'Always Annoying': Hassles of Cross-Border Trains Hamper E.U.'s Green Ambitions

Also extremely expensive. Going from Poland to Switzerland is 2-3 times cheaper by car than by train (counting 2 adult pax), and I drive a hungry car and am counting current gas prices. I thought trains were supposed to be super-efficient or something.

It also takes much more time even in the perfect case. And since trains are frequently delayed, and trains of different companies don't wait for each other, sometimes you sleep in front of the railway station (the police will expell you from the building if you sleep there, and they close it for the night...).

I really like trains - I mean the physical thing itself. I also like the concept of train travel in theory. But I fucking hate everything about trains in actual reality.

I tried to go carless for 2 years, but it's impossible even at the place with supposedly best public transit infrastructure of the world. It's kinda doable if you have a lot of time to waste, don't need to be somewhere on time, have a lot of money to spare, don't travel a lot and only travel between major cities or inside a small region. It was okay-ish when I was a student. Any other case, like 2 working adults with no time to spare trying to visit family and then go back to work - impossible.

Archived: https://archive.ph/2022.10.23-011241/https://www.nytimes.com...