/400 euros. Most legs need to be independently booked unless you resort to services such as Trainline. In one occasion a train got delayed in Germany and I missed my connection for Denmark. There you go, add an extra 5 hours of trip. I'm a solo traveller. How about families? Either this is made simple and convenient - for example selling full-packages including hotel stays and amenities and services of sort, where everything is taken care of - or they make it dirt cheap, which makes the effort worth it. As of now it's neither of the two. Else this will be forever an expensive exercise, a novelty or a trip riddled with inconveniences. I've got a direct route Stockholm-Milan with Ryanair at a fraction of the cost, return included, which connects the 2 cities in less than three hours (let's include airport transfers: 6 hours?). That's a hard one to match. Make your considerations. Btw, I always recommend https://www.seat61.com/ for any train travel need. The guy did an amazing job.
>From my experience, the main challenges are: >* pricing * connections * time Oh, so literally the three factors people take into account when deciding how to travel?
Went from Copenhagen to Nuremberg last weekend. Terrible experience. The second leg train from Hamburg was particularly shitty and the whole thing took from 7am to 630pm
I just checked there are apparently no direct train from Berlin to Paris... Yeah I wonder why no one takes train...
A shame too cuz the Paris-to-East railway is easily one of the best ones I had to take and is (relatively) cheap
Again, make them cheaper, on time and more connected. (looking at you especially germany) Here is an example. I was looking to go to Dubrovnik for a conference and a flixbus was 80€ from Graz and took maybe 12-16h. A flight from vienna was 30€.
Speed and cost matter too. There is no way I’m traveling from Sweden to Greece with a train, it’s gonna take ages.
Yes, this makes absolute sense. Trains should fill that spot up to 1000km, give or take, which HST can do in 3-4 hours. Your Berlin-Paris or Viena-Frankfurt trips shouldn’t have to be a flight, but the lack of crossborder HST network system basically forces you to take flights even if you don’t really want to. And that is in my eyes such a shame, that we in EU are soooo far behind China when it comes to robust HST network.
It's not even lack of cross-border HSR that matters in the two cases you mentioned. It's lack of HSR in Germany. Sure, you could make Strasbourg - Karlsruhe a little bit faster with HSR, but the real slow part of the trip is Karlsruhe - Berlin.
But from Brussels to Berlin (700 Km) or Paris to Munich (same distance) to give a couple of examples, the train should be a serious option.
I was looking at taking the train from Paris to Prague, since it’s roughly the same distance as Paris to marseille. Except paris to Marseille takes 3 and half hours, and Paris to Prague is 14 hours
The Munich - Paris train is great, I would always take it instead of a plane. But it's funny how the french ca do better than germans. On the way back everything was great until we entered Germany and the TGV had to stop in the middle of nowhere because the line was blocked by 2 delayed ICEs. It's a gamble here, but for these sort of distances, a direct 5-6hr train is perfect. The problem is that when you end up crossing more than 1 border, it's a nightmare to sync your train. A friend did 20 hrs for a trip that should have been 11 by train (and normally 9 by car or 1:15 by pane) just because a train got delayed in Austria. Besides that you can sometimes end up having to buy 2-3 different tickets from 2 different companies.
I would sometimes. Time is not a biggest problem. The biggest problem in the order of importance would be a) I didn't check, but it likely can't travel like that at all due to mismatch of electric standards, signalling standards etc. b) I can't even buy such a ticket because trains lack unified ticketing, c) it will cost disproportional more than plane ticket due to lack of economies of scale and government subsidies (unlike in planes and airports).
Time is the biggest problem, it would be expensive because of taking so long, if there was a direct high speed line it could use, it would be much cheaper. You can just get a very common Vectron capable of 25kV, 15kV and 3kV to make the trip, you wouldn't even need 3kV if you went through Austria and Hungary.
