@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social
Post #2848554
2026-02-27 09:05 UTC
Replies (12)
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@tshirtman@mas.to 2026-02-27 09:08
@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social for having looked at option to go from Amsterdam to places in Germany by night, and having given up, too many connections, and hearing that making connections these days is a whole gamble over there, i don’t want to take the plane for such trips, but it’s really a hard sell.
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@A_denie@toot.io 2026-02-27 09:10
@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social plus it's so hecking EXPENSIVE. (we were discussing it in the context of summer holidays. If you decide to limit yourself to train travel, it limits your range severely. So I guess we're taking the car again)
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@teun@kolektiva.social 2026-02-27 09:22
@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social One word: reliability. Last year I took the train from the Netherlands to the south of Spain for work. A trip that should take about 24 hours. My very first train was delayed by an hour and I ended up scrambling to rebook all my trains, booking a last-minute hotel in Paris, and finally taking 48 hours to get to my destination. A few weeks ago I took the train from Belgium to the south of Spain for work. A trip that should take about 17 hours. My train from Lyon was cancelled without warning and I ended up scrambling to rebook my trains, getting a six-hour BlaBlaCar ride, booking a last-minute hostel in Perpignan, and finally taking 34 hours to get to my destination. Honestly, I feel like an idiot for even taking the train, but I refuse to fly over these short distances because it's just ridiculous to do so.
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@erpu@eupolicy.social 2026-02-27 09:25
@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social And if folks want to help make that switch happen they can join us at https://erpu.eu ! We're organizing and bring together the voices of passengers to advocate for those structural changes we need.
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@TimWardCam@c.im 2026-02-27 09:56
@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social Another difference, in the UK at least, is that you can see the plane timetable and book a ticket a year in advance. For trains it's just a few weeks, which is not clever if you're trying to work out whether or not you need to book an extra night in the hotel which may not be available at short notice.
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@EvelineSulman@akademienl.social 2026-02-27 11:25
@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social I try to go by train in Europe, but Amsterdam to Warsaw was too much time, bad interconnection and no night train when I needed it. So, you are absolutely right.
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@mellifluousbox@mastodon.social 2026-02-27 13:08
@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social One thing I would love new trains to lean in on more heavily are dedicated compartments whether it's child playground areas, a nice cafe/restaurant, sleeping areas (sleeper trains are nice but is there maybe a daytime lounge version of it?), or dedicated call booths for people travelling for business. These things partially exist already but reliable internet still appears to be a utopia. If they can be fixed, train as default means of transport might become an inevitability.
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@arendjr@mstdn.social 2026-02-27 16:51
@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social Personally I take the fact they are slower as a positive. When I go on holiday, I don't want the stress of flying, nor the cramped seats of a plane. Rather, I can take the convenience and pace of the train to unwind and arrive at my destination well-rested.
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@pmdj@mstdn.social 2026-02-27 17:13
@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social In addition to the issues already mentioned, I also miss the ability to check in or cheaply send luggage. (The latter is possible with Yamato/Ta-Q-Bin in Japan & Taiwan for example.) Dragging your bags around is OK if you‘re all able-bodied adults. But it becomes a major pain with kids or mobility-challenged people. Every year I look whether the family trip to visit my in-laws is doable by train, but it’s just too painful. (~Vienna to Figueras or Perpignan)
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@schmidt_fu@mstdn.social 2026-02-27 19:15
@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social To mention the elephant in the room: You would have to flip Germany. It's a central transit country, and it tries to sabotage trains as hard as legally possible, in an ill-suited attempt to protect it's car industry. If you want an efficient European train network, you must somehow make our politicians win elections for doing longterm investments in the privatized rail network.
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@djembro@universeodon.com 2026-02-28 06:44
@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social I switched to trains after arriving in Europe from the USA several years ago because I abhor commercial airline travel even though I relished the time I spent as a light plane pilot. The cramped conditions, having to show up hours early, the indignity of some of the security screening procedures, having to be separated from your luggage, the regulations related to what you can pack, the adverse environmental impact — these are just some of the downsides of flying that make train travel attractive to me. That said, it did take several months to get comfortable with working out European train schedules, purchasing tickets, and reserving seats. The biggest adjustment I had to make was to stop thinking of the travel as separate from the reason for the travel. When those things were separate, I, of course, wanted to minimize travel time. Now I focus on interesting train journeys as part of the overall reason for travel. I live in Kyiv, so I’m really looking forward to victory, after which I’ll feel more free to continue exploring Europe by train.
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@laumapret@toot.lv 2026-03-03 23:00
@europeanspodcast@mastodon.social For personal trips: I'm mostly too afraid to miss many connections and too uninformed about my rights in such case. For work trips: I'm expected to get from my home out of Riga to my end destination in one day and not much more expensive than flight.