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I'm traveling from Gothenburg to Berlin basically on at least a monthly basis. Ever since I moved to Sweden 2005 I was looking for night trains to bring me to t

by jeena 8y ago

I'm traveling from Gothenburg to Berlin basically on at least a monthly basis. Ever since I moved to Sweden 2005 I was looking for night trains to bring me to the continent but there weren't any. Early on I took day trains but they took so much time that I never had wiggle time and since the Deutsche Bahn got private they are notoriously late which meant that most of the time I wouldn't catch the last train from Copenhagen and needed to take a expensive taxi for the last hundred of kilometers late during the night after a 16 hour journey. The weird thing is that the flights just go on time and even though it takes time to get to and from the airport it's possible to calculate the time when you will arrive, ect. which is really important with businesses. With Deutsche Bahn you basically never know if you will arrive on the day they promised or not.

henrikschroder 8y ago
I travelled Stockholm-Copenhagen biweekly for a couple of years, and flying was cheaper and faster door-to-door than the train pretty much 100% of the time. That includes getting through airport security and taking public transportation to/from the airports at either end. I mean, I would have preferred to take the train, but I'm not going to pay more to get there slower...
- njepa 8y ago
  With the train you potentially lose a lot less productive time. Air travel can't be made much nicer since there are too many hard limits. The train however suffers from a lack of investment in fundamentals. A lot of people live in the suburbs today, where the train doesn't stop. Stockholm central station is despite the many renovations not very nice. The trains themselves are getting old. The infrastructure and service isn't what it could be either. And maybe most of all everything is just expensive in Sweden, and the Nordics, these days. If you could have a slightly faster train with first class airline interior and a matching, not too expensive, hotel on top of the train station it would be a competitive proposal. But while I can appreciate that people like to talk about trains on hacker news the story really is that the future isn't happening in Sweden. Rather we seem to be on a seemingly predictable path following countries like the US and the UK were we are incapable of making long term investments and everything of value is getting expensive.
Tijdreiziger 8y ago
There's a Stockholm-Malmö sleeper, which can at least get you to Copenhagen by the morning (there's only about 20 minutes between Malmö C and Copenhagen H). Useful if you need to get to Germany. > a expensive taxi You should be able to get refunded for that, if you had a through ticket, and maybe even without a through ticket if you ask nicely (for travel to/from Germany, DB sells through tickets to Sweden via their website).

by jeena 8y ago

henrikschroder 8y ago

I travelled Stockholm-Copenhagen biweekly for a couple of years, and flying was cheaper and faster door-to-door than the train pretty much 100% of the time. That includes getting through airport security and taking public transportation to/from the airports at either end. I mean, I would have preferred to take the train, but I'm not going to pay more to get there slower...

njepa 8y ago
With the train you potentially lose a lot less productive time. Air travel can't be made much nicer since there are too many hard limits. The train however suffers from a lack of investment in fundamentals. A lot of people live in the suburbs today, where the train doesn't stop. Stockholm central station is despite the many renovations not very nice. The trains themselves are getting old. The infrastructure and service isn't what it could be either. And maybe most of all everything is just expensive in Sweden, and the Nordics, these days. If you could have a slightly faster train with first class airline interior and a matching, not too expensive, hotel on top of the train station it would be a competitive proposal. But while I can appreciate that people like to talk about trains on hacker news the story really is that the future isn't happening in Sweden. Rather we seem to be on a seemingly predictable path following countries like the US and the UK were we are incapable of making long term investments and everything of value is getting expensive.

Tijdreiziger 8y ago

There's a Stockholm-Malmö sleeper, which can at least get you to Copenhagen by the morning (there's only about 20 minutes between Malmö C and Copenhagen H). Useful if you need to get to Germany. > a expensive taxi You should be able to get refunded for that, if you had a through ticket, and maybe even without a through ticket if you ask nicely (for travel to/from Germany, DB sells through tickets to Sweden via their website).