> Public rail is a money-losing venture, in every country (except Hong Kong). That's what "public" means. But it's important to have
Why ? I wish connectivity to airports here in India would improve and railways would just die
Why ? I wish connectivity to airports here in India would improve and railways would just die
Yes, it's hard to manage, yes it needs "roads" (tracks), whereas planes have the air, but planes are very much a luxury.
* Half an hour to go to the airport
* Half an hour passing security and waiting for boarding
* 20 minutes between boarding and stable flight when you can start working on your laptop
* One hour and 40 minutes when you can work cramped in a noisy environment with terrible air quality
* 15 minutes descent and landing
* 15 minutes deboarding and getting out of the airport
* Half an hour to get where you need to be
Same trip by train:
* Half an hour till you are on the train
* 3 hours working comfortably in a usually bigger space with ground level air pressure and very little noise
* Half an hour to get where you need to be.
Travel in reasonably modern trains is by far the best kind of business travel you can have today, IMO.
Only 30 minutes sounds optimistic. You also didn't count the time to recover luggage. I've seen people bringing huge suitcases on high speed trains. They couldn't take them in cabin on a flight. Planes are good past the 2 hours flight time IMHO, or across countries where there are no interconnected high speed networks (I'm writing this with Europe in mind.)
My ticket told me where to stand on the platform. When the train pulled to a precise location, I did not have to move any distance. One door for boarding, one for deboarding, passengers did not bump or block each other. Luggage storage located immediately inside train, pass a sliding door to my assigned seat.
The train seemed to stop for less than a minute, we were moving before I took my seat.
No security in boarding station (Morliax), a little over 3 hrs to Paris, 450km as the crow flies.
Perhaps our French colleagues could chime in and let us know if this is a typical experience.
Baggage security in France and other EU countries is quite efficient, not everyone carries bags.
In the rare occasions I checked luggage I'd arrive about t-45 and have a beer in the lounge.
Never missed a flight. To get to west london it was far faster than the train and tube, although most of the time I was changing at Heathrow onto a longer distance flight.
(i.e. the climate.)
In Italy, the Milan-Rome (570km, 2.5/3 hours) fast trains have been making a killing for years.
The maps on the ESPON project are interesting in this regard:
http://mapfinder.espon.eu/?page_id=31&category-name=115&proj...
Though I seem not being able to find a more recent version of this "classic" anamorphic (deformed) map (I find these the easier way to visualize the abnormalities in connections):
https://calomelano.it/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/05_populati...