To be fair, Europe also kind of sucks at long distance trains. If you want to go the same distance as Seattle-Chicago in Europe by train (say Lisbon-Warszawa or Rome-Northern Sweden) you're often looking at 40-50 hours, mainly due to having to make 5-7 connections.
As long as you are just going between two cities with a direct train line it's trivial. The problem is if you are trying to take a train between two cities without a direct train line, like if you wanted to go from Berlin to for example Lisbon instead of Vienna.
Which is obvious because they are different countries? And, also tourists select specific countries to visit so your "use case" is very rare.
Edit
Rare = majority of tourists in Europe go to specific cities and countries. There are trips between countries but it is rare to go around ALL Europe by train. Trains are significantly more expensive that flights.
If continental Europeans want to visit another distant European country, that's a rare use case? Or are you only referring to e.g. US tourists visiting Europe?
Trains are significantly more expensive that flights
Unless you actually want to travel around ALL of Europe (or even all around a few countries in Europe), in which case trains get cheaper again, thanks to things like the interrail ticket.
That's true, and it requires more planning and available time.
I'd like to add a perspective on the contrast between Europe and the U.S. in this context. Having partially lived in both regions (across various European countries, though my main base is Buenos Aires, Argentina), one of the things that bothers me most about the U.S. is the car-centric culture. It feels almost artificial in 2024, as if it’s been taken to an extreme (I say this with a grain of salt). I don’t intend to start a flame war, but it’s surprising to me that in many areas where a 45-minute walk would be natural, there are no pedestrian paths. I’m not suggesting that cities like Los Angeles should be entirely pedestrian-friendly, but there are places where basic walkability is neglected, despite the infrastructure being suitable.
What I want to convey is that it's difficult to compare both regions' approaches to moving, and say that the article is amazing!
I'm not sure a 30-45 minute walk in cities like NYC, Boston, SF, etc. is considered all that rare. And while that length of walk is probably not someone in the average suburb is doing on local roads, plenty of people will go walk a few miles in a forest or park. Certainly not everyone but also not ~no based on what I see out and about.
We should distinguish between 1) a 30-45 minutes of walking in an ordinary day, which I agree that people in well-urbanized areas routinely do, but suburbs don't; 2) an intentional 30-45 minute recreational / for-exercise walk, which a) some, but not enough Americans (and, I suspect, smug Europeans, if they're honest; full disclosure: I don't) do anywhere near every day, and b) many urbanites will drive / take transport somewhere to do, but is (ironically) easier out-the-door on your average suburban streets; and 3) a one-way 30-45 minute journey on foot to some particular place.
I took GP to mean the last of these, which I think is uncommon, even in cities (I mean, public transport is right there, right?)
> Passenger trains between major cities in Europe are in the 200-300 km/h range.
I don't know which country exactly you mean, I live in central Europe (Slovenia) and no train goes over 200 km/h, most go 60-80 km/h.
Also, every time I'm at the train station in Ljubljana (Slovenia's capital), there's an announcement about the train from Budapest being ~40min late. And it's a way shittier looking train than the local commute ones going 60.
French high speed trains are fast, for instance the average speed of the train on the Paris-Strasbourg section (~400km in length) is 250km/h. This is the global average speed, so it is even faster on the high-speed section, going at around 320km/h. I often take this train, which is very convenient.
To emphasize just how fast this is in comparison to regular rail:
When I was visiting France some years back and took the TER train on the way from Paris to Strasbourg (300mi / 500km), and that crawled. On the way back, we took the TGV, which flew.
If you look at booking tickets on SNCF's website, the difference is stark: about 5 hours via the TER, versus a little under 2 hours via the TGV. (From that perspective, it's a little funny to describe the TER as crawling, seeing as that's not meaningfully different from driving that distance.)
There are some portions of Amtrak that have comparable max speeds (notably, the Acela) but even then, the average speeds on those routes are nowhere near 200km/h.
