Comment by systemtest
1 year ago
That's a bummer.
I'm happy with European rail. For instance, it is 36 hours by FlixBus from Amsterdam to Porto, but if you use high-speed rail (Eurostar, TGV, Iryo) it is only 23 hours, faster than going by car.
1 year ago
That's a bummer.
I'm happy with European rail. For instance, it is 36 hours by FlixBus from Amsterdam to Porto, but if you use high-speed rail (Eurostar, TGV, Iryo) it is only 23 hours, faster than going by car.
Traveling 2,000km in the US would take me like 5 hours including an hour in the airport each way. Even if you made it two hours on departure that's six hours of total travel time. Compared to a 23 hour train trip.
Distances like that, trains just don't make sense IMO.
Sure they do when you have proper high speed rain. That journey could be 10 relaxing hours at 300kph. No security, no awful plane noise and seats. Quiet comfy and relaxing (or overnight and you can sleep)
It’s also far better for the environment, and should be cheaper if you take plane subsidies and apply them to trains.
Also your math is wrong 5 hours with 1 hour each side (generous) is 7 hours. With 2 hours each side that’s 9 hours.
Either way I would much rather take a comfortable train for 10 hours then suffer in a plane for 5.
(The reason 2000km takes so long for op is its 7+ train changes, if you made 7+ plane changes it would be very long too)
> Also your math is wrong 5 hours with 1 hour each side (generous) is 7 hours. With 2 hours each side that’s 9 hours.
Its a three-hour flight not a five hour flight. Five hours is including the one hour on each side. And you wouldn't have two hours on the arrival side, you're not having to wait through security. Chances are on the arrival side its less than an hour. Sure, maybe customs slows you down, but I've never had customs take as long as security and the consequences of being a little slow are much less. But there are no customs flying domestically, and I'm not sure what customs are like flying within the eurozone anyways.
> Either way I would much rather take a comfortable train for 10 hours then suffer in a plane for 5.
It's not 10 hours on the train, its 23 hours on the train. And it's not 5 hours on a plane, its three hours. The person said they were taking HSR. Its a 23 hour ride taking HSR.
> The reason 2000km takes so long for op is its 7+ train changes, if you made 7+ plane changes it would be very long too
Sure, but generally speaking you don't have to when flying You often don't even need to change planes once. That's the whole point. Rail is great for certain distances, but past that there grows a lot of complexities. You're not going to take a single shot HSR trip 2,000km practically anywhere. You're going to have times where the train stops. You're probably going to have to change trains, potentially even change to a non-HSR for a leg of the trip. Meanwhile planes don't need to change 7 times to go 2,000km.
> should be cheaper
Sure, if you value two days of your vacation at nearly $0. Or two days of seeing your family while gone on a business trip at $0. Personally, two days of travel would have to be radically cheaper for me to think it worth it.
Europe has airports as well, of course. We're discussing other transport here though.
Sure, but people lament the lack of trans-national US trains. If even taking high speed rail in a region of the world known for good trains (Europe), a normal-ish kind of travel pattern would take 23 hours versus 5 hours, why would people choose the train?
Don't get me wrong, I'm generally pro-train. I'm super excited for the prospects of the Texas bullet train. Trains can make a lot of sense to a certain distance. But why would you pick it for a 2,000km trip?