Initiative to connect all European capitals through a high-speed train network
eci.ec.europa.eu
eci.ec.europa.eu
Currently, each operator has their own site, with its own pricing structure and sometimes its own loyalty bonuses. Cross-border trains sometimes have dramatically different prices when you buy tickets in the origin vs destination country.
But worst of all, you often can't buy one ticket for complex routes across Europe, as you can with flights. Instead, you're forced to piece it together yourself from individual tickets. The problem with this is that since you haven't bought a ticket from anyone for the entire route, it's your own responsibility if a train is delayed and you miss your connection. Until we fix this, trains will never be a viable option for many trips.
(I haven't really needed it myself, the longest journeys I've made have only covered two countries at most.)
Maybe they can achieve what we had in America back in the 60's with SABRE [0]
However, train travel isn't really properly integrated as far as I can tell.
Europe is fighting hard short haul flights, many of which are now just plain down illegal. Several countries, including France, have already banned short haul flights of less than 2h30.
I see this "high speed trains" push as related to the attack by the EU on short haul flights.
So no matter if we find that cheap flights do beat trains hands down or not, in a near future there may not be any choice: and the choice seems like it's going to be train.
“Many” is a complete misrepresentation.
Three routes within France and 2 within Austria. This is an absolutely minuscule percentage of EU flights.
(Austria’s latest “ban” of Vienna-Salzburg was part of a bailout deal so probably was to do with cost cutting too.)
Tell me how riding a sleeping train for 10 hours is worse than that. Even though my example is a little exaggerated for drama purposes, I still would prefer a night train to the 5-6 hour middle of the day disruption and stress that flying is. I'm pretty sure that there are many like me.
With a flight there is 2 hours of standing queueing or waiting in a "gate", then another 30 minutes of dead time at takeoff and landing where you can't do anything either.
Actually I can't really think of a country where that's not the case - only countries with a very strong second city.
And you travel from city center to city center, rather than middle-of-nowheres named after a city.
>And you travel from city center to city center, rather than middle-of-nowheres named after a city.
When you land you can rent a car... when you arrive on a train you are forced to either pay for a taxi or take pub... pu... public transportation
Also it's not always much faster. Italy's high speed network eventually won with their national airline. And no wonder - a trip going halfway across the peninsula takes roughly as much time, but is generally more pleasant.
Do you think the Barcelona metro is only for plebs who are below you in the pecking order?
In a lot of ways, I understand why Deutsche Bahn sucks, a lot of politics ruined the company.
i missed a connection because a plane was late by half an hour. (it departed an hour late but caught up some time). the connecting flight was by the same airline. we absolutely could have made the connection, but the airline decided to reroute us anyways which added 6 hours and an additional transfer to our trip which meant that i was awake for 48 hours by the time we finally reached our accomodation and i got sick and had to rest some days from the exhaustion.
i absolutely would have preferred a multi-day train trip over that experience.
what doesn't work is, if you have a regional pass, and you buy a ticket from outside that region, but you are late for the first leg of that ticket, then your ticket may no longer be valid. it would be the same for flights.
Germany it used to also be like that until around a decade ago.
I definitely remember time lost in Reisezentrum arguing for new tickets and how I wasn't to blame for an ICE to be parked 1h outside Frankfurt.
I travel by train in Europe since late 1980's, while interesting alternative, let's not forget the not so nice parts.
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-right...
- the occupancy of the trip
- the distance
- the number of stops
- the form of “last mile” transportation required
- the age and model of the vehicle
- the specific fuel source
I mean, I believe the statistic is true in aggregate. It’s like saying “vegan food has lower carbon emissions” which is true in aggregate. But wild game is often astronomically lower emissions (not to mention lower cruelty) than typical vegan food.
So these aggregate statistics are interesting points to ponder, but we don’t live in aggregate. We eat specific foods and we travel specific routes.
And at the individual level these statistics become... well not “mostly false” but certainly “frequently false”.
To me, the base statistic is a great starting point but the next questions we need to ask is: when are flights lower emission? When is hunting more humane? Etc. That’s how we can really drive better individual decisions. “Just ride the train and eat vegan” won’t get us to a globally sufficient decision framework.
Contrary to airport connections, if one looses it, it is lost. There aren't last calls, or help to get another one. Unless one has bought the more expensive ticket with flexible trains.
If you don't have a car you choose where to live based on this, when I used to commute I always lived never more than 7 minutes walk from a station.
What are you, European?
/s
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/china-high-speed-rail-cmd...
Especially since the cheaper plane flights in Europe are absolutely painful, dropping you off 2 hours away from the city centre into some minor airport.
Taking the TGV from Paris to Zuerich in comparison is such a relief.