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Jon Worth

20 Oct, 16 tweets, 6 min read

As #ZügeStattFlüge is currently up for discussion, and people are coming to me with the usual complaint "Waaaaa well trains are too expensive compared to flights!"... here's a semi-systematic response

Explained in the 🧵

Imagine 6 example cases

I am in Frankfurt 2 weeks from now, 4 weeks from now, and 6 weeks from now, and want to fly or take the train home to Berlin after a business meeting (depart after 4pm)

And same for München - back to Berlin in 2, 4 and 6 weeks

All prices are taken from DB for trains, right now

And flight prices from Kayak, right now

No discount cards used. Only direct connections

FRANKFURT-BERLIN
2 weeks from now
✈️ €134-143
🚆 €18-44

FRANKFURT-BERLIN
4 weeks from now
✈️ €88-99
🚆 €18-28

FRANKFURT-BERLIN
6 weeks from now
✈️ €64-88
🚆 €18

MÜNCHEN-BERLIN
2 weeks from now
✈️ €121-219
🚆 €18-38

MÜNCHEN-BERLIN
4 weeks from now
✈️ €79-143
🚆 €18-38
(something is off there - trains are slower that day. Must be works somewhere...)

MÜNCHEN-BERLIN
6 weeks from now
✈️ €79-86
🚆 €18-38

And what about if I needed - as a matter of urgency - to get from Berlin to Frankfurt or München *right now*

BERLIN-FRANKFURT now
✈️ €261-382
🚆 €84-104

BERLIN-MÜNCHEN now
✈️ €233-339
🚆 €114-140

Notice anything?

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

No, not clear enough yet?

THE
TRAIN
IS
CHEAPER
EVERY
SINGLE
TIME

And sure, is this an overview of all routes?
No

Are there routes and times where planes are cheaper than trains?
Sure, there are plenty - especially longer distances than this

Could trains be cheaper still?
Sure, definitely

But the crux is this

For the these two major short haul routes in Germany, PRICE is not the problem here. ATTITUDE is.

/ends

And if your response to this is "ah, but the trains are not *reliable* enough", then I have sympathy for your argument - but to make them more reliable needs *massive* investment, and might also need higher prices for passengers too... so which way do you want it?

And if your response is *not* about Germany (all my examples in the thread are for Germany) then the parallel might or might not hold. I don't know.

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More from @jonworth

Jon Worth

@jonworth

19 Oct

Want a cheap train from Brussels to Paris?

It sure ain't IZY!

And you better not speak German, Italian or Spanish (seriously)

Do read on in the #EUYearOfRail thread 🧵

There's a low-ish cost train service between Brussels and Paris called Thalys IZY - its own website is here 👇
izy.com/en

Services are reduced post-COVID, but it still runs...

But how do you book it?

Here's the train I want on the IZY site ✅

But presuming you might - naively - assume it's run by Thalys, you might think its trains were on the Thalys website

❌ But no, you'd be wrong - they don't show there 👇
booking.thalys.com

Read 13 tweets

Jon Worth

@jonworth

18 Oct

@albertowmazzola

Let's do a little check, shall we?

@albertowmazzola was happy to tell me the other week that Skyscanner for Rail tools exist in Europe

And @CER_railways has trumpeted the need for ticketing platforms in #EUYearOfRail and on #ConnectingEurope Express

A quick 🧵

@CER_railways

Were I to want to travel between Tourcoing (in France at the border to Belgium) to Lyon, tomorrow, where can I find the details of the only direct train there is?

Oh, and of course it's a train run by SNCF, member organisation of @CER_railways 👏

That train is a OUIGO low cost TGV

✅ Here is is on the OUIGO site 👇
ventes.ouigo.com

Read 13 tweets

Jon Worth

@jonworth

18 Oct

Another one of those trips where the absence of a night train makes the whole trip fiendishly complex by train...

The München-Villach-Ljubljana-Zagreb night train is summer only

So a Düsseldorf-Lesce Bled trip in December... results in a 3 hours stop in the night in Villach

And yes, there is the daytime ICE + EC option, but that (for this trip) means 1 extra night in a hotel in Düsseldorf and a day in Slovenia lost

There is the yearly Zürich-Feldkirch-Innsbruck-Villach-Ljubljana-Zagreb service... but try picking that up from Germany - results in very long and strange routes

Read 4 tweets

Jon Worth

@jonworth

15 Oct

The UK is indeed on the verge of joining the EU Digital COVID Pass - I know this from my own sources

In that regard, this Guardian piece is correct 👇
theguardian.com/travel/2021/oc…

But what is going on, technically here, and what changes will it bring for Brits travelling?

A 🧵

There are essentially 2 sorts of places where you might need to prove your 💉💉 status: upon entering a country (at a border control), or at a venue once you are inside a country (at a museum or cafe for example)

And there are 2 different ways to prove that status: the old way, based on papers, certificates, or the little yellow vaccination booklets. Or using a QR code - in the EU known as a EU Digital COVID Pass

(QR code can be on paper, but the important point is it's digitally signed)

Read 15 tweets

Jon Worth

@jonworth

12 Oct

@EP_ForeignAff

Trying to find what is going on in the European Parliament with regard to UK-EU relations remains a nightmare...

We know that last week the EP agreed to set up the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly - @EP_ForeignAff put out a press release 👇
europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-…

@vonderburchard

Here's the Decision 👇
europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document…

And @vonderburchard wrote about it for @POLITICOEurope on 5 Oct 👇
politico.eu/article/europe…

@GreensEFA

At the time of writing @GreensEFA @RenewEurope @ecrgroup @Left_EU had chosen its members... but @EPPgroup & @TheProgressives have not

And then...
media.giphy.com/media/Az1CJ2ME…

Read 5 tweets

Jon Worth

@jonworth

12 Oct

How do you rid a country of a pandemic of stupidity?

It's not that UK political and commentariat class is ideologically wrong (although could be true as well), it's that so many - especially the cabinet - come across as stupid

As a start you have to take problems *seriously*

Take *any* of the aspects of the UK's multicrisis at the moment - food supply chains, clogged ports, gas prices, petrol supply, labour shortages - the whole thing is fiendishly complex to solve

I don't know how to solve it. But hell it's serious!

This, I suppose, is what happens when the political discussion in public is so disconnected from reality that bad decisions have no practical consequences

Where a referendum has left an opposition so cowed it cannot point out practical problems

Read 5 tweets

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