Post #2848553

2026-02-27 09:04 UTC

3. Long-term: faster lines. The comparison is sobering. A train from Beijing to Shanghai, roughly 1200 km, takes around 4 hours 40 minutes. A train from Warsaw to Berlin, just 571 km, takes around 6 hours 30 minutes. Who wouldn’t take an Amsterdam to Vienna train if it took 5h? Or Copenhagen Brussels in under 4h?

Replies (3)

@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social 2026-02-27 09:05

None of this is about romance or nostalgia. It is about system design. As long as trains are slower, more expensive and less predictable than planes, people will continue to fly. The structural conditions have to change first. What would make you switch?

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@phl@mastodon.social 2026-02-27 10:06

@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social Long term, sadly, but it's like 30 years overdue. If not more. The state of non-national high speed rail in the supposedly connected Europe is abysmal.

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@svuorela@helvede.net 2026-02-27 10:48

@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social Especially the speed and the convenience would help do it for me. I was in Brussels recently from Copenhagen by plane. I passed close by Copenhagen Central station, and I think I all in all took 3.5 hours from passing Copenhagen Central to being at Brussel Central. And I had at least 6 different departure times from Copenhagen airport to take from. I did look at trains, but I got tired just by looking at it.

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