Lack of direct trains in Europe is pushing people to take flights, campaigners say
Lack of direct trains in Europe is pushing people to take flights, campaigners say
Greenpeace is calling for more investment in European railways to create more direct train routes and encourage people to fly less.
It is. I can accept train journeys (like, say, London to Rome or Stockholm to Barcelona) taking longer than flying, and would be happy with that in many cases (you can do things on a train, after all). Though when they take longer, are comprised of six discrete journeys which either fall apart if one train is delayed (and if Germany is in the path, this is likely) or require defensively allocating hours for waiting at provincial stations just in case, and cost several times the cost of flying, catching a sequence of trains out of principle feels like wearing a hair shirt.
What should be done: scrap the post-WW2 tax exemption for aviation fuel and use the funds to improve long-distance rail connections.
31The answer would be high speed night trains. London - Rome takes a bit over 15h by train today. However that includes waiting for connections and a lot of stops on stations. So a direct train would be siginificantly faster probably more like 12-13h. That would mean you could go into a train station in London at 20:00 and end up in Rome at 8:00 for example.
Stockholm - Barcelona is a much longer journey. 2250km instead of 1400km for Rome - London. So a very long nigh train or a connection in Hamburg or Paris. with a night train going from there to Barcelona or Stockholm respectivly.
5as much as I love trains (I'm on one while typing this) I can't get myself to spend 170€ for a 21 hour train, even if part of it is spent sleeping, when a 2 hour flight could do the same for 50€.
I don't know if it's just cheaper or if there's massive subsidies like other comments were saying, but for now it's highly unpractical and uneconomical
7
Sat is not friedomm. Greeting, your FDP.
(Explanation, for those not familiar with politics: the liberal party in Germany is infamous for blocking progressive economical legislation reasoning it would impede freedoms. For example they blocked a ban in advertising food containing high amounts of sugar, claimingit would impede parents' freedom to buy candy for kids (it wouldn't).)
3
Campaigners say = what's almost common knowledge
Flights are too cheap, and trains too expensive.
22Not so much the lack of direct trains, but the cost is what does it for me. For most destinstions in Europe, the train costs more than flying. It's only when you want to go somewhere far from an airport that it gets marginally cheaper, but youre still paying roughly equivalent prices for a much slower trip.
Except for Amsterdam London, which is somehow almost always cheaper by train.
14Here is an excellent video explaining why international EU train routes are so overwhelmingly terrible.
The problem isn't really investment: it's interoperability, regulations protecting train passengers like flight passengers not existing, and national train companies hoarding their data like hissing gremlins to force users onto their terrible apps/websites.
6Well let's hope that integrated booking which should arrive during the next year can help push back against some of that.
5What is integrated booking?
1Booking international train trips in the EU like connecting flights at once. You book the entire trip from perhaps different rail operators at once and get relatively secured connections.
Especially it should imo include that you have to be rebooked onto the next best connection if you miss one because of a delay which currently isn't really the case. Idk if that specific clause is in there but some part of the EU is supposedly working on a platform that at least should allow purchasing tickets for routes across multiple carriers and countries in one ticket.
2
I heard that they have to switch driver at the border. Imagine if planes had the same requirement. Half the plane would be pilots. 🤣
4Not always, the drivers have to be licensed for the countries rail network. Also sometimes they have to change the locomotive. And going to eastern europe sometimes they change the wheelsets because of different track widths.
3