I took the TER from Strasbourg to Paris just weeks ago (just 2 3rds of the distance for me because I was not in Strasbourg). It travels well over 100 km/h all the time and it makes only a few stops. That is only half or even less of the TGVs' speed, but still faster than by car. Definitely not crawling.
As I mentioned -- it's not actually slow in absolute terms! The experience is lodged in my mind because it took so much more time than the reverse trip, and it was sweltering to be stuck on a train with inadequate air conditioning on a rather hot summer day.
There are of course many benefits to taking even the TER over driving the equivalent distance: you don't have to be laser-focused on driving (especially in a foreign country where you might not speak / read the language or necessarily know the rules of the road), you don't have variation in travel times due to traffic (which, by driving, you would only contribute to), reduced per-passenger emissions, and so forth.
Some information online indicates that the non high speed train takes about 20 mins more than the high speed train on that route. It does not seem a huge time difference
The connection that takes 20min longer has two additional stops (the fast connection is a direct one) but it is still served by TGV or ICE trains, like the direct connection.
The distance between Paris and Strasbourg is >400km, so even the "slow" connection has an average speed of ~200 km/h. The actual regional train connection (TER) takes nearly 5 hours with plenty of stops in between. Slightly faster non-regional but non-TGV connections only exist on lines that are not served by TGVs.
This reminds me of Voyager buses in Ontario during the 80s/90s. They had two routes between Ottawa and Toronto.
One took maybe 6 hours. The other 12+ or some such. The 12+ hour took almost the same route, but stopped at every. single. town.
Woe to the person wanting to go from Ottawa to Toronto, and buying the wrong ticket. This is pre-Internet so research was less common and easy, and if you have no idea it could matter...
New York to San Francisco is roughly 3000 miles (4800 km). At 250km/h, that’s a 19 hour trip.
A 19 hour plane trip from New York gets you to Singapore.
Fast trains are great for journeys up to about 600km. For crossing continents, planes win, whether rail enthusiasts like it or not, and a future of transport that involves “just don’t fly” as the only solution to climate change is an absolute nonstarter in most of the world.
Not a single serious person I'm aware of has proposed
“just don’t fly” as the only solution to climate change.
Any solution would require multiple strategies in tandem to increase efficiencies, reduce unnecessary energy expenditures, reduce GG emmissions, transition to non FF sources, and reduce existing GG in the atmosphere.
It's a daunting task and one that may be impossible to achieve.
That’s all very well if you’re going thousands of km. For a plane journey that takes less than 3 hours, though, the train may still win, because the train doesn’t involve… airports. No getting to the airport, security, hanging around because the train is inexplicably an hour late (trains are sometimes late, but even in the worst systems not on the scale/frequency of plane lateness), no half-hour spent boarding the train, no taxi-ing, no sitting around for 20 minutes at the end while they get around to opening the train door, no walking through a km worth of airport.
Unfortunately, the monetary and political interests in security theater became entrenched after 9/11. I'm afraid something similar might happen to trains eventually, if they're ever used in a sufficiently theatrical instance of violence. I'm enjoying the ease of access while it lasts.
This is sadly too true for the Channel Tunnel railway linking Britain with France. The post-Brexit border security easily takes in excess of half an hour as several hundred passengers shuffle single-file through the scanners. Although it is still marginally faster than flying for me due to my distance from an airport (as well as Britain's underdeveloped domestic aviation sector in general) the time spent at the station usually exceeds my actual journey now.
What's most stupid about security for rail passengers is that the original fear from 9/11 doesn't even apply - you can't hijack a train and crash it into a skyscraper!
The security scanners were always there for the Channel Tunnel, though the check is much less intensive than for air travel. They are looking for bombs, gas canisters, guns and maybe large knives.
London had terrorist attacks from the IRA long before 9/11, including attacks on the transport network. There were 13 in 1991, of which 4 were on trains or at stations.
The new delays are for the passport checks. What used to be ~10 seconds for each EU citizen — is the passport/ID card valid and does the face match? — is now 60+ seconds for British people entering the EU, as the official must check they haven't stayed more than 90 days in the last 180 etc.
