FauxSteMarie

Please remember that the trains in Europe are often dirty or late. They also are not so inexpensive. Also, Europe is a much smaller area than the US--and more densely populated. We have huge areas of the US that do not have a lot of people. How would a train be efficient there.

The Continental US covers 4 time zones. All of Western Europe except the UK is in the same time zone.

In the US, the plane is public transportation between cities due to the distances. It is often much cheaper than the train. In Europe that can be the case as well.

hanl

BTilke, we laugh about it now too, but I agree that it hardly inspires confidence in Eurostar's ability to cope with emergencies!

walkinaround

thank you faux for injecting some reality into this debate. occasionally, you can get some cheap fares on trains and it does vary by country but overall, i do not see how anyone can say that in general "trains in europe are inexpensive". one can easily spend a few hundred euro for a relatively short trip between european cities (standard class). even people who live near the M25 (rather close in to london) can pay about £20 to commute into london....many people spend much more. this does not include the drive to the station or parking there which is often necessary.

flying has grown considerably in popularity...at least from england. many people that i work with will fly to paris rather than take the train. it is usually much cheaper for the overall journey...even considering a taxi to the airport. i can't think of anyone that i know who takes the train into and through the continent (exc for paris and perhaps brussels). people will fly because it is usually extremely cheap or they will take their cars over.

only very recently (within the last 3 or so years) did many suburban london lines replace their "slam door" trains which were about 50 years old. you had to open the window to reach outside to open the door...very archaic. with no central locking on the doors, this was a dangerous situation.

trains in england are well known for delays for reasons like too much heat, leaves in the autumn, ice, etc. suicides on the rails are quite common and cause many delays and trauma to train drivers.

so much exhaust, petrol burn, and traffic jams are caused by the morning "school run" in the uk (a very large percentage of people outside of large cities drive their children to school) so i think we are forgetting one important feature of american public transport, the yellow school bus.

i don't really agree with the distance argument, however. the EU does cover large distances...not as large as the US but not so different as to explain completely different transport patterns. eastern US is densely populated and cities are rather close together in a way that is not dissimilar to europe. anyway, as stated, air travel is extremely popular in europe as well as the US.

once again, we see europe romanticised to the point that it is unrecognisable to those of us who actually live here.

kerouac

"Please remember that the trains in Europe are often dirty or late."

Perhaps you can refresh my memory? Such a blanket statement is clearly backed up by statistics.

BTilke

My post was not intended as an indictment of European trains in general or Eurostar in particular, as I usually enjoy the ride, but they have serious gaps in their staff training that need to be addressed. Between my husband and I, we have hundreds of Eurostar rides under our belts and the number of significant problems has been overall quite low. I will be heading to Brussels via Eurostar again this week-end and am still looking forward to the journey despite Monday night's screwup.

Nor do I find European trains "dirty and late", at least not on most of my Belgian, Austrian, Swiss or German trips. In the UK, the quality is all over the map, some routes are managed quite well, others...not so much.

Given the choice, I'd still rather take the train in Europe than fly. One of my favorite trips is the 9+ hour day journey from Cologne to Vienna on the ICE.

walkinaround

>>>>
My post was not intended as an indictment of European trains in general
>>>>>

nor was my post...as always, nothing is perfect. i find taking the train much more enjoyable than flying and i do take the eurostar to paris rather than fly. for longer journeys into europe from the UK, the train almost never adds up. the purpose of my post is not to say that european trains are "crap"...just that they are far from the romanticised view that is often given on this board.

audere_est_facere

It depends what you mean by "European trains". The suburban service I get into London every day is pretty bloody awful.

The TGV/Thalys type trains are pretty bloody spiffing. There's no comparison.

It's also a much nicer way to travel, none of that checking in and checking out nonsense, you can take your own food and drink, get up and wander about, go to the bar and have a beer, and look out the window and see the views.

Personally I prefer it to the plane for most trips, but I live very handily placed for the Eurostar, so that informs my decision. I may feel different If I lived in (heaven forbid!) the North etc.

W9London

I take Eurostar a couple of times a month, so here are unscientific stats purely from my observations. Overall, I found late arrival stats to be better than flying between London-Paris. As for cleanliness, they can do up their seats (looking somewhat tired) a bit, but much better than london commuter trains or NJ transit or Amtrak. Agree their staffs are undertrained in general.

Late arrival seems to occur more frequently on late afternoon departures from Paris, the standard excuse being delay of the incoming train. Also power failure from topical thunderstorms is not uncommon.
One thing that infuriates me is that they require you to check in 30min before even when you know the incoming trains are delayed. Esp since neither Waterloo or Gare du Nord has adequate seating capacity to handle extra passengers. On the other hand, their louges are great.

