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Distances you can travel on a European train in less than a day

171 points by Quanttek 11y ago

PeterWhittaker 11y ago
Cool graphics. Once you get used to the colour scheme, you really see how connected are various European cities.
anonymousDan 11y ago
For any non-Europeans looking to explore Europe by rail, I can highly recommend getting an Interrail ticket that gives you unlimited rail travel for various durations. For a reasonable price you can get a multi zone ticket that will let you explore most of Europe for a very reasonable price.
- tonfa 11y ago
  It is also nice for Europeans :-)
- saryant 11y ago
  Non-European citizens can't use Interrail. There's a similar product called Eurail but with the discounts available for advance-purchase tickets, the pass often doesn't make sense if you're traveling with a relatively specific itinerary and can plan ahead. The surcharges on the various high-speed trains really killed the cost-effectiveness of the Eurail pass. edit: There's a good overview of why the Eurail pass if often a bad option at Seat61: http://seat61.com/Railpass-and-Eurail-pass-guide.htm#Should http://seat61.com/Railpass-and-Eurail-pass-guide.htm#Should you buy a railpass or pay-as-you-go
  - avz 11y ago
    > Non-European citizens can't use Interrail. Not true. You have to be a resident to use Interrail. So if you don't have a European passport, but live there, you can still use Interrail. Note also, "European" here means a lot more countries than the EU. Other eligible countries of residence include: Albania, Andorra, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, FYR Macedonia, Gibraltar, Iceland, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, Russian Federation, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and Vatican City. Source: http://www.interrail.eu/help/ordering-pass/do-i-need-interrail-or-eurail-pass http://www.interrail.eu/help/ordering-pass/do-i-need-interra...
    - codecamper 11y ago
      Whole lotta folk from San Marino! May as well mention sea land then.
  - Coincoin 11y ago
    Actually, if you reserve well in advance the surcharges are much smaller, even on high speeds. But I agree, it's situational.
  - nerfhammer 11y ago
    It's only cheaper if you take only the most expensive possible routes BUT, you can use it to get on any train in Europe even if only by confusing the local conductor with a complicated Eurail pass, even if it's fully reserved or not part of Eurail.
    - saryant 11y ago
      You can't just hop on any train anymore, that's the problem. Many high-speed routes require reservations and a surcharge. Those are also the trains most likely to have conductors who actually know the rules.
  - monksy 11y ago
    Eurorail is a complete waste of money. The companies who sell it in the US are there to screw you over.
- IshKebab 11y ago
  Interrail is only really worth it if you are under 26. If you have to get the "Adult" price then you only save money if you travel very frequently on expensive routes (e.g. once ever 2-3 days). Also you have to deal with the hassle of using interrail - nobody knows how the hell it works, you can't book tickets online!, you have to pay supplements on many journeys but again nobody knows which ones and how much. Worth it if you're under 26 though because it is much cheaper.
Roritharr 11y ago
One of the real reasons why i love living in Frankfurt. I feel closer to all of Europe than everywhere else on the continent.
- coldcode 11y ago
  Having just been in England and Germany I must admit having trains to go everywhere is awesome.
- allendoerfer 11y ago
  To the world really, because we do not have to drive to Frankfurt first to use a proper airport. I look forward to the Frankfurt-London rail link operated by Deutsche Bahn. Strange times, when the UK thinks about moving away from the EU and staying alone on their little island like in the good old times and yet London is nearly as close to Frankfurt as Frankfurt is to Berlin.
  - Roritharr 11y ago
    Actually i've recently had a chat with people from DB Strategy, they've said that the Frankfurt-London connection is now technically possible and has been tested, but the ICE that should be used on it has a lot of technical issues that push the chances of having technical issues on one trip to above 20%. That is a reason why they have pushed that connection off into the undisclosed future. He wasn't a technical person, but the way he described it was that everytime an ICE crosses a country border, it has to change the settings on how the train operates, to comply with local laws and standards. This is stuff like how rapidly it is supposed to brake, etc. He says that there is a 1 in 10 chance that when doing that "settings-swap" some part of the train software crashes irrecoverably and the whole train has to be rebooted, which can take up to 15 minutes. So when crossing from germany into belgium, then france, then uk and back again there would be a high chance that those trains would have to be rebooted somewhere along that track, and that would wreck havoc within the international train system.
