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Comment by xyzzyz | Hacker News Reader

> Some 4.5 million UK tourists use the Channel Tunnel every year, with 1.6 million trucks transporting goods.

> “It put international rail travel back in the game," says Mark Smith, founder of rail travel website The Man in Seat 61.

I don’t know what game is international rail in UK playing, but most certainly it’s a losing one. 4.5 million passengers is only a quarter of what London Luton airport is seen annually, which itself is only fifth most popular airport in UK. Quite apparently, very few travelers choose rail, relative to airlines.

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It’s a shame they choose air over rail. We chose air when cash strapped, but the train was superior in every other way. We arrived in the middle of the city we wanted to go to, it was quicker to get there and there way space and comfort. 10/10 from me.

Time in an airport is a waste of life from my perspective.

London - Paris is fast and convenient indeed. But train becomes slower as soon as you need to catch a connection in Paris. I don't like airports either, but I'd rather spend time in an airport than in a train station and Paris subway with all my luggage.

That being said, train should be the preferred option due to lower CO2 emissions. It's a shame prices don't reflect that.

Trains are just really expensive, sadly.

Trains are subsidised in most places, either by publicly funding the huge amounts of infrastructure required, or by subsidising the operations. Meanwhile air travel is usually taxed overall. Yet despite this, flying is often less than half the cost of a train.

I'm all for taxing air travel CO2, but I suspect it would lead to quicker zero carbon fuel rather than more rail travel long term.

Air travel is often directly subsidised too. Airline bailouts happen, and the the use of land, pollution of the air and the noise they cause are not paid for in full.

> I'd rather spend time in an airport than in a train station and Paris subway with all my luggage.

But once the plane lands you then need to get on a train or brave a taxi. Having tried the taxi, that’s out.

Eurostar trains, as opposed to the drive-on-drive-off Eurotunnel ones, have always been prohibitively expensive whenever I've looked at them. Maybe it's a viable option for the London, Paris, Brussels executives who put it on expenses but for us plebs it's cheaper to fly or drive.

Flying by plane is incredible cheap compared to railway not only on that connection unfortunately.

The plane business is extremely cost effective organized (not only thanks to cheap players like RyanAir) and benefits a lot from state sponsored infrastructure (airports, ATC) and subsidized resources (no Kerosene tax) compared to railways which need more infrastructure (tracks everywhere instead of "simply" using air) and need to refinance having trains going "everywhere"

The railway ticket to and from the airport is almost more expensive than a flight across the continent ...

I'm flying from the north of the continent to the south soon (Manchester to Sicily, Sicily to Gatwick). My train tickets to get to and from the airports in the UK are £160, my air tickets are £120

The train cost is often prohibitive, but can be done at a reasonable cost if you book at the right time (generally a few months ahead), especially if you’re a bit flexible on times. For example, I can visit family in Lausanne in the summer for £180 return from London. That’s a bit more than EasyJet, but not hugely more, especially when you factor in transport to and from the airport and any hold luggage you’ll pay extra for.

Why is this surprising? You can get to dozens of different countries in a few hours by flying from Luton. Unless you’re counting Northern Ireland to Ireland, all international rail journeys go through France and take much longer.

You can go for a cheap holiday to Alicante in a few hours from Luton. How long would that take by train? It’s quick and easy to get all around Europe by train if you live in, say, Germany. Simple geography rules that out for the UK.

It takes roughly the same time to reach Spain from London and southwest Germany, though. Meaning that London is closer to Spain by rail than most of Germany. Eurostar and (the rest of) the French high speed network really compensate some simple geography.

Of course the journeys to southern Spain take too long to appeal the mainstream, and it is easier to purchase plane tickets, too.

To answer your question, it takes 12 hours to reach Barcelona from London and a few more the next day to reach Alicante…

> It takes roughly the same time to reach Spain from London and southwest Germany, though

My point was not that we should judge connectivity by distance to Alicante. My point was that, being an island, the routes from the UK to arbitrary cities in Europe are particularly long, especially if you are judging them as if they were a typical European country. If you prefer, swap out Alicante for Prague or Rome, or swap out Germany for France or Italy. The UK is isolated by the sea, so it should come as no great surprise that ground travel loses out to air travel.

> from London

You’re missing out part of the journey. I see multiple people getting tricked by the name of the airport in this thread. “London Luton Airport” is in Luton, not London. The start of the trip is not London, and you’ll need to make your way to and through London by train to compare fairly to London Luton Airport. Same goes for most of the other “London” airports.

> Eurostar and (the rest of) the French high speed network really compensate some simple geography.

Wouldn't German travelers also take advantage of French high speed trains when travelling to Spain?

Problem is you have to go through Paris du to the way the French HSR is built. And time-wise London is closer to Paris than most German cities.

Makes sense, the French railway metric strikes again...

"4.5 million UK tourists" is not the same as total passengers. Individual tourists can make multiple journeys, and overseas tourists are excluded from this figure. Over 20 million passengers use the tunnel annually.

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