Europe

Competition is good, but railroads are a natural monopoly - there are very few points in the world that can justify more than one set of tracks between them. Airplanes can share an airport because if someone else blocks a runway everyone else can take a different one and thus there can be competition. However if train operator B blocks a track (possibly by running a slow train) everyone else can't get through.

I'm all for competition, but you have to own your own tracks.

Kinda agree. Good when smooth, but when bad it’s bad.

I once booked a train months in advance. Got there and the train got cancelled. No notice just not there. I waited in queue for 30 mins. Person told me catch the next one in 1 hour.

I did. The conductor on the train came along and threaten to throw us off as it was not the correct ticket. There was just no rational option.

Otherwise I love the train.

Yeah for real, I once had to pay close to 180€ for a second class ticket from Berlin to Cologne without a seat reservation since I had to buy it only a few hours in advance.

I agree that if you travel with a lot of luggage the sleeper trains can be a bit cramped and there should be probably some sort of check in luggage for long distance trips.

Otherwise the compartments seem fine? I definitly prefer them over some cheap and noisy hotel right at the train station.

The high speed trains use standard gauge, not iberian, even in Iberia.

Sorry to disappoint you ... in Barcelona-Sants, you have to go through one ... not the body-scan thing yet, but you have to pass your luggage through a scanner, there's a line, and you definitely have to bring some time, be there 20 min before at least ...

Big airports in the US often need you to arrive that far beforehand. The security line itself is often half an hour, then there is the other lines to check your baggage (if any) - these are generally quick, but still a line. From the door to your gate can often take most of an hour, but not all of the time is in security.

Though I live in a tiny city, the security line is rarely long and there are only a few gates so I can get to my gate in less than half an hour most of the time. However I still arrive an hour in advance because at peak times the line will get long.

It really depends. I've been to airports where it took me less than 10 minutes from the entry door to the gate. I've also been in security lines that took hours because of whatever. Unfortunately, the conditions usually state that you have to take this into account and should be at the airport at least 2 hours early, so that's what I do to not miss my plane without being able to request a refund or something.

Yes true but the range of how far train can be preferable above plane can be expanded if network better run on a European level and some big strategic investments (not that different from what France did in the 80's and 90's) on quite a few very often travelled routes. Amsterdam-Berlin is an easy example, but there are many like that. Currently on many routes the plane>train is like ~300 km, while on many that could become 600-700km with either high speed tracks or more sleeper train options or better connections. On some big routes the train>plane is up to 700-800 km already.

planes are a clear winner for time and cost.

Artificially so.

Tax the planes to subsidize trains, I guess.

I wish it was like that here in the Netherlands. Instead we get flights that stay more or less the same price due to heavy subsidies and constant bickering about the trains. They've already announced another 10% price hike on trains for the coming year, after already raising it by 5-10% every single year for the past few years. It's insane. Add to that the extra inconvenience of having to cross borders with mediocre connections and I can understand that people don't take the train.