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More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

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11–20 of 207 posts

Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#11

Glad that they’re working on it, right now flying is just cheaper on many cases. Need to go from Zurich to Paris? The TGV Train will cost you almost twice as much as a short direct flight. Berlin to Munich? Also cheaper by plane. Being a student with a limited budget, this very much affects my decision.

Thing is, not only it is cheaper, it is much more effective regarding use of time.

Zurich to Paris just takes too long by train, and doing night trains isn't always an option.

Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#13
As someone in the UK, this won't happen until they lower the prices by a tenth. It's insanely expensive and not feasible depend on it.

It's so bad that the train companies themselves ask their employees use flights instead of the network railways to save costs. They're all owned by european governments, so they have no incentive to make things cheaper in the UK.

Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#15
post #11

Glad that they’re working on it, right now flying is just cheaper on many cases. Need to go from Zurich to Paris? The TGV Train will cost you almost twice as much as a short direct flight. Berlin to Munich? Also cheaper by plane. Being a student with a limited budget, this very much affects my decision.

Thing is, not only it is cheaper, it is much more effective regarding use of time. Zurich to Paris just takes too long by train, and doing night trains isn't always an option.

4 hours isn't that long, is it? plane cannot beat that by much

Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#16
post #4

Glad that they’re working on it, right now flying is just cheaper on many cases. Need to go from Zurich to Paris? The TGV Train will cost you almost twice as much as a short direct flight. Berlin to Munich? Also cheaper by plane. Being a student with a limited budget, this very much affects my decision.

Yes, this is crazy!! We need action on this immediately. I suspect aviation subsides are to blame.

Aviation is highly taxed (about half of your ticket). Subsidies (or more accurately tax discounts) are only on fuel which is something like 10% of your flight costs. Rest goes on staff and capex.

There already is form of transport that's much cheaper than train or flying which is called BUS. We can make them fully electric and even have different classes. They can share existing infrastructure that doesn't require thousands of specialised people to maintain or operate...

Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#17
Cross border rail travel is a mess. We had online booking of flights across countries and airlines since forever, and thousands of booking sites seem to be able to hook into the booking backends like Amadeus and provide multi hop booking. Doing the same for train travel isn’t nearly as easy. This should be priority one.

The second priority should be cost. Train travel should never be more expensive than even low cost airline tickets. Within the EU this would seem fixable by taxing and subsidies to just move money from air travel to train ticket subsidies. Tax funded subsidies is a clumsy instrument but it’s needed.

Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#18
post #5

As a European I love this. Not only because it's better for the environment but I really like trains. They are confy, fast and cheap. There's no need to pay extra for your baggage, you just hop in with your stuff, take a seat, read, watch a movie, listen to a podcast or sleep for a while and you're already at your destination.

They are not that comfortable. Sure you've got slightly more leg space than Ryanair, but difference is minimal. The only train I've really ever liked was Amtrak, but unsure whether I was somehow upgraded to their premium seats. Taking Canadian train after that was a torture. Also they are much more expensive. Which makes sense as tech itself is legacy. The cost of maintaining, lack of competition (especially with bus…

Ok, seems like you didn't ride European trains yet.

Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#19
post #5

As a European I love this. Not only because it's better for the environment but I really like trains. They are confy, fast and cheap. There's no need to pay extra for your baggage, you just hop in with your stuff, take a seat, read, watch a movie, listen to a podcast or sleep for a while and you're already at your destination.

They are not that comfortable. Sure you've got slightly more leg space than Ryanair, but difference is minimal. The only train I've really ever liked was Amtrak, but unsure whether I was somehow upgraded to their premium seats. Taking Canadian train after that was a torture. Also they are much more expensive. Which makes sense as tech itself is legacy. The cost of maintaining, lack of competition (especially with bus…

Trains go at 400km/h

Re: More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

#20

Cross border rail travel is a mess. We had online booking of flights across countries and airlines since forever, and thousands of booking sites seem to be able to hook into the booking backends like Amadeus and provide multi hop booking. Doing the same for train travel isn’t nearly as easy. This should be priority one. The second priority should be cost. Train travel should never be more expensive than even low cost…

Trainline.com does this very well in (north west?) europe, IME. Across borders and different providers.
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