It is impressive... though I must admit the prices are impressive, too. I'm going to be driving a relative to Florida next week from New England, and then flying back. Anyone that knows the seasonal migratory patterns of the new england elderbird knows that the market is heavily in my favor, but even still, the airfare, fees, taxes and everything come out to about $60 to fly over 1200 miles. That's like a nickel-a-mile. One round-trip ticket to the furthest spot in Boston's commuter rail system (terminating in Rhode Island) is nearly half that price.
Yes. I flew 707s etc. before jet bridges. And even after they became common in the US except for smaller very regional planes, it took quite a while longer for them to become common at some, even larger, international airports.
Sure, but… cities in the USA are thousands of km. Seattle to Chicago (the example given by the GP) are 2800 km distant. Those cities are slightly more distant than Lisbon and Warsaw. Chicago to Washington DC is almost the exact distance as London to Marseille (1000 km). Chicago to Houston, Texas is the same distance as London to Rome.
To go back to the first example, Seattle to Chicago is a 4 hour (scheduled, which already includes taxi time at both ends and a buffer for late departures) plane ride. Even a TGV running continuously at top speed (320km/h), with no stops, would take 8.5 hours to complete the same journey. Wikipedia tells me that the fastest start-to-end scheduled speed of a TGV is only 280 km/h, which would take over 10 hours.
Chicago to DC is about the break-even distance for high-speed-rail vs. flying. That's already pretty darn good, and it would eliminate a lot of flying.
Wait until you find out how quickly you can board and exit a train at a station that’s right in the center of the city, versus traveling to an airport, going through security, waiting to board, and then waiting some more for the plane to hopefully get its take-off slot from air control.
You can get from London to Paris by train in less time than it takes to go from Manhattan to boarding a plane at JFK.
Ah yes, the fake line of argument that for airplanes you have to drive an hour to get to the airport two hours before your flight, while in the case of trains, a powerful genie comes into your house, packs your suitcase and whisks you away in his powerful arms directly to your seat on the train 13.21 seconds prior to departure.
It's BS. In existing cities, train stations are just as hard to build in the city center as airports -- neither happens. You do not in fact need to get to airports hours in advance, and security theater in airports is still excruciating, but you can get PreCheck or Clear and cut the time way down. There is some time advantage to boarding trains, but it's on the order of 20-40 minutes, not hours.
Paris and London are only 213 miles apart! It's about 2/3rds the distance that SF is from LA, much less say SF to Seattle or NYC to Chicago. Rail travel works great in Europe because distances are small, density is high, and the cities grew up centered around rail infrastructure.
In existing cities, train stations are just as hard to build in the city center as airports -- neither happens
only in countries where they neglected building train stations before the cities grew to todays sizes. but even then it's not true. US cities are less dense, so it should be easier to find space. train stations are also much much smaller than airports and trains don't make as much noise as airplanes. there are many more reasons not to build airports in the middle of a city, none of which apply to trains.
the main problem for trains is finding a route for the track into the city. that can be and is solved with tunnels though. or the chinese approach where the high speed trainstations are sometimes built away from the center of the city and instead the center is connected by a dense network of subway lines. a process that started less than 20 years ago but now puts many chinese cities at the top of the list of the largest subway networks in the world.
So you're saying first we should invent time travel. Sounds practical!
If you want to build a transit hub outside the city center and link it via subway, that's no easier or more convenient for a train station than for an airport.
what i am saying is that i realize that building central trainstations in US cities is a bit harder due to not being able to reuse existing historical trainstations, it is certainly not as hard as building a central airport. and most importantly, it would be easier than in a comparable european city without a central trainstation because european cities tend to have dense historical centers where you can't build, whereas in the US it is probably possible to find some sufficiently central property that is up for redevelopment.
> but it's on the order of 20-40 minutes, not hours
Just driving to the airport in Denver is nearly an hour for most of the city. It'll take a half hour to get from Uptown Dallas or Frisco or Saginaw to DFW. It's like a half hour to get from Orlando International to any of the Disney resorts. About 20 minutes from downtown KC to MCI. All of this is without any time parking or going through security and assuming traffic doesn't get bad.
