
Distances you can travel on a European train in less than a day - Quanttek
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/06/05/map-the-remarkable-distances-you-can-travel-on-a-european-train-in-less-than-a-day/
======
timr
You commonly hear that it's ridiculous for California to try to build a high-
speed rail network, because people are "so far apart". But France -- a nation
called out in this article for being well-connected by high-speed trains, is
about the same vertical height as California. It's a bit wider.

If you place the northern tip of France on the northern border of California,
the southern tip of France lands just north of San Diego. We have about 40
million people; France has about 60 million.

Japan (another country with great trains), is about the same vertical distance
north/south as the west coast of the US. And while Japan's population is
crammed into the coastline of an island nation where it's expensive to build,
we have gobs of open space where it's comparatively cheap to run rail.

There's simply no excuse. Sure, it doesn't make sense to try to make a high-
speed train across the country, but we should have _great_ regional rail
systems in the US. The east/west coasts, in particular, should be corridors
for rail -- if you can get from Kagoshima to Tokyo in 6 hours by Shinkansen,
there's no reason you couldn't get from New York to Miami in the same amount
of time.

~~~
barney54
The question is why? Why should the U.S. spend billions on a great passenger
rail system? High speed rail is almost always a serious money loser. What are
the benefits?

Japan and Europe's high speed rail is nice, but it hasn't necessarily resulted
in a greater share of passengers taking rail. "Since Japan introduced high-
speed bullet trains, passenger rail has lost more than half its market share
to the automobile. Since Italy, France, and other European countries opened
their high-speed rail lines, rail’s market share in Europe has dwindled from
8.2 to 5.8 percent of travel. If high-speed rail doesn’t work in Japan and
Europe, how can it work in the United States?"
[http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-
analysis/highspeed-r...](http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-
analysis/highspeed-rail-wrong-road-america)

And some environmentalist don't like it either.
[http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/california-
hi...](http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/california-high-speed-
rail-waste-time-and-money)

Most people don't know that the U.S. has a great freight rail network. U.S.
passenger rail obviously isn't great, but U.S. freight rail is the best in the
world. [http://business.time.com/2012/07/09/us-freight-
railroads/](http://business.time.com/2012/07/09/us-freight-railroads/)

I just don't know why the U.S. should build high speed rail, other than the
fact that it is fun to ride.

~~~
avz
Some benefits of a functioning railway system:

\- increased throughput compared to highways due to lower volume per passenger
(something the US is trying to achieve with carpooling lines),

\- increased reliability (there are no train-jams),

\- increased passenger convenience (no need to look for parking or do
maintenance on the train you ride),

\- increased passenger productivity (you can work or read on a train),

\- ease of transition to green source of energy.

Advantages of the car over the train:

\- greater flexibility (generally roads offer denser network than railways,
even in Europe or Japan),

\- car is much more convenient for families with children.

I love trains. I love driving. I find that the latter is much more fun and
convenience in places where the former works well. San Francisco's 101 could
be one of such places if Caltrain was more like SBB.

EDIT: one more important benefit of the train:

\- increased safety (much fewer fatalities per passenger; also no need for a
designated driver when you go to a party).

~~~
ekianjo
Some clear issues with long distance railway system: \- it costs TONS of money
to built. \- you need to buy tons of land. \- to keep straight lines in a
place like Europe, it often means you have to go through places where people
live, and you need to have villages partly destroyed by it. Yay, democracy.
You'll notice that high speed train systems are usually very much correlated
with socialism (France and Japan are both well known socialistic countries -
no surprise here at all). \- Above certain distances it makes no sense to take
the train over the plane. I take the train in Japan every week for work
between Kansai and Kantou, and it takes about 3 hours. A plane takes one hour,
and it is 40% cheaper. Remind me why we need trains there? \- The maintenance
of a railway is a huge ongoing cost. \- if there is one incident on the main
railways, your subsequent trains are delayed or blocked. Yay for flexibility
and "reliability". \- Try working in economy class in TGV in France. It's
about as narrow as plane economy, and it sucks for working. In Japan the
situation is much better but don't make a generalization there. \- green
energy ? Oh, like in Japan where most of the electricity is produced by gas,
petrol, imported at high costs from overseas since they have no such natural
resources? Yay for efficiency! (truth is, Fukushima did not help, and
electricity bills have been doubling since then (even home bills)). \-
Anything that does not depend on railways can be upgraded, transformed,
improved. We will have self driving cars at some point, and we will be stuck
with high cost trains running on linear tracks forever, because there's no
improvement to be made there. It's a 18th century concept pushed to the max.

There are cases for high speed trains, but even in Japan what they are doing
is stretching it - nobody takes a train from north Japan to south Japan even
if it's possible. It is just too expensive and takes too much time to be
actually worth it.

