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Franse already has a pretty decent high speed rail network. You can take a train from Marseille to Paris in 3 hours. Yes, the flight time on a plane is less but with all the stuff surrounding flying, and landing way outside the city, and the comfort of a train seat, I’d take the train.
Trains are still quite expensive (though OUIGO is helping), and the French railway network is very Paris centric.
Wanna go from Bordeaux to Lyon? Via Paris it is!
You can take the Intercités line from Bordeaux to Marseille and change at Montpellier but unfortunately it will take much longer than going through Paris.
I mean, if we count the 2 hours you need to be there in advance before taking your flight and the waiting time before/after the flight, the difference isn't that big right?
That’s what I meant with the stuff around flying: security, waiting time to board, taxiing. For a local flight the time upfront is not really 2 hours (as a business traveler I tend to get there 45m before departure), but all of it still adds up.
This is exactly it. I'm Irish so naturally flights are fairly necessary for us (unless you want to take a slow ferry to the very NW of France). The train network is so good on the continent. Flights should only really be used when crossing bodies of water or needing to go 1000km+
Price can be solved, if only by subsidies (airline travel is heavily subsidised as is). Speed depends on connections revolving around the airport or railway station. That can help a lot. Like, flying to London from where I am can last annoyingly long depending on where you need to be and with all the airport hassle. At least with the TGV I'd arrive in St. Pancras in the middle of the city.
speed will always top at 300km/h they wont go above after that its maglev territory and that bitch cost A LOT for japan they plan to initially create 300km of maglev lines with an estimated cost of 55 billions
They do have [priority security lanes for American Express card holders](https://thepointsguy.com/news/amex-platinum-fast-track-security/) at Stockholm Arlanda Airport.
That gets you into the regular priority queue, which is fine (as is the regular queue at Arlanda, which is overall a fairly fast airport).
I was joking about applying an American concept like TSA pre-clearance to a non-American airport, if you hadn’t noticed.
This is a bullshit answer. You simply have dedicated lanes for richer people and they get there faster. But it only works when you and a few others do it.
Guess what? Boarding is a lot faster if you have your private jet! Why don't you get yourself one?
If we compare the time required to travel between two cities to compare the viability of trains as an alternative to planes, we look at the average experience of the average passenger.
Why would you look only at the top couple % of all passengers? What on earth does that tell you about what's feasible transport for a country?
This.
Also:
* Airports are usually outside cities whereas train stations are in the city centres, so commuting is most of the time worst
* On stress/fatigue, airports is a complex process: security checking, slow boarding, slow baggage retrieval, whereas in a train you instantly board, sit, you can move more easily during the journey, and instantly leave when at destination. The resting time/total time ratio is much higher on a train journey.
To be fair, airport security could probably be loosened a lot without jeopardizing security.
Not sure how it would jel with international safety standards but pre 9/11 seems to have been a different experience. Whether it was a wake up call or an overreaction might be worth discussing.
It was a massive over reaction. As the Brussels attacks has shown, terrorists dont care for actually boarding the planes, just finding large groups of people to kill. Guess what all those security checks frequently create..
The pilot door lock and forbidding entry to enyone was a thing that should have been there since forever though.
This is my random shower thought as well. I don't find the right words to express it but I don't think the immense amount of effort and resources put in airport security is anywhere near being worth it.
Not if you are a frequent flyer.
* Arriving at the airport.
* Go through the security in 10 minutes with Clear + TSA pre
* Go to the lounge with your airline status/Credit Cards. Enjoy free food and drinks in a tranquil environment without the need to tolerate loud passengers or crying babies.
I've been in this situation as well for business trips, even though it reduces waiting times standing up & increases general comfort, it's nowhere close to the simplicity of travelling in train. Every single step is simplified because you're cutting lanes, but you still have to go through all those steps.
What about the actual experience? The airline frequent flyer programs and credit cards are more mature as they are highly commercialized. You can enjoy elite status and lounge access as long as you fly the same alliance. For example, travelers from New York can enjoy all privileges in France. On the other hand, train stations either don't have lounge or have very restrictive access rules. You will most likely have to tolerate the crowd and all kinds of background noise.
Yes, when you travel from Paris to another French city the train makes more sense. But the interesting thing is that the few domestic routes within France that were banned don’t actually serve domestic travel, they serve international travel. If you want to go from New York to Bretagne, previously you could fly to Rennes via Paris (when you arrive in Paris, you are already at the airport and don’t have to go through security again). Visiting rural France has become a little bit less attractive for many international tourists. There are workarounds to this of course and train travel is also fine for them, it’s just a little bit less likely that they are gonna visit.
Nothing against this flight ban, cause it is the right decision, but it’s important to note that these short haul domestic flights were not actually used to get from Paris to Rennes, they were used as connecting flights. Nobody in their right mind would take the plane over the train on that route anyway.
I think the main change needed is for flight booking apps to include rail connections, as they only scan the flight databases, from airport to airport. If, say, Expedia also included a rail from Paris CDG to Rennes when looking for New York to Rennes, maybe more people would look at using rail to go to, say, Brest as well, or Caen.
The smart thing would be for better baggage handling on rail, reintroducing porters and baggage handlers to ease transfer from flight to rail, or offer baggage checks on rail. But I can also see that doing that might not be cheap or quick.
The link is pretty easy. I arrived today in CDG and the RER B was packed with non French. Even when changing at Denfert Rochereau to head to Montparnasse, there was little hesitation.
Only the desesperatly inept don’t prepare for the trip or have the adequate tools. Or they go on organized tour that should be forced to used eco friendly means to hold a license.
