4 ms·

After reading some of the comments on the price of train tickets, and while it's true trains are on paper more expensive, there are some things to consider: *

After reading some of the comments on the price of train tickets, and while it's true trains are on paper more expensive, there are some things to consider: * prices and conditions vary between countries. For example, in Germany your children can travel for free until 14, but apparently this is not universal and it can be a big difference for families * in a lot of countries you can pay for discount cards and get 25/50 percent off. Even in places like Switzerland where the prices are notoriously high, the discount card is comparatively cheap and to my understanding it's valid on pretty much all public transportation (e.g. city trams). If you travel even slightly frequently, it pays for itself quickly. * similar to planes, trains in some countries offer discounted prices if you book in advance, and for a specific train. E.g. on my last trip to Switzerland, the price was around 160, but I paid 40 for one leg (even first class!) and going back it was 120 because I had the 25% off card. The card itself cost around 60 so it basically was worth it for one trip. When I was a student 10 years ago, I would travel to e.g. Budapest on a German train with their "Europe Special" ticket for 40 (30 with 25% off). You had to book in advance, but this is true for planes as well if you want something really cheap. * others have commented on this, but there are a ton of external costs for planes and cars. Usually a taxi to the airport, or parking or whatnot. Trains in comparison put you mostly in the city centre and quite often bundle a city ticket so you can hop on a bus, tram or subway to your final destination. * planes in Europe don't (always?) pay VAT on international travel. that is quite a big difference in the total price * trains even if not always punctual often come with a guarantee, meaning you can get money back for a delay. In Germany it's 25% if you are more than an hour late, and 50% for two hours. My family spent over two hours a couple days ago sitting on a cramped plane because they could not take off from Berlin, the only thing they can do about it is cry. There are things that are quite infuriating about trains and train companies, but IMHO their prices are not all that unreasonable. The comfort and speed for short and intermediate trips also has its price im general.

