Hacker News Reader

Comment by magduf | Hacker News Reader

In Bavaria, they're dirt cheap, at least for the regional trains. For 25 Euros cash, you can go anywhere in Bavaria all you want, for 24 hours, in as many trips as you want. Of course, this doesn't really compete with airlines, as this is for inter-city trips within the state, and no two cities in Bavaria are that far apart.

But to say there's no "low-cost railway" is plainly false. Bavaria has probably one of the best train systems in the entire world, and it's not expensive by any means.

View on HN

Yes, sorry, I had something like "getting from Berlin to Brussels at low cost" in mind. There is no way to do it with railway, only with a plane.

If I just want to travel in the same Bundesland where I am, there are plenty of cheap options, that's true.

How low cost do you want low cost to be, and how annoying are you prepared for it to be? I just picked (fairly arbitrarily) Monday 19th August, and although Expedia does offer a GBP18 Ryanair flight SXF - BRU you have to accept an 0620 departure time to get that, and of course no checked baggage and you need to include costs of getting to/from the airport. Given the need to arrive at least 1h before departure I would personally not even consider 0620 dep, and all the other flights Expedia suggests cost 90 quid or more. For the train loco2.com has one-way tickets Berlin Hbf -> Bruxelles-Midi from GBP63.50 at reasonable times.

As an American, I can only dream of having convenient train fares of about USD$80 to go between somewhat-distant cities. Berlin to Brussels for GPB63.50 (about $80 right now) sounds downright cheap to me.

Same here, I've been to Brussels quite often (for FOSDEM) and the difference is:

- flying: 120 EUR from Munich, getting up at 4-5, arriving at 9

- train: have to go the day before, have an additional night in the hotel (70 EUR) and THEN the train is more expensive than flying anyway. Maybe not so important if the company pays, but still not fun to argue (depending on the company).

Rubbish. I've travelled Berlin to Brussels (and then London) by train. It was very pleasant.

Sometimes you get a group of loud people around celebrating something, like soccer cup or getting married (especially in the connections with Regionals). Also last year there were often delays and problems in the connections between Mannheim or Frankfurt; I wouldn’t just call someone’s comment rubbish.

For every ride like that, you could get a teenaged school class flying in your plane.

While you're technically right, the MUC-BRU flight is 90% businesspeople in suits on the smallest regular plane I've ever used, I can't imaging TXL-BRU being different.

I.e. the chance of it having a school class in it is like winning the lottery ;)

25€ is not dirt cheap, unless you're planning on taking 4+ trips on a single day. In Belgium, a prepaid ticket for 10 rides, each from/to any station in the country, costs just 75€ (valid for one year).

As an American, 25 Euros is absolutely dirt cheap. We can't travel between nearby cities for anywhere near that cheap here.

The 75 Euro deal sounds really cheap too.

I guess the issue is more for intercountry rail travel.

Also pretty pointless in terms of business travel:

I've hardly ever had any customers not in Munich or in the Nuremberg (area) that weren't so far away from the station that you'd need a taxi, so you can drive anyway. Especially for conferences. Usually Munich or Nuremberg.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com