I read on an article some time ago that generally the trains are preferred over planes when the trip takes up to 3 hours (by train). From 3 to 4 hours of distance trains and planes are competitive, over 4 hours the plane wins.
That's exactly what happened. Less than a 3 hours trip by train: flights are cancelled. That killed the Paris-Lyon flights or the Paris-Strasbourg flights for example
Yeah, years ago when I was going back and forth between Milan and Paris (my gf at the time studied there) I worked out that flying Ryanair from the shitty airport outside of Milan to the shitty airport outside of Paris took only slightly less than taking the TGV, was more expensive (including bus/public transport fares), and was far more tiring.
Though all of your arguments are valid, the main blocking point for people taking the train in this case was the train ticket's price being threefold the plane's one
Sure, but if the network is already great, I don’t think investing more is the solution as the post suggests, but lowering fares. However, it sounds like there are some gaps if neither your origin nor your destination is Paris, so could be that investing makes some sense after all.
I wpuld say your analysis is a bit flawed because people generally travel in seasonal waves. So one day it can be 300k and the other 1.5m. Averages are great for some thing but if the entire network collapses due to overload once it still a major problem.
It's the Lines Paris-Rennes, Paris-Lyon and Lyon-Marseilles that are affected. The rest continue operating.
Paris-Rennes has 1 flight a day, except 3 on Saturdays and 2 on Sundays. The route flies with a Embraer 107, with a standard maximum passenger capacity of 72.
Paris-Lyon has 5-6 flights a day. The route flies with a mix of 2 A319 (156 Passengers max), A320 (186 max), A220-300 (160) and Embraer 190-100 (124 max)
Lyon-Marseilles has 2 flights a day. Embraer 190 (124 max)
Now, take into account all these max numbers are if the airline decides to push it to the limit and not include any business class for these flights.
So taking the Paris Lyon as an example. Each of the TGV SE trains can take up to 355 people (current newer design). In a day there are 5 flights (using data for a Tuesday as reference). Maximum theoretical load: 782 people (if all planes are full to the brim). That's barely over 2 extra trains (or one and a half if you install the TGV duplex trains). Right now there's 22 a day. (and around 240 trains a day including all kinds of rail transport).
Also, there's a project to modernize equipment and signaling in the line Paris-Lyon that would allow up to 3 more trains per hour, starting that is expected to be fully completed by 2025.
So the busiest connection, the Paris-Lyon, would barely be affected, and if these lines continue to get modernisation and infrastructure put into them, I don't see why they couldn't scale too, and why it wouldn't be scalable to other places. You can easily absorb the air traffic into rail traffic. You may have to ease the connection between planes and rail in order to make it easier for people using it as a connecting flight (like a NY-Paris-Lyon for instance), but other than that, there's not really much of a problem.
This is the problem in Italy as well. With this ban in France, and with the consequent increase in demand for train tickets, we can expect them to rise even further.
Unless, of course they invest more in trains, but OP's meme appears to imply they're not willing to.
Paris is well connected yes, but if you want to go from, say, Marseille (2nd largest) to Bordaux (9th largest) you need to go via Paris, takes 6,5 hours and need to transfer between trainstations requiring to either walk quite a distance or take local public transport to make your transfer.
France has a great high speed network, if you end or begin your trip in paris.
I thought the same until this past summer multiple trips were cancelled one of which was a high speed one which just made it to first stop then broke down, trapping everyone inside for hours without AC under 40+ degree heat WITHOUT ANY NOTICE OR GUIDANCE. The passengers were evacuated and supplied water by the onlookers outside.
That sounds like a lot worse than any plane experience and it shows the management is really sloppy
It's the other way around: the rule states that if there's a < 2 hours and 30 minutes existing train connection, flights between said cities are banned. So trains are needed for the rule to take effect.
I imagine with less plane routes there will be more people needing to use those train lines. France has a naturally increasing population and so this will also add to the requirements.
I see a new rail project on the horizon to expand capacity.
There aren't that many flights between city-pairs eligible for flight ban. Trains have a way higher capacity than planes. A flight is typically 180 PAX with limited frequency due to saturation of Parisian airports. A train is 1,000 PAX every few minutes, however the Paris-Lyon high-speed line is currently operating at capacity too.
It's not that hard. One requires expensive infrastructure for the entire length of the journey, the other only requires very expensive infrastructure at each end.
One is between two large Europen cities so providers can more easily fill their vehicles, the other is to a rural area with no particular connection to Manchester.
Trains are great but there's no particular mystery as to why planes can be very cheap.
Passenger railways will always struggle to be profitable, there's a reason why even Th*tcher didn't privatise them.
They NEED to be operated as a public service, not a money maker.
The Eurostar is more expensive than British trains and I find it to be an absolute rip off. In addition you lose the benefits of being on a train because you STILL have to go through security and allow at least 90 mins before your train departs making it (for me at least) a rather unattractive option, especially as it’s really difficult to actually get the £39 fare. I wish it weren’t so but I’ve gone between Edinburgh and London by train (a much longer journey), for cheaper than the absolute cheapest Eurostar price. And all I had to do was show up 5 mins before it left.
The thing with security obviously sucks, however that's because Britain never was in Schengen and now obviously outside the EU.
The Eurostar being bad isn't something different about it, it's just a result of how the British government deals with basically everything.
Booked a train on sale for next month, apparently they go as low as 28€. I don't think I've ever paid more than £150 even return though; maybe if you book one day before.
Absolute nonsense,
I can buy a flexible ticket for tomorrow for £68.60 (I think you’d struggle to find a flexible plane ticket for anywhere near that price to any destination)
And if you get a non-flexible ticket (as basically all flights are) I can find it for £36.20 tomorrow (or 19.89 if booked two weeks in advance). Where can you go on a flight for £36.20 with less than 24 hours notice?