Just to clarify, Eurostar has nothing to do with Eurotunnel. Car tunnels are separate from train tunnels. There used to be news reports on how illegal immigrants tried to use the tunnel, which eventually raised staffing and maintenance costs especially for the (lorry) tunnel.

And Italian Eurostar is more like IC, nothing to do with London-Paris-Brussels Eurostar.

BTilke

Agree with you about the lounges. They are oases of calm and the staff there seem much better trained than the staff on board.

kerouac

I would suspect that the infuriating check-in requirements are for the same reasons that airlines do it, even when the flights are hours late -- to keep things moving along at an even pace. If they delayed the check-in half an hour, there would be twice as many people trying to check-in at the same time -- for the delayed train and for the next train after that.
For airlines, there are even more constraints -- the check-in staff has a work shift only for certain hours and a lot of airlines only rent a check-in counter for certain hours, so even if a flight is 12 hours late, they have to do everything in their power to get everybody checked in at the original time. Of course major airlines with check-in counters open all day long for any and all flights don't have this same constraint.

altamiro

>To leap to Amtrak's defense: their trains are obliged to wait for freight trains that take precedence. I understand that European passenger trains use dedicated tracks.

Not really. Only a few high-speed lines built in the last 2 decades are dedicted for passenger trains. 99% of the network is shared by passenger trains with freight trains. The passenger trains have ALWAYS right of way before freight in Germany, Switzerland, France etc. though.

stokebailey

Thanks, altamiro. I stand corrected. And shouldn't humans take precedence over pallets or heaps of coal?

I can really sympathize with hanl's tunnel experience.

When you're in a totally dependent and vulnerable position like in the air or under a large body of water, the Authority Figure vocal quality makes such a difference. An ability to project calm assurance should be condition of employment. I listen VERY carefully to the captain's voice for reassurance during turbulence.

stardust

The reason for the delay of this particular train was a fire in a railway electricity cabin or something, right next to the tracks.

And so perhaps there was simply no power to put on lights and A/C, and there was no other way than to let passengers jump out of trains, but that is absolutely no excuse for not informing passsengers about anything and not excusing afterwards. They could also have tried to supply water.

It was on the Belgian news and lots of people complained about the absolute lack of service.

FauxSteMarie

My post was not designed as an indictment of the entire European train system either.

In the US we do have trains, especially along the coasts, that handle a lot of passengers. However, those trains can be more expensive than flying. The train journey from DC to Boston on a regular train takes about 8 hours assuming no delays. If you take the high speed train it is about 6 hours. The plane takes an hour. So, if the train is not competitive, people will take planes.

There is also quite a lot of bus service from DC to NYC (4-5 hours usually if the traffic is OK). That bus ride rates as one of the most boring in the world.

I have taken a lot of European trains over the years (but the one through the Chunnel only twice--back and forth from Paris). Americans tend to over romanticize the trains in Europe. There are problems there with public transport--just as there are in the US. That is what I was trying to point out.

No place is perfect.

BTilke

Eurostar had its busiest day ever today; passenger volume surged.
I'm traveling this week-end and am glad I already booked my ticket and also that it's a first class ticket. Trains will be crowded!
Anyone with a Eurostar ticket for the next several days should plan on getting to the station well in advance of the usual 30 minutes or so.

BTilke

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4781905.stm

annhig

WHy did I delay buying those eurotunnel shares?

BTilke

More delays/suspended travel on Eurostar today due to a fire alert (smoke but no flames and no injuries, fortunately). My husband is down at Waterloo; his train to Brussels should have already left over an hour ago but he can't even get into the check-in area, it's so overcrowded.
Anyway, he's going to try and see how quickly he can get on a train. If it's a long wait, he may just turn around and come home, then try again tomorrow or Wednesday.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/5271784.stm

kerouac

I was at Gare du Nord an hour ago and I saw that all of the trains to and from Waterloo were running 3 hours late -- but more important, the tunnel security systems worked perfectly. So being late today is a small price to pay.

BTilke

If only it had been that simple. In fact, at 5 pm, they were still trying to take care of passengers who were booked on Eurostars that were supposed to have left 6 hours earlier. In London, the main Tube entrances to the Eurostar departure area were closed. Once you hit the mob scene at Eurostar you were given a color coded ticket (based on when your train was supposed to leave or have left and also, to a lesser extent, what class of ticket you had). You then had to re-register. The Eurostar staff were pleading with people to rebook for another day if possible. Refunds also were available to anyone who asked, even if they had a nonrefundable ticket.
My husband went straight to the Carte Blanche desk and rebooked for tomorrow afternoon.
Eurostar staff handled this crisis much better than they did the one I cited in my original post. But it was still pretty hectic.