~~~
lars512
I agree that planes are faster over longer distances, and cheaper too. The
amount of hassle involved in planes is definitely more though, more waiting,
you're supposed to be there earlier, more transit time to and from the
airport. I think a 3h train and 1h flight are pretty comparable in the end.

~~~
verytrivial
Couldn't agree more. Short haul airlines are only profitable because they
treat passengers' wasted time as free (and for some reason passengers agree).

------
renaudg
Some of the travel times quoted don't even do justice to reality !

 _“I was really surprised how well connected Paris is. Both London and the
Mediterranean coast are less than four hours away,”_

The Mediterranean coast (Marseille) is actually just 3 hours away, and London
to Paris a mere 2h15 on the Eurostar train, with stations conveniently located
in the heart of each city.

Almost nobody is masochistic enough to fly the London-Paris route, apart from
people on connections or some American tourists who didn't do their research
and fly by default.

Also "Less than 8 hours" from Stockholm to Copenhagen is actually 5 hours
IIRC, on comfy, clean trains with free Wi-Fi and AC power.

------
ukandy
A great benefit is you end up in the heart of a city, not at airfield 80 miles
away. Lock your bag up in the station and explore.

If you like your long railway journeys, Olso to Bergen is beautiful 7 hour
trip.

~~~
_delirium
In Europe, the convenience/inconvenience of airport locations varies a ton
(which does influence purchase choices somewhat). For example Frankfurt's
airport is only 8 minutes by commuter rail from the city center, and
Copenhagen's is 12 minutes. But Paris-CDG and London-LHR are far from their
city centers.

~~~
rorykoehler
You still have to trek through the airport, wait in security lines etc etc. so
in reality it takes much longer than the time it takes the train to travel
from the airport to the city. That said flying is often if not nearly always
cheaper for short hauls in Europe.

------
lucaspiller
For anyone wondering why Eastern Europe is so badly connected, it's mainly
because the Russian Empire used a different gauge to the rest of Europe:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gauge](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gauge)

In the Baltics there is an ongoing project to upgrade and switch to standard
gauge, which will provide a direct link from Berlin to Helsinki (to start with
via ferry, but a tunnel is planned). However a lot of trade done there is with
Russia via rail, so it's beneficial for them to keep that as seamless as
possible - switching passengers is one thing, cargo is another. Lithuania
apparently transports 57% of goods by rail.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_Baltica](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_Baltica)

~~~
klodolph
The U.S. once switched rail gauge. Once preparations were complete, it took
only three days for the entire southern U.S. to change from 5' to 4'9".

[http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1966/66-8/gauge.html](http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1966/66-8/gauge.html)

------
anonymousDan
For any non-Europeans looking to explore Europe by rail, I can highly
recommend getting an Interrail ticket that gives you unlimited rail travel for
various durations. For a reasonable price you can get a multi zone ticket that
will let you explore most of Europe for a very reasonable price.

~~~
saryant
Non-European citizens can't use Interrail. There's a similar product called
Eurail but with the discounts available for advance-purchase tickets, the pass
often doesn't make sense if you're traveling with a relatively specific
itinerary and can plan ahead.

The surcharges on the various high-speed trains really killed the cost-
effectiveness of the Eurail pass.

edit: There's a good overview of why the Eurail pass if often a bad option at
Seat61: [http://seat61.com/Railpass-and-Eurail-pass-
guide.htm#Should](http://seat61.com/Railpass-and-Eurail-pass-guide.htm#Should)
you buy a railpass or pay-as-you-go

~~~
avz
> Non-European citizens can't use Interrail.

Not true. You have to be a _resident_ to use Interrail. So if you don't have a
European passport, but live there, you can still use Interrail.

Note also, "European" here means a lot more countries than the EU. Other
eligible countries of residence include: Albania, Andorra, Belarus, Bosnia-
Herzegovina, FYR Macedonia, Gibraltar, Iceland, Kosovo, Liechtenstein,
Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, Russian Federation, San Marino, Serbia,
Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and Vatican City.

