Virgin or EasyJet?

The adverts claimed that a train journey emits three-quarters less carbon dioxide than traveling by air.

That claim is specifc to Virgin Trains West Coast - the electric Pendolino trains. Virgin itself doesn't detail how they arrive at the CO2 intensity of the electricity for those trains.

The spokesman added that Virgin bought its electricity from Network Rail and it had asked the rail infrastructure company to give more details on what proportion of its power is generated by nuclear facilities. "We are asking for more detailed figures from Network Rail. We need better knowledge of how much of our energy is taken from nuclear power stations," he said.

If you take a look at the numbers for their "gas oil" powered trains, the advantage isn't nearly as great in terms grams of CO2 emissions per passenger-km -- 74.1 for Virgin Trains and 95.7 for easyJet.

http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/gogreener/tandc.aspx
https://www.easyjet.com/EN/News/too_dirty_to_fly.html

easyJets are flying with much higher load factors than the Virgin Trains -- 84% to 53%. That's probably a big reason why it's cost-effective relative to trains, despite the lower fuel costs for trains.

As for the electric trains, if those trains ran in the US, it would emit 35.4 g per passenger-km, whereas the number Virgin uses is 27.2 g. That might be accurate, but it seems to be stretching it. The UK is about 20% reliant on nuclear power - the same as the US. The big difference in fuel mix is that the US is about 50% coal, 19% natural gas, and 7% hydro, whereas the UK is 34% coal, 39% natural gas, and only 1% hydro. More natural gas is balance by less hydro. Hard to tell without crunching further.

The other related issue here is the huge hidden subsidies the Uk Government-a nd others for that matter give airtravel. In its report Dying on a Jet Plane the World Development Movement calculates that the lack of tax on aviation fuel and its VAT free status accounts for a “hidden” subsidy of approximately £10.4 billion, that is £173 per person, kids included, in the United Kingdom.
i wrote about this back in March see http://www.naturalchoices.co.uk/Dying-on-a-Jet-Plane-L10-4-billion?id_mot=8

Easyjet in my opinion are free to keep up this sort of action- it leads to a huge amount of negative PR about plane travel as the idiocy of their poistion is exposed again and again
Pete

8 hours on a train instead of flying. Wow....now that is insane. Is there any value on anyones time? It sounds like these two are awfully close anyway on the treehugger scale.

How long does it take to get to Switzerland on a bicycle and rowboat? But then all that exercise would create excess carbon dioxide....can't have that either.

What's insane about 8 hours on a train? I get on, sleep for 8 hours overnight, and wake up in Switzerland. No long check-in times, no journeys to and from airports. It's far easier.

World Development Movement

So let me try to get this straight. An anti-poverty organization is fighting for people's right to travel slower and pay a lot more? In their report they say the "rich" disproportionately use airplanes (screwing the "poor"), yet what I'm hearing is the problem is that air travel is too cheap compared to trains. So which is it?

Also, what's the fuel duty on train fuel and electricity? How about international travel VAT? In the WDM report, they arrive at the 10 billion pounds figure by assuming that jet fuel should be taxed the same as gasoline for cars, as well as using very generous assumptions (ie, generous to their side of the argument) about how much fuel is actually being used now (even though one can get current data which likely contradicts it).

I also like how they pump up the greenhouse gas numbers for aviation by relying on the shaky notion of "climate forcing".

I spend 11 hours on a train to get from the Languedoc in Southern France to London once a month- as opposed to maybe 5 1/2 hours total journey time with an airline- crappy airport, cramped plane, stressed co-passengers.

I really enjoy the time- I actually get to read a book from cover to cover-and as I review books I find that very useful, I also get to prep for all my meetings in London- have a nice lunch and still get into London in time for dinner and a pint.
Yeah I agree people's time is valuable- just as is what you do with that time- this constant urge to be somewhere instantly is so 20th century. I know I use to get a plane or two everyday apart from Saturday's and believe me the experience is over rated.
Arrive a little later, or set off a little earlier and have a better time when you get there, and a better time getting there is what I say.
pete

Trains are not necessarily an expensive option either. GNER for example does offer 25 pound return tickets for their London-Edinburgh route. And yes the train was on time, it was comfortable and not crowded.