Dallas has a train station downtown. Same with Fort Worth. Kansas City Union Station is downtown. Manhattan has several train stations. A lot of cities have a big train station downtown, as many cities were built around the train station. A decently sized train station uses considerably less space than a busy airport.
Which of these seem easier for the people in the city to actually get to and use?
Don't get me wrong, I agree even door to door air travel will usually be faster when talking about the kinds of distances a lot of US travelers go at and often people act like a train is 0 minutes of time getting to/from the station, but arguing the whole travel time getting to/from the airport and dealing with more security is only 20 minutes is a massive stretch for a ton of Americans. Most people should budget probably an hour before their scheduled boarding time to deal with the about half hour drive, the time navigating the airport, and the time dealing with security. Plus add another half hour after landing to actually get someplace interesting.
And then there's San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Orleans... there are plenty of cities that have airports that are very convenient to them, and train stations that aren't.
My point is if you have a substantial sized city that does not already have a large train station in its center, you aren't building a train station in its center, in the same way that if your city doesn't have an airport that you've built up around, you aren't going to build it. We're all at the mercy of history here, unless you're going to try to build a new planned community where there currently is only light population.
SFO is still about a half hour drive in decent traffic for most of San Francisco. I've only flown in once, but it took like 40+min in traffic for me to go from there to Moscone. Meanwhile the train station is an 18min walk from Moscone.
LAX, sure, it is mostly surrounded by the city on three sides, but the sprawl there means the vast majority of the city sees 30+min traffic. Meanwhile Union Station there is right downtown and far more central.
It's incredible how your first two examples are such massive swings and misses at naming cities which have airports more convenient for their city than their train stations. In both the train station is more central to the actual city with a lot of people having a shorter walk to the station than most would have as a drive to the airport. About the first city in that list where the airport is actually more conveniently located is Las Vegas but largely because Amtrack just doesn't serve Vegas by train at all. Sounds like you didn't bother actually researching the list at all and just put down some cities that came to mind. Did you bother actually looking where the train stations were in comparison to the airport?
Another example, New Orleans. It is a half hour drive to/from the French Quarter. It is like a half hour walk from the train station to the French Quarter. Assuming the train and the plane arrived at the same time one could walk there from the train station before you even left the parking lot of the rental car agency.
> My point is if you have a substantial sized city that does not already have a large train station in its center
Just continuing to ignore most historic US cites (and the vast majority of the large ones) do have train stations in the middle of the city
> in the same way that if your city doesn't have an airport that you've built up around, you aren't going to build it
Just continuing to ignore the massive difference in land use requirements for even a medium airport compared to a train station. Just look at those Maps links I shared earlier. Look at how much space Penn Station in Manhattan uses. Think we can build an airport like JFK or even La Guardia in that same footprint? How would they even take off/land? Its way easier for a city to build a train station in its core than to put a whole airport with multiple runways and taxiways and tons of hangars large enough to hold a 737. It's incredible you think they're on the same level of scale to build in terms of land use.
There is no real train station in San Francisco: you're insane if you think that the Caltrain station could move significant fractions of the traffic that SFO does. SFO is more convenient to a much larger percentage of the people who live in the area (sure, not the strict city limits of SF proper) than a hypothetical station in downtown SF would be.
Like, this is pure fantasy. It's just people who have some kind of weird identity built up out of "liking trains" ignoring the actual world.
I said, "there's about a 20-40 minute advantage to train stations" and you're like trying to go to bat for the idea that an intracity commuter station which is 12 minutes from the airport somehow disproves that.
The "big country" contributes in that passenger-only high speed rail would be ruinously expensive to lay down and maintain. Long distance passenger rail exists at all in the US only because it can share track with freight rail.
Passenger trains between major cities in Europe are in the 200-280 km/h range.
The problem isn’t the big country, it’s the slow trains (that even get deprioritized after cargo, to add insult to the injury).