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Sorry, this is totally not true in Europe either. Yes high speed rail is great for a few routes (I'm a huge supporter of it!). But outside of these key routes f

Sorry, this is totally not true in Europe either. Yes high speed rail is great for a few routes (I'm a huge supporter of it!). But outside of these key routes flying will always be better. Europe has absolutely enormous levels of flying. The amount of city pairs in Europe which are a 1-2hr flight and more than 4 hours on trains are very high. Outside of maybe some routes in UK/France/Netherlands/Belgium/(western) Germany basically flying will always be vastly, vastly quicker going between different European countries.

dopidopHN 6y ago
I had jobs where I had to visit clients in Uk, France, Germany and Italy. It was often plan kinda last minute. I’m French and was living in Paris at the time. Of course, for all abroad stuff beside london ( Eurostar ), the plane was preferred. But for national travel, only one city was too far to reach with a early morning train ride. All other major cities are reachable by a 2 to 4h train ride ( city center to city center ) The city is question is Toulouse. It’s just take too long from Paris. I Had to fly for this one. Marseille,Lyon,Lille; Strasbourg, Metz, Bordeaux,Nantes, Montpellier, Rennes. All those cities, I was able to take the first train in the morning. Do the fucking thing. Have dinner there on the client. And fall asleep in the last train. Waking up a midnight or so in Paris. I had the choice to take a plane. But for the route in question in the article, it was consistently suboptimal.
- adrianN 6y ago
  AFAIK the French rail system is set up so that Paris-X is a good connection for most X, but travel between city pairs that don't contain Paris is much more difficult... because you have to travel via Paris.
  - pjerem 6y ago
    Exactly that. And Paris is not really geographically at the center of France.
    - dopidopHN 6y ago
      Define center. Why do you think I was living there? Why is 1/5 and more of our population living there ? It’s the economical center of the country. And it’s been design intentionally this way dating back to before the revolution. It’s infuriating in many aspect. But it’s not relevant to the conversation of fly travel for distance under 3h in train. ( you can do Paris-Marseille in exactly 3h with fast train. It’s 80% of the nord-sud distance of the country. And it take 6h by car )
  - vladvasiliu 6y ago
    That's correct. But as others have noted, Paris is the "center" for most anything. There's very little demand for travel between any pair of two (major) cities other than Paris. I should look this up for details, but I seem to remember that there's a train route running parallel to the southern border that was abandoned for lack of demand. And there are some major cities there (Marseille, Montpellier, Toulouse) which aren't all that far apart.
- sofixa 6y ago
  > The city is question is Toulouse. It’s just take too long from Paris. I Had to fly for this one. Since last year ( or the year before that) via the LGV to Bordeaux, Toulouse is at 4h and ~10minutes from Paris.
  - dopidopHN 6y ago
    Damn. Of course. Kinda game changer.

dopidopHN 6y ago

I had jobs where I had to visit clients in Uk, France, Germany and Italy. It was often plan kinda last minute. I’m French and was living in Paris at the time. Of course, for all abroad stuff beside london ( Eurostar ), the plane was preferred. But for national travel, only one city was too far to reach with a early morning train ride. All other major cities are reachable by a 2 to 4h train ride ( city center to city center ) The city is question is Toulouse. It’s just take too long from Paris. I Had to fly for this one. Marseille,Lyon,Lille; Strasbourg, Metz, Bordeaux,Nantes, Montpellier, Rennes. All those cities, I was able to take the first train in the morning. Do the fucking thing. Have dinner there on the client. And fall asleep in the last train. Waking up a midnight or so in Paris. I had the choice to take a plane. But for the route in question in the article, it was consistently suboptimal.

adrianN 6y ago
AFAIK the French rail system is set up so that Paris-X is a good connection for most X, but travel between city pairs that don't contain Paris is much more difficult... because you have to travel via Paris.
- pjerem 6y ago
  Exactly that. And Paris is not really geographically at the center of France.
  - dopidopHN 6y ago
    Define center. Why do you think I was living there? Why is 1/5 and more of our population living there ? It’s the economical center of the country. And it’s been design intentionally this way dating back to before the revolution. It’s infuriating in many aspect. But it’s not relevant to the conversation of fly travel for distance under 3h in train. ( you can do Paris-Marseille in exactly 3h with fast train. It’s 80% of the nord-sud distance of the country. And it take 6h by car )
- vladvasiliu 6y ago
  That's correct. But as others have noted, Paris is the "center" for most anything. There's very little demand for travel between any pair of two (major) cities other than Paris. I should look this up for details, but I seem to remember that there's a train route running parallel to the southern border that was abandoned for lack of demand. And there are some major cities there (Marseille, Montpellier, Toulouse) which aren't all that far apart.
sofixa 6y ago
> The city is question is Toulouse. It’s just take too long from Paris. I Had to fly for this one. Since last year ( or the year before that) via the LGV to Bordeaux, Toulouse is at 4h and ~10minutes from Paris.
- dopidopHN 6y ago
  Damn. Of course. Kinda game changer.