What you mean with expensive here? From the point of view of somebody who comutes daily, there is by far nothing cheaper than the 49 euro German ticket, similarly the Austrian climate ticket...

On commute distances with a monthly ticket, train has been competitive for a while, but longer distances are tough, especially if you’re multiple people.

As a student I used the Interrail ticket to travel all over europe on a shoestring budget.

Also there are plenty of offerings, which let you travel larger distances for a low price (e.g., ÖBB Sparschiene 29 eur vienna to amsterdam), you have to book it some time in advance though, similarly to flying...

Interrail is great - we spent 3 month last year seeing all of Europe. But it doesn’t include your country of residence, so visiting the parents on the other side of the state is not an option. And traveling with the cheap tickets and kids is hard - if you miss the train (which just happens with kids) the ticket is void. The ticket is not refundable if plans change. All of these downsides that a car doesn’t have (I still prefer train, but we can afford it). And for longer distances, train becomes hard - we’ve been to Mallorca by train and ferry, but it takes a few days instead of a few hours. And it’s substantially more expensive on top.

daily commute is a fairly different story. Night trains are about mid-range distances (say ~500 km) where you might also cross country borders.

Quite a bit further than 500 km; think 600 km (Amsterdam–Berlin) to 1000 km (Amsterdam–Wien). And that is leaving out the additional distance one might travel onwards or towards the night train's stations.

indeed longer distances are within the broader proposition of a night train network. leaving earlier in the evening and arriving before noon almost doubles the distance. though this comes at the expense of a shorter day.

now about that shift key... I think I read somewhere that capitalization is a relatively recent invention (like after 1000 AD). people used to do all caps and then they invented all lower case and then somebody had the idea of complicating things by mixing the two :-)

>what could be more pleasant than being able to criss-cross Europe in night trains that are affordable, comfortable and sustainable?

Doing it by plane at a fraction of the time and cost.

For the distances where night trains are feasible "a fraction of time" is not really true if you take into account the time costs associated with air travel:

* airports are usually far at the outskirts of a capital (45m travel there)

* you need to get to the airport 2h before to checking-in/passport control, etc.

* you need to wait to pick up your baggage (30m)

* travel into the city again (45m)

Not to mention the stress and high friction of every step of this journey, opposite to going to the main train station, which usually is pretty central, getting in the train, and sleeping the full night in a decent cot.

Drinking water. But you can buy 500mg of water for 5 Euros of course, right? Traveling as a family with with children, and when your departure is delayed, you can spend quite a bit just to stay hydrated.

Fortunately, many airports have taps with drinking water available. I don't understand why not all (e.g. no drinking tap & warm water only is available on the toilets), it feels like a conspiracy by the 5-Euros-water sellers.

The cost of flying is externalized on the environment; time can vary depending on actual distance, after you consider getting to/from the airport, or the last 100km to your destination. I think the two options are fairly competitive with one another.

The cost of trains are externalized on the taxpayer. If air travel received the same level of subsidies as rail, it would be essentially free of charge.

I'd rather pay the taxes this year, than have us continue digging ourselves into our environmental debt hole. Money is fungible, climate change isn't.

The interesting thing is that it that night trains can be quicker if you consider the waking. e.g. Zurich to Berlin - the train leaves at 8pm and gets in at 7am. So it is 2-3 waking hours spent.

(Does of course depend on how well you sleep on trains)

Copenhagen to Berlin overnight. You go to bed in the train around midnight and wake up in Berlin around 8 or 9. Nothing can be more convenient.

It's too close of a distance for a night train. It should take maybe three hours on properly developed railways that do not go around.

It has to go around because there's water in the way no?

At a fraction of the cost because air travel doesn't pay it's real costs in terms of environmental damage (or even taxes...).

Air travel is cheaper in part because it is subsidized [1].

Nothing wrong with optimizing for cost - if all externalities are properly priced. Otherwise its just egotistical behavior (don't mess with my habits) that passes as "common sense".

[1] https://www.transportenvironment.org/challenges/planes/subsi...

Train is also subsidized. In fact, while air transport benefits from tax exemption, train receives substantial infrastructure subsidy. The following report puts rail subsidy to be around 75B EUR, whereas air within 27B to 35B. The study is from 2007, but I doubt it has changed much.

https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/technical_report_2007...

Very informative report. But as per its conclusion: "subsidies could be justified to balance the existence of external costs of competing modes, e.g. when an internalisation of the externality, for whatever reason, encounters strong political opposition from vested interests. This applies to some of the subsidies for public transport, especially rail, since its competing modes, particularly road and air, have significantly higher external costs".