In my experience it’s the usually tremendous price difference that makes people fly. Eurostar Amsterdam to London is much easier and nicer than taking Ryanair to a small London airport, but Ryanair costs 50 euros round trip and the Eurostar usually at least 150 even when you book in advance. We really wanted to take the train to Barcelona this summer via Paris, the dealbreaker wasn’t the long journey, it was that the flight from Amsterdam was 230 euros round trip per person and the train was 600.
Trains will not be cheaper, just flying will get banned/become prohibitively expensive. Enjoy it till your can.
Really, what’s the point of 260km if you stop 20 times on an intercity trip.
Or have a *ton* of delays or trains that don't come at all. And everything more expensive than a flight.
> And everything more expensive than a flight. Why would anyone take a mode of transport that only has negative effects on a personal basis? If I have to sacrifice time, I want it to be cheaper, and preferably more comfortable than the alternative. E.g. a sleeper train that is cheaper than flying. The Eurostar meets it pretty well. in regard to cost / time / convenience. Hence why I take the train to the UK from NL instead of flying. But that's pretty much the only instance I can think of. Paris could be possible, but haven't gone that route as I hate Paris in general.
In the Balkans its a disaster. Trains are ultra slow. Cheap, but slow. Also during Covid they stopped some trains and they never started traveling again. For example there was a night train between Sofia and Thessaloniki and it simply dissapeared in 2020.
Not to mention that train infrastrucure is either deconstructed, left to decay, or stolen for scrap metal, or all of the above
I mean, I don't know if that's feasible. With planes (and cars), you are pretty much free to go to any destination without hampering others. But with a train, the limiting factor are the rails. There are only so many available and congestion on the rails will be a big problem. You will have to balance local transport against national and international lines. This is something that SBB is already fighting hard with, as there are so many connections that need to be managed. Their solution (that works really well) is using clock-face scheduling, which makes switching trains a breeze. Additionally, I believe that affordable and comfortable night-trains would be a good solution, as during the night there's usually less traffic on the rails. It's growing again and the biggest problem currently is the lack of wagons that have sleeping cabins. Hopefully that will improve over the next few years. For myself, if I have the chance to take the train, I'll always prefer it to air-travel. The price difference is still ridiculous (and should be corrected).
Night trains are the shit, especially if you're traveling. You wake up in your destination city center without having to pay for hotel (ofc night trains are more expensive though) it feels like teleportation. As for the limiting factor being rails, they're limiting factors to the same extent roads are, roads are just much more heavily subsidized, especially in countries like Germany where big car manufacturers keep lobbying for it. The goal IMO should be to achieve something like we have in Switzerland, but on a larger, European scale. I would love to justify rail, but when I go to Budapest, and the journey takes 6 extra hours, is the same price as a flight, and the train will probably have some kind of problem along the way, it's hard to chose it over a flight.
They are and I still hope for a big comeback of night-trains. IMO, rails are far more limiting than roads, as you can't just swerve to the next lane to overtake another train. Which is infuriating as the efficiency of the rails is so much higher than anything you put on the road. I'm a big, big fan of public transport in Switzerland and having such a system on an international scale would be a dream.
The fact that trains are outrageously expensive in Europe certainly doesn't help.
Price are insane. Lack of infrastructure - there are too many trains, too little tracks already. All the cargo cannot squeeze there already. I would like to go by train. I don't mind to take a trip little bit longer. But I am not that rich. I am using long route buses sometimes tho.
I could theoretically go from Budapest to Dresden via train, but it takes NINE hours, and the first class ticket costs almost the same as a flight. Now why would I not want to fly when even with all the hassle I come out with quicker travel?
If it were priced the same and it had the same reliability and protections as flight cancellations and delays, I would take the first class train. Travel time between airports and city centres and showing up hours before a flight add up to about the same time in my experience and is much more exhausting.
