I'm with you on the 4 hours, but I would be happy to criticize the security theater after 9/11.
People easily tolerate 3h on a plane, and trains are much more comfortable than planes (more space, free to roam).
And you don't have to get to airport, get from airport, check in, wait for baggage.
I would say 5 hours should be non-issue.
"As a rail enthusiast I would love to see trains to Berlin or Milan or even Moscow. But realistically that is many years away."
Remember there's already a direct train connection between Moscow and Paris.
Most people choose to fly these days, of course.
Night trains are wonderful, they save you a night at the hotel, and they basically make the journey take no effective time from your holidays... but SNCF wants to get rid of them entirely, or so I heard.
I thought it was DB who wanted to do away with them. But maybe SNCF too. Due to European railway regulation and thoughtless implementation of the same by the individual countries, international (night) trains have become quite expensive to run. (This in addition to the obvious factors of fast daytime TGVs and irresponsibly cheap airplane flights.)
It will be "completed" in 2020, so we will probably see Trains going in this direction soon.
http://www.soundsurvey.org.uk/index.php/survey/soundacts_of1...
Falling down the stairs is a leading cause of death or injury on Britain's railways (no-one has died on a train since 2007), but I'd like to see some proof that the announcement makes any difference to people's behaviour. They play it pretty much any time it rains!
I don't like the fact, but flying is cheaper in many cases, and inside the EU security is (in my experience) not that annoying. I mean, I have a 50% rebate card and even inside Germany, there are quite a scenarios where trains are only cheaper than flying if I take regional trains, at which point the time advantage of flying suddenly is quite large, and coaches become an agressivly priced alternative. And that despite the fact that I have a 50% rebate card for trains.
Start to cross borders and it gets worse.
EDIT: not to say that trains are not used, but especially among young people coaches, ride shares or flying are strong alternatives. Trains are great for short distances and if you want to go somewhere that is hard to reach otherwise.
[0] http://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/im_blickpunkt/9010944...
I trained around the eastern US a bit, and while north of DC the trains are heavily-used and a 'normal' experience, south of DC the trains were very laid back and comfortable. They're subsidised, so the tickets are dirt-cheap, few people use them, they're comfortable and spacious, have power for laptops, and even have an entire car dedicated to sitting in a lounge chair facing outward to watch the scenery roll by ("oh, more kudzu..."). The only downside is that the stations were only at major locations, so not many stopping points, which was fine for what I was doing.
It's also incredibly stressful for the staff. I was in line in the US once and one lady had a meltdown. She saw the queue of people going around the corner and basically just threw her hands up and quit. The face on her only colleague was priceless.
Add to that the fact that there seem to be some shortcuts taken. I was told if you miss a connection, they take your bag off for obvious reasons. Well, I actually missed a connection once, and the bag went on the plane and I got to pick it up when I caught up.
I'm not even sure what benefit it is to the government. I'd be more paranoid about silent security than easily avoidable theatre out in the open.
The whole thing (esp. the database-based pre-check scheme) is just so broken if there were and actual significant persistent threat that I wish we would re-evaluate the whole travel security procedure from a rational (rather than fear-based) perspective.