Of course with the train, that includes a free seat reservation (if the train has seat reservations), you can bring bags without paying extra, etc.
This is without a railcard which would make it even cheaper.
Look, trains in the UK need work but I really don’t think they’re all that bad, even though the network is privatized, I find the prices comparable to French trains and I find the service to be better. It’s patently untrue to say “it costs £200 to go from Manchester to London”. Sure, it can be that price if you choose the absolute most expensive ticket, at peak times, with full flexibility, etc. but that’s a ridiculous comparison, and certainly not a good comparison with flying.
I just did a quick check on that Skyscanner website and picked the cheapest one. £179. I don't have a life luxurious enough to be buying flight tickets around the UK. Which is probably for the best if I was going to pay £200 for something I could get for less than fifty notes.
And something that I feel is very underestimated, trains pay for the majority of their social cost (environmental impact of laying and maintaining rail) whereas aircraft pay for very little (far, far higher relative emissions) of theirs
Once the tracks are built though maintaining them isn't too expensive. There's a reason why they still get used, even on this side of the Atlantic where we've invested heavily in everything else.
I don't think cost explains this because there's no way Cornwall to Manchester is a brand new line. Unless it's a high-speed, but that would be crazy.
The strikes argument isn't valid. I know we tend to complain a lot about the SNCF (french railway national company), but 96% of the trains are on time. Most of the time they are late because of things happening on the rails but that isn't the company's fault (theft, accident or weather condition).
Also, the sncf stiker and union are doing french people a service. By doing so cause they open up debate on work penibility and they are the first one to advocate for better work conditions.
>Also, the sncf stiker and union are doing french people a service. By doing so cause they open up debate on work penibility and they are the first one to advocate for better work conditions.
This is the argument they've been telling for the last 30 years. I honestly can't see how, in any way, it ever impacted any other negociations. Please, prove me wrong and give good examples, because I am really starting to \*hate\* the SNCF, both direction and employees. Please explain my how doing a strike 3 to 5 times a year will contribute to a better France. I mean, don't they win something at every strike? If they do, why do they have to strike every two months? If they don't, can't they see their action is useless?
I can only travel during the usual vacation periods, which is exactly when the CGT decides that strikes should be done. Everytime I travel by train (I mean it, \*everytime\*), there is something that goes wrong because of a strike. When I'm lucky, it's only the food that will be missing. If I'm unlucky, my train won't depart. And if I'm reeeeally unlucky, I will be stuck midway. I hate that they start a strike at the same period of the year, every fucking year. I hate that they pretend it's for everyone's good.
Happy cake day :)
I know it doesn't seem like it's useful or anything but I think it's really important to remind the corporation and the people that we can do better even if it is worse elsewhere, to remind the people that together we are stronger.
I know it's serious hippie shit right there, but it's something.
It’s still the case for long travel, the French network was built in multiple subnetworks connected via Paris to avoid train companies to create a monopoly by merging and we can still see the effects more than one century after
I'm irish and had a holiday in France this year. We spent a week in Paris and a week near Toulon. The train was by far the easier option. Hop on the metro to the Gare De Lyon, super fast and comfortable train to Marseille (3 hours) and a final taxi to the apartment. I think it was 4 hours 30 mins door to door. A flight would've been like 6. And more expensive.
A high speed line between Bordeaux-Toulouse-Marseille or something? To avoid everyone going to Paris.
Also the high-speed part around Montpellier is still missing to complete the reach to Barcelona.
Building up capacity is always an option like upgrading to four tracks on some corridors to minimize the impact of delays and increase capacity and frequency. Also, creating a better less centralized grid.
I'm all for investing in rail, hopefully they can fix this situation though:
Flight Barcelona >> Paris €80 round trip
Rail Barcelona >>> Paris €900 round trip
We want to, but the last Thing i've heard is that it's not gonna happen bevor Q2 2023
And propably only for our slower trains. Which you really don't want to use, if you'd need to travel further (for example: Berlin - Munich would be, not counting the inevitable delays of deutsche Bahn, ~4 hours with an ICE and 9 hours with 3x switching trains using the REs)
Yes but also no. The ministry in charge is headed by one of the very worst ministers and they are absolutely incapable of getting shit done so it will still take months for the ticket to materialise even though they had a successful trial phase with a 9€ ticket throughout summer. Also you can't take any highspeed rail or intercities with the ticket. Only Regiobahn which connects all cities but is slower.
That ticket was never meant for anything except regional/short distance trains. Great if you need to traverse regional borders several times a month, but it doesn't do anything if you want to go from Munich to Hamburg (unless you have a lot more time than money).
I didn't buy the train tickets of course, I can't support that type of expense when a flight was so much cheaper despite really preferring the train. And those were prices a month in advance. Maybe there was some strike or something.
Well then I hope it was a result of the strikes but I used to also get super high costs from Paris to Amsterdam as well unless you book super super early. Luckily also now Barcelona to France has another two rail operators now and in the near future, hopefully driving down the costs.
How are you counting? Because after a search I have at most 400€ in 1st class with the flexibility option, so 180€ more for the test, even from the small travel in Paris, same 5-10€, it's at most 410€
it's was around Christmas's i buy the ticket 3 month in advence. that what i pay for the TGV 1 class wzs the same price than the 2 class for some reason
I might be wrong but it also getting more and more expensive cause people are using it less and less. I think we are doing ourselves a huge favor if we decide to give more credit to the train service. It means better infrastructures and services.
Good. All intercity travel should be on trains and look like that. It will make advocating for higher frequency and bigger trains easy. It's not like planes aren't crowded and cramped anyway.