In other words, it makes sense to subsidize rail, it doesn't make sense to subsidize modes with higher externalities.

It may very well be that rail subsidy makes sense and air subsidy doesn't. I'm not arguing for or against it. The original question pertains to why air ticket is cheaper than train. You and a number of posters here attributed that to subsidy, and I just wanted to point out that rail transport in Europe receives even larger subsidy than air transport.

There are many factors affecting pricing, for example occupancy rate. Load factor of aircrafts are in the 80 percentage - [0], whereas it's often under 60% for long distance Deutsche Bahn's trains in Germany - [1]

Another possibility is that train operators are often state owned and therefore face less competition and are less efficient than airliners, who are used to operate in a cutthroat environment.

Note that I don't claim either of the above cause train's pricing disadvantage, merely they are factors to consider. OTOTH attributing pricing advantage to subsidy is a lazy take of a complex issue.

[0] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/658830/passenger-load-fa...

[1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/654973/long-distance-tra...

7% of orbital altitude is not near-orbital.

Its a nice thought though. Every time I fly I am amazed how quickly this mode of travel has been trivialized in peoples minds. Barely anyone even looks outside the window...

I am pretty sure that if we ever invent wormhole travel and reach the outer limits of the universe, in a few generations Homo Sapiens will think thats just the most mundane thing :-)

> lifting half of the continent's population into near-orbital trajectory for its annual "sun vacation" migration just because it can be done and is "cheap" might come to be seen as a prime example of how human economics can float far away from any reality.

Ah. A neo luddite wishing misery and reduction in agency.

But it's not a cult right?

It's interesting to me how you lob the words 'luddite' and 'wishing misery' at the most basic suggestion of moderation of abstinence from trips to Spain (or equivalent). I shudder at what words you must surely reserve for those that systemically privatize food, water, and shelter - things we actually need to survive.

And yet the author failed to explain how self flagellation and abstinence from proscribed behaviour will change anything

Again with the dramatics. I'm sorry you feel that abstaining from some modern luxuries is 'self flagellation'. I recommend you travel some more.

Your point is moot anyway because I wasn't arguing GP's point, I was saying that your reaction is disproportionate to the measures suggested.

The luddites had a good point.

Ah. Somebody calling names, with zero conscience and sense of responsibility about their behavior and impact on others. FYI your "agency" ends when your inane and largely arbitrary consumerist habits destroy my living space. Capiche?

How does air travel interfere with your "living space"?

Given that I have yearly subscription for trains they are essentially free per use for me. Hard to beat.

Night trains are already competitively priced in parts of Europe if you factor in the hotel night you save. Take Amsterdam to Innsbruck:

Travel 1000 km by car, and you arrive late at night, exhausted, go to sleep at your accommodation, and get up in the morning for the start of your itinerary. Don't forget to factor in the costs of wear-and-tear on your car for those 1000 km.

Take a night train, and you get to leave much later in the day, but end up at the same point as the car example above, but the cost of the night's accommodation (the train) was already part of your ticket.

Same for the return journey.

The current market situation is not perfect — this only works for places within reach of the night train network by a few hours of additional transit at most — but night trains are gradually becoming an attractive option for more and more people in Europe. ÖBB took a gamble a decade or so ago by taking over the DB night train lines, and they are now the market leader with a fairly good track record.

Night trains form the backbone of my holidays further a field in Europe. It's only getting better.

Your shift-key is broken by the way.

Unfortunately I think sleeper trains have limited potential. Trains can be faster, more comfortable and more convenient than the alternatives. But sleeper trains are often slower than other trains, they aren't comfortable enough that sleeping in a hotel room wouldn't be much better and often they are more inconvenient since they have to leave and arrive at certain hours.

The reality is that you don't fly to Asia because it's cheap, at least not the ticket, but because many cities in Europe are expensive or dead, or both.

Sadly commercial aviation fuel is currently tax exempt in the EU while the railroad companies do have to pay taxes for the fuel and energy.

If aviation fuel was taxed at 100%, the ticket prices would only go up 20%. This alone would not make trains significantly more competitive.

Generally speaking, though, it doesn’t make sense to compare subsidies and taxes individually. Both planes and trains are already heavily subsidized, and if you removed all subsidies and taxes, I suspect planes would win handily.

> if you removed all subsidies and taxes, I suspect planes would win handily

Until all transport is long-term sustainable in terms of environmental impact the cost calculus is messed up. Check out carbon footprint ranking of different modes [1].

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint

Hm, I wonder if the Eurostar to Paris includes the emissions caused by digging the tunnel.