aembleton 5y ago
You can apply for compensation for your delayed flight. https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/travel-guide/flight-delay-compensation/ https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/travel-guide/flight-delay-c...
- locallost 5y ago
  Thanks, but: Unfortunately, there’s no compensation for this flight. Also I think from experience of other people it's generally a hassle to the point that most people outsource it to some kind of a company for a fee. On (german) trains you ask for a form, fill it out and get the money back, hassle free.
mpol 5y ago
One other thing that is easily forgotten, trains are much safer and feel safer. In road traffic there are maybe 50 deaths per year per million people (wild guess, but not that far off). With trains in Europe, it's not even 1 per year per million. I don't have to think about all the "almost-accidents" that are part of road traffic. This does come with a price, but buying a newer and safer car also comes with a price.
- bytehowl 5y ago
  A better metric is deaths per unit of distance travelled. I don't have the numbers, though.
  - Retric 5y ago
    I disagree, a car with 4 passengers is going to have far more deaths per billion miles than a car with 1 passenger, but the risks per passenger is about the same. That’s why people use deaths per passenger mile to compare things.
    - bytehowl 5y ago
      ...That's what I have said? The only thing that could be unclear about my comment is that I have meant distance traveled per passenger, not per vehicle.
reacharavindh 5y ago
I love the experience of travelling in Europe by train, but it certainly is cumbersome and expensive. I took a car train from Hamburg to Vienna last year. Drive the car into the train, and get a sleeping coach for the 14 hour journey - as comfortable a journey I could ask for. Except it cost about €1000 if I remember correctly for my family. I still preferred it because it negated the need to rent a car in Austria, and also saved in baggage costs on a flight. However, if trains could be scaled up, the costs would come down and become competitive even for people who aren’t needing those perks like baggage and car transport. The train (and tracks) are not as compatible across Europe as I thought. You can travel from Denmark to Austria by train, but be ready to change from Danish train to German, to Austrian train because of different track or signaling systems. Now, the anxiety is on the passenger to not miss a connection at each of those countries (sometimes at the middle of the night). If EU regulated the train system as a continent, and brought in a whole “European rail system” and not just a ticketing system that works with individual country systems, that would be the beginning of rail as a great transport option. I still have hopes that it’d happen. I just wish it will happen sooner and in my life time.
- muro 5y ago
  > The train (and tracks) are not as compatible across Europe as I thought. Th gauge is the same in many countries, but signalling and power is not. Some train engines are ok with it, others are not, train cars are usually fine. They change engines on multi-country trips, but this only takes a few minutes and can be safely ignored. It's still the same train.
- locallost 5y ago
  I'm not arguing that it's cheap, just that it's not that expensive compared to other means of transportation. If it's more expensive at all. But I will argue to death that it's not cumbersome :-). I guess it depends on the country, but the only cumbersome thing are the many different options and fares where it's usually difficult to figure out what the cheapest one is. Changing trains... don't know, it's rare for me to use only one train, and I've never had issues with it other than the train being late and missing a connection. Otherwise it's easy and I even like it, since it feels faster. My record is 7 trains :-).
dgellow 5y ago
I’m quite familiar with both Germany and Switzerland trains, an interesting difference is that in Switzerland the default is a flexible ticket, you buy it for the day and can use it an any time, and using any train you want that goes in the correct direction. And since a few years SBB/CFF let’s you get a reduction if you get instead a non-flexible tickets (so with a strict time and train, called “dégriffé” in French). In Germany the default is a non-flexible ticket, and you can pay for a more expensive flexible one. As a result the default train experience in Switzerland feels more expensive but with a way to get a discount, while Germany is the opposite. And people in Germany plan their train trips waaaaaay earlier in advance to be sure they have the cheapest prices (the earlier you book the cheaper it is) and flexible tickets are mostly used for business trips.
- locallost 5y ago
  There is no default, until recently it always showed both the reduced and full price, but you always had to manually select what you want on the 2nd screen. Anyway, I'm neither German nor Swiss, but I think there are certain prejudices about both countries. Germans might look to save money, but realistically everybody needs to plan their trip somewhat in advance, unless it's a short weekend trip. I made the mistake recently of not booking my train from Switzerland in advance because I didn't know when I exactly need to go and figured what the hell, I'll just buy it when I figure it out. Big mistake, almost everything was booked out, and I barely made it home. Also, SBB likes to complain about DB, and there might be truth to some criticism, but realistically the two companies don't solve the same problems, in terms of passenger count, distances traveled and overall complexity.
  - dgellow 5y ago
    At least in Switzerland the discounted system for fixed-trips is relatively recent (admittedly I left the country a while ago so we may be talking about a different time frame). I didn't mean to say one way or the other is bad (your use of "prejudices" has a negative connotation, which isn't what I wanted to highlight). I'm Swiss, lived there for ~25 years, and now live in Germany since a good amount of time. And it was funny to observe this difference in expectations and behaviours between the two countries. I've never seen SBB/CFF complain about Deutsche Bahn so I'm not sure what you mean here. I personally like both groups, their services are really good IMHO. > Germans might look to save money, but realistically everybody needs to plan their trip somewhat in advance, unless it's a short weekend trip I mean, I can generally agree here, but the German approach to saving money is waaaay more extreme than what I've experiences living in other countries! People book their trips like 6 months in advance to have some reductions, and will use every single way to save a few cents! (Note that I'm from the French speaking side of Switzerland, which is culturally quite different from the German speaking side)

aembleton 5y ago

You can apply for compensation for your delayed flight. https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/travel-guide/flight-delay-compensation/ https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/travel-guide/flight-delay-c...

locallost 5y ago
Thanks, but: Unfortunately, there’s no compensation for this flight. Also I think from experience of other people it's generally a hassle to the point that most people outsource it to some kind of a company for a fee. On (german) trains you ask for a form, fill it out and get the money back, hassle free.

mpol 5y ago

One other thing that is easily forgotten, trains are much safer and feel safer. In road traffic there are maybe 50 deaths per year per million people (wild guess, but not that far off). With trains in Europe, it's not even 1 per year per million. I don't have to think about all the "almost-accidents" that are part of road traffic. This does come with a price, but buying a newer and safer car also comes with a price.

bytehowl 5y ago
A better metric is deaths per unit of distance travelled. I don't have the numbers, though.
- Retric 5y ago
  I disagree, a car with 4 passengers is going to have far more deaths per billion miles than a car with 1 passenger, but the risks per passenger is about the same. That’s why people use deaths per passenger mile to compare things.
  - bytehowl 5y ago
    ...That's what I have said? The only thing that could be unclear about my comment is that I have meant distance traveled per passenger, not per vehicle.

