Those sound good on paper but then reality hits you. Last summer we as a family decided to take a night train to reach our vacation destination.
What should have been 6-7 hour car drive was ~12 hour train ride. Sleep was not great, getting to and out of train stations, herding two small kids etc so at the time we've reached our destination we were pretty tired. Much more tired if we just drove.
The route back is where things went south. One of the beds in our cabin fell apart. Then there was some sort of the outage en route back so the train had to skip our station and we landed almost 150km away from our home.
Train company was trying to get us on the bus or train to get us back home but there were no free seats so it looked like we were to spend a night there. In the we've decided to take cab back home. We should have been back home ~10 in the morning. When we got home it was close to 6pm.
On top of that bathrooms were super dirty and there was no running water in the sinks.
We've paid ~700 euros for both ways and additional ~150 euros for the cab. If we just drove the whole round-trip would have cost us under 100 euros including lunch on our way there and back.
I just don't see this as an alternative to driving or flying in Europe — they are too expensive and the level of comfort they offer for the price is just horrible. Even if everything went according to the plan and our route back was without any hiccups driving would have been much more convenient.
Maybe it's not convenient for a whole family but more for solo travelers. A car with one traveller is an absolute waste. And instead is more convenient to travel by train
I went from London to Barcelona and back by train. On the way down, a sleeper from Paris to somewhere like Perpignan, then a morning express from Perpignan to Barcelona, and on the way back, daytime TGV from Barcelona to Paris.
The return leg was far better.
Getting the sleeper train means hanging around in some dingy third-rate terminal waiting for it to leave. I didn't really sleep on the train, because even though they run it slowly, it's still pretty loud and bumpy. I shared a cabin with a well-behaved friend, so i wasn't even mixed in with strangers. Changing trains in rush hour was not fun. In the end, it took me long enough to recover in Barcelona that i could have stayed over in Paris, got a TGV that morning and not been far behind.
Whereas the TGV back was a TGV. Comfortable, nice scenery to look at, decent bar for a train.
If you sleep more heavily than i do, or if there is some real value in being at your destination earlier in the day, a sleeper might be a good choice. But in the age of high-speed rail, i don't think it makes much sense.
I can't remember the price i'm afraid, and i think the return leg was six hours from Barcelona to Paris. I then spent an evening and a night in Paris before going back to London, because why wouldn't you?
A car gets you where you want at the time you want. Whereas a train gets you close to where you want to go at some time.
So better depends on what's more important to you. If you take a look at ecology, sure, trains are far better than a 1 person in a car. If you look at flexibility, cars are far more better.
I think that oversimplifies it a bit. I traveled to enough places in Europe where either there are no close renting stations or cabs are way to expensive. Think Switzerland.
Depends on how you define better. I don't mind planes but I hate the process of getting off and on a plane. There is no single best mode of transport. There are so many variables involved. Price, time, proximity, personal preferences,..
Trains are as close as you can get to frictionless travel. (Getting to space and back still means traveling through all that atmosphere at insanely high velocities.) That alone determines huge energy, and, by extension, carbon emissions, savings.
When flying accross europe, you spend so much more time in the terminals and going in and out of the airports you need to sometimes double or triple the time of the actual flight to get to your destination. This + the usual extorsion to buy drinks and a meal in and off the plane + potential need for a uber/taxi. It soon becomes less appealing, even more so when you can't get a direct flight.
With a full car, the environmental and certainly economic argument for the train is gone.
I have used about 5 night trains in recent years. I don't sleep very well, unlike my Russian colleague who grew up with this, but they have all been more or less on time.
With how things change in EU (i.e. combustion engine ban after 2035), driving for seven hours does not look to be an option for long. At some point the airliners may have to take more drastic emission curbing measures too, so in the long run, despite its inconveniences, the electrified rail may become the only real travel option for masses out there.
So far it’s only an agreement that needs to make its way into legislation of all other member states.
To approach this from a different angle — we have a euro7 norm that has been brewing for quite some time now and we still failed to come to an agreement. And there are talks now that the norm should also include production of EVs, electricity production and pollution from degrading brakes and tyres. Which is again stalling it even further.
So the reality might be that 2035 ban will be pushed further into the future as the date comes closer.
It's a ban of sale of new vehicles, not usage nor second-hand sale. If the economics of BEVs don't significantly change we're going to be using ICE vehicles at least 15-20 years after the ban (this is normal age of vehicles here - I myself drive a 19 years old car).
TGVs don't do night trains though. There's a few night trains in France, mostly Perpignan -> Toulouse -> Paris. They're mostly a nice for people who want to be at work in Paris early and don't want to take a plane, because the Bordeaux -> Toulouse LGV does not exists.
Yeah I don't get it either why up to this point they did not fix it? For company of such size it will take almost nothing to get rid of flash there and replace it with JS
What should have been 6-7 hour car drive was ~12 hour train ride. Sleep was not great, getting to and out of train stations, herding two small kids etc so at the time we've reached our destination we were pretty tired. Much more tired if we just drove.
The route back is where things went south. One of the beds in our cabin fell apart. Then there was some sort of the outage en route back so the train had to skip our station and we landed almost 150km away from our home.
Train company was trying to get us on the bus or train to get us back home but there were no free seats so it looked like we were to spend a night there. In the we've decided to take cab back home. We should have been back home ~10 in the morning. When we got home it was close to 6pm.
On top of that bathrooms were super dirty and there was no running water in the sinks.
We've paid ~700 euros for both ways and additional ~150 euros for the cab. If we just drove the whole round-trip would have cost us under 100 euros including lunch on our way there and back.
I just don't see this as an alternative to driving or flying in Europe — they are too expensive and the level of comfort they offer for the price is just horrible. Even if everything went according to the plan and our route back was without any hiccups driving would have been much more convenient.