Climate Crisis: Are we doing enough?

[matticus]

There's loads of the Parthenon in London too, so that's an easy one to cross off the list,

Well there you go - it just takes a little creativity!

 

[BoldonLad]

I understand now. I'm not going to bother with Paris.

I'll spend my time knitting a yurt in my cave instead.

You could just go to Spanish City, or, New York, both in cycling distance for you

 

[mjr]

What the hell has London got to do with anything? Apart from people thinking it's the be all an end all of international travel, apparently.

London is the only remaining point of departure for international passenger train journeys to France and beyond. I wish it wasn't, but it is. Lacking any further information about the departure point, it's a reasonable place to measure from, just like people in other posts are timing from the departure airport and ignoring what a massive ball-ache most of them are to get to, often with poor public transport links from East Anglia, or slow roads followed by expensive parking, ludicrously slow transfer buses to the terminal and hours of security theatre and forced captivity in a shopping mall, which they get away with because almost nobody includes the bus transfer and airside wait in the published journey timing.

It'd take someone from Dunoon 20 hours to get to Marseille, at least. I know because I've done it.

Well, you'll have long journey times to most places when the first leg is a 25 minute ferry that doesn't start early enough and has a slackly-timed connection onto a train service so you can't reach reach St Pancras International before the last train which could get you to Marseille that day... but that's a very niche case and you may not have noticed, but most of the population has better transport service than that. Heck, my transport planner won't even spit out an itinerary from Dunoon to Glasgow Airport just now, so Lord knows how convoluted or unusual that is!

In an ideal world we'd all be using public transport to get around, but the reality is that it's both difficult and time consuming.

In some places. Again, please, let's not exaggerate the average difficulty or the average times. We don't need everyone to use it for everything for it to be an improvement from the current rubbish situation. For many journeys from the south, east and major towns and cities, it's a pretty viable option to most of Europe. For holidays, it can be way more enjoyable and relaxing than flying economy/budget/abuse class, but it's not without its problems at the moment (SNCF timetables and TGV/TER split, DB overcrowding and so on) and it becomes less great the further from St Pancras and the southern/eastern ports you are and that is something which should be fixed as a priority but GWR electrification and HS2 have scared politicians.

 

[icowden]

For many journeys from the south, east and major towns and cities, it's a pretty viable option to most of Europe. For holidays, it can be way more enjoyable and relaxing than flying economy/budget/abuse class, but it's not without its problems at the moment (SNCF timetables and TGV/TER split, DB overcrowding and so on) and it becomes less great the further from St Pancras and the southern/eastern ports you are and that is something which should be fixed as a priority but GWR electrification and HS2 have scared politicians.

This. Imagine if you could jump on a Eurostar at Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow and just go straight through to Paris or Spain etc. For us it's a pipe dream. For the French, Germans, Spanish, Swiss, Belgians, Dutch etc it's a reality. You can just hop on a train and go to different countries.

If only there were some investment in the infrastructure and some sort of club we could join that would facilitate easy, affordable travel with no passport checks or luggage scanning to 27 different countries all connected by rail...

One of the trips we did a few times was to Eurodisney - it was easy. Small suitcase, hop on at Ashford international and you get the Eurostar all the way there. Then something happened which made it harder and harder. Net result - it's cheaper and better to fly to Orlando for two weeks than to go to France for one week.

 

[AndyRM]

London is the only remaining point of departure for international passenger train journeys to France and beyond. I wish it wasn't, but it is. Lacking any further information about the departure point, it's a reasonable place to measure from, just like people in other posts are timing from the departure airport and ignoring what a massive ball-ache most of them are to get to, often with poor public transport links from East Anglia, or slow roads followed by expensive parking, ludicrously slow transfer buses to the terminal and hours of security theatre and forced captivity in a shopping mall, which they get away with because almost nobody includes the bus transfer and airside wait in the published journey timing.


Well, you'll have long journey times to most places when the first leg is a 25 minute ferry that doesn't start early enough and has a slackly-timed connection onto a train service so you can't reach reach St Pancras International before the last train which could get you to Marseille that day... but that's a very niche case and you may not have noticed, but most of the population has better transport service than that. Heck, my transport planner won't even spit out an itinerary from Dunoon to Glasgow Airport just now, so Lord knows how convoluted or unusual that is!


In some places. Again, please, let's not exaggerate the average difficulty or the average times. We don't need everyone to use it for everything for it to be an improvement from the current rubbish situation. For many journeys from the south, east and major towns and cities, it's a pretty viable option to most of Europe. For holidays, it can be way more enjoyable and relaxing than flying economy/budget/abuse class, but it's not without its problems at the moment (SNCF timetables and TGV/TER split, DB overcrowding and so on) and it becomes less great the further from St Pancras and the southern/eastern ports you are and that is something which should be fixed as a priority but GWR electrification and HS2 have scared politicians.

