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Note that it's still four hours compared to one for a flight - and flights are still cheaper. Even if we assume two hours for arrival, boarding and an hour for

Note that it's still four hours compared to one for a flight - and flights are still cheaper. Even if we assume two hours for arrival, boarding and an hour for local transportation in Berlin, flight would still win on price. (I just checked for "Munich to Berlin next monday": 120€ cheapest for trains unless I want to sleep in them, 105€ for a flight, with more choice of time.)

simongray 5y ago
Aside from skipping the added bureaucracy of airports, the major advantage of trains is that you usually arrive in the centre of the city while air travel usually takes you to the outskirts.
trizuz 5y ago
midasuni 5y ago
With a train you get 4 hours of laptop time. on a plane you get two stints of about 20-30 minutes each.
bakuninsbart 5y ago
Realistically, it takes an extra hour door to door for the train, and around 3 hours for the plane. In my experience you do save a bit of time with the plane for Berlin-Munich. > Even if we assume two hours for arrival, boarding and an hour for local transportation in Berlin, flight would still win on price. It is 50€ if you look for the Monday in 2 weeks. For quite a bit of my travel, I am booking 2-3 months in advance, and it is usually around ~30-40€, first class, for a 600km trip. (This site is quite helpful: https://bahn.guru/ https://bahn.guru/) Some other things to consider: Trains (ICE) are substantially more comfortable and "freer"; you can walk around, don't have to pretend to listen to a safety choreography, keep your data on the whole time etc. Trains also don't restrict the amount of luggage you can take with you. In fact when my grandma died, I transported a ~2x4m persian rug by ICE, and while I got some comments on it, and switching trains was a pain, it was a very cheap option for a poor student with a big rug. On another note, there will be a 9€ Ticket for summer in Germany that allows you to use all non-high speed trains within Germany, which will be a really interesting experiment.
- FeepingCreature 5y ago
  Agree with all of that. Though with flights, you can also optimize a lot if you have enough lead time: I recommend https://skyscanner.com/ https://skyscanner.com/ Trains are nice if you need to transport anything of volume, especially bikes, if you stay longer than a day or two so you can amortize the travel time, if you have lots of run-up time, and probably cheaper if you travel a lot. They're definitely competitive, it's just not a slamdunk, and planes do straight win sometimes depending on requirements.

simongray 5y ago

Aside from skipping the added bureaucracy of airports, the major advantage of trains is that you usually arrive in the centre of the city while air travel usually takes you to the outskirts.

trizuz 5y ago

midasuni 5y ago

With a train you get 4 hours of laptop time. on a plane you get two stints of about 20-30 minutes each.

bakuninsbart 5y ago

Realistically, it takes an extra hour door to door for the train, and around 3 hours for the plane. In my experience you do save a bit of time with the plane for Berlin-Munich. > Even if we assume two hours for arrival, boarding and an hour for local transportation in Berlin, flight would still win on price. It is 50€ if you look for the Monday in 2 weeks. For quite a bit of my travel, I am booking 2-3 months in advance, and it is usually around ~30-40€, first class, for a 600km trip. (This site is quite helpful: https://bahn.guru/ https://bahn.guru/) Some other things to consider: Trains (ICE) are substantially more comfortable and "freer"; you can walk around, don't have to pretend to listen to a safety choreography, keep your data on the whole time etc. Trains also don't restrict the amount of luggage you can take with you. In fact when my grandma died, I transported a ~2x4m persian rug by ICE, and while I got some comments on it, and switching trains was a pain, it was a very cheap option for a poor student with a big rug. On another note, there will be a 9€ Ticket for summer in Germany that allows you to use all non-high speed trains within Germany, which will be a really interesting experiment.

FeepingCreature 5y ago
Agree with all of that. Though with flights, you can also optimize a lot if you have enough lead time: I recommend https://skyscanner.com/ https://skyscanner.com/ Trains are nice if you need to transport anything of volume, especially bikes, if you stay longer than a day or two so you can amortize the travel time, if you have lots of run-up time, and probably cheaper if you travel a lot. They're definitely competitive, it's just not a slamdunk, and planes do straight win sometimes depending on requirements.