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Next week I'm taking a 5 hour train journey rather than flying. When I figure in the time to get to the airport, the waiting in the lounge, baggage retrieval, e

• Aromasin 7y ago
  If this if is the UK train service your experience can vary drastically though, depending on if you can get a seat or not...
  • davidarkemp2 7y ago
    If it's the UK, then you can book a seat on most services... if you're travelling distance during peak time, and you know in advance, then I'd recommend it - and being prepared to politely but assertively ask people to move if they are sat in your seat.
    • tialaramex 7y ago
      One thing that comprehensively confuses people using UK railway train reservations: The 'A' suffix on your seat number doesn't matter. When you have a reservation for 44A that doesn't actually mean there is a seat 44A distinct from seat 44, it's because somebody thought it's important to bake in metadata about how seats are arranged in trains, the A apparently stands for "airline" style for some reason. If you hate reservations or are too disorganised to book one for a busy train, but also dislike being disturbed by someone who does have a reservation and wants you to move, most train operators have some rule about which parts of their trains aren't reserved, you can find that out and then travel in the unreservable part of the train. Finding a seat there won't be any easier, but you won't be asked to move later. It is interesting how trains are offering better services even as planes suck more over time. Ten years ago knowing where to find power sockets in the Standard class 444 series (next to the cab at the far end from First class) made the difference between charging devices and going without, now almost every train has power sockets and/or USB, free WiFi (not _good_ WiFi, you won't be streaming video - but it'll let you check email and read Hacker News) and air conditioning.
      • edent 7y ago
        The A usually refers to "aisle" in my experience with UK trains. As distinct from a window seat. I think it's like a checksum :-)
        • tialaramex 7y ago
          Nope. Both aisle and window seats will be suffixed A. I almost invariably book window seats, they have an A suffix anyway. There are other suffixes, but they relate to the layout of seating in a carriage and apparently almost all trains have "airline" style according to the nomenclature of whoever decides these things.
      • buckminster 7y ago
        > Finding a seat there won't be any easier, but you won't be asked to move later. It used to be really easy. Reserved seats had a paper ticket stuck in the back. Virgin trains switched to a small LED display on the edge of the luggage rack. Rather than have a single word like "Vacant" it has a scrolling message. As do reserved seats. So you have to peer at every single display as the text slowly scrolls past to figure out where you can sit. I don't know if this is gross incompetence or part of their ongoing efforts to discourage unbooked travel.
        • tialaramex 7y ago
          The longer scrolling message is telling you, as you'd know if you read it, that this seat can be reserved even though it currently isn't. As I indicated, some seats can't be reserved, and in this case the message is far shorter and doesn't scroll. "Unreserved" is usually the word used. Paper tickets can't be updated and so in some cases they reflect no longer accurate information. This is especially misleading for long distance services where many reservations may happen after the service departs from its origin.
          • buckminster 7y ago
            The unreserved message definitely used to scroll without any mention of future reservations. Perhaps they've updated them or perhaps it varies by region.
• matt7aylor 7y ago
  I've found this to be a fantastic resource for creating travel plans in Europe (and beyond) without flying: https://www.seat61.com/ https://www.seat61.com/ No affiliation, just been using it to help plan all sorts of travel since I stopped flying in 2011 (although I have to say the best way to travel long distance in Europe is by bicycle, if you can make the time).
• murph-almighty 7y ago
  As behind as the US is on this front, the NE Regional and Acela are fantastic for NY-DC travel. It's infinitely less headache in terms of what you can bring (liquids in baggage and not really much of a weight limit), space (leg room for days), general comfort (no cabin pressure)... I could go on about this.
  • edent 7y ago
    I had an enjoyable trip on the Empire line from NYC to Niagara. A beautiful way to see that part of the country, without the horrors of the TSA.
  • jtms 7y ago
    I used to travel NYC to Boston fairly often for work and I absolutely loved the experience of taking the Acela. The problem is that it’s so expensive! This was fine when my employer was willing to pay, but I wouldn’t pay it myself (it’s usually far more expensive than flying in my experience)
  • siffland 7y ago
    The problem for the US in the case of trains is that the US government owns Amtrak and they own no actual train tracks. Therefore when there are 2 trains competeing for the same track, Amtrak has to yield to the commercial trains. I have seen recent court arguments that it should be the other way around, but as of last year when i brought my father down from chicago to san antonio that was the case (that is a near 40 hour train ride). I would ride the trainmore if it were quicker and a 4-5 hour flight or 18 hour drive didnt take 40 hours on a train.