I'm not exaggerating anything.

Just pointing out that you are in some kind of weird dreamland about public transport in the UK.

 

[mjr]

If Andy is based in Scotland - lets be nice and say Glasgow, he has either got to take KLM for £1194 and take 6 hours by plane, transferring at Amsterdam, or Ryanair for £771 taking 7.5 hours by plane - plus the two hours added on for check in - so 8 to 9 hours.

Plus the time to get to the airport, including bus transfer, assuming he doesn't live in the airport.

To go by train it will cost him £409 to get to St Pancras plus the £850 eurostar fare (so £1250) and instead of a 90 minute journey to St Pancras he has a 5 hour journey to St Pancras - so that's 15.5 hours by train and £500 cheaper.

Why wouldn't someone in Glasgow normally buy a 3-days-in-1-month France Interrail pass for £185, plus about £100 for seat reservations (€30 per Eurostar, €10-20 per TGV), so total £285? I assume we're talking about a planned/booked journey here, so no reason to buy individual tickets if they're not offering good prices. 3-days is the shortest pass, so you basically get a free daytrip on unreservable French regional expresses and some intercities, if you want.

Again, there are reasons why this might not work (Eurostar are often a pain in the bum to book, TGV seats sell out, and so on), but let's not exaggerate: it's rarely £1250 for a booked two-country standard-class train trip, except for things like the Orient Express.

 

[mjr]

I'm not exaggerating anything.

I feel you exaggerate the average difficulty by things like suggesting the Cowal peninsula as if it was a typical start point, and only stating the travel time for an extremely messed-up journey from Brighton to Glasgow.

Just pointing out that you are in some kind of weird dreamland about public transport in the UK.

I'm really not. It's both worse than it should be for such a rich and developed country and yet still usable for much more than its detractors like to pretend. For example, I'll be travelling by train for most of my next short holiday, but I'll start by driving west to a non-local railway car park to overcome the slow service to East Anglia with badly-timed connections that you mentioned, and that really shouldn't be necessary.

 

[AuroraSaab]

You could just go to Spanish City, or, New York, both in cycling distance for you

Washington's not far either.

 

[icowden]

Why wouldn't someone in Glasgow normally buy a 3-days-in-1-month France Interrail pass for £185, plus about £100 for seat reservations (€30 per Eurostar, €10-20 per TGV), so total £285? I assume we're talking about a planned/booked journey here, so no reason to buy individual tickets if they're not offering good prices. 3-days is the shortest pass, so you basically get a free daytrip on unreservable French regional expresses and some intercities, if you want.

Again, there are reasons why this might not work (Eurostar are often a pain in the bum to book, TGV seats sell out, and so on), but let's not exaggerate: it's rarely £1250 for a booked two-country standard-class train trip, except for things like the Orient Express.

That was for a family of four by the way. But yes, if you can unravel the intricacies of various different travel cards, saver cards etc I'm sure you can do it more cheaply. For those not inclined to spend 2 or 3 hours spreadsheeting, they may just go for that all inclusive package to Majorca where all the work has been done for them.

 

[mjr]

For those not inclined to spend 2 or 3 hours spreadsheeting, they may just go for that all inclusive package to Majorca where all the work has been done for them.

Well, maybe, and that's a different market. There are a small but growing number of package operators putting together both all-land and mostly-land holiday packages. It would be excellent if governments reacted more to what they say they need to succeed, instead of seeming mainly to listen to airline lobbyists.

 

[AndyRM]

I feel you exaggerate the average difficulty by things like suggesting the Cowal peninsula as if it was a typical start point, and only stating the travel time for an extremely messed-up journey from Brighton to Glasgow.


I'm really not. It's both worse than it should be for such a rich and developed country and yet still usable for much more than its detractors like to pretend. For example, I'll be travelling by train for most of my next short holiday, but I'll start by driving west to a non-local railway car park to overcome the slow service to East Anglia with badly-timed connections that you mentioned, and that really shouldn't be necessary.

We're just going to end up in circles here.

I agree that the public transport system in this country is f*cked, but not that it's as usable as you're suggesting.

Because it isn't.

I live a ten minute walk from a decrepit Metro system which has been cannibalising it's own carriages to keep running due to chronic under-investment.

The fact that you're having to drive to get your train to wherever (I'm hoping it's Devon so you can build sand-castles) proves that the system is knackered.

 

[monkers]

World population forecast to peak 2084. Probably far too late. Sleepy Joe and Vlad starting ww3 might get things underway before then.

Oh they weren't taking into account that human testicles are becoming chock full of micro plastics. Unless there is rapid onset evolution and bollocks double in size, it could all be over rather sooner. Yup, I'm literally talking bollocks, I got bored with the metaphoric kind.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...roplastics-human-testicles-study-sperm-counts

True toxic masculinity?

The burning question is, will Spen care? I guess we might soon see.