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I wonder how much really going by train is sustainable compared to flying when you count in all the costs of maintenance of the rails, making tunnels, burden on surrounding environment etc whereas with flying this is virtually non-existent.

Surely flying is still worst but it seems more scalable; once we get electric planes then all of a sudden planes will be more sustainable maybe?

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IIRC in terms of cost, a cargo ship costs $0.01 per kg per km, a train costs $0.03 per kg per km, and an airplane costs $0.60 per kg per km. Assuming things which are environmental burdens are even a little bit correlated with costs, its not even a competition.

“Once we get electric planes” is such a handwavy statement. We are so far off getting anything close to an electric commercial passenger plane.

The environmental cost Of train infrastructure is also amortised over the lifetime of the infrastructure.

There are tunnels and bridges in the UK built in the 1800s which are still transporting trains in it today.

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