maelito 11y ago
As a French, I wonder how British people judge their rail system in 2015
- pjc50 11y ago
  It's expensive, terrible, and frequently overcrowded, but at least it's not as outdated as it used to be.
  - 7952 11y ago
    If you avoid commuting long distances it isn't too bad in most places. Just because you can commute a long way doesn't mean you should.
- Chris_Newton 11y ago
  What standard(s) are you asking about here? Other modes of transport? Our rail system from 20 years ago? Similar services in other European nations? I’d say our rail system is probably significantly better than it was 20 years ago. For some journeys I would almost always choose rail travel while for others I would hardly even consider it, usually as a result of cost or timing — how direct a route you can choose and the convenience of the connections makes a huge difference in our system. As for comparisons with our European neighbours, there was some interesting discussion a week or so ago about how international rail within Europe works (or, sometimes, does not work yet). I added some comments there about a recent experience travelling between the UK and the Netherlands by train: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9631874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9631874 The short version is that international rail travel within continental Europe (well, Schengen really) seems to be much less hassle than travelling to or from the UK by train.
- david-given 11y ago
  It's crap. At least, in my opinion --- I live in Switzerland now, so my standards are... different. But, basically, overpriced, unreliable, dirty, and slow. The only places where the train system actually works well is the south-east of England, where it's horribly expensive. I used to live in Reading; a peak time day return into London, which is maybe half an hour a way, costs about £40. Bear in mind that I know perfectly well that Britain's rail network is amazing compared to, say, America or eastern Europe. But the local perception of it is that it's bad. (Not helped by several rounds of botched privatisation, too.) Incidentally, I'd love to know how to get from Ireland to Great Britain by train. Do they float?
r0naa 11y ago
I recently moved to Canada from Europe and one of the "cultural shock" were the difference in scale on the maps and what is commonly considered being "a short drive". I did a tour of the most active hackerspaces of Europe in six months while I was in high-school. It was a fantastic experience and it is the cheap cost of night trains that made it possible. Granted those were not super confortable but I do not regret the experience one bit.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- cosmolev 11y ago
  I would appreciate if you would list these most active hackerspaces of Europe!
Peroni 11y ago
I was confused as to why Ireland was showing up as accessible in these maps. Mainland Ireland isn't accessible by train from Europe. I found this excerpt in the original blog post which makes the concept slightly misleading: Any points on water were assigned a swimming rate of 100 minutes / kilometer in order to create dense contours at the coasts.
- Symbiote 11y ago
  You can buy through tickets from Great Britain to Ireland, there are stations adjacent to the passenger ferries.
  - Peroni 11y ago
    Right, but that requires spending at least three hours on a ferry, therefore contradicting the concept of the title.
    - jonemo 11y ago
      In Holyhead (ferry port in Wales with many daily connections to Dublin) you board the ferry from the end of the train station platform of the high speed rail. The slow ferry takes three hours, the express ferry takes 1.5 hours. When I was there in 2006 there were many direct trains from there to London Euston. The other option might be ferries that carry trains. I believe they don't do this across the Irish Sea, but I've been on a train that drives onto a ferry across the Baltic sea connecting Berlin and Malmo (Sweden). You can get off the train while on the ferry, but you don't have to.
      - Peroni 11y ago
        >...the express ferry takes 1.5 hours. I take this ferry every few months and it takes a minimum of 1hr 50mins on a good day. >The other option might be ferries that carry trains. Not between Ireland and England. My point is, I can get a train direct to any major airport in London and fly to a significant chunk of Europe in under 2hrs and continue my journey via train so why not factor in those options too?
timr 11y ago