Source: [http://www.interrail.eu/help/ordering-pass/do-i-need-
interra...](http://www.interrail.eu/help/ordering-pass/do-i-need-interrail-or-
eurail-pass)

~~~
codecamper
Whole lotta folk from San Marino! May as well mention sea land then.

------
bane
For sake of comparison, Europe vs. Contiguous U.S.

[https://mapfight.appspot.com/europe-vs-usc/europe-united-
sta...](https://mapfight.appspot.com/europe-vs-usc/europe-united-states-
contiguous-size-comparison)

vs. All of the U.S.

[https://mapfight.appspot.com/europe-vs-us/europe-united-
stat...](https://mapfight.appspot.com/europe-vs-us/europe-united-states-size-
comparison)

For fun, here's a similar-ish map for calculating travel time in the ancient
Roman World.

[http://orbis.stanford.edu/](http://orbis.stanford.edu/)

~~~
Dewie3
Wow, I've never seen a map of the world before. /s

~~~
dang
Please keep comments substantive.

------
donpark
Would love to see map of Europe reflecting distance by train, drawing
countries with fast rail system smaller and those with slow rail system
larger.

~~~
mathgenius
Yeah, I'm also pondering different ways of visualizing this data.. I wonder if
it is possible to distort the map of europe so that map distance actually
corresponds to train travel time. I guess not in general, because of metric
curvature: you could have a small (fast) triangle that surrounds a large (slow
to access) area.

------
Peroni
I was confused as to why Ireland was showing up as accessible in these maps.
Mainland Ireland isn't accessible by train from Europe. I found this excerpt
in the original blog post which makes the concept slightly misleading:

 _Any points on water were assigned a swimming rate of 100 minutes / kilometer
in order to create dense contours at the coasts._

~~~
Symbiote
You can buy through tickets from Great Britain to Ireland, there are stations
adjacent to the passenger ferries.

~~~
Peroni
Right, but that requires spending at least three hours on a ferry, therefore
contradicting the concept of the title.

~~~
jonemo
In Holyhead (ferry port in Wales with many daily connections to Dublin) you
board the ferry from the end of the train station platform of the high speed
rail. The slow ferry takes three hours, the express ferry takes 1.5 hours.
When I was there in 2006 there were many direct trains from there to London
Euston.

The other option might be ferries that carry trains. I believe they don't do
this across the Irish Sea, but I've been on a train that drives onto a ferry
across the Baltic sea connecting Berlin and Malmo (Sweden). You can get off
the train while on the ferry, but you don't have to.

~~~
Peroni
>...the express ferry takes 1.5 hours.

I take this ferry every few months and it takes a minimum of 1hr 50mins on a
good day.

>The other option might be ferries that carry trains.

Not between Ireland and England.

My point is, I can get a train direct to any major airport in London and fly
to a significant chunk of Europe in under 2hrs and continue my journey via
train so why not factor in those options too?

~~~
rorykoehler
When was the last time you bought a plane ticket from the train ticket desk in
the train station?

~~~
Peroni
Really? _That 's_ the criteria?

~~~
rorykoehler
It might seem inconsequential and I can't answer on behalf of the author of
the article however if you have ever done the rail and sail you might
understand it a bit better. I get what you are saying but the difference in
faff between taking a plane and casually walking from the train to the boat is
huge.

------
maelito
As a French, I wonder how British people judge their rail system in 2015

~~~
david-given
It's crap.

At least, in my opinion --- I live in Switzerland now, so my standards are...
different. But, basically, overpriced, unreliable, dirty, and slow. The only
places where the train system actually works well is the south-east of
England, where it's horribly expensive. I used to live in Reading; a peak time
day return into London, which is maybe half an hour a way, costs about £40.

Bear in mind that I know perfectly well that Britain's rail network is
_amazing_ compared to, say, America or eastern Europe. But the local
_perception_ of it is that it's bad. (Not helped by several rounds of botched
privatisation, too.)

Incidentally, I'd love to know how to get from Ireland to Great Britain by
train. Do they float?

~~~
lukeqsee
> I live in Switzerland now

How did you get into Switzerland? I've been considering / researching the
possibility for a while, but it seems like a very long process to legally
enter the country. Did you find it that way? Any recommendations?

[I looked for a personal email, but there isn't one listed on your profile.]

~~~
tonfa
Is it so much harder for UK citizens? For (most) Schengen people it is really
simple.

~~~
Symbiote
Schengen is irrelevant here, British people have the same rights as every
other EU citizen (i.e. go, then register as a citizen which is just a
formality).

But the person asking is American, which is presumably very different.

------
Roritharr
One of the real reasons why i love living in Frankfurt. I feel closer to all
of Europe than everywhere else on the continent.