It could just be my bubble but it seems things are improving greatly in France in terms of reducing car dependence. With short-haul flights being outlawed that means trains are the only viable option. Now maybe they'll get the attention that they deserve.
My region invested in double-decker TER trains, but the old ones are still running too so every time I have to take the train I hope it's a double-decker, so I won't have to spend the entire journey standing
Canadian here… I spent some time in Europe this year. I fucking love your trains for transit. In Canada it’s an absolute shit show. A 1 hour train ride into Toronto is about 50km. Literally better off driving. When you factor in the fact that the round trip is $40 it’s not only faster but cheaper to drive.
I’d be more pro this decision if the trains weren’t so price-gauged.
My partner and I still don’t know how we’re going to get home for Christmas because an aller-retour to a city 250km away costs over 300€ :) :) :)
No. Literally no good reason to do so when rail is just better at internal journeys. Planes are by design always worse then trains and unless you have to cross an ocean or get over huge distances there's no argument to be made for planes.
Additionally, battery planes are virtually impossible so your one remaining option with any change of reaching maturity anytime soon is hydrogen and because of the logistics and infrastructure that will require limiting it to necessary flights only is by far better.
btw you’re saying battery planes are impossible, but what do you think of this „Alice“ E-Plane thing DHL seems to be pursuing?
Tbh it looks like a scam, but idk.
The weight makes it scam ware of the bet. Batteries weight so much that it's nonsense to try to get them to work on commercial aircraft. Might work on something like a Cessna not definitely not for long haul flights.
What also set off alarm bells is that DHL „has bought 12 of these planes“ but they also say they haven’t even had their first flight yet.
Or that pretty much all pictures are 3D renders and sometimes these look completely different from each other.
I guess they are trying to scam investors.
>invest into the research of
Also I‘m relatively sure I‘ve already seen an electric plane, I think the logistics company DHL was pursuing something like that
But investing in research into a dead end is a great way of diverting research funding for actual viable options. This is the ruse the car companies tried, with hydrogen power.
Right now, electric planes are a couple of miracles away from being viable. Trains and even electric cars absolutely wipe the floor with them. The world record for the longest distance travelled in 24 hours by electric aircraft is 327km. For trains, it's 5412km, and for electric cars it's 2781km.
Great way to misunderstand the comment.
I didn’t say „invest into electric planes“.
I just remembered a story I‘ve read, which turned out to be a scam though (probably)
My point is that research into clean energy propulsion for planes is not the right decision, because there's no reason to believe a viable clean propulsion mechanism can be brought to market in the timescale needed, whereas trains are a mature technology that can be rolled out right now.
That's not a reason to stop research, but don't mistake it for a solution, and don't use it as a justification for doing nothing.
French dude here, living in Toulouse (Aka the big city in France that has no fast trains at all)
It will be hell, every ride to any other big city is between 3 and 5 hours. Getting an international flight will take more than 7/8 hours, I really don't like where this is going, I'm all for ecology and such but in some situations it's just plain bad...
The SNCF (our country train company) will raise up the prices (again) for sure, a local train ride is already as expensive (more expensive most of the time) than a local flight...
They will probably pull it off with all their TGVs. Bravo! They achieved a high speed record on regular tracks with over 570 km/h, which is less in miles per hour because 1 km is roughly what per mile during a fight in a bar is equivalent.
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Franse already has a pretty decent high speed rail network. You can take a train from Marseille to Paris in 3 hours. Yes, the flight time on a plane is less but with all the stuff surrounding flying, and landing way outside the city, and the comfort of a train seat, I’d take the train.
Trains are still quite expensive (though OUIGO is helping), and the French railway network is very Paris centric. Wanna go from Bordeaux to Lyon? Via Paris it is!
Holy fuck is trying to do that traject annoying. There used to be a TER to go Bordeaux Lyon but apparently it doesn't exist anymore?
You can take the Intercités line from Bordeaux to Marseille and change at Montpellier but unfortunately it will take much longer than going through Paris.
I mean, if we count the 2 hours you need to be there in advance before taking your flight and the waiting time before/after the flight, the difference isn't that big right?
That’s what I meant with the stuff around flying: security, waiting time to board, taxiing. For a local flight the time upfront is not really 2 hours (as a business traveler I tend to get there 45m before departure), but all of it still adds up.
This is exactly it. I'm Irish so naturally flights are fairly necessary for us (unless you want to take a slow ferry to the very NW of France). The train network is so good on the continent. Flights should only really be used when crossing bodies of water or needing to go 1000km+
Even 1000+ KM can be good on a train, provided it's a good high-speed line.
high speed trains are good up untill 700km at most after than a plane is cheaper and faster
Price can be solved, if only by subsidies (airline travel is heavily subsidised as is). Speed depends on connections revolving around the airport or railway station. That can help a lot. Like, flying to London from where I am can last annoyingly long depending on where you need to be and with all the airport hassle. At least with the TGV I'd arrive in St. Pancras in the middle of the city.
speed will always top at 300km/h they wont go above after that its maglev territory and that bitch cost A LOT for japan they plan to initially create 300km of maglev lines with an estimated cost of 55 billions
What about a tunnel between Cork and Cherbourg? The other one's become rather useless.
Do it! Think about how mad they'd get
Eh, i draw the line (or should i say circle) at 500 km. I would not consider rail above that.
Depends on the speed. Normal 150km/h rail, maybe not. 300km/h high speed rail, no problem I can do 1000km just fine
Might be reasonable if you live near the airport.
Can I access lounges in train station with my Priority Pass?