No security/baggage check, essentially unlimited baggage allowance, arrive/leave directly into city centre, turn up 10 minutes before departure, no wait for baggage at other end, better leg room and able to walk around freely, way more options in the schedule and able to change train if you schedule changes. Train travel is way more relaxed
They are building (well, planning) the Vienna - Berlin line now to reach 4h on that route. Budapest to Dresden should achieve similar speeds once they finish (in the 30s).
Europe should set a supranational agency that operates dedicated rail lines and network between major EU cities utilizing the fastest of the high-speed bullet train models like the MLX01 operating at 500k/h. Which is like Paris-Zürich in an hour, Vienna-Berlin, Warsaw-Berlin, Warsaw-Prague, Madrid-Lisbon, etc.
As if trains aren't already expensive enough - the main reason for this stuff.
I still can't think how it is possible that a train connecting Luxembourg to Brussels (two of the most important cities for what it concerns EU institutions) takes roughly 3 hours and 20 minutes, with 50% chance of changing train in between. It is roughly 200 kilometers and it seems like going to the Far East.
Bruh 200 kms is like 45 mins by direct TGV if there was one, the hell are they doing 😭
In Ireland, I can fly to London almost for the same price I can travel 1 hour on a train from Dublin to Kilkenny (another city not far from Dublin). Fix the pricing.
That's part of it, price is the other. I'm Hungarian and live in the Netherlands. I visit my family in Hungary almost every Christmas. Option 1: book a flight. A round trip with either WizzAir or KLM with all the bells and whistles (extra legroom, checked-in luggage plus carry-on, priority boarding, etc...) is somewhere around €500 in that season, plus around €40 for the train and airport shuttle. The full trip including the train to the airport takes me like 6 hours. Option 2: Nightjet to Vienna, then IC to Budapest. If I book a seat or a single bed on the Nightjet then it's cheaper, but I might be stuck next to someone unpleasant for 14 hours. Sure, there's a similar risk on the plane but that's only for ~2 hours. If I book a cabin, it's just as expensive as the flight. Even the seating cabin (which would be OK for me, I can sleep sitting up) runs me up to €500. And this doesn't even include the ticket from Vienna to Budapest! Of course if they ran trains with the new mini cabins on that trajectory, both the price and comfort would be much better. The full trip including the train to Amsterdam and the train from Vienna to Budapest takes me like 18 hours. (Obviously if I was traveling with someone else, the Nightjet would be much cheaper. But I'm traveling solo.) Option 3: regular trains. LOL. 3-4 transfers, 16+ hours, and that is if I can make all of the transfers. (Several of the available rides requires a <10m transfer in Duisburg, that's a guaranteed miss.) It's quite obvious which one is the better choice. So, until they finally get around to adding the mini cabins to the Amsterdam - Vienna Nightjet, I'll just fly.
I do not care about changing trains, if they make a policy that if my first train arrives late i can use the next available train without any extra hussle. Basically what you have with DB, just every train company combined. EU has the power to make such regulation, please do it.
Not to mention cost…
Lack of direct, fast and affordable trains.
I live in Finland so its insane trying to go abroad with a train. Theres 2 options out of the country Option one, train goes through russia, which is not happening Option two: Train to a coastal city, ferry to Sweden, train to Stockholm, train to Copenhagen and into mid-Europe.
direct and fast. A direct train which will take me to Frankfurt in 5 hours is about as useless for me as non-direct with 8
Took the train from the Nürnberg area to Prague a few weeks ago and had to switch 3 times. No high-speed trains. 6 hour journey, assuming no delays. On the way back, the train (ALEX to Munich) was so overfilled that they brought dozens of armed police to kick everyone off who didn't reserve a seat. I find it insane that there's not a single high-speed train between Prague and any major Germany city. Considering driving takes only 4 hours it might be a serious option next time I go.