~~~
allendoerfer
To the world really, because we do not have to drive to Frankfurt first to use
a proper airport.

I look forward to the Frankfurt-London rail link operated by Deutsche Bahn.
Strange times, when the UK thinks about moving away from the EU and staying
alone on their little island like in the good old times and yet London is
nearly as close to Frankfurt as Frankfurt is to Berlin.

~~~
Roritharr
Actually i've recently had a chat with people from DB Strategy, they've said
that the Frankfurt-London connection is now technically possible and has been
tested, but the ICE that should be used on it has a lot of technical issues
that push the chances of having technical issues on one trip to above 20%.

That is a reason why they have pushed that connection off into the undisclosed
future.

He wasn't a technical person, but the way he described it was that everytime
an ICE crosses a country border, it has to change the settings on how the
train operates, to comply with local laws and standards. This is stuff like
how rapidly it is supposed to brake, etc.

He says that there is a 1 in 10 chance that when doing that "settings-swap"
some part of the train software crashes irrecoverably and the whole train has
to be rebooted, which can take up to 15 minutes.

So when crossing from germany into belgium, then france, then uk and back
again there would be a high chance that those trains would have to be rebooted
somewhere along that track, and that would wreck havoc within the
international train system.

------
archagon
I enjoy traveling by train, but it's a bit of a shame that it's often
economically unwise to pick a train over a coach bus if you're sensitive at
all about the price. Difference can be 3x or higher, though some countries are
better than others. (Italy, the UK, and Eastern Europe have pretty cheap
trains, I've found.) Rail passes seem to only make things better if you're
travelling a bunch over a short period of time, not once every few weeks.
Still, I'd much rather travel by coach than air!

~~~
mattmanser
In the UK it's often cheaper and quicker to hire a car, so I'm not sure why
you think UK trains are cheap?

~~~
ubernostrum
For DjangoCon Europe this past week I flew into London, stayed a few days
being touristy, went to the conference in Cardiff, then came back to London
and am flying out (home to the US) in a few hours.

I took a train to and from Cardiff. It was £22 each direction, roughly 2.5
hour trip from London Paddington to Cardiff Central, and the same in the
opposite direction.

I doubt very much I'd have been able to hire a car for that trip for £22 each
way. In fact, I probably couldn't even have gotten out of _London_ for £22.

~~~
Symbiote
In Britain, you pay a lot for peak-time travel, or last-minute travel.

London to Cardiff and back is £218 at peak times(!) on a fully-flexible
ticket, £74 with a flexible off-peak ticket, and as low as £40-ish (which you
paid) if booked well in advance for particular trains.

It would have cost about £50 in petrol (return) to drive, plus £40/day for a
small rental car.

~~~
ubernostrum
How "last-minute" are we talking here? I booked the ticket on May 24, for the
trip to Cardiff on May 30.

In the US, where intercity trips above a couple hundred miles are typically by
air, six days out would be "last-minute" for most people, so that's my frame
of reference.

Also, the return to London corresponded with the hordes of One Direction fans
(whose suddenly-announced concert in Cardiff forced a shuffling of the
conference schedule since every hotel in town sold out instantly).

~~~
lorenzhs
In Germany I usually buy my ticket on my phone on the way to the station (I do
have a BahnCard 50, i.e. 50% off all journeys). I could typically save a few
quid if I booked non-flexible tickets a few days in advance (3-7 days). For
longer distances (>400km) the savings become more noticeable and my trips less
spontaneous, so I do tend to book those in advance as far as possible.

In the UK (I had a Railcard), I booked everything as far as possible in
advance (quite often on the day advance tickets became available), as prices
for advance tickets do vary quite a lot when you get close (weeks instead of
months) to the day of travel. If you don't care which train you take, then
you'll usually find affordable tickets a week in advance, but when meeting
people at a fixed time, booking close to the day can yield unwelcome
surprises.

------
r0naa
I recently moved to Canada from Europe and one of the "cultural shock" were
the difference in scale on the maps and what is commonly considered being "a
short drive".

I did a tour of the most active hackerspaces of Europe in six months while I
was in high-school. It was a fantastic experience and it is the cheap cost of
night trains that made it possible. Granted those were not super confortable
but I do not regret the experience one bit.

~~~
cosmolev
I would appreciate if you would list these most active hackerspaces of Europe!

------
PeterWhittaker
Cool graphics. Once you get used to the colour scheme, you really see how
connected are various European cities.