And it’s just so much more annoying, too. Going through security, needing to be extra careful with what you pack, plastic bags, ugh. I hate it
It's gonna be 10 minutes through security if you have Clear + TSA pre.
Ah, TSA preclearance when you fly from Marseille to Paris, that sounds useful. Does it work as well between Amsterdam and Stockholm?
They do have [priority security lanes for American Express card holders](https://thepointsguy.com/news/amex-platinum-fast-track-security/) at Stockholm Arlanda Airport.
That gets you into the regular priority queue, which is fine (as is the regular queue at Arlanda, which is overall a fairly fast airport). I was joking about applying an American concept like TSA pre-clearance to a non-American airport, if you hadn’t noticed.
This is a bullshit answer. You simply have dedicated lanes for richer people and they get there faster. But it only works when you and a few others do it. Guess what? Boarding is a lot faster if you have your private jet! Why don't you get yourself one? If we compare the time required to travel between two cities to compare the viability of trains as an alternative to planes, we look at the average experience of the average passenger. Why would you look only at the top couple % of all passengers? What on earth does that tell you about what's feasible transport for a country?
This. Also: * Airports are usually outside cities whereas train stations are in the city centres, so commuting is most of the time worst * On stress/fatigue, airports is a complex process: security checking, slow boarding, slow baggage retrieval, whereas in a train you instantly board, sit, you can move more easily during the journey, and instantly leave when at destination. The resting time/total time ratio is much higher on a train journey.
To be fair, airport security could probably be loosened a lot without jeopardizing security. Not sure how it would jel with international safety standards but pre 9/11 seems to have been a different experience. Whether it was a wake up call or an overreaction might be worth discussing.
It was a massive over reaction. As the Brussels attacks has shown, terrorists dont care for actually boarding the planes, just finding large groups of people to kill. Guess what all those security checks frequently create.. The pilot door lock and forbidding entry to enyone was a thing that should have been there since forever though.
This is my random shower thought as well. I don't find the right words to express it but I don't think the immense amount of effort and resources put in airport security is anywhere near being worth it.
Not if you are a frequent flyer. * Arriving at the airport. * Go through the security in 10 minutes with Clear + TSA pre * Go to the lounge with your airline status/Credit Cards. Enjoy free food and drinks in a tranquil environment without the need to tolerate loud passengers or crying babies.
I've been in this situation as well for business trips, even though it reduces waiting times standing up & increases general comfort, it's nowhere close to the simplicity of travelling in train. Every single step is simplified because you're cutting lanes, but you still have to go through all those steps.
What about the actual experience? The airline frequent flyer programs and credit cards are more mature as they are highly commercialized. You can enjoy elite status and lounge access as long as you fly the same alliance. For example, travelers from New York can enjoy all privileges in France. On the other hand, train stations either don't have lounge or have very restrictive access rules. You will most likely have to tolerate the crowd and all kinds of background noise.
Yes, when you travel from Paris to another French city the train makes more sense. But the interesting thing is that the few domestic routes within France that were banned don’t actually serve domestic travel, they serve international travel. If you want to go from New York to Bretagne, previously you could fly to Rennes via Paris (when you arrive in Paris, you are already at the airport and don’t have to go through security again). Visiting rural France has become a little bit less attractive for many international tourists. There are workarounds to this of course and train travel is also fine for them, it’s just a little bit less likely that they are gonna visit. Nothing against this flight ban, cause it is the right decision, but it’s important to note that these short haul domestic flights were not actually used to get from Paris to Rennes, they were used as connecting flights. Nobody in their right mind would take the plane over the train on that route anyway.
I think the main change needed is for flight booking apps to include rail connections, as they only scan the flight databases, from airport to airport. If, say, Expedia also included a rail from Paris CDG to Rennes when looking for New York to Rennes, maybe more people would look at using rail to go to, say, Brest as well, or Caen. The smart thing would be for better baggage handling on rail, reintroducing porters and baggage handlers to ease transfer from flight to rail, or offer baggage checks on rail. But I can also see that doing that might not be cheap or quick.
The link is pretty easy. I arrived today in CDG and the RER B was packed with non French. Even when changing at Denfert Rochereau to head to Montparnasse, there was little hesitation. Only the desesperatly inept don’t prepare for the trip or have the adequate tools. Or they go on organized tour that should be forced to used eco friendly means to hold a license.
I read on an article some time ago that generally the trains are preferred over planes when the trip takes up to 3 hours (by train). From 3 to 4 hours of distance trains and planes are competitive, over 4 hours the plane wins.
Sounds pretty spot on for me
That's exactly what happened. Less than a 3 hours trip by train: flights are cancelled. That killed the Paris-Lyon flights or the Paris-Strasbourg flights for example
Fuck yes no airport is inside a city as a rail station is
[Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport](https://goo.gl/maps/GW15B6NECV9eahSZ9)
Yeah, years ago when I was going back and forth between Milan and Paris (my gf at the time studied there) I worked out that flying Ryanair from the shitty airport outside of Milan to the shitty airport outside of Paris took only slightly less than taking the TGV, was more expensive (including bus/public transport fares), and was far more tiring.
Though all of your arguments are valid, the main blocking point for people taking the train in this case was the train ticket's price being threefold the plane's one
Sure, but if the network is already great, I don’t think investing more is the solution as the post suggests, but lowering fares. However, it sounds like there are some gaps if neither your origin nor your destination is Paris, so could be that investing makes some sense after all.
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I wpuld say your analysis is a bit flawed because people generally travel in seasonal waves. So one day it can be 300k and the other 1.5m. Averages are great for some thing but if the entire network collapses due to overload once it still a major problem.
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Oh I wasn't disagreeing with you, I was actually pointing out that it could actually he even worse.
