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Comment by Leszek | Hacker News Reader

Comparing a 1 hour flight to a 3-4 hour train journey by those times alone is somewhat dishonest: it doesn't take into account the rest of the journey to/from the airport at either end (usually further out of the city than the main train station), nor the 1-2 hour early arrival at the airport for bag drop/security/killing time at the gate.

Not to mention inconveniences like lack of liquids in hand luggage, expensive airport amenities (should you choose to use them), passing through the security theatre, and of course the actual cost of getting to the airport (in the UK, this can be more than the flight!).

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The train probably has proper tables, power outlets and useable WiFi or 4G. For a business traveller, a 4 hour train journey can be 4 hours of very productive time, whereas a 1 hour flight can completely obliterate half a day.

Absolutely.

I travel between Paris and Frankfurt a lot; a couple of Thursdays ago the 19h-23h train to Paris was cancelled, and I had to go to Fraport with the S-Bahn (I work close to Hauptbahnhoff), wait a queue of 65’ just to pass security (Fraport security is absurdly inefficient, with e.g. about 10 workers per luggage scanner), take a 70’ flight and then a 30’ taxi ride from CDG. I arrived home at the standard time.

With the train I go from city centre to city centre, I jump on the train upon arrival, and I have 4 hours of work/leisure; ample space, bug windows, a cafeteria and room to walk. The alternative is 4 hours of taxi queue security wait queue finger queue take off have a sandwich please close tray landing taxi, where you can get total 1h of work done if you get lucky (except if you have someone to call).

And the train is half the price.

But that also applies to the train, I don't live at the train station.

Plane:

- Drive 30 minutes to Amsterdam airport

- Park and go to gate, takes me 20 minutes from parking to gate

- Boarding and waiting for take-off: 20 to 30 minutes

Train:

- 10 minutes bike to the station is the fastest

- Another 10 minutes to get from bike into train

- Highspeed train doesn't stop here, so 40 minutes train to Rotterdam

- Wait to switch to the highspeed train, 15 minutes

So they roughly take me the same time to get to. The only upside of the train is that it goes to Paris Nord instead of the airport. But the benefit of that greatly depends on what meeting you're trying to get to, because most larger offices in Paris are not in the middle of the city.

This is the Q factor that everyone omits when doing the calculus on their own journeys. The pre- and post-flight nonsense are basically another trip entirely.

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