You commonly hear that it's ridiculous for California to try to build a high-speed rail network, because people are "so far apart". But France -- a nation called out in this article for being well-connected by high-speed trains, is about the same vertical height as California. It's a bit wider. If you place the northern tip of France on the northern border of California, the southern tip of France lands just north of San Diego. We have about 40 million people; France has about 60 million. Japan (another country with great trains), is about the same vertical distance north/south as the west coast of the US. And while Japan's population is crammed into the coastline of an island nation where it's expensive to build, we have gobs of open space where it's comparatively cheap to run rail. There's simply no excuse. Sure, it doesn't make sense to try to make a high-speed train across the country, but we should have great regional rail systems in the US. The east/west coasts, in particular, should be corridors for rail -- if you can get from Kagoshima to Tokyo in 6 hours by Shinkansen, there's no reason you couldn't get from New York to Miami in the same amount of time.
- mahyarm 11y ago
  And California only needs a rail system for about half of it's length, most of the population is in it's bottom half on top of it.
- barney54 11y ago
  The question is why? Why should the U.S. spend billions on a great passenger rail system? High speed rail is almost always a serious money loser. What are the benefits? Japan and Europe's high speed rail is nice, but it hasn't necessarily resulted in a greater share of passengers taking rail. "Since Japan introduced high-speed bullet trains, passenger rail has lost more than half its market share to the automobile. Since Italy, France, and other European countries opened their high-speed rail lines, rail’s market share in Europe has dwindled from 8.2 to 5.8 percent of travel. If high-speed rail doesn’t work in Japan and Europe, how can it work in the United States?" http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/highspeed-rail-wrong-road-america http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/highspeed-r... And some environmentalist don't like it either. http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/california-high-speed-rail-waste-time-and-money http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/california-hi... Most people don't know that the U.S. has a great freight rail network. U.S. passenger rail obviously isn't great, but U.S. freight rail is the best in the world. http://business.time.com/2012/07/09/us-freight-railroads/ http://business.time.com/2012/07/09/us-freight-railroads/ I just don't know why the U.S. should build high speed rail, other than the fact that it is fun to ride.
ukandy 11y ago
A great benefit is you end up in the heart of a city, not at airfield 80 miles away. Lock your bag up in the station and explore. If you like your long railway journeys, Olso to Bergen is beautiful 7 hour trip.
- JacobAldridge 11y ago
  I'll second Oslo to Bergen. We did it in reverse, as part of the 'Norway in a Nutshell' itinerary which is about 12 hours (can be done over two days) because it replaces some of the rail journey with a fjord cruise, the Flam railway, and a mountain coach.
- barney54 11y ago
  And you can watch the entire 7 hour trip from Oslo here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7VYVjR_nwE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7VYVjR_nwE This is very relaxing to have on in the background.
  - hahainternet 11y ago
    That is very cool. I'm testing your theory now.
- _delirium 11y ago
  In Europe, the convenience/inconvenience of airport locations varies a ton (which does influence purchase choices somewhat). For example Frankfurt's airport is only 8 minutes by commuter rail from the city center, and Copenhagen's is 12 minutes. But Paris-CDG and London-LHR are far from their city centers.
  - rorykoehler 11y ago
    You still have to trek through the airport, wait in security lines etc etc. so in reality it takes much longer than the time it takes the train to travel from the airport to the city. That said flying is often if not nearly always cheaper for short hauls in Europe.
  - 11y ago
donpark 11y ago
Would love to see map of Europe reflecting distance by train, drawing countries with fast rail system smaller and those with slow rail system larger.
- mathgenius 11y ago
  Yeah, I'm also pondering different ways of visualizing this data.. I wonder if it is possible to distort the map of europe so that map distance actually corresponds to train travel time. I guess not in general, because of metric curvature: you could have a small (fast) triangle that surrounds a large (slow to access) area.
archagon 11y ago
I enjoy traveling by train, but it's a bit of a shame that it's often economically unwise to pick a train over a coach bus if you're sensitive at all about the price. Difference can be 3x or higher, though some countries are better than others. (Italy, the UK, and Eastern Europe have pretty cheap trains, I've found.) Rail passes seem to only make things better if you're travelling a bunch over a short period of time, not once every few weeks. Still, I'd much rather travel by coach than air!
- mattmanser 11y ago
  In the UK it's often cheaper and quicker to hire a car, so I'm not sure why you think UK trains are cheap?
  - archagon 11y ago
    Over the course of my trip in the UK, I traveled short-distance last-minute dozens of times, and trains were practically as cheap as coach about half the time, so long as you picked the correct departure time. This simply is not the case at all in mainland Europe. Dunno anything about car hiring, but the coach prices were certainly cheaper than the price of gas.
