Train vs Plane

[Chiltern006]

I would much rather pay to fly Loganair between Exeter and Edinburgh with a guaranteed seat, free coffee and tunnocks wafer than travel (suffer?) Crosscountry

 

[Domeyhead]

I haven't checked this but is the TGV fare the turn up and go price, and the airline price is the advance price? The media love telling their readers how cheap flying is by finding some advance fare of £60 or whatever, and comparing it to the on-station price quoted on National Rail or wherever. AS other have pointed out, all the ancillary costs and headaches of flyng are conveniently overlooked in many of these comparisons. Personally I'm happy to pay a little extra not to breathe in the flatus of a hundred and fifty obese passengers for an hour or two.

 

[Bald Rick]

Think I managed my “arrival record” (so far) at Nuremberg - arrival at the Hbf less than 10 minutes after the scheduled arrival time of my flight. Second best is Bristol - sitting on the A4 bus within 10 mins of scheduled arrival - unfortunately the bus didn’t leave for another 30 minutes.

I’ve done seat on plane to taxi at Glasgow in 4 minutes (domestic from Luton), and seat on plane to standing on station platform at Southend in 5 (international from AMS).

I’ll admit the former included running as I was late for a conference thanks to a late departure from Luton. Nevertheless I did seat of the A319 to seat in the conference in the city centre (next to Chris Green, name dropper) in 27 mins. I reckon my Luton gate to Glasgow venue arrival was well under 2hours. Shame about the 2 hours at Luton beforehand.

 

[Krokodil]

We had a VERY bad experience travelling to Germany by train.

Deutsche Bahn is in a league of its own.

 

[Howardh]

I personally prefer train. Aside from being more interesting in terms of views, and feeling faster, I find it less stressful, tiring, and anxiety inducing. There’s also the environmental impact too. I don’t travel internationally that much, and I’d fly if I need to, but defo train on top.

The problem with air travel is all the hassle and palava that comes with it; the queues for security, the hassle if they need to check your bag, you have to be there a lot earlier for your flight than a train, then you could be stood at a gate for 30mins +; and then if your bag won't fit...

Of course once on the plane you get to your destination quickly! So within the UK the train usually wins, however for short trips across the channel I assume the same palava (security. passport etc) takes place at St Pancras, adding, what, and hour+ to your 2.5hr journey to Paris/Brussel, so might as well take the plane!

 

[Tetragon213]

I would much rather pay to fly Loganair between Exeter and Edinburgh with a guaranteed seat, free coffee and tunnocks wafer than travel (suffer?) Crosscountry

ClownCountry is indeed a fate I would not wish on my worst enemy. Even a seat right next to the props on a Dash-8 would be preferable to standing all the way from Exeter to Edinburgh in a toilet-stinking Voyager!

The problem with air travel is all the hassle and palava that comes with it; the queues for security, the hassle if they need to check your bag, you have to be there a lot earlier for your flight than a train, then you could be stood at a gate for 30mins +; and then if your bag won't fit...

Of course once on the plane you get to your destination quickly! So within the UK the train usually wins, however for short trips across the channel I assume the same palava (security. passport etc) takes place at St Pancras, adding, what, and hour+ to your 2.5hr journey to Paris/Brussel, so might as well take the plane!

On the other hand, a plane has a guaranteed seat with it, whereas rail travel tends to result in having your face crammed into a vestibule panel because of the overcrowding, while your wallet is being positively gouged for the privilege.

It's frustrating. I don't particularly care about time savings, all I really want is tickets that don't cost an arm and a leg, and offer a reasonable seat. Extortionstar fails hideously on the first point, and the seats weren't all that comfortable either. While not quite Ryanair or IET levels of Guantanamo Bay torture rack levels of uncomfortable, they certainly weren't particularly plush, ergonomic, or well padded. And on a Ryanair flight, you're spending far less time in the seat compared to the train into St Pancras. And of course, for me, I would then have to connect on from St Pancras to Birmingham, and then from New Street to my home station. Meanwhile, the journey in and out of BHX is far, faaar shorter.

