More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights

Re:More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights by tluyben2 on Saturday February 15, 2020 @07:30AM (#22334863)

Depends on what distances you are travelling I suppose; the prices for longer travel are, imho, very high and sure it is comfy but compared to a plane? Planes are cheaper and much faster. At the same price I think many would still take the plane. If trains were vastly cheaper, then maybe it would change a lot.

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.

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Re:More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights by bnt on Saturday February 15, 2020 @07:34AM (#22334884)

Also, trains in the Netherlands are highly unreliable with regular unplanned shutdowns (due to natural factors like heavy rain or human factors like high suicide rates by jumping infront of trains). Also, commuters tend to be too comfortable (taking off their shoes, talking loudly on the phone or messy eating).

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Re:More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights by Carpetsmoker on Saturday February 15, 2020 @07:44AM (#22334955)

Internationally speaking, trains in Netherlands are pretty good IMO. Dutch people love to complain about it because we're sticklers for being on time, but if you compare internationally Dutch trains really aren't so bad.

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Re:More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights by inferiorhuman on Saturday February 15, 2020 @07:24PM (#22339005)

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

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Re:More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights by himlion on Saturday February 15, 2020 @07:45AM (#22334958)

Dutch trains are actually highly punctual, especially when you consider how many people they are transporting.

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Re:More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights by Fronzie on Saturday February 15, 2020 @07:46AM (#22334966)

In the one or two decades after privatizing the formerly state-owned passenger service things were bad.

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.

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Re:More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights by Jaxan on Saturday February 15, 2020 @07:53AM (#22335012)

I recently moved to Germany. And I really miss the Dutch trains. They are so much more in time than here in Germany.

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Re:More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights by DeusExMachina on Saturday February 15, 2020 @07:39AM (#22334926)

Man, I come from Italy and I have been living in Amsterdam for ten years now and I can assure you that the "unreliability" of Dutch trains is nothing compared to the constant huge delays and cancellations of Italian railways.

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...

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Re:More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights by mmcnl on Saturday February 15, 2020 @03:07PM (#22337619)

Your statement is false. The Dutch railway system is of extremely high quality and is very punctional.

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Re:More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights by brnt on Saturday February 15, 2020 @09:00AM (#22335322)

The Netherlands had the highest ticket price in the EU. When I lived in France I'd take a TGV on a regular basis but in NL train are not fast, don't go far (connections abroad are bad except to or through Brussels) and very expensive.

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

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Re:More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights by tluyben2 on Wednesday February 19, 2020 @09:29AM (#22365659)

So we are doing anecdotals or is that real data? UK as worst example I have seen but with many countries in Asia having by the second average times, NL is, for such an organised tiny shithole (I am dutch, born and raised and dutch genes going back to at least 1560 if that makes a difference) it is quite horrible really; you would expect much better for such bit mouths. I take and took the utrecht amsterdam train daily and it is delayed or cancelled a lot. I would expect 99.9999999999999999999 uptime for a country the size as my shoe. And it ain’t.

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Re:More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights by tgsovlerkhgsel on Saturday February 15, 2020 @09:04AM (#22335354)

> sure it is comfy but compared to a plane

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".

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Re:More emphasis on trains in Europe to replace flights by tluyben2 on Tuesday February 18, 2020 @07:04AM (#22355323)

I travel enough to not be confused when booking :) And sure for 3-4 hrs I would (and do) take the train, but when the hours go up (over 5 hr say), trains are not so good. When you are a frequent business traveler, you pack differently as well; no luggage surcharge, no waiting in line (priority because of points), free food/drink in lounges. For frequent larger distance travel, trains are a very poor alternative at the moment. Still, I would take them (usually, if not in a hurry which is usually not the case) if they were much cheaper (they are almost always more expensive at 5+ hr distance on the routes I frequent), but that's also not the case...

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