  - ubernostrum 11y ago
    For DjangoCon Europe this past week I flew into London, stayed a few days being touristy, went to the conference in Cardiff, then came back to London and am flying out (home to the US) in a few hours. I took a train to and from Cardiff. It was £22 each direction, roughly 2.5 hour trip from London Paddington to Cardiff Central, and the same in the opposite direction. I doubt very much I'd have been able to hire a car for that trip for £22 each way. In fact, I probably couldn't even have gotten out of London for £22.
    - Symbiote 11y ago
      In Britain, you pay a lot for peak-time travel, or last-minute travel. London to Cardiff and back is £218 at peak times(!) on a fully-flexible ticket, £74 with a flexible off-peak ticket, and as low as £40-ish (which you paid) if booked well in advance for particular trains. It would have cost about £50 in petrol (return) to drive, plus £40/day for a small rental car.
renaudg 11y ago
Some of the travel times quoted don't even do justice to reality ! “I was really surprised how well connected Paris is. Both London and the Mediterranean coast are less than four hours away,” The Mediterranean coast (Marseille) is actually just 3 hours away, and London to Paris a mere 2h15 on the Eurostar train, with stations conveniently located in the heart of each city. Almost nobody is masochistic enough to fly the London-Paris route, apart from people on connections or some American tourists who didn't do their research and fly by default. Also "Less than 8 hours" from Stockholm to Copenhagen is actually 5 hours IIRC, on comfy, clean trains with free Wi-Fi and AC power.
lucaspiller 11y ago
For anyone wondering why Eastern Europe is so badly connected, it's mainly because the Russian Empire used a different gauge to the rest of Europe: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gauge https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gauge In the Baltics there is an ongoing project to upgrade and switch to standard gauge, which will provide a direct link from Berlin to Helsinki (to start with via ferry, but a tunnel is planned). However a lot of trade done there is with Russia via rail, so it's beneficial for them to keep that as seamless as possible - switching passengers is one thing, cargo is another. Lithuania apparently transports 57% of goods by rail. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_Baltica https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_Baltica
- klodolph 11y ago
  The U.S. once switched rail gauge. Once preparations were complete, it took only three days for the entire southern U.S. to change from 5' to 4'9". http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1966/66-8/gauge.html http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1966/66-8/gauge.html
bane 11y ago
For sake of comparison, Europe vs. Contiguous U.S. https://mapfight.appspot.com/europe-vs-usc/europe-united-states-contiguous-size-comparison https://mapfight.appspot.com/europe-vs-usc/europe-united-sta... vs. All of the U.S. https://mapfight.appspot.com/europe-vs-us/europe-united-states-size-comparison https://mapfight.appspot.com/europe-vs-us/europe-united-stat... For fun, here's a similar-ish map for calculating travel time in the ancient Roman World. http://orbis.stanford.edu/ http://orbis.stanford.edu/
- Dewie3 11y ago
  Wow, I've never seen a map of the world before. /s
  - dang 11y ago
    Please keep comments substantive.
- Dewie3 11y ago
  Okay, take 2. What does the US overlayed over Europe have to do with the topic of rail travel in Europe?
  - bane 11y ago
    Arguments in the U.S. about rail often center on the vastness of the U.S. compared to individual European countries. However, Europe is about the same size as the U.S. (or bigger depending how you compare) and has generally better rail across the entire territory, this renders the argument fairly moot. Do you understand now?
    - Dewie3 11y ago
      I don't see any mention of the US in the article. Not any "why can't the US be like this", not "let's contrast Europe to America": nothing. I guess some people just want to guide any topic back to their own America. As opposed to another comment[1] which brings up the issue of rail in California. You just post some images which are comparisons -- according to what? Because I got the exact opposite impression of you intention -- that you meant to say "See, the US is crazy big so that is why we can't have nice things like fast rail!". Are we supposed to guess both the issue you are alluding to and your own stance on it from no introduction at all? Did you accidentally post your post as its own comment instead as a reply to another subthread? (On the matter that you are referring to -- Europe is pretty densely populated overall, except for places like the Nordic countries north of Denmark. One point in the US' favour is that it is a single country.) [1] A top comment. Of course...