 

[Harpo]

An earlier post compared eateries at Birmingham New Street with those at Birmingham Airport. Both however have a Wetherspoons where a large breakfast (for example) is either £7.43 or £14.60 depending on location. The accompanying mug of tea is either £1.81 or £3.60

Another significant train vs plane difference of nearly 100%.

 

[BazingaTribe]

An earlier post compared eateries at Birmingham New Street with those at Birmingham Airport. Both however have a Wetherspoons where a large breakfast (for example) is either £7.43 or £14.60 depending on location. The accompanying mug of tea is either £1.81 or £3.60

Another significant train vs plane difference of nearly 100%.

I do feel one of the reasons to go by train in the UK is that UK airports always feel like glorified shopping centres, just way more expensive for stuff like this, and stations are less generally oppressive. Yerevan Zvartnots has a stunning view of Ararat from the massive plate glass floor to ceiling windows. At Gatwick, the only place you can even see the planes is from the back of Cafe Rouge.

(My late husband had never flown before I took him to Prague for a weekend, and I did take him to that place to see the aircraft taking off. He said later that, far from bricking it, he felt much better when he saw a plane take off and land successfully, even at the angles involved. He still found the whole experience like something out of Star Trek (and he only lived long enough to take two other round trip flights; the rest of our holidays were either cruises or trips to Dorset and Cornwall) but it was really interesting, for someone who had been abroad as a baby and been flying since we moved south in 1986 and it became more convenient to get to my mother's parents in Belfast by plane than train/boat, to see someone's reaction to the process as an adult in their late 30s.)

 

[signed]

I haven't checked this but is the TGV fare the turn up and go price, and the airline price is the advance price? The media love telling their readers how cheap flying is by finding some advance fare of £60 or whatever, and comparing it to the on-station price quoted on National Rail or wherever. AS other have pointed out, all the ancillary costs and headaches of flyng are conveniently overlooked in many of these comparisons. Personally I'm happy to pay a little extra not to breathe in the flatus of a hundred and fifty obese passengers for an hour or two.

All SNCF babies (i.e. Eurostar, Lyria, TGV...) are fully advance and use dynamic pricing.

It's frustrating. I don't particularly care about time savings, all I really want is tickets that don't cost an arm and a leg, and offer a reasonable seat. Extortionstar fails hideously on the first point, and the seats weren't all that comfortable either. While not quite Ryanair or IET levels of Guantanamo Bay torture rack levels of uncomfortable, they certainly weren't particularly plush, ergonomic, or well padded. And on a Ryanair flight, you're spending far less time in the seat compared to the train into St Pancras. And of course, for me, I would then have to connect on from St Pancras to Birmingham, and then from New Street to my home station. Meanwhile, the journey in and out of BHX is far, faaar shorter.

Don't worry, as soon as Virgin gets online, we will magically see better service and lower prices from Eurostar (half joking, both may actually happen, though not holding my breath as that has not happened when Trenitalia high-speed came online)

Though have to say that Eurostar isn't really a great options from anywhere not named London, Paris, Lille (for the French side) and their immediate vicinity. EasyJet, Ryanair and Vueling will get you faster for cheaper anywhere else in either countries, and CityHopper from LCY might be as expensive as Eurostar and far more convenient to AMS. Though Eurostar is well worth it for city-center to city-center bar to/from LCY.

I do feel one of the reasons to go by train in the UK is that UK airports always feel like glorified shopping centres, just way more expensive for stuff like this.

Any major airport will be like that, they quit being a shopping centre when the airport gets quite small. That is how money is made, along with official Parking.

What is wild is how there are basically 3 duty-free giants (World Duty Free, Aelia, Avolta) basically control the entire western Europe (and even wider for Avolta) market with basically 100% the same catalog across the board, kudos for the consistency I guess.

 

[bleeder4]

I would much rather pay to fly Loganair between Exeter and Edinburgh with a guaranteed seat, free coffee and tunnocks wafer than travel (suffer?) Crosscountry

You're probably on the wrong forum then!

 

[BazingaTribe]

Any major airport will be like that, they quit being a shopping centre when the airport gets quite small. That is how money is made, along with official Parking.

