We quite often take the car to my parents home near Glasgow from our home on the outskirts of London. The train from London to Glasgow is about 4.5h if it runs to time (that's a pretty big if on the UKs rail network). The drive is about 8 hours including some reasonable stops, often we split it overnight with a stop midway.
The problem is we don't live near Euston station, it would take about 1.5 hours to get to Waterloo then maybe 30 minutes to get across London on the underground. With two small children and the stuff they require for a week it would be excruciating. When we get to the other end we wouldn't have a car to visit the family members were traveling to see and realistically would have to rent a car.
I've done the journey by train more times than I can count, both when I was single and before we had kids. I would be happy to do it again but the cost is easily 5x what it would be to just drive and is far less flexible.
> I would be happy to do it again but the cost is easily 5x what it would be to just drive and is far less flexible.
To me this is a huge part of the problem.
I've wanted to take the train many times in the US, but it also is wildly expensive here. Much faster and cheaper to take a plane in most cases.
I'd think the way to solve this is to tax driving a car appropriately, whether through parking or other methods, to encourage and subsidize train travel. If the cost comes down, I'm guessing many more people would do it.
The problem is we don't live near Euston station, it would take about 1.5 hours to get to Waterloo then maybe 30 minutes to get across London on the underground. With two small children and the stuff they require for a week it would be excruciating. When we get to the other end we wouldn't have a car to visit the family members were traveling to see and realistically would have to rent a car.
I've done the journey by train more times than I can count, both when I was single and before we had kids. I would be happy to do it again but the cost is easily 5x what it would be to just drive and is far less flexible.