Ingo

Well, logos, the point of the thread is actually to compare cost between driving and train. But since you brought up the American car ...

I am certainly no fan of the current German government, beware! Just to get things right: The light bulbs are banned by the EU. And while I am furious about the so called "Umweltprämie" subsidies for new cars I had to learn that since people traded old cars with lousy mileage for new and smaller cars with better mileage it *does* help the environment. Unfortunately we'll have to live with coal fueled power plants for a while - no new and green technology could replace them at the moment. And they're still preferrable to any nuclear plant, especially as the nuclear waste problem is not solved.

Oh, hetismij, sorry, didn't get it that you referred to the OP, not swandav. Sure, driving won't add much to their carbon foot print on this trip. But it's a start and maybe it could start a change in thinking.

And btw it is also hard to stop and see sights in their own time when the countryside is whizzing by outside your car window on the autobahn. And that's what is going to happen given the distances between the major cities they're going to hit.

The argument that trains need diesel or electricity etc. is totally off the mark. The train will run whether the OP takes it or not. Their hire car will not pollute the environment if they take the train.

logos999

Ingo, the mileage has in fact decreased, thoses old VW cars have better mileage, than newer because of all the gimmicks they now have. The study you think of is a hoax published by the environmental ministry. Not even the politicians believe it. CO2 wise, the coal fueled plants are worse than all the road traffic combined. If people believed CO2 will destroy the planet they would prefer nuclear energy. Gives them a few more years to live.

All this carbon footprint nonsense is brainwashing people into believing they could change ANYTHING now. People will adapt.
A train pollutes, it only operates because people want to use it. If they were serious about protecting the environment, they would walk, grow their own food, stop eating meat...

It is not possibile to save the planet by reducing CO2 emissions. Kill all the cows and kill a few billion people, that may help....

Russ

Does Angieb really need to sort through all this exotic eco-talk to make a decision?

Mainhattengirl

Quote from Logo -
"You realize, those people that promote trains do always drive a car themselves?"

Thank you logo for speaking for all of us though you honestly do not have a clue whether or not any of us drive or not. Rather bold of you to suggest that you know this.

To set the record straight, I have not owned a car in 23 years. We do not rent cars either. We take the train all the time. It is always faster than driving, especially in the city. Long trips? I adored the time we got stuck in a stau (traffic jam) on our way back from Mittlefels in Bavaria. What should have been a 4 hour trip turned into 8. If I would have been on vacation, I would have cried about wasting my precious vacation time sitting in a car.

As to trains being reliable? Please, I think you have some sort of agenda with a beef about Deutsche Bahn and some political parties and it really doesn't fit very well on this travel forum.

Ingo

Russ, no, Angieb certainly does not. And with that in mind I'll let this case rest. After logos' comments on nuclear energy I am speechless anyway.

logos999

Just free you mind and think about nuclear energy and CO2. Only consider the growth of the worlds population and you'll find that it's totally impossible reduce CO2 output significantly, whatever you do or not do. People tend to ignore the facts just because they scare them and replace them with senseless activism.

I didn't start the "environment discussion". I'd only like you to realize, that it doesn't matter anymore how much CO2 you produce.

So yes, if it's car or the train, there's no difference for the enviroment. Whatever suits you best.

logos999

Further grave problems with trains. Out of 1100 S-Bahn/regional trains, 580 will go out of service in Berlin and Brandenburg from tomorrow. The refurbished breaking systems have safety issues.

http://www.n-tv.de/wirtschaft/S-Bahn...cle493921.html

swandav2000

You raise an interesting question logos999, and one that I've been thinking about for the past day. If we are doomed to a poisonous atmosphere, are all conservation efforts useless? As warming will continue until 2100 even if all emissions stop, should we just give up? Should we just get fitted for our protective masks and quit whining? Are we free to pollute, not recycle, spread our human footprint wantonly?

Well, I don't think so. Even assuming that global warming is inexorable and any mitigation insignificant, conservation is still the right thing to do. And doing the right thing is still . . . well, the right thing to do.

Even if I could be guaranteed immunity from the law, I still wouldn't steal or stab or rape or murder. Even if I could be guaranteed immunity from lung cancer (or maybe after having terminal lung cancer), I still wouldn't smoke. The act itself is still "bad" even if the consequences were nullified.

I think there is intrinsic good. And I think that most people tend toward it. Or want to, anyway. Greater good, greater people, etc.

I'm hoping that somehow, somewhere, someday, these brilliant scientists will find a way to turn back the harmful effects of human activity. I'm also hoping that there will be an explosion of green sciences, giving us greener autos, better public transport, unheard-of energy options. And I'm hopeful that these changes will have an effect because global warming hasn't gotten as bad as it could have.

Conservation, even in the face of inexorable warming, is still the right thing to do.

Senseless activism, lol!

logos999

Yeah, hope is always good, even if it doesn't make any sense now, but wouldn't nuclear energy help postponing the inevitable? And if it's not inevitable wouldn't it give the needed time to find alternatives? Is dying green so much better than using "evil technology" that maybe could help.
Today peolpe prohibit light bulbs, which does not not make sense at all and even creates bigger problems then it should solve. Just given how much it costs to produce it, does it not do more harm than it solves.

It gives a good feeling to the activists, that's what they want. Senseless activism...

logos999

>produce it, (= the alternative to light bulbs)

swandav2000

Hey, if I agree to nuclear energy, will you agree to use trains, lol?

You know, my sister used to call me Pollyanna, so I know I do have this ultra-optomistic side. Ah well.

s

logos999

It not like you'd have a choice between the good or the bad. When you only have a choice between two bad things, you'd chose the one less fatal, right? But do you really know which one it is?

You don't have all the info and others with their own agenda tell you what's supposed to be right. It may be totally wrong, which it is imho. They don't know a thing more than you do, they just claim to know the answer and have all the power to promote their solution. ... Eco-Fundamentalists...

I'm using trains too much and since they've become so unreliable and expensive, I'm switching. .

swandav2000

I'm not sure that any one of us has "all" the info --

s

logos999

If people just realize that those who "scream loudest" don't have any more info than any of us and that their "solutions" might be worse than the disease, if they would just think them through.

That would be a great step forward. .

swandav2000

Ummmm???

I aspire to screaming : )))

You haven't convinced me that my solution is worse. Nat in the least, unfortunately.

s

logos999

If you'd just realize that "your" sloution my not work? ;-)

logos999

"solution may not work"... need a new keyboard

swandav2000

yeh I think I said that at 01.33.

caroline_edinburgh

I am usually a huge fan on trains on the Continent (although I avoid them like the plague, where possible, in Britain). So on our short visit to Bayreuth a couple of months ago I assumed we would get the train between Munich airport (where we were arriving) and Bayreuth (our destination), as we thought we wouldn't need a car while in Bayreuth. However when I looked at train fares they were *very* expensive, so a hire car was cheaper. (Also for that trip, we weren't arriving until c.5pm; so since the train journey would have required 2 changes we would have arrived quite a bit later.) Being used to British roads, driving in Germany was a delight - the motorways were very uncrowded and easy, and even driving into towns (Bayreuth on arrival and a quick visit to Nuremberg on the way back) wasn't difficult, although admittedly we weren't doing it in rush hours.

Haven't experienced driving or trains in Austria or the Czech Republic, though - just flying & taxis.

caroline_edinburgh

P.S. I did notrice that when we picked our car up at Munich airport, there was a list of other countries for which extra insurance would be required, if taking a car there, and a list of countries to which taking a car was not permitted at all (this may just have been the more valuable cars). I very much doubt there'd be any restriction with Austria but there may be restrictions re the CR.