What is wild is how there are basically 3 duty-free giants (World Duty Free, Aelia, Avolta) basically control the entire western Europe (and even wider for Avolta) market with basically 100% the same catalog across the board, kudos for the consistency I guess.

I totally get that (a bit like ads at the cinema, the price of admission is heavily subsidised by other revenue streams). But at least CDG had windows out onto the outside world. There weren't a lot of amenities in the cross-channel gate section, but in the section where I caught the plane to Yerevan, where there was more choice in cafes, they did have daylight at least.

 

[The exile]

I’ve done seat on plane to taxi at Glasgow in 4 minutes (domestic from Luton), and seat on plane to standing on station platform at Southend in 5 (international from AMS).

I’ll admit the former included running as I was late for a conference thanks to a late departure from Luton. Nevertheless I did seat of the A319 to seat in the conference in the city centre (next to Chris Green, name dropper) in 27 mins. I reckon my Luton gate to Glasgow venue arrival was well under 2hours. Shame about the 2 hours at Luton beforehand.

The thing about my Nuremberg one is that the Hbf is a good 20 minute U-Bahn ride from the airport! Obviously it was only made possibly by a ridiculously early arrival!

 

[BazingaTribe]

You're probably on the wrong forum then!

To be fair many of us train fans would rather do something nasty with a wooden spoon than travel on XC.

 

[Tetchytyke]

You're probably on the wrong forum then!

I'd rather have bowel surgery in the woods with a stick than spend eight hours on a Voyager. And I love trains.

 

[AndrewP]

For travel I take the line of least resistance so train or plan depending on what is easiest.

Living in the north east, Eurostar is not practical but it's very rare I fly domestic to London - either work by LHR or pricing glitches (the Lizzy line has changed everything though). easyJet to Bristol is though

However what I often do is use both e.g. plane to Schiphol and train from there e.g. to Belgium as it's quicker and easier. However walking may be easier and quicker than Deutsche Bahn!

 

[Tetragon213]

You're probably on the wrong forum then!

I love trains, and travel whenever I can by rail along the WCML. But I would rather crawl on my hands and knees, than travel by XC. That company is an absolute disgrace.

 

[Julia]

I disagree.

I find airports to be pretty soulless on the whole.

Budget airlines want you at the gate 45 minutes or so before departure so they can minimise time on tarmac.

And, by my experience, they can reschedule at minimal notice including bringing departures earlier, have terrible punctuality with no comeback if eg. they drop you off after onward connections from the airport have ceased for the night, and Ts & Cs loaded up with gotchas to squeeze you for more money. You definitely need to plan in advance well to actually make good use of the "budget" aspect.

 

[Krokodil]

You're probably on the wrong forum then!

I think that people on this forum are probably pretty unanimous that XC needs some proper trains.

Integration into HS2 would be a massive plus too, but I'll wait for pigs to grow wings and fly first.

 

[Farnborough]

Think I managed my “arrival record” (so far) at Nuremberg - arrival at the Hbf less than 10 minutes after the scheduled arrival time of my flight. Second best is Bristol - sitting on the A4 bus within 10 mins of scheduled arrival - unfortunately the bus didn’t leave for another 30 minutes.

Last week, LHR T5 Gate A11 to the Flightline 730 bus in 11 minutes.

I'd anticipated having to wait for the next one... couldn't believe I was in time. I should have bought a lottery ticket...

 

[WolvertonWorks]

The announcement that China has agreed to allow British Citizens to travel to the country for up to 30 days visa free had us speculating over lunch how we could visit China from the UK by train given we prefer not to fly nowadays for environmental reasons. Not really a discussion for this thread though and currently not feasible anyway because of the situation in various countries en route.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I love both trains and planes so for me it depends on the start and end points of the journey. When I lived and worked in the USA but was visiting family in the UK, I would often do train between Preston and Manchester Airport and vice versa, and then fly to the USA. To me they are both fun forms of transport.

