This isn’t really earth shattering news or anything, but the recent trip we took to Sweden was an interesting contrast in air versus train travel. Being from the U.S., i’ve travelled a lot more by airplane than by train. Of course, airplanes move faster — most commercial jet airliners are using cruising at about 780 kph, while many trains are probably cruising around 130 kph, though the fast intercity trains cruise at as much as 320 kph. Still, a big difference: airplanes are twice as fast.
But, to quote wikipedia on long-distance trains:
In most cases, high-speed rail travel is time- and cost-competitive with air travel when distances do not exceed 500 to 600 km (311 to 373 mi), as airport check-in and boarding procedures may add as many as two hours to the actual transit time.[5] Also, rail operating costs over these distances may be lower when the amount of fuel consumed by an airliner during takeoff and climbout is considered. As travel distance increases, the latter consideration becomes less of the total cost of operating an airliner and air travel becomes more cost-competitive.
And this assumes flights are on time, which for our recent trip was not true. Our outbound 09:30 flight from London City Airport was delayed and eventually cancelled due to fog (or low clouds), so we waited nearly 13 hours at the airport before we left. The flight was 2 hours (30 minutes less than scheduled), so the 1,423 km were travelled over 15 hours, so about 109 kph — about the speed of highway automobile travel, and definitely slower than intercity trains.
That’s an unusually long delay, but i seem to be running into more of these extreme delays lately — perhaps because profit margins are so small, the airlines are stretched too thin to handle weather delays.
So here’s how the comparison is looking to me:
Cost
Same or better for trains on shorter trips, but even for long trips it can be much better. For our round-trip train from one end of Sweden to the other (about 1,100 km each way), we paid about 430 GBP, versus 338 for a flight that would not cover the last 200 km. And the 430 GBP included lodging for two nights, with an en suite shower and loo, though it was small. :)
Time
As mentioned in the quote above, for over 600km, it may be more time efficient to travel by airplane, but when one considers that trains usually come all the way into cities, one can save two hours (or more) each trip avoiding travel to and from the airports. When you add in the additional hour or more that one must allot for arriving before a flight, this is even more substantial.
Trains are easy. You get to the station 15 minutes before the train, and then you just get on.
Global Warming
Sweden’s state-own train company, SJ states that their trains are all electrical and the electricity is sourced from hydroelectric and wind-powered sources. So no greenhouse gas production. Of course not all trains are electric, but they’re similarly (if not more) efficient to airplanes, and there are theories that indicate that air travel is especially bad because it deposits greenhouse gases in the stratosphere.
Comfort
There’s just no comparison here. On the train, there was more leg room in the passenger seats for the shorter, 5-hour trip, and for the 13-hour train, we had our own private room with beds and a bathroom, for roughly the same price.
And i get to carry on my own tub of Vegemite, and butter knife to spread it with, and bottle of water or beer or wine, etc.
Humiliation
We weren’t scanned, groped, or interrogated on our train trip. During the trip we were allowed to move freely around nearly the entire train, and could use the restroom whenever we wanted.
Reliability
Trains are less affected by weather. (The Swedish train engines had snow plows!)
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