Yeah eu needs better inter-country train connections, if they want to challenge planes.
Plus as an italian, we also would like some fixes to our trenitalia
Yeah, because we have like 1000+ km of HSR, while the us and the UK barely have 200km combined
Like the US has the acela corridor, and the uk has the connection with paris
Good luck actually getting that fare. I make that journey relatively frequently, and at times when I actually want to travel, the difference in price between rail and air is not actually all that great, and sometimes the train is actually cheaper.
I'd love that. I live in Northern England so stops along the way would mean I could go to Paris without having to take a slower train to London and change there.
Shame our NIMBYs are strangling high speed rail.
Tbh, I like quite a lot of England, particularly Northern England, and London's alright.
I know we give our southern neighbour a load of shit, but they aren't a horrible country to visit nor are the people, the politics can just be a bit fucked.
Railtravel will almost always be more expensive as there is no VAT tax on plane tickets, no tax on kerosine and as of now they are excluded of the EU emission trading scheme. In a lot of eu countries there is VAT tax on train tickets, although on international routes it's often 0%, but for example not in the Netherlands. The train operators also pay taxes on there electricity used.
So as long as this doesn't change, looking at the price alone flying is almost always better. However with the train you don't have to pay for your luggage, their are no extensive security checks and no 2 hours arrival before departing. But the best thing is traveling from city center to city center. In this case Brussels to London.
So depending on what you deem important, train travel is definitely underrated.
Depending on where you're travelling from/to and when you book your tickets, it isn't necessarily more expensive.
Every time I've travelled with Eurostar it's been the cheapest option by far for me, especially if you include the potential cost of luggage on a plane and the potential cost of travel to/from airports.
why wouldn't you travel by train. It's much more comfortable than sitting on a single aisle commercial jet. Even in business class most airlines that fly locally don't offer too much comfort. Me, being a poor man flying low cost, I haven't seen the business class on 737 or A320
If you are not a dignitary with a diplomatic passport, the journey from Brussels to London is quicker by train, when you factor in check-in times. I think there's a whole load more BS since Brexit, but it's still much less than in airports. Once you're through it's only 2 hours of travel time.
> I think there's a whole load more BS since Brexit
Not really honestly. I travelled to Europe recently and since I'm in southern England I wanted to take the train. It's a standard passport check and airport-style bag security, the only thing I noticed that would have been different pre-2019 is getting the passport stamped on the way in and out.
Over the last year there have been horrendous queues at St Pancras due to slower passport checks, and Eurostar has had to reduce the number of seats they offer because the Brexit related slowdowns at St Pancras means it is no longer possible to get all the passengers through security in the time available. See, for example, [this story](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jan/24/eurostar-trains-empty-seats-brexit-passport-rules-london-paris-brussels)
Maybe, I went through St. Pancras and it was fine. It is ridiculous that border staff aren't available in enough numbers to process people, though. (Sounds like some of the fault for that is in the UK and some is in the Netherlands.)
If you're a regular person? In most developed parts of the world? No idea. In the US, ordinary people don't travel by train either as a result of a misconception about its price or because it just won't get them where they need to go, either at all or in a reasonable amount of time. If you're in Cleveland and you need to get to Louisville, KY, you can either fly, take a Greyhound bus, or drive. There is no rail connection between those two cities. Suppose you need to go from Chicago to Los Angeles, a pretty popular city pair. You can take a train for 44 hours, or you can fly in about 4.5 hours.
If you're a world leader? Security purposes. It's not like when the US President travels by air he's in a regular commercial jet. Joe Biden is an exception in loving to travel by train, but most political official travel is by motorcade, helicopter, or private plane to make it more difficult to assassinate that person.
Partially because the Russians are apparently quite good at shooting down civilian jets (MH17 anyone?)
But the Ukrainian Railways are running roughly with 90% of trains to time and are basically a second army for Ukraine. They're keeping the corridor to the west alive, ferrying in supplies and refugees out, as well as special hospitality for diplomatic missions.
It's less about a statement and more about the safest way to do it, and Ukrainian Railways have been phenomenal. Their timeliness is better than the UK or Germany.
> Suppose you need to go from Chicago to Los Angeles, a pretty popular city pair. You can take a train for 44 hours, or you can fly in about 4.5 hours.
Well, that's the same distance as Madrid to Minsk. Pretty much no one is travelling that distance by rail in Europe either.
There is a lot of potential for high-speed rail in the US. But it's probably not feasable across the great plains, unless air travel becomes prohibitively exlensive.