 

[styles]

The announcement that China has agreed to allow British Citizens to travel to the country for up to 30 days visa free had us speculating over lunch how we could visit China from the UK by train given we prefer not to fly nowadays for environmental reasons. Not really a discussion for this thread though and currently not feasible anyway because of the situation in various countries en route.

To keep it on topic, have you considered making the journey by train?

Admittedly with the Trans Siberia Express and other western Europe to Russia trains off the cards, you'd have to make some more connections, but it would be part of an adventure.

 

[Tetragon213]

To keep it on topic, have you considered making the journey by train?

Admittedly with the Trans Siberia Express and other western Europe to Russia trains off the cards, you'd have to make some more connections, but it would be part of an adventure.

At that point, however, you're treating the journey by rail as the holiday itself, as opposed to a means to an end to each your holiday, and that entails an entirely different discussion in itself. Not to mention that, given the geo-political situations in Russia and Iran, there is flat-out no land route available to get to the Mainland from Western Europe.

It's also over a week of continuous travel to get to the Mainland, and then however many hours further by HSR to your final destination (in my usual case HK). It would be highly impractical, and I am no stranger to impractical journeys myself, seeing as another holiday bucketlist item I have is to travel to New York on the QM2. But even if you removed all of the politics/ethics/etc from the Trans Siberian trek across Russia, and assuming the money was the same, I still wouldn't do it, as even I have my limits for how much railway I want to see.

If you could somehow build a 700km/h Maglev from London to Beijing, then maybe it would be doable. At those speeds, travelling the 8,200km would take about as long as the flight does, albeit at unfathomable cost I suspect.

 

[AlterEgo]

The announcement that China has agreed to allow British Citizens to travel to the country for up to 30 days visa free had us speculating over lunch how we could visit China from the UK by train given we prefer not to fly nowadays for environmental reasons.

A 12 hour economy flight to China would be less damaging than a week or two's sleeper train travel both ways, hotel stays and the associated carbon.

.

 

[Krokodil]

To keep it on topic, have you considered making the journey by train?

Admittedly with the Trans Siberia Express and other western Europe to Russia trains off the cards, you'd have to make some more connections, but it would be part of an adventure.

I'd love to do the Trans-Mongolian, but I'll hold off until Russia applies for readmission to the human race.

 

[edwin_m]

A 12 hour economy flight to China would be less damaging than a week or two's sleeper train travel both ways, hotel stays and the associated carbon.

.

Arguably this should be comparing the impacts of the flight with the extra impacts of the sleeper and hotels compared with the person living their normal life for that part of the two weeks that wasn't spent flying. That better reflects the true difference in environmental damage.

 

[sheff1]

You can plan a bit to avoid travel markup at stations. Which isn't possible for airports, since once you check in, you're really stuck airside.

Not at all. If flying from Gatwick for example I will eat at Horley and then take the short bus journey to the airport having checked in online before leaving home.

 

[NER1621]

Are you Starmer in disguise?

Eh? Free speech means you can post your opinions. It doesn’t mean that people can’t disagree with them and opine that you are talking rubbish.

But the actual act of flying is far more fun and adrenaline inducing is what I meant

Adrenaline inducing is pretty low down my list of desirable qualities in transport modes. And given the overall tedious unpleasant plastic soulless time-wasting and over-commercialised experience which is using an airport I’m happy for that to stay the case. I’ll fly (or rather I used to) to the USA or New Zealand because that’s the only practical way to get there. I’ll fly Newcastle or Teesside to Schipol because Eurostar is irrelevant if you live outside SE England, but I’ll then get trains from then on. Otherwise, no.

 

[edwin_m]

Not at all. If flying from Gatwick for example I will eat at Horley and then take the short bus journey to the airport having checked in online before leaving home.

The comment is more applicable to passing security. Most of the facilities and seating are beyond so most people will go airside as soon as they can, after which return is impossible in normal circumstances. I doubt most people would chance taking sandwiches or Greggs sausage rolls through security, and drinks would only be possible at an airport where they've cancelled the 100ml ban.

 

[renegademaster]

doubt most people would chance taking sandwiches or Greggs sausage rolls

That's perfectly fine though.


The only people who can get fussy about fresh food, and that's rare, is EU customs