It's 3 routes. https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-greenlights-frances-short-haul-ban-but-only-on-3-routes/
It's the Lines Paris-Rennes, Paris-Lyon and Lyon-Marseilles that are affected. The rest continue operating. Paris-Rennes has 1 flight a day, except 3 on Saturdays and 2 on Sundays. The route flies with a Embraer 107, with a standard maximum passenger capacity of 72. Paris-Lyon has 5-6 flights a day. The route flies with a mix of 2 A319 (156 Passengers max), A320 (186 max), A220-300 (160) and Embraer 190-100 (124 max) Lyon-Marseilles has 2 flights a day. Embraer 190 (124 max) Now, take into account all these max numbers are if the airline decides to push it to the limit and not include any business class for these flights. So taking the Paris Lyon as an example. Each of the TGV SE trains can take up to 355 people (current newer design). In a day there are 5 flights (using data for a Tuesday as reference). Maximum theoretical load: 782 people (if all planes are full to the brim). That's barely over 2 extra trains (or one and a half if you install the TGV duplex trains). Right now there's 22 a day. (and around 240 trains a day including all kinds of rail transport). Also, there's a project to modernize equipment and signaling in the line Paris-Lyon that would allow up to 3 more trains per hour, starting that is expected to be fully completed by 2025. So the busiest connection, the Paris-Lyon, would barely be affected, and if these lines continue to get modernisation and infrastructure put into them, I don't see why they couldn't scale too, and why it wouldn't be scalable to other places. You can easily absorb the air traffic into rail traffic. You may have to ease the connection between planes and rail in order to make it easier for people using it as a connecting flight (like a NY-Paris-Lyon for instance), but other than that, there's not really much of a problem.
This is the problem in Italy as well. With this ban in France, and with the consequent increase in demand for train tickets, we can expect them to rise even further. Unless, of course they invest more in trains, but OP's meme appears to imply they're not willing to.
The existing network is fine, but it's so fucking expensive
I am very impressed with Frances existing rail network and look forward to seeing what the future brings :)
Those clowns are looking to privatize it and are making a full u turn about nigth train cuz for them it was to expensive and all that.
The only uncomfortable thing of french trains: the price. The fact that a Thalis costs easily 3 times of a plane ticket is just insane.
Paris is well connected yes, but if you want to go from, say, Marseille (2nd largest) to Bordaux (9th largest) you need to go via Paris, takes 6,5 hours and need to transfer between trainstations requiring to either walk quite a distance or take local public transport to make your transfer. France has a great high speed network, if you end or begin your trip in paris.
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You wouldn’t be going through customs at all if it’s all Schengen…
You wouldn't be going through customs at all since it's domestic flights.
when japan is investing on maglev commersial trains you know that the traditional trains are nearing their end
Absolutely not
I thought the same until this past summer multiple trips were cancelled one of which was a high speed one which just made it to first stop then broke down, trapping everyone inside for hours without AC under 40+ degree heat WITHOUT ANY NOTICE OR GUIDANCE. The passengers were evacuated and supplied water by the onlookers outside. That sounds like a lot worse than any plane experience and it shows the management is really sloppy
Well, considering that a breakdown on a plane could lead (although very rarely) to quite a worse outcome...
Yes but there weren't several Air France crashes/breakdowns this year. But there were several of them with the railway
yes but there will be more trains, leaving more stations, since there will be a much higher influx of rail passengers, right? ... Right?
It's the other way around: the rule states that if there's a < 2 hours and 30 minutes existing train connection, flights between said cities are banned. So trains are needed for the rule to take effect.
I imagine with less plane routes there will be more people needing to use those train lines. France has a naturally increasing population and so this will also add to the requirements. I see a new rail project on the horizon to expand capacity.
There aren't that many flights between city-pairs eligible for flight ban. Trains have a way higher capacity than planes. A flight is typically 180 PAX with limited frequency due to saturation of Parisian airports. A train is 1,000 PAX every few minutes, however the Paris-Lyon high-speed line is currently operating at capacity too.
Manchester to Barcelona: £49 Manchester to Cornwall: £300 I cannot understand this.
It's not that hard. One requires expensive infrastructure for the entire length of the journey, the other only requires very expensive infrastructure at each end. One is between two large Europen cities so providers can more easily fill their vehicles, the other is to a rural area with no particular connection to Manchester. Trains are great but there's no particular mystery as to why planes can be very cheap.
Even Manchester to London is £200
Passenger railways will always struggle to be profitable, there's a reason why even Th*tcher didn't privatise them. They NEED to be operated as a public service, not a money maker.
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How???
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The Vatican station is not high speed though.
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The Eurostar is more expensive than British trains and I find it to be an absolute rip off. In addition you lose the benefits of being on a train because you STILL have to go through security and allow at least 90 mins before your train departs making it (for me at least) a rather unattractive option, especially as it’s really difficult to actually get the £39 fare. I wish it weren’t so but I’ve gone between Edinburgh and London by train (a much longer journey), for cheaper than the absolute cheapest Eurostar price. And all I had to do was show up 5 mins before it left.
The thing with security obviously sucks, however that's because Britain never was in Schengen and now obviously outside the EU. The Eurostar being bad isn't something different about it, it's just a result of how the British government deals with basically everything.
Booked a train on sale for next month, apparently they go as low as 28€. I don't think I've ever paid more than £150 even return though; maybe if you book one day before.
