4 ms·

In terms of business when you can buy a 30 euro easy jet ticket or a 200 euro train ticket, not a lot of people are going to be able to afford the train. In man

In terms of business when you can buy a 30 euro easy jet ticket or a 200 euro train ticket, not a lot of people are going to be able to afford the train. In many parts of Europe, trains are not price competitive with air connections. And also a lot slower. Here in Germany, there are a lot of domestic flights under 1 hour that connect places that would be 4-6 hours away by train. Even with the inconvenience of being treated like cattle, having to travel for an hour to get to and from the airport on both ends, etc. it's still a net gain. And often it's cheaper too. And it's the difference between needing a hotel or being able to travel back and forth on a single day. Early morning and evening flights are usually packed. Trains should be dirt cheap but they aren't. A round trip to my parents with a 4.5 hour train journey costs me around 110 Euros every time I do it. The fuel expenses for the same journey by car are about the same. Reason: Deutsche Bahn is a state protected monopoly that has little to no real competition and is run in a super inefficient way. So companies that have to burn enormous amounts of kerosene are able to compete on price. That's insane. There are buses competing with train journeys in Germany charging 30-40% of the train ticket price. Sometimes less. Do buses have better fuel economy than trains? Of course they don't. So, yes, these luxury trains will be drop in the ocean in terms of actually cutting down on that. I doubt they will be profitable at all. At those prices, filling the trains will be a challenge. Though there is a market for people with a conscious and a wallet that want to go places but feel bad about flying there.

Stevvo 4y ago
Might be like that way in Germany, but in mainland France and Spain domestic flights are almost unheard of as the train is nearly always a better option and price is the same if you book in advance as you would for a plane ticket.
- bluGill 4y ago
  For short, in-county trips the train station is normally more convenient than an airport, and there is less spent in security. Trains tend to run a lot more often, while planes are often only a few times per day. Thus a train is the same price, about as fast, and a lot more convenient. France and Spain have both invested in High Speed rail. Germany is behind there, the lack of speed on their train network. For humans time is a very important consideration.
- Bayart 4y ago
  France has one major problem in that there are no transversal lines in the South (Bordeaux->Toulouse->Marseille or Bordeaux->Lyon) which makes a lot of the travelling in that direction incredibly inconvenient, to the point plane is the better means of transportation.
mcv 4y ago
There was once a guy who traveled from somewhere in southern England to London by way of Berlin because that was cheaper than simply taking the direct train to London. It's utterly ridiculous how much air travel is subsidized and train travel is not. Another problem is indeed that trains can't really compete with each other; even privatised, they still end up with local monopolies on specific lines, or else it would become chaos. I suppose there's some competition between high-speed rail and short flights, and sometimes, high-speed train tickets (to France at least) can get surprisingly cheap if you buy them at the right moment, but the competition remains unfair because of all the subsidies air travel gets. Maybe EU governments should subsidise trains to the point travel becomes free. I'm sure that would cut down on traffic jams on roads too.
- bluGill 4y ago
  It isn't just the air travel is subsidized (it is, but not by enough to explain the cost), it is inherently cheaper to maintain an airport on either and, an airplane. While both of those costs are more expensive than a train station and train maintenance, track maintenance will kill you. Tracks still is worth it, but only if you use the track a lot.
- maratc 4y ago
  The infrastructure that is used by the planes (air) is way cheaper than the one used by the trains (rail). Air maintenance costs are about zero. Rails maintenance is far from it. The nature is subsidizing air travel much more than any government ever could.

Stevvo 4y ago

Might be like that way in Germany, but in mainland France and Spain domestic flights are almost unheard of as the train is nearly always a better option and price is the same if you book in advance as you would for a plane ticket.

bluGill 4y ago
For short, in-county trips the train station is normally more convenient than an airport, and there is less spent in security. Trains tend to run a lot more often, while planes are often only a few times per day. Thus a train is the same price, about as fast, and a lot more convenient. France and Spain have both invested in High Speed rail. Germany is behind there, the lack of speed on their train network. For humans time is a very important consideration.
Bayart 4y ago
France has one major problem in that there are no transversal lines in the South (Bordeaux->Toulouse->Marseille or Bordeaux->Lyon) which makes a lot of the travelling in that direction incredibly inconvenient, to the point plane is the better means of transportation.

mcv 4y ago

There was once a guy who traveled from somewhere in southern England to London by way of Berlin because that was cheaper than simply taking the direct train to London. It's utterly ridiculous how much air travel is subsidized and train travel is not. Another problem is indeed that trains can't really compete with each other; even privatised, they still end up with local monopolies on specific lines, or else it would become chaos. I suppose there's some competition between high-speed rail and short flights, and sometimes, high-speed train tickets (to France at least) can get surprisingly cheap if you buy them at the right moment, but the competition remains unfair because of all the subsidies air travel gets. Maybe EU governments should subsidise trains to the point travel becomes free. I'm sure that would cut down on traffic jams on roads too.

bluGill 4y ago
It isn't just the air travel is subsidized (it is, but not by enough to explain the cost), it is inherently cheaper to maintain an airport on either and, an airplane. While both of those costs are more expensive than a train station and train maintenance, track maintenance will kill you. Tracks still is worth it, but only if you use the track a lot.
maratc 4y ago
The infrastructure that is used by the planes (air) is way cheaper than the one used by the trains (rail). Air maintenance costs are about zero. Rails maintenance is far from it. The nature is subsidizing air travel much more than any government ever could.