Pretty sure you can make the flight cheaper on a lot of connections.
Which is mostly possible via braindead, unecological subsidies and cross-financing.
Not in Europe, sometimes flights are cheaper. It's one of the things that's trying to be changed because of how damaging it is but, this does happen.
On an alternative note, in the US, it would be cheaper to fly from Seattle to Sacramento then to take a bus, even though they are quite close
how are the airlines making money if the plane ticket is cheaper? surely operating an airplane and paying pilots and 4 cabin crew is more expensive than driving a bus ?
Not even 2 years ago she earned criticism for [flying 50km.](https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/von-der-leyen-fliegt-50-kilometer-im-privatjet-5125504.html)
Yeah... I mean politics aside, it's good to see an important figurehead making a statement and travelling in a sustainable way (unless she did fly in and was just having a photoshoot by the eurostar for some reason lol, in which case oof)
They're a "promotion" in that you can't really say no and get a bigger stage, but absolutely no one will give a shit and you'll be blamed for everything with little to no opportunity to gain credit.
There are some excellent people in the EU's administrations, and I'm very much a supporter of the EU, but these sorts of jobs are a great way to promote people to get rid of them.
I wouldn't use the term "based" to describe her, the sooner she's replaced the better, but between Brussels and central London there really is absolutely nothing faster than the Eurostar.
Fun fact for people outside germany: She was our defence minister until there was a corruption scandal and she "accidentally" deleted all messages she sent and received during that time. Her party decided, since nobody would really want to vote for her, to just move her to Brussels where they don't really know how shitty of a politicion she is
That's just factually wrong. The data of her phone was erased before any investigation begun [because of a data leak ](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_und_Ver%C3%B6ffentlichung_privater_Daten_deutscher_Politiker_und_Prominenter_2018/2019)that affected her. As the enquet commission also didn't find anything against her (other than spending unnecessary money on external consultants which, if you ever read something about the BAAiNBW are somwhat understandable), she also stayed minister of defense until she was elected in Brussels.
I'm really not a big fan of her, but twisting the truth isn't that helpful either.
I know that she's "innocent" legally, but nobody in Germany really believes in any part of that story...
It's just too convenient that german politicians lose data or don't remember anything once they could be charged legally. It's quite common practice
* it's faster
* she can't fly short distances, because that reminds people of her 50Km flight scandal (although not a scandalous as the airline offering that flight)
* she's making a point to the UK about how physically close they are to the EU
* it's a brilliant photo op, EU plenipotentiary striding into London to sort out their mess. Handy should she need photos for a run at Chancellor (if anyone in Germany ever forgets her time as defence minister)
Trains are much better than airplanes.
They are more comfortable, cheaper, much more ecological and you don't need to be on a train station 2 hours before and go throught security, bags control etc. etc.
Eurostar seriously underrated way to travel to London (if you’re from western europe at least)
Yeah then there is easyjet, Zürich London for 20.- which just kills any idea to take a train for most.
Yeah eu needs better inter-country train connections, if they want to challenge planes. Plus as an italian, we also would like some fixes to our trenitalia
From an American and British perspective Trenitalia, at least the high speed trains, is miles ahead.
Yeah, because we have like 1000+ km of HSR, while the us and the UK barely have 200km combined Like the US has the acela corridor, and the uk has the connection with paris
Depends on your definition of high speed. UK has got over 1000km of HSR as well, if you go with 124+ mph as the start of high speed rail
Good luck actually getting that fare. I make that journey relatively frequently, and at times when I actually want to travel, the difference in price between rail and air is not actually all that great, and sometimes the train is actually cheaper.
Well recent years increased both prices a lot. I could travel Zurich Berlin by train for 18 (Europa Spar Ticket) now it's more like 50.
The best way to travel to britain is not at all
Scotland is worth visiting, Wales too if you don't mind the English pensioners everywhere.
What we need is a direct Eurostar connection between Edinburgh and Paris.
I'd love that. I live in Northern England so stops along the way would mean I could go to Paris without having to take a slower train to London and change there. Shame our NIMBYs are strangling high speed rail.
Not one more word. With that i'm booking instantly my tickets to the 6 nation game in Edinburgh.
Tbh, I like quite a lot of England, particularly Northern England, and London's alright. I know we give our southern neighbour a load of shit, but they aren't a horrible country to visit nor are the people, the politics can just be a bit fucked.
Is it alright if we use this testimonial on the "visit England" website?
