Thats because there is a cultural difference between how americans and europeans see trains. For americans its something quaint and wild whereas for europeans its just a basic form of transportation.
https://www.metrotransit.org/northstar-line
The lines that goes between the Mall of America, downtown Minneapolis, and St Paul are light rail, and are faster than what would normally be considered a "tram" or "streetcar".
I mainly mentioned it since the parent comment was about a group of girls getting on the train purely for the experience of being on the train, and my experience seemed pretty similar.
Don't know that it terribly matters one way or the other though I guess.
So there are some tram/streetcar/light rail systems out there (like the one in New Orleans) that consist of individual railway vehicles, and are thus not trains.
Haha when I took Caltrain daily to mountain view this was my nightmare. Bluetooth headphones and a white noise app were a requirement.
Those field trip days, and the rides home on baseball game days... I do not miss that commute.
I grew up in the eastbay, and at least while I was growing up, the bart train was a friendly environment of people interacting with one another. Obviously it came with some not so pleasant things (i.e. homelessness and unwanted touching) but more human none-the-less.
I don't think it would have been many children's first trip either, just a cheap morning's entertainment for the nursery...
1) Fuel tax. There's no tax on jet fuel, but rail companies pay tax on their diesel or electricity
2) Inflexible service, but high expectations. The European rail timetable is changed twice a year, and those trains will run (in normal circumstances). There will be a train from X→Y every hour from 5am until midnight, and those trains run even if very few people use them on a particular day. An airline can change the schedules more easily, and cancel/rebook passengers at fairly short notice.
3) Rail infrastructure is subsidized differently to aircraft infrastructure. I don't know enough to compare which benefits the most. Externalities aren't costed properly (e.g. noise and pollution).
4) Railways must still provide low-profit-(even loss)-making services, they may be expected to do this using profits from other routes. For example, long distance intercity trains might be subsidizing rural services.
More of an issue for lumbering freight trains than passenger trains though.
Answering your question, on the issue of price they note that no fuel tax is is paid on airplanes fuel and no VAT (21%) on flight tickets.
I think it’s a clever win/win play: reducing short haul flights in favour of railways not only reduces emissions and noise pollution, but it also frees up some capacity at Schiphol.
And there’s been some success already: the house has accepted a motion to eliminate the Schiphol-Brussels route.
By american standards, both methods are dirt cheap.
Ryanair cuts every cost you can imagine. No free water or pretzels, tiny seating area, no first class, outskirts airports, no checked or carry on, tarmac boarding.
On trains you get sufficient space to stretch your legs, a power outlet, wifi, unlimited baggage etc. and you get to arrive and depart in the city center.
I think the pricing is based upon consumer value more than service costs.
1. The discount airlines have become masters at turnaround times. When the planes are sitting at the gate, they're not making money. They slashed these as much as they could.
2. They only fly one model of airplane (typically either the 373 or a320) to simplify maintenance.
3. Most major airports in Europe are privatised. One of the effects of this is that they've become giant malls that want to get people through them, so landing fees have steadily gone down (there are edge cases where the airports pay the airlines to go to them, but those are rather rare exceptions).
4. Some airlines (more specifically Ryanair) fly to cheaper/more outlier airports. If you take a Ryanair flight to Paris, you're landing in Beauvais Airport, which is almost halfway to the english channel. You'll then have to take a bus. When in europe, I usually prefer Easyjet for the reason that though they're more expensive, you're landing at an airport with decent transit to the city you're visiting.
5. There's no frills at all. If you're just flying with no luggage, you won't believe how cheap it can be (I flew from madrid to london for 25 euros). But the fills aren't cheap. Checked baggage is more than the cost of the flight, food is a rip off, etc.
Also, trains in europe are still often state-owned (not the case everywhere, I know), so they're forced to run uneconomical lines for political purposes, etc.
Thing may have changed since a few things happened meanwhile, but a couple of years ago Ryanair got about 100 Million EUR [1] (sorry, link in Italian) from various Italian airports. Verona airport used to pay up to 24 EUR per passenger to low cost companies.
My understanding is that some airports have been opened for political reasons even when there was no real need, so they are "forced" to make such agreements in order to guarantee a decent amount of passengers.
I'm wondering if this happens also elsewhere in Europe.
[1] https://www.corriere.it/economia/17_marzo_18/cento-milioni-a...
As a european who moved to the US recently, this was mind boggeling the first time I boarded a plane in the US. I arrived at the airport expecting a typical 10 minute boarding time, but kept getting more surprised at how inefficient they managed to make boarding a plane as time passed. Just the time spend waiting in the plane at the gate before they let you get out seems to be longer in some cases than the typical turnaround time for euro flights.
Your statement that "As far as I know, for example, trains are significantly more fuel efficient per passenger-mile" definitely has some merit, but... trains are only more fuel efficient per passenger if they are as full as planes. An Airbus with 180 passengers might beat a train in per passenger miles if the train is not loaded.
Considering that, trains definitely are cheaper for highly utilized routes (commuting routes, for example), but for a leisurely trip across Europe, an Airbus packed to the gils could be cheaper.
The complicated area of railroad tracks probably doesn't help either. Someone is paying for them and the maintenance is frequent judging by the business my friends working on the railroads get.
And that's the catch. I've been told that years ago it was better, but try to catch a train to a secondary city in New England and you'll often find that the only offering is an occasional Amtrak branded bus.
I don't disagree that some other services might be alright, but that's clearly not one of them.
Düsseldorf-Munich for 26,70€ including reserving a seat.
Kiel-Düsseldorf 29,90€. To get back, 26,90€.
Kiel-Munich and back for 53,80€.
Not even Ryanair is that cheap, especially when you consider that with trains you don’t have to go through security, have none of the check-in times and other bullshit, and can take luggage without paying a 60€ surcharge.
You just have to check sites like https://bahn.guru/ to find the cheapest connections.
For americans its something quaint and wild whereas for europeans its just a basic form of transportation
You're either repeating outdated cliches from the internet, or you must not live in a large metropolitan area with passenger train service.
Looking at the top 20 metropolitan statistical areas in the US, you're already at nearly half the population of the US. And I know from the experience of having ridden commuter rail in most of those that most of them have commuter rail, i.e. passenger train service.
You've got to go pretty far down the list to find one without commuter rail or even a subway/light rail system (which I'm not counting as passenger train service).
If it isn't the majority, it's at least a normal experience for a huge swath of the population.
"Yeah, we have passenger train service"
"good passenger train service?"
"Hey, lets not get ahead of ourselves"