171 points by Quanttek 11y ago

Cool graphics. Once you get used to the colour scheme, you really see how connected are various European cities.

For any non-Europeans looking to explore Europe by rail, I can highly recommend getting an Interrail ticket that gives you unlimited rail travel for various durations. For a reasonable price you can get a multi zone ticket that will let you explore most of Europe for a very reasonable price.

tonfa 11y ago
It is also nice for Europeans :-)
saryant 11y ago
Non-European citizens can't use Interrail. There's a similar product called Eurail but with the discounts available for advance-purchase tickets, the pass often doesn't make sense if you're traveling with a relatively specific itinerary and can plan ahead. The surcharges on the various high-speed trains really killed the cost-effectiveness of the Eurail pass. edit: There's a good overview of why the Eurail pass if often a bad option at Seat61: http://seat61.com/Railpass-and-Eurail-pass-guide.htm#Should http://seat61.com/Railpass-and-Eurail-pass-guide.htm#Should you buy a railpass or pay-as-you-go
- avz 11y ago
  > Non-European citizens can't use Interrail. Not true. You have to be a resident to use Interrail. So if you don't have a European passport, but live there, you can still use Interrail. Note also, "European" here means a lot more countries than the EU. Other eligible countries of residence include: Albania, Andorra, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, FYR Macedonia, Gibraltar, Iceland, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, Russian Federation, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and Vatican City. Source: http://www.interrail.eu/help/ordering-pass/do-i-need-interrail-or-eurail-pass http://www.interrail.eu/help/ordering-pass/do-i-need-interra...
  - codecamper 11y ago
    Whole lotta folk from San Marino! May as well mention sea land then.
- Coincoin 11y ago
  Actually, if you reserve well in advance the surcharges are much smaller, even on high speeds. But I agree, it's situational.
- nerfhammer 11y ago
  It's only cheaper if you take only the most expensive possible routes BUT, you can use it to get on any train in Europe even if only by confusing the local conductor with a complicated Eurail pass, even if it's fully reserved or not part of Eurail.
  - saryant 11y ago
    You can't just hop on any train anymore, that's the problem. Many high-speed routes require reservations and a surcharge. Those are also the trains most likely to have conductors who actually know the rules.
- monksy 11y ago
  Eurorail is a complete waste of money. The companies who sell it in the US are there to screw you over.
IshKebab 11y ago
Interrail is only really worth it if you are under 26. If you have to get the "Adult" price then you only save money if you travel very frequently on expensive routes (e.g. once ever 2-3 days). Also you have to deal with the hassle of using interrail - nobody knows how the hell it works, you can't book tickets online!, you have to pay supplements on many journeys but again nobody knows which ones and how much. Worth it if you're under 26 though because it is much cheaper.

Roritharr 11y ago

One of the real reasons why i love living in Frankfurt. I feel closer to all of Europe than everywhere else on the continent.

coldcode 11y ago
Having just been in England and Germany I must admit having trains to go everywhere is awesome.
allendoerfer 11y ago
To the world really, because we do not have to drive to Frankfurt first to use a proper airport. I look forward to the Frankfurt-London rail link operated by Deutsche Bahn. Strange times, when the UK thinks about moving away from the EU and staying alone on their little island like in the good old times and yet London is nearly as close to Frankfurt as Frankfurt is to Berlin.
- Roritharr 11y ago
  Actually i've recently had a chat with people from DB Strategy, they've said that the Frankfurt-London connection is now technically possible and has been tested, but the ICE that should be used on it has a lot of technical issues that push the chances of having technical issues on one trip to above 20%. That is a reason why they have pushed that connection off into the undisclosed future. He wasn't a technical person, but the way he described it was that everytime an ICE crosses a country border, it has to change the settings on how the train operates, to comply with local laws and standards. This is stuff like how rapidly it is supposed to brake, etc. He says that there is a 1 in 10 chance that when doing that "settings-swap" some part of the train software crashes irrecoverably and the whole train has to be rebooted, which can take up to 15 minutes. So when crossing from germany into belgium, then france, then uk and back again there would be a high chance that those trains would have to be rebooted somewhere along that track, and that would wreck havoc within the international train system.