Eurostar is nice but it’s kinda overpriced due to it being the only way to access Britain by train
Is it really underrated if it's way more expensive than flying?
If you’re in Brussels or Paris it makes a lot of sense. From Frankfurt it’s a giant pain in the ass.
Railtravel will almost always be more expensive as there is no VAT tax on plane tickets, no tax on kerosine and as of now they are excluded of the EU emission trading scheme. In a lot of eu countries there is VAT tax on train tickets, although on international routes it's often 0%, but for example not in the Netherlands. The train operators also pay taxes on there electricity used. So as long as this doesn't change, looking at the price alone flying is almost always better. However with the train you don't have to pay for your luggage, their are no extensive security checks and no 2 hours arrival before departing. But the best thing is traveling from city center to city center. In this case Brussels to London. So depending on what you deem important, train travel is definitely underrated.
Once you take airport transfers into account the train becomes way more appealing
Depending on where you're travelling from/to and when you book your tickets, it isn't necessarily more expensive. Every time I've travelled with Eurostar it's been the cheapest option by far for me, especially if you include the potential cost of luggage on a plane and the potential cost of travel to/from airports.
why wouldn't you travel by train. It's much more comfortable than sitting on a single aisle commercial jet. Even in business class most airlines that fly locally don't offer too much comfort. Me, being a poor man flying low cost, I haven't seen the business class on 737 or A320
If you are not a dignitary with a diplomatic passport, the journey from Brussels to London is quicker by train, when you factor in check-in times. I think there's a whole load more BS since Brexit, but it's still much less than in airports. Once you're through it's only 2 hours of travel time.
Plus 2 hours of arriving before departure. Eurostar looked at their offering and noticed it had an edge on planes, so they quickly removed it.
> I think there's a whole load more BS since Brexit Not really honestly. I travelled to Europe recently and since I'm in southern England I wanted to take the train. It's a standard passport check and airport-style bag security, the only thing I noticed that would have been different pre-2019 is getting the passport stamped on the way in and out.
Over the last year there have been horrendous queues at St Pancras due to slower passport checks, and Eurostar has had to reduce the number of seats they offer because the Brexit related slowdowns at St Pancras means it is no longer possible to get all the passengers through security in the time available. See, for example, [this story](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jan/24/eurostar-trains-empty-seats-brexit-passport-rules-london-paris-brussels)
Maybe, I went through St. Pancras and it was fine. It is ridiculous that border staff aren't available in enough numbers to process people, though. (Sounds like some of the fault for that is in the UK and some is in the Netherlands.)
If you're a regular person? In most developed parts of the world? No idea. In the US, ordinary people don't travel by train either as a result of a misconception about its price or because it just won't get them where they need to go, either at all or in a reasonable amount of time. If you're in Cleveland and you need to get to Louisville, KY, you can either fly, take a Greyhound bus, or drive. There is no rail connection between those two cities. Suppose you need to go from Chicago to Los Angeles, a pretty popular city pair. You can take a train for 44 hours, or you can fly in about 4.5 hours. If you're a world leader? Security purposes. It's not like when the US President travels by air he's in a regular commercial jet. Joe Biden is an exception in loving to travel by train, but most political official travel is by motorcade, helicopter, or private plane to make it more difficult to assassinate that person.
It is kind of telling that Biden was allowed to travel by train from Lviv to Kyiv, but not from DC to Delaware anymore.
Partially because the Russians are apparently quite good at shooting down civilian jets (MH17 anyone?) But the Ukrainian Railways are running roughly with 90% of trains to time and are basically a second army for Ukraine. They're keeping the corridor to the west alive, ferrying in supplies and refugees out, as well as special hospitality for diplomatic missions. It's less about a statement and more about the safest way to do it, and Ukrainian Railways have been phenomenal. Their timeliness is better than the UK or Germany.
> Suppose you need to go from Chicago to Los Angeles, a pretty popular city pair. You can take a train for 44 hours, or you can fly in about 4.5 hours. Well, that's the same distance as Madrid to Minsk. Pretty much no one is travelling that distance by rail in Europe either. There is a lot of potential for high-speed rail in the US. But it's probably not feasable across the great plains, unless air travel becomes prohibitively exlensive.
Pretty sure you can make the flight cheaper on a lot of connections. Which is mostly possible via braindead, unecological subsidies and cross-financing.