  • darkpuma 7y ago
    With no noxious TSA checkpoint and a streamlined boarding process, it's amazing how much more pleasant travel by train is. I often arrive an hour early, if not more, to an airport. Between unpredictable TSA wait times and the lengthy boarding process of airplanes, it's a huge waste of time. When I'm traveling by train, I often arive at the train station no more than 5 minutes before I am sitting on the train. There are no lines to enter the train station and the line to board the train moves quickly because the train has more space to move around on and because the train has multiple entrances and exits. It's totally feasible to walk into a train station then without stopping walk straight onto a train. That's an experience I'm generally willing to pay extra for vs flying, but unfortunately in America the opportunities to take advantage of trains are lacking if you live outside the Northeast Corridor, as I now do.
• sharperguy 7y ago
  I'd say 5 hours is about the limit where the train makes more sense practically than flying. An eight hour train isn't worth it IMO compared to a 1.5 hour flight.
  • TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
    Consider a sleeper service!
    • magduf 7y ago
      Sleeper services are usually much, much more expensive than a regular seat, so it doesn't help in trying to compete with air service (where you don't need sleeper service because it's so much faster).
      • seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        I used to do a hard sleeper from Beijing to shanghai or Hangzhou (overnight train), and it was definitely cheaper than flying at the time. But hard sleepers aren’t for the feint of heart, especially if you get a dreaded top berth. Sleepers are appreciated on planes enough that they charge a lot for them (a 12+ hour long haul in business class is mostly sleep, in economy it’s watch whatever movie you can find).
        • magduf 7y ago
          Sleepers on planes certainly are expensive (you're talking about business or first class to get that space), but you don't feel the need for it as much because it's only that useful on long-haul flights. There's no such thing, usually, as a train that goes the same route as a 14-hour plane flight: such a train would have to somehow cross an ocean.
          • seanmcdirmid 7y ago
            > such a train would have to somehow cross an ocean. Beijing to Western Europe via Moscow could technically be done by train. The first leg is 8 hours which should count as a long haul.
• oytis 7y ago
  Don't know about UK, but in Germany trains are obscenely expensive, especially when you compare them to low-cost airlines. There is nothing like "low-cost railway" so far, and I doubt there ever will be.
  • magduf 7y ago
    In Bavaria, they're dirt cheap, at least for the regional trains. For 25 Euros cash, you can go anywhere in Bavaria all you want, for 24 hours, in as many trips as you want. Of course, this doesn't really compete with airlines, as this is for inter-city trips within the state, and no two cities in Bavaria are that far apart. But to say there's no "low-cost railway" is plainly false. Bavaria has probably one of the best train systems in the entire world, and it's not expensive by any means.
    • oytis 7y ago
      Yes, sorry, I had something like "getting from Berlin to Brussels at low cost" in mind. There is no way to do it with railway, only with a plane. If I just want to travel in the same Bundesland where I am, there are plenty of cheap options, that's true.
      • wink 7y ago
        Same here, I've been to Brussels quite often (for FOSDEM) and the difference is: - flying: 120 EUR from Munich, getting up at 4-5, arriving at 9 - train: have to go the day before, have an additional night in the hotel (70 EUR) and THEN the train is more expensive than flying anyway. Maybe not so important if the company pays, but still not fun to argue (depending on the company).
      • pm215 7y ago
        How low cost do you want low cost to be, and how annoying are you prepared for it to be? I just picked (fairly arbitrarily) Monday 19th August, and although Expedia does offer a GBP18 Ryanair flight SXF - BRU you have to accept an 0620 departure time to get that, and of course no checked baggage and you need to include costs of getting to/from the airport. Given the need to arrive at least 1h before departure I would personally not even consider 0620 dep, and all the other flights Expedia suggests cost 90 quid or more. For the train loco2.com has one-way tickets Berlin Hbf -> Bruxelles-Midi from GBP63.50 at reasonable times.
• tmikaeld 7y ago
  I'm sad that trains don't get more attention than they do, it's amazingly fuel efficient due to the low friction and the enormous load-capacity.