maelito 11y ago

As a French, I wonder how British people judge their rail system in 2015

pjc50 11y ago
It's expensive, terrible, and frequently overcrowded, but at least it's not as outdated as it used to be.
- 7952 11y ago
  If you avoid commuting long distances it isn't too bad in most places. Just because you can commute a long way doesn't mean you should.
Chris_Newton 11y ago
What standard(s) are you asking about here? Other modes of transport? Our rail system from 20 years ago? Similar services in other European nations? I’d say our rail system is probably significantly better than it was 20 years ago. For some journeys I would almost always choose rail travel while for others I would hardly even consider it, usually as a result of cost or timing — how direct a route you can choose and the convenience of the connections makes a huge difference in our system. As for comparisons with our European neighbours, there was some interesting discussion a week or so ago about how international rail within Europe works (or, sometimes, does not work yet). I added some comments there about a recent experience travelling between the UK and the Netherlands by train: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9631874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9631874 The short version is that international rail travel within continental Europe (well, Schengen really) seems to be much less hassle than travelling to or from the UK by train.
david-given 11y ago
It's crap. At least, in my opinion --- I live in Switzerland now, so my standards are... different. But, basically, overpriced, unreliable, dirty, and slow. The only places where the train system actually works well is the south-east of England, where it's horribly expensive. I used to live in Reading; a peak time day return into London, which is maybe half an hour a way, costs about £40. Bear in mind that I know perfectly well that Britain's rail network is amazing compared to, say, America or eastern Europe. But the local perception of it is that it's bad. (Not helped by several rounds of botched privatisation, too.) Incidentally, I'd love to know how to get from Ireland to Great Britain by train. Do they float?

r0naa 11y ago

I recently moved to Canada from Europe and one of the "cultural shock" were the difference in scale on the maps and what is commonly considered being "a short drive". I did a tour of the most active hackerspaces of Europe in six months while I was in high-school. It was a fantastic experience and it is the cheap cost of night trains that made it possible. Granted those were not super confortable but I do not regret the experience one bit.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
cosmolev 11y ago
I would appreciate if you would list these most active hackerspaces of Europe!

Peroni 11y ago

I was confused as to why Ireland was showing up as accessible in these maps. Mainland Ireland isn't accessible by train from Europe. I found this excerpt in the original blog post which makes the concept slightly misleading: Any points on water were assigned a swimming rate of 100 minutes / kilometer in order to create dense contours at the coasts.

Symbiote 11y ago
You can buy through tickets from Great Britain to Ireland, there are stations adjacent to the passenger ferries.
- Peroni 11y ago
  Right, but that requires spending at least three hours on a ferry, therefore contradicting the concept of the title.
  - jonemo 11y ago
    In Holyhead (ferry port in Wales with many daily connections to Dublin) you board the ferry from the end of the train station platform of the high speed rail. The slow ferry takes three hours, the express ferry takes 1.5 hours. When I was there in 2006 there were many direct trains from there to London Euston. The other option might be ferries that carry trains. I believe they don't do this across the Irish Sea, but I've been on a train that drives onto a ferry across the Baltic sea connecting Berlin and Malmo (Sweden). You can get off the train while on the ferry, but you don't have to.
    - Peroni 11y ago
      >...the express ferry takes 1.5 hours. I take this ferry every few months and it takes a minimum of 1hr 50mins on a good day. >The other option might be ferries that carry trains. Not between Ireland and England. My point is, I can get a train direct to any major airport in London and fly to a significant chunk of Europe in under 2hrs and continue my journey via train so why not factor in those options too?

timr 11y ago

You commonly hear that it's ridiculous for California to try to build a high-speed rail network, because people are "so far apart". But France -- a nation called out in this article for being well-connected by high-speed trains, is about the same vertical height as California. It's a bit wider. If you place the northern tip of France on the northern border of California, the southern tip of France lands just north of San Diego. We have about 40 million people; France has about 60 million. Japan (another country with great trains), is about the same vertical distance north/south as the west coast of the US. And while Japan's population is crammed into the coastline of an island nation where it's expensive to build, we have gobs of open space where it's comparatively cheap to run rail. There's simply no excuse. Sure, it doesn't make sense to try to make a high-speed train across the country, but we should have great regional rail systems in the US. The east/west coasts, in particular, should be corridors for rail -- if you can get from Kagoshima to Tokyo in 6 hours by Shinkansen, there's no reason you couldn't get from New York to Miami in the same amount of time.