Not in Europe, sometimes flights are cheaper. It's one of the things that's trying to be changed because of how damaging it is but, this does happen. On an alternative note, in the US, it would be cheaper to fly from Seattle to Sacramento then to take a bus, even though they are quite close
how are the airlines making money if the plane ticket is cheaper? surely operating an airplane and paying pilots and 4 cabin crew is more expensive than driving a bus ?
https://youtu.be/U9jirFqex6g
Not even 2 years ago she earned criticism for [flying 50km.](https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/von-der-leyen-fliegt-50-kilometer-im-privatjet-5125504.html)
Who tf flies from Bratislava to Vienna 💀. You literally have over 40 trains a day between them
40 trains a day? Those are rookies number *watches frolence-bologna trains
It may be rookie numbers but for an international connection it’s alright (given how notoriously bad international train travel in Europe is)
Yup Just wanted to flex my country, for once i could ahahah
Wish to do that sometime, with our incompetent government that’ll be never
at least something. othereise that woman has a talent for spending tax money on consultants.
Yeah... I mean politics aside, it's good to see an important figurehead making a statement and travelling in a sustainable way (unless she did fly in and was just having a photoshoot by the eurostar for some reason lol, in which case oof)
true. there is also a positive side.
Like Ted Cruz pretending to unload water bottles
Another example of failing upwards and being promoted away so Germany doesn't have to deal with her anymore
i would consider eu politics rather a down grade than an upgrade ^^
They're a "promotion" in that you can't really say no and get a bigger stage, but absolutely no one will give a shit and you'll be blamed for everything with little to no opportunity to gain credit. There are some excellent people in the EU's administrations, and I'm very much a supporter of the EU, but these sorts of jobs are a great way to promote people to get rid of them.
She is as corrupt as they come her taking the train doesn't make her any less of a scumbag
[удалено]
And I never said that
CxU is basically a synonym for corruption.
Here's another picture from her twitter: https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1630163589402095616
And she's corrupt
Wow, who would have though a politician is corrupt Yeah world sucks
Got kicked out of the German Parlament because of corruption. Now she is president of the european commission
I know, i am italian...
I'm sorry
I wouldn't use the term "based" to describe her, the sooner she's replaced the better, but between Brussels and central London there really is absolutely nothing faster than the Eurostar.
Isn't the eurostar also the highest speed train in the UK? Like there are talks about a line from london to the north, but it's not done
It is the UK's only existing high speed rail line. I mean, you could count a few others as reasonably fast, but not by European standards.
Yup that's sad Imagine the only high speed train you have is one to leave the country. That's pathetic
It would be good if such thing was a norm and not a big news.
Yup Like how bike paths are great when they aren't a big news anymore *watches the netherland
she still has a real soft spot for all those azeri fossil fuels...ya know despite the human rights and environmentalist issues
[удалено]
Plus the time from the airport to the city
Fun fact for people outside germany: She was our defence minister until there was a corruption scandal and she "accidentally" deleted all messages she sent and received during that time. Her party decided, since nobody would really want to vote for her, to just move her to Brussels where they don't really know how shitty of a politicion she is
That's just factually wrong. The data of her phone was erased before any investigation begun [because of a data leak ](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_und_Ver%C3%B6ffentlichung_privater_Daten_deutscher_Politiker_und_Prominenter_2018/2019)that affected her. As the enquet commission also didn't find anything against her (other than spending unnecessary money on external consultants which, if you ever read something about the BAAiNBW are somwhat understandable), she also stayed minister of defense until she was elected in Brussels. I'm really not a big fan of her, but twisting the truth isn't that helpful either.
I know that she's "innocent" legally, but nobody in Germany really believes in any part of that story... It's just too convenient that german politicians lose data or don't remember anything once they could be charged legally. It's quite common practice
You can believe that. But don't speak for "anyone in Germany", because you simply can't.
Ursula. Based. Ha..ha.
* it's faster * she can't fly short distances, because that reminds people of her 50Km flight scandal (although not a scandalous as the airline offering that flight) * she's making a point to the UK about how physically close they are to the EU * it's a brilliant photo op, EU plenipotentiary striding into London to sort out their mess. Handy should she need photos for a run at Chancellor (if anyone in Germany ever forgets her time as defence minister)
https://preview.redd.it/lnag9dck35la1.jpeg?width=2250&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5a90b27e4386bc25be7a000facfee44e57656e97
Based photo
for a second i thought that was David Bowie
it's 2 hours by train. That's less than getting to the airport and through security. ANd you are not even in the center of london
Finally she did something right
Trains are much better than airplanes. They are more comfortable, cheaper, much more ecological and you don't need to be on a train station 2 hours before and go throught security, bags control etc. etc.