The conclusion is far removed from "trains good, aircrafts bad". One of the reasons: there are different carbon footprint calculators, producing different results.
I don't see many folks choosing train journey, even if they care for the environment....
Personal choice, of course. But I'm not replacing Barcelona with Blackpool as my holiday destination
The title of the thread doesn't really tally with the gist of the Wired article. Apart from considering the additional environmental impact of building, operating and maintaining railway infrastructure, the article stiil concludes that rail is the less environmentally damaging of the two modes. Indeed their assertion its actual occupancy of trains' figure of 44.7kg is a much smaller margin than 25.41kg, is an exaggeration when the air travel figure is still over two and a half times that of rail. If rail becomes more intensively used for leisure travel, that occupancy figure would increase making the ration almost 5:1 in favour of rail.
Personal choice, of course. But I'm not replacing Barcelona with Blackpool as my holiday destination
If somebody wants to live the way how it was 30 years ago, it's doable. Personally speaking, count me out.
Indeed! Costa Balcona! & walks to the library.
30 years ago? People in their 30s could afford their own houses but holidays were in Europe rather than Thailand. Young folks clearly have different priorities to my genertion.
No chance! Sorry, but Britain doesn't cut it unless we get an exceptional run of good weather (like last year) and, unlike southern Europe and other parts of the world you can't be guaranteed if/when it comes. That's not to say the Lakes, dales, Northern Scotland aren't appealing (they are) but one of the freedoms we have is travel - let's keep it that way and if fast trains are the replacement for aircraft let's have them.
Of course I am. Clearly you are not aware of the post that I was responding to.
The article author maybe is more expert at finding cheap flights than using loco2. Even an idiot like me can find Manchester to Barclona in 15 hours for about £160 on loco2, rather than 28 hours for £330. Seat61, which the article mentions, suggests it should be available for less than that, but I suspect that's advance tickets in winter, which aren't on sale today. Still too expensive compared to the budget airlines that benefit from tax breaks on fuel and other things.
Do planes have family group tickets now?
In the last four years, we've had three holidays in the south-west, - Fowey, Brixham and St Ives. In each case, it's been worth getting a 2together Railcard and travelling on Savers. St Ives takes about 6.5-7 hours door to door, the cost including railcard about £180 and virtually no stress. When we were there, travel was either on a Ride Cornwall ticket (about £9) or a bus rover-type deal. We avoided fuel costs, the need to take breaks en route, the boring driving about roads in Cornwall with only hedgerows to look at, traffic congestion and all parking issues, (which can be just as expensive as London area parking, - £7 per day/night in Fowey) all in a safer environment. We could also enjoy alcohol whenever and wherever we wanted to.