mahyarm 11y ago
And California only needs a rail system for about half of it's length, most of the population is in it's bottom half on top of it.
barney54 11y ago
The question is why? Why should the U.S. spend billions on a great passenger rail system? High speed rail is almost always a serious money loser. What are the benefits? Japan and Europe's high speed rail is nice, but it hasn't necessarily resulted in a greater share of passengers taking rail. "Since Japan introduced high-speed bullet trains, passenger rail has lost more than half its market share to the automobile. Since Italy, France, and other European countries opened their high-speed rail lines, rail’s market share in Europe has dwindled from 8.2 to 5.8 percent of travel. If high-speed rail doesn’t work in Japan and Europe, how can it work in the United States?" http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/highspeed-rail-wrong-road-america http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/highspeed-r... And some environmentalist don't like it either. http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/california-high-speed-rail-waste-time-and-money http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/california-hi... Most people don't know that the U.S. has a great freight rail network. U.S. passenger rail obviously isn't great, but U.S. freight rail is the best in the world. http://business.time.com/2012/07/09/us-freight-railroads/ http://business.time.com/2012/07/09/us-freight-railroads/ I just don't know why the U.S. should build high speed rail, other than the fact that it is fun to ride.

ukandy 11y ago

A great benefit is you end up in the heart of a city, not at airfield 80 miles away. Lock your bag up in the station and explore. If you like your long railway journeys, Olso to Bergen is beautiful 7 hour trip.

JacobAldridge 11y ago
I'll second Oslo to Bergen. We did it in reverse, as part of the 'Norway in a Nutshell' itinerary which is about 12 hours (can be done over two days) because it replaces some of the rail journey with a fjord cruise, the Flam railway, and a mountain coach.
barney54 11y ago
And you can watch the entire 7 hour trip from Oslo here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7VYVjR_nwE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7VYVjR_nwE This is very relaxing to have on in the background.
- hahainternet 11y ago
  That is very cool. I'm testing your theory now.
_delirium 11y ago
In Europe, the convenience/inconvenience of airport locations varies a ton (which does influence purchase choices somewhat). For example Frankfurt's airport is only 8 minutes by commuter rail from the city center, and Copenhagen's is 12 minutes. But Paris-CDG and London-LHR are far from their city centers.
- rorykoehler 11y ago
  You still have to trek through the airport, wait in security lines etc etc. so in reality it takes much longer than the time it takes the train to travel from the airport to the city. That said flying is often if not nearly always cheaper for short hauls in Europe.
- 11y ago

donpark 11y ago

Would love to see map of Europe reflecting distance by train, drawing countries with fast rail system smaller and those with slow rail system larger.

mathgenius 11y ago
Yeah, I'm also pondering different ways of visualizing this data.. I wonder if it is possible to distort the map of europe so that map distance actually corresponds to train travel time. I guess not in general, because of metric curvature: you could have a small (fast) triangle that surrounds a large (slow to access) area.

archagon 11y ago

I enjoy traveling by train, but it's a bit of a shame that it's often economically unwise to pick a train over a coach bus if you're sensitive at all about the price. Difference can be 3x or higher, though some countries are better than others. (Italy, the UK, and Eastern Europe have pretty cheap trains, I've found.) Rail passes seem to only make things better if you're travelling a bunch over a short period of time, not once every few weeks. Still, I'd much rather travel by coach than air!