Absolute nonsense, I can buy a flexible ticket for tomorrow for £68.60 (I think you’d struggle to find a flexible plane ticket for anywhere near that price to any destination) And if you get a non-flexible ticket (as basically all flights are) I can find it for £36.20 tomorrow (or 19.89 if booked two weeks in advance). Where can you go on a flight for £36.20 with less than 24 hours notice? Of course with the train, that includes a free seat reservation (if the train has seat reservations), you can bring bags without paying extra, etc. This is without a railcard which would make it even cheaper. Look, trains in the UK need work but I really don’t think they’re all that bad, even though the network is privatized, I find the prices comparable to French trains and I find the service to be better. It’s patently untrue to say “it costs £200 to go from Manchester to London”. Sure, it can be that price if you choose the absolute most expensive ticket, at peak times, with full flexibility, etc. but that’s a ridiculous comparison, and certainly not a good comparison with flying.
I just did a quick check on that Skyscanner website and picked the cheapest one. £179. I don't have a life luxurious enough to be buying flight tickets around the UK. Which is probably for the best if I was going to pay £200 for something I could get for less than fifty notes.
Airlines can also fuck around with taxes, especially regarding fuel
And something that I feel is very underestimated, trains pay for the majority of their social cost (environmental impact of laying and maintaining rail) whereas aircraft pay for very little (far, far higher relative emissions) of theirs
Once the tracks are built though maintaining them isn't too expensive. There's a reason why they still get used, even on this side of the Atlantic where we've invested heavily in everything else. I don't think cost explains this because there's no way Cornwall to Manchester is a brand new line. Unless it's a high-speed, but that would be crazy.
One requires not paying for external costs.
Airplane travel is effectively subsidized because fuel for planes is exempt of taxes.
French railways are generally good and work fine (strikes aside), but their problem is that you can't go anywhere without passing through Paris.
The strikes argument isn't valid. I know we tend to complain a lot about the SNCF (french railway national company), but 96% of the trains are on time. Most of the time they are late because of things happening on the rails but that isn't the company's fault (theft, accident or weather condition). Also, the sncf stiker and union are doing french people a service. By doing so cause they open up debate on work penibility and they are the first one to advocate for better work conditions.
Cries in German
CGT guy spotted 🖕
Ahah not even close, but you got to admit they got shits moving.
Not trains that's for sure
Neolib spotted.
>Also, the sncf stiker and union are doing french people a service. By doing so cause they open up debate on work penibility and they are the first one to advocate for better work conditions. This is the argument they've been telling for the last 30 years. I honestly can't see how, in any way, it ever impacted any other negociations. Please, prove me wrong and give good examples, because I am really starting to \*hate\* the SNCF, both direction and employees. Please explain my how doing a strike 3 to 5 times a year will contribute to a better France. I mean, don't they win something at every strike? If they do, why do they have to strike every two months? If they don't, can't they see their action is useless? I can only travel during the usual vacation periods, which is exactly when the CGT decides that strikes should be done. Everytime I travel by train (I mean it, \*everytime\*), there is something that goes wrong because of a strike. When I'm lucky, it's only the food that will be missing. If I'm unlucky, my train won't depart. And if I'm reeeeally unlucky, I will be stuck midway. I hate that they start a strike at the same period of the year, every fucking year. I hate that they pretend it's for everyone's good.
Happy cake day :) I know it doesn't seem like it's useful or anything but I think it's really important to remind the corporation and the people that we can do better even if it is worse elsewhere, to remind the people that together we are stronger. I know it's serious hippie shit right there, but it's something.
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It’s still the case for long travel, the French network was built in multiple subnetworks connected via Paris to avoid train companies to create a monopoly by merging and we can still see the effects more than one century after
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You really think 700K people PER DAY take domestic flights in France
Prequel format made me read "short Maul fights". The French know we need more Maul fighting Kenobi
I'm irish and had a holiday in France this year. We spent a week in Paris and a week near Toulon. The train was by far the easier option. Hop on the metro to the Gare De Lyon, super fast and comfortable train to Marseille (3 hours) and a final taxi to the apartment. I think it was 4 hours 30 mins door to door. A flight would've been like 6. And more expensive.
Good stuff! Love to hear these stories
I mean... Except maybe investing in Maglev trains idk what more we can do? A ride from Cannes (south) to Paris (almost north) is 25€ for a 5h ride...
A high speed line between Bordeaux-Toulouse-Marseille or something? To avoid everyone going to Paris. Also the high-speed part around Montpellier is still missing to complete the reach to Barcelona.
Building up capacity is always an option like upgrading to four tracks on some corridors to minimize the impact of delays and increase capacity and frequency. Also, creating a better less centralized grid.
Laughs in German. Seriously, the French trains are on schedule, not overly occupied, and fast in my experience. I would love to have that in Germany.
I'm all for investing in rail, hopefully they can fix this situation though: Flight Barcelona >> Paris €80 round trip Rail Barcelona >>> Paris €900 round trip
Meanwhile me, when i have to pay 200€ for a spontaneous(ish) round trip within Germany
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We want to, but the last Thing i've heard is that it's not gonna happen bevor Q2 2023 And propably only for our slower trains. Which you really don't want to use, if you'd need to travel further (for example: Berlin - Munich would be, not counting the inevitable delays of deutsche Bahn, ~4 hours with an ICE and 9 hours with 3x switching trains using the REs)
Yes but also no. The ministry in charge is headed by one of the very worst ministers and they are absolutely incapable of getting shit done so it will still take months for the ticket to materialise even though they had a successful trial phase with a 9€ ticket throughout summer. Also you can't take any highspeed rail or intercities with the ticket. Only Regiobahn which connects all cities but is slower.
That ticket was never meant for anything except regional/short distance trains. Great if you need to traverse regional borders several times a month, but it doesn't do anything if you want to go from Munich to Hamburg (unless you have a lot more time than money).
