But only inside the Netherlands, I only know a few commuters in my circles who go by train; the rest drive a car, noting inconvenience (train then tram instead of door to door) and, more so, high prices as reason.

Are you suggesting that Germans and French don't enjoy a good complaint?

Nowadays, the backlog in maintenance seems to be sorted out and things run generally well again. Although I still plan a half hour safety margin when traveling to schiphol airport by train.

Sure, there might be room for improvement in some areas, but Dutch trains are the third most punctual in the world, after Japan and Switzerland: https://www.railtech.com/policy/2019/01/03/dutch-passenger-t...

Dutch rail infra was designed as a commuter network, and it shows.

A large part of the comfort factor is that a direct train takes me from city center to city center, while a "direct" flight requires me to first get to the airport, then navigate the airport, then get from the destination airport to the city. That not only easily adds at least 2 hours to the trip (30 min x 2 spent getting to/from the airport, 30 minutes to get through the airport/security in the best case, 30 minutes to be there at the boarding time), you also spend at least half of the time actively having to do something.

A 4 hour train vs. a 1 hour flight? The flight shaves off one hour of wall-clock time at best, at the cost of being a lot more hassle. But you don't think about this when booking, nor about the luggage surcharge etc. You see "4:00" vs. "1:07" and "$99" vs. "$29".

2 adults from Valencia to Madrid and with return for 70€ at a max speed of 300km/h.

We should also take in consideration that planes are cheap because they have become the main mean of transport for long distances for the last decades.

I can't see why we couldn't do this with trains. Invest in infrastructure and use it as much as we can.

I wouldn't call that slow. Not as fast as a plane but it's not slow at all.

I tried to find something equivalent in Europe to compare, maybe Frankfurt to Berlin? Google Maps is showing that as 4h16 by ICE over 549 km, for an average speed of 128 km/h.

Maybe the inefficiencies can be eliminated and the European trains can get closer to 200 km/h average speed?

Ah, I took the ICE from Frankfurt to Berlin last year on a last minute ticket. A bunch of things come to mind. In no particular order:

- Tokyo - Kyoto is pretty much the premier Shinkansen line. Is Frankfurt - Berlin considered the same?

- I was pretty underwhelmed with the overall comfort on the ICE trip (slightly less than Amtrak's Acela). The Shinkansen (well, at least Tokyo - Kansai Region) is really on a whole other level.

- A last minute ICE ticket Frankfurt - Berlin was fairly expensive (> $100 if memory serves), I didn't price advance tickets. Berlin - Amsterdam tho got dramatically cheaper the further out you booked your ticket.

- Spain's Barcelona - Madrid train has regularly raised its peak speed (now at 310 kph) and if my calculations from the Wikipedia page are correct RENFE completes the 621 km trip in 2.5 hours (about 250 kph average).

- Amsterdam Centraal is perhaps one of the most obnoxious stations I've had to navigate. Every Dutch resident I've talked with has complained about the punctuality followed by complaining about how unnecessarily unintuitive the fares are.

Germany still has a fair amount of diesel service and a ton of legacy infrastructure. Spain is basically converting all of their non-standard gauge rail to a more common gauge and rolling out a ton of high speed service. I've only done relatively short trips (Madrid - Toledo) versus a variety of longer distance trips in Germany.

Stop counts are always a difficult balance for longer routes: They slow the trains down, increasing end-to-end travel time, but provide connections to more people and regions.

Also they are much more expensive. Which makes sense as tech itself is legacy. The cost of maintaining, lack of competition (especially with buses) is killing them.

Honestly I don't see how we can't replace trains with electric buses...

Also, personally, I prefer trains even just for the fact I have not to lose 2 extra uncomfortable hours between checkin and security checks.

I used to travel Southampton to London a lot (that's like 150km or so). IIRC renting a car used to be cheaper.

Either way the train is far faster.

I've once missed my train in UK. Next one was something like 120 pounds vs 8 pounds for bus. I think it's the last time I've ever took bus.

IMHO difference in price should start to increase as electric bus TCO is already lower than diesel. The difference in XP should increase as less noise and pollution is added. Plus adding premium seats, air suspension would make a massive difference.

https://www.express.co.uk/travel/articles/816431/Ryanair-fli...

Oh geez. Even with our pretty crappy trains in Australia, I'd still take a train every time. Trains are faster, offer much smoother rides and are much more efficient than busses.

I suspect you've never taken a train, or a bus.