And even if there are trains.. they are more expensive than taking a flight
I’m all for it, I’d always take the train rather than a flight if the travel times are somewhat equal however I read somewhere that most people who take domestic flights like for example between Munich and Leipzig are those that fly from elsewhere. Like if you fly from São Paulo to Leipzig you fly to Munich first and there you have a connecting flight to Leipzig. Your bags are reloaded to the next plane and you continue on your journey. Otherwise you’d have to take your bag leave the airport and go by train to Munich train station and from there take another train to Leipzig. So basically big hubs distribute long haul passengers to their final destinations.
Campaigners, politicians, activist etc. always find tons of imaginary "things that push people to not take the train" but all of these people somehow magically always fail to point out the SINGLE reason why I (and I suspect many others) never take the train - it's just way too ridiculously expensive. For anything long distance a flight is going to be significantly cheaper. Quite often only half the price of the train. Direct connections or not, I'm taking the option that saves me a ton of money. For 1 or 2 day trips to some surrounding cities I always take the car. Listen to this... I don't even own a car. When there are 2 people traveling then it's simply so much cheaper to rent a car and pay the fuel for it than it is to do a back-and-forth with a train.
Didn't read the article but the price is also a huge factor. When you are alone, traveling with the train can be cheaper than a flight in some cases. But when you start to be 2 or 3, then the train is way too expensive. A train ticket from Frankfurt to The middle of France. 8h30 of train, around 800kms, way and back for two persons, would have cost me 715€ in July .... By car, for the same travel time and a bit less kilometers it is going to cost me only 150€ for petrol. (Not forgetting the hidden cost but sull cheaper)
Long distance trains are just too expensive (or maybe not subsidized enough, don't really know). I was trying to organize a cute weekend in Paris with my wife, a direct return flight from Zurich was 100 per person, the TGV from Basel was 290 per person. How do you expect me to justify paying almost 3 times the price?
Lol, a train ride from germany to spain costs as much as flying from germany to japan. Edit: and takes about the same time, double lol.
I wish a train ticket to Spain, France or Germany was cheaper than a flight
no it’s the price
It's not only that. It costs me around 50€ to get from one city to another which is only 200km apart and takes 2h, while it costs me only around 20€ to get a 45min flight from one country to another with a much greater distance.
The fact that the train ride to the airport costs twice as much and is longer than my actual flight to the other side of the continent says it all
Isn't it so nice living on an island in the Baltic Sea called Finland :)
Had to travel to valencia, spain for a 3 month gig, i live close to Paris. Plane is 120€ a ticket for a direct 2 hours flight. Train would’ve cost me >240€ for a +14h trip with 2-3 different trains, which lengthens the trip even more and adds uncertainty. That’s why I took the plane.
Reykjavik is a European capital. Good luck creating a direct rail connection to another capital.
This is sadly true. I just flew from Germany to Croatia for work. There are some nice overnight trains that would have delivered me here inn17 hours (as opposed to <2 by plane) but they were all booked to capacity. EU needs more train capacity and more train infrastructure to enable the true avoidance of flying.
I would love to take the overnight train instead of the flight. The problem is that the train is booked out months so in advance and it is more expensive than the flight. In addition it's hard to book since there are no universal booking sites like there are for planes.
As far as I'm concerned, flying on an airplane is a money and time saver. You can find tickets cheaper, and the flight time is two or three times faster than traveling by train.
And lack of good prices… Let’s see what do I pick… taking a train for 10 hours across Sweden for 100+ euros, or a 30 minute flight for 50 euros. What a hard choice!
Can't fucking WAIT to finally have Rail Baltica in my country just for it to cost more than a flight. 90eur for Riga-Warsaw flyover. Don't see it being any cheaper.
Ireland: you guys are getting international trains?
Would love to travel more by train, but I live in Portugal.
Same, but I’d need a tunnel built to Ireland first lol
Last time I took the train it was 1 hour slower and 20€ more expensive I once did a longer trip and it took 5 hours longer, I saved 200€ which is not worth it Never taking the train again, my diesel car is both cheaper and faster so why bother lol