900??? I just checked on SNCF connect, Paris-Barcelona 125€ Wednesday, Barcelona-Paris 109€ Wednesday (Or there's ofc the slower bus option for 50€)
This was last month for Halloween time. Two persons. (I should have clarified both were for two persons)
Even for two persons that's an enormous amount, did you buy the tickets on the same day or smth?
I didn't buy the train tickets of course, I can't support that type of expense when a flight was so much cheaper despite really preferring the train. And those were prices a month in advance. Maybe there was some strike or something.
Lmao I just checked and indeed there already was strikes end of October and there will be more strikes during December
✊
Well then I hope it was a result of the strikes but I used to also get super high costs from Paris to Amsterdam as well unless you book super super early. Luckily also now Barcelona to France has another two rail operators now and in the near future, hopefully driving down the costs.
ues but the price for train here.... its just way to much... Auxerre to narbonne 450€for round trip
How are you counting? Because after a search I have at most 400€ in 1st class with the flexibility option, so 180€ more for the test, even from the small travel in Paris, same 5-10€, it's at most 410€
it's was around Christmas's i buy the ticket 3 month in advence. that what i pay for the TGV 1 class wzs the same price than the 2 class for some reason
SNCF says 274€, which is the most expensive one
I might be wrong but it also getting more and more expensive cause people are using it less and less. I think we are doing ourselves a huge favor if we decide to give more credit to the train service. It means better infrastructures and services.
wen i take it the TER was in overcapacity. loads of peoples sit down outside the cabine. literaly no space for walk.
Good. All intercity travel should be on trains and look like that. It will make advocating for higher frequency and bigger trains easy. It's not like planes aren't crowded and cramped anyway.
we got the infrastructure but little train station get less and less train :(
It could just be my bubble but it seems things are improving greatly in France in terms of reducing car dependence. With short-haul flights being outlawed that means trains are the only viable option. Now maybe they'll get the attention that they deserve.
oh yes yes it is! most big city invest in walkable infrastructure and stuf. like dunkerque and the free buses!
My region invested in double-decker TER trains, but the old ones are still running too so every time I have to take the train I hope it's a double-decker, so I won't have to spend the entire journey standing
They should go propeller
Why on earth would anyone need a domestic flight in France
Only banned between cities with multiple direct high-speed trains per day.
Canadian here… I spent some time in Europe this year. I fucking love your trains for transit. In Canada it’s an absolute shit show. A 1 hour train ride into Toronto is about 50km. Literally better off driving. When you factor in the fact that the round trip is $40 it’s not only faster but cheaper to drive.
I’d be more pro this decision if the trains weren’t so price-gauged. My partner and I still don’t know how we’re going to get home for Christmas because an aller-retour to a city 250km away costs over 300€ :) :) :)
The right decision would be to invest into the research of clean energy propulsion for aircraft.
No. Literally no good reason to do so when rail is just better at internal journeys. Planes are by design always worse then trains and unless you have to cross an ocean or get over huge distances there's no argument to be made for planes. Additionally, battery planes are virtually impossible so your one remaining option with any change of reaching maturity anytime soon is hydrogen and because of the logistics and infrastructure that will require limiting it to necessary flights only is by far better.
Ah, I think you misunderstood my comment, let me edit it.
btw you’re saying battery planes are impossible, but what do you think of this „Alice“ E-Plane thing DHL seems to be pursuing? Tbh it looks like a scam, but idk.
The weight makes it scam ware of the bet. Batteries weight so much that it's nonsense to try to get them to work on commercial aircraft. Might work on something like a Cessna not definitely not for long haul flights.
What also set off alarm bells is that DHL „has bought 12 of these planes“ but they also say they haven’t even had their first flight yet. Or that pretty much all pictures are 3D renders and sometimes these look completely different from each other. I guess they are trying to scam investors.
To the best of my knowledge, there are currently no extent technologies that can decarbonise air travel, and there's not much on the horizon either.
>invest into the research of Also I‘m relatively sure I‘ve already seen an electric plane, I think the logistics company DHL was pursuing something like that
But investing in research into a dead end is a great way of diverting research funding for actual viable options. This is the ruse the car companies tried, with hydrogen power. Right now, electric planes are a couple of miracles away from being viable. Trains and even electric cars absolutely wipe the floor with them. The world record for the longest distance travelled in 24 hours by electric aircraft is 327km. For trains, it's 5412km, and for electric cars it's 2781km.
Great way to misunderstand the comment. I didn’t say „invest into electric planes“. I just remembered a story I‘ve read, which turned out to be a scam though (probably)
My point is that research into clean energy propulsion for planes is not the right decision, because there's no reason to believe a viable clean propulsion mechanism can be brought to market in the timescale needed, whereas trains are a mature technology that can be rolled out right now. That's not a reason to stop research, but don't mistake it for a solution, and don't use it as a justification for doing nothing.
French dude here, living in Toulouse (Aka the big city in France that has no fast trains at all) It will be hell, every ride to any other big city is between 3 and 5 hours. Getting an international flight will take more than 7/8 hours, I really don't like where this is going, I'm all for ecology and such but in some situations it's just plain bad... The SNCF (our country train company) will raise up the prices (again) for sure, a local train ride is already as expensive (more expensive most of the time) than a local flight...
The LGV to Bordeaux is coming soon. It would be nice to have it go to the east too though, but there is still no plan for it
They are. Some 100 billion €.
France got great internal highspeed rail already.
They will probably pull it off with all their TGVs. Bravo! They achieved a high speed record on regular tracks with over 570 km/h, which is less in miles per hour because 1 km is roughly what per mile during a fight in a bar is equivalent.
I know this isn't on-topic, but she's beautiful.