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Comment by pm3003 | Hacker News Reader

European high-speed trains do 195mph, no security controls except between France and Great Britain, relatively cheap, and often cheaper and faster than planes up to 600 miles, taking into account transportation to the airport and time lost waiting at the airport, since airports are often inefficient and can be quite poorly connected given the traffic.

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> European high-speed trains do 195mph, no security controls except between France and Great Britain

It depends a lot on where you start/go to, I've recently experienced more and more controls before boarding, with gates, police, sometime bag checks, &c. I assume it's due to more and more migrants riding trains for free to reach some countries, I see it almost every time I take long range train between France/Germany/Luxembourg

Security and custom checks in Switzerland. Had to go through customs and security check before boarding a train between GVA and Paris. Also had everyone’s passport checked while on a train between GVA and Milan. Not just France and GB that have stops. Can’t forget Switzerland.

That's strange. I lived in Switzerland my whole life and don't remember having had a security / passport check for a boarding a train ever. So it's definitely not normal / regular to have this in Switzerland. Most of western Europe is part of the the Schengen Area, so there's no need for passport checks.

Between Switzerland and Italy there are, or there used to be, foreign border agents on the train rather than checkpoints.

I've had random checks in the train over the year between Switzerland and France and Switzerland and Italy. They are definitely not regular/mandatory though.

This is not generally required when travelling between Schengen countries. National governments may introduce immigration checks within Schengen, and in recent years have sometimes done so for particular reasons e.g. during Covid lockdowns or due to a sharp increase in refugees/asylum seekers. But these are short-lived and it is not the norm.

It isn't clear if you meant this as an aside, but Switzerland is a Schengen area country. It isn't in the EU/EEA which (in some sense) necessitates customs checks more so than immigration checks, but nonetheless there are frequent checks on the border with its neighbouring countries which are in the EU/EEA. It's less common by private vehicle, in my experience.

It seems that nothing is so permanent as a temporary Schengen border control. Some of them have been in place since 2015 and it doesn't look like they'll go away any time soon. In fact Germany is looking to expand them, adding border controls on its Czech and Polish border.

> This is not generally required when travelling between Schengen countries.

It happens more and more due to illegal immigration. I've beens topped in trains, buses, highway parking, by police officers asking of passport and reasons to travel.

In Paris/Marseille/Strasbourg I've always been controlled since ~2020

> before boarding a train between GVA and Paris

From the airport straight into the train?

Yes sometimes there are intra-Schengen checks in trains but the most I've seen is people checking the passports in route

Switzerland signed the Schengen Agreement in 2008.

It’s unlikely they have border controls since then although they probably did before.

Schengen is nice on paper but anyone who travels extensively knows border checks and random highway/train checks happen all the time. Go to Poland/Slovakia/Austria/&c.

Schengen allows free movement of EU citizen and people legally residing/visiting.

It means you can travel without visa.

It _does not_ mean borders are fully open and you can go in and out with absolutely no control

Random checks still do exist. Also in the highways and border sometimes.

High-speed trains in Spain also have a security check; luggage is x-rayed. It is a bit simpler than the London-Paris/Brussels check, as it isn't combined with a passport check.

(And also in China, though there they also have similar checks at some metro and other railway stations.)

Isn't that because of the Madrid bombings? Makes sense when taken in that context.

Bombing at any crowded place causes terrible result, so I don't know is it make sense to inspect especially for train. Airplane is a different case since it become a missile.

It's always a country wide trauma when these attacks happen, you can't blame them for adding security. Also a bomb in a train tunnel or in a train travelling at 300kph surely is worse than a lot of other scenarios

It is usually a very quick check, I never had to wait in line for that and you don't have to remove anything from the bag.

Also bus lines in mexico do similar checks.

I know France and Germany don't do it, as another data point.

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