mattmanser 11y ago
In the UK it's often cheaper and quicker to hire a car, so I'm not sure why you think UK trains are cheap?
- archagon 11y ago
  Over the course of my trip in the UK, I traveled short-distance last-minute dozens of times, and trains were practically as cheap as coach about half the time, so long as you picked the correct departure time. This simply is not the case at all in mainland Europe. Dunno anything about car hiring, but the coach prices were certainly cheaper than the price of gas.
- ubernostrum 11y ago
  For DjangoCon Europe this past week I flew into London, stayed a few days being touristy, went to the conference in Cardiff, then came back to London and am flying out (home to the US) in a few hours. I took a train to and from Cardiff. It was £22 each direction, roughly 2.5 hour trip from London Paddington to Cardiff Central, and the same in the opposite direction. I doubt very much I'd have been able to hire a car for that trip for £22 each way. In fact, I probably couldn't even have gotten out of London for £22.
  - Symbiote 11y ago
    In Britain, you pay a lot for peak-time travel, or last-minute travel. London to Cardiff and back is £218 at peak times(!) on a fully-flexible ticket, £74 with a flexible off-peak ticket, and as low as £40-ish (which you paid) if booked well in advance for particular trains. It would have cost about £50 in petrol (return) to drive, plus £40/day for a small rental car.

renaudg 11y ago

Some of the travel times quoted don't even do justice to reality ! “I was really surprised how well connected Paris is. Both London and the Mediterranean coast are less than four hours away,” The Mediterranean coast (Marseille) is actually just 3 hours away, and London to Paris a mere 2h15 on the Eurostar train, with stations conveniently located in the heart of each city. Almost nobody is masochistic enough to fly the London-Paris route, apart from people on connections or some American tourists who didn't do their research and fly by default. Also "Less than 8 hours" from Stockholm to Copenhagen is actually 5 hours IIRC, on comfy, clean trains with free Wi-Fi and AC power.

lucaspiller 11y ago

For anyone wondering why Eastern Europe is so badly connected, it's mainly because the Russian Empire used a different gauge to the rest of Europe: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gauge https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gauge In the Baltics there is an ongoing project to upgrade and switch to standard gauge, which will provide a direct link from Berlin to Helsinki (to start with via ferry, but a tunnel is planned). However a lot of trade done there is with Russia via rail, so it's beneficial for them to keep that as seamless as possible - switching passengers is one thing, cargo is another. Lithuania apparently transports 57% of goods by rail. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_Baltica https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_Baltica

klodolph 11y ago
The U.S. once switched rail gauge. Once preparations were complete, it took only three days for the entire southern U.S. to change from 5' to 4'9". http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1966/66-8/gauge.html http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1966/66-8/gauge.html

bane 11y ago

For sake of comparison, Europe vs. Contiguous U.S. https://mapfight.appspot.com/europe-vs-usc/europe-united-states-contiguous-size-comparison https://mapfight.appspot.com/europe-vs-usc/europe-united-sta... vs. All of the U.S. https://mapfight.appspot.com/europe-vs-us/europe-united-states-size-comparison https://mapfight.appspot.com/europe-vs-us/europe-united-stat... For fun, here's a similar-ish map for calculating travel time in the ancient Roman World. http://orbis.stanford.edu/ http://orbis.stanford.edu/

Dewie3 11y ago
Wow, I've never seen a map of the world before. /s
- dang 11y ago
  Please keep comments substantive.
Dewie3 11y ago
Okay, take 2. What does the US overlayed over Europe have to do with the topic of rail travel in Europe?
- bane 11y ago
  Arguments in the U.S. about rail often center on the vastness of the U.S. compared to individual European countries. However, Europe is about the same size as the U.S. (or bigger depending how you compare) and has generally better rail across the entire territory, this renders the argument fairly moot. Do you understand now?
  - Dewie3 11y ago
    I don't see any mention of the US in the article. Not any "why can't the US be like this", not "let's contrast Europe to America": nothing. I guess some people just want to guide any topic back to their own America. As opposed to another comment[1] which brings up the issue of rail in California. You just post some images which are comparisons -- according to what? Because I got the exact opposite impression of you intention -- that you meant to say "See, the US is crazy big so that is why we can't have nice things like fast rail!". Are we supposed to guess both the issue you are alluding to and your own stance on it from no introduction at all? Did you accidentally post your post as its own comment instead as a reply to another subthread? (On the matter that you are referring to -- Europe is pretty densely populated overall, except for places like the Nordic countries north of Denmark. One point in the US' favour is that it is a single country.) [1] A top comment. Of course...