reacharavindh 5y ago

I love the experience of travelling in Europe by train, but it certainly is cumbersome and expensive. I took a car train from Hamburg to Vienna last year. Drive the car into the train, and get a sleeping coach for the 14 hour journey - as comfortable a journey I could ask for. Except it cost about €1000 if I remember correctly for my family. I still preferred it because it negated the need to rent a car in Austria, and also saved in baggage costs on a flight. However, if trains could be scaled up, the costs would come down and become competitive even for people who aren’t needing those perks like baggage and car transport. The train (and tracks) are not as compatible across Europe as I thought. You can travel from Denmark to Austria by train, but be ready to change from Danish train to German, to Austrian train because of different track or signaling systems. Now, the anxiety is on the passenger to not miss a connection at each of those countries (sometimes at the middle of the night). If EU regulated the train system as a continent, and brought in a whole “European rail system” and not just a ticketing system that works with individual country systems, that would be the beginning of rail as a great transport option. I still have hopes that it’d happen. I just wish it will happen sooner and in my life time.

muro 5y ago
> The train (and tracks) are not as compatible across Europe as I thought. Th gauge is the same in many countries, but signalling and power is not. Some train engines are ok with it, others are not, train cars are usually fine. They change engines on multi-country trips, but this only takes a few minutes and can be safely ignored. It's still the same train.
locallost 5y ago
I'm not arguing that it's cheap, just that it's not that expensive compared to other means of transportation. If it's more expensive at all. But I will argue to death that it's not cumbersome :-). I guess it depends on the country, but the only cumbersome thing are the many different options and fares where it's usually difficult to figure out what the cheapest one is. Changing trains... don't know, it's rare for me to use only one train, and I've never had issues with it other than the train being late and missing a connection. Otherwise it's easy and I even like it, since it feels faster. My record is 7 trains :-).

dgellow 5y ago

I’m quite familiar with both Germany and Switzerland trains, an interesting difference is that in Switzerland the default is a flexible ticket, you buy it for the day and can use it an any time, and using any train you want that goes in the correct direction. And since a few years SBB/CFF let’s you get a reduction if you get instead a non-flexible tickets (so with a strict time and train, called “dégriffé” in French). In Germany the default is a non-flexible ticket, and you can pay for a more expensive flexible one. As a result the default train experience in Switzerland feels more expensive but with a way to get a discount, while Germany is the opposite. And people in Germany plan their train trips waaaaaay earlier in advance to be sure they have the cheapest prices (the earlier you book the cheaper it is) and flexible tickets are mostly used for business trips.

locallost 5y ago
There is no default, until recently it always showed both the reduced and full price, but you always had to manually select what you want on the 2nd screen. Anyway, I'm neither German nor Swiss, but I think there are certain prejudices about both countries. Germans might look to save money, but realistically everybody needs to plan their trip somewhat in advance, unless it's a short weekend trip. I made the mistake recently of not booking my train from Switzerland in advance because I didn't know when I exactly need to go and figured what the hell, I'll just buy it when I figure it out. Big mistake, almost everything was booked out, and I barely made it home. Also, SBB likes to complain about DB, and there might be truth to some criticism, but realistically the two companies don't solve the same problems, in terms of passenger count, distances traveled and overall complexity.
- dgellow 5y ago
  At least in Switzerland the discounted system for fixed-trips is relatively recent (admittedly I left the country a while ago so we may be talking about a different time frame). I didn't mean to say one way or the other is bad (your use of "prejudices" has a negative connotation, which isn't what I wanted to highlight). I'm Swiss, lived there for ~25 years, and now live in Germany since a good amount of time. And it was funny to observe this difference in expectations and behaviours between the two countries. I've never seen SBB/CFF complain about Deutsche Bahn so I'm not sure what you mean here. I personally like both groups, their services are really good IMHO. > Germans might look to save money, but realistically everybody needs to plan their trip somewhat in advance, unless it's a short weekend trip I mean, I can generally agree here, but the German approach to saving money is waaaay more extreme than what I've experiences living in other countries! People book their trips like 6 months in advance to have some reductions, and will use every single way to save a few cents! (Note that I'm from the French speaking side of Switzerland, which is culturally quite different from the German speaking side)