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That definitely depends on the route/city though. There's plenty of routes where the train is a lot faster at otherwise high-traffic times of days. Completely
by noirbot 5y ago
That definitely depends on the route/city though. There's plenty of routes where the train is a lot faster at otherwise high-traffic times of days.
Completely honest question - are trains in, say, Germany that much cheaper for going between cities? Most of the times I've considered traveling to a country where train travel is more common/normal, I've been surprised by how relatively expensive it is compared to my expectations.
Checking now, for Coach/Second Class Berlin to Frankfurt on a Friday is about 50 USD and NYC to Boston is 75. It's 50% more expensive on Amtrak, but neither is really "cheap", with both of them being about the same length of trip between similar sized cities. It's certainly not so cheap that "people without a lot of money" would be easily able to take that trip on a budget.
- strken 5y agoI had a look into this and the price difference between a train and a flight was about $4USD: $26USD vs $30USD. The flight was a lot cheaper than I expected, so much so that I'm genuinely suspicious of it. They were both a lot less than $50USD though. This was for the 30th of April between Berlin and Frankfurt.
- Sakos 5y agoThis only works between Berlin and Frankfurt because they both host major airports. Flights inside Germany usually aren't that cheap.
- Sakos 5y agoSome tips. Germans trying to save money will always book trains several weeks in advance because Sparpreis tickets can and will be 50% cheaper. Flixtrain is also a cheaper alternative that is quite popular.
- noirbot 5y agoEven so, $50 round trip is pretty pricey, especially since that's per-person. I don't mean any of this to say I wouldn't love a better train system, just that it seems like more of the value of it is in realms other than its cost-effectiveness, even in countries with good infrastructure and investment in it.
- Sakos 5y agoI think we're missing the context of gas prices here. German gas prices are far higher than in the US, making train more cost-effective. We don't have cheap flights, except apparently Berlin-Frankfurt, so we can't rely on air travel the same way the US does. This overall makes train travel much more attractive in Germany. Then there are things like regional tickets, day tickets, BahnCard discounts, etc.