If you still want to go cheaper, than there are also coaches, I think Megabus had an offer for 8 pounds for a single ticket between London and Edinburgh. Sure it takes ages, but if you have to pinch pennies, than that is a somewhat environmentally friendly option as well.

And Britain is not the only country where these options work fine. In my home country Germany car sharing for example is a very popular travelling option among students, and if you have to travel a long route (f.e. Hamburg-Munich) than this is still better than the increasingly popular airlines which also serve this and similar routes.

Sam, there is no VAT on flight tickets unlike train tickets in the UK- nor is there any fuel tax on aviation fuel, so this counts as a subsidy against other forms of transport in most people's book.

Are you really suggesting that this subsidy in someway helps the world's poor?

Equally at the level of climate change air travel is the fastest growing emission sector in the UK, and in most developing countries.

Are you really suggesting that a few hours spent extra travelling by train is too excessive a cost to pay, it would be interesting to actually price out how much an employees time is worth by hour against say the true environmental cost of flying to work out at what stage the tipping point is whereby it is justifiable to fly rather than take the train wher that option exists.
If you want to fly by plane that is of course a consumer choice, but I and many others would have to agrue that greener options exist.

Already in Europe the impact of high speed trains is undermining some aspects of short haul travel. For example Air France's most profitable route us to be Paris-Lyon. You use to have to slap out to orly on the outskirts of Paris, an hour in advance and the take a plane journey 35-40 minutes, disembark and then get into Lyon from the airport- another good 30 minutes if the traffic was good. Now it is less than two hours central Paris to central Lyon by TGV with no post 9/11 security checks and all the rest. So in some cases not only is rail travel environmentally better it actually saves time, and a load of stress.

The European high speed network is expanding all the time, Paris Strasbourg has just opened, Brussels Amsterdam Brussels Dusseldorf is underway, Barcelona Madrid, the SNCF Languedoc link up to Barcelona. The German system is very impressive, even the UK is speeding up their channel link.

The fastest high value consumer take up of these services are amongst the business community. It woudl seem that many companies are prepared to allow there employees to take a slower route.

Sure the WDM argues its corner using stats that probably show the extreme of the arguement lets say for example that they are 30% inflated for campaign impact- that still makes it a large subsidy compared for example to the £19 million grants available in the UK for micro-generation.

Now all we need is to price air travel at its true cost by ending its tax free status and placing it on a par with other forms of transport.

Trains are far more civilized than air travel. Time spent in lines at the airport is time utterly wasted, wheras time spent on the train reading is time redeemed!

8 hours? Try three days.

On my trip from NYC to LA this summer I took the train one direction, flew back. It was amazing. The views, the atmosphere, and the leisure. Think about having 3 days with absolutely nothing to do but read a book and watch the rockies go by. And it shows you how big America is.

I also have to go to Washington DC every few months, and the Acela is much nicer than flying, and can even be faster these days.

Sam, there is no VAT on flight tickets unlike train tickets in the UK- nor is there any fuel tax on aviation fuel, so this counts as a subsidy against other forms of transport in most people's book.

What I asked is if there was tax on the fuel for trains, and if so, how much. The number put up by the WDM posits that, so if one is going to compare air to rail, it should be apples to apples. Do trains pay taxes on the fuel and electricity at the same rate as the normal gas tax in the UK? I highly doubt it, but since I don't know, I'm asking.

Are you really suggesting that this subsidy in someway helps the world's poor?

Does lowering costs help people down the economic ladder? Of course it does. There's mixed messages being sent here. On one hand people are complaining about how cheap air travel is and how that then leads to wastefulness with respect to the planet. But then in the same breath, people are saying that the wealthy are abusing the poor with flying. That's logically inconsistent.

Equally at the level of climate change air travel is the fastest growing emission sector in the UK, and in most developing countries.

UK yes, most other countries, no. The UK is the air gateway to Europe -- it's not really a relevant example. It's the reason that bunker fuels aren't included in greenhouse gas emissions inventories as they apply to individual countries - it biases places like the UK.

Are you really suggesting that a few hours spent extra travelling by train is too excessive a cost to pay

No, I didn't say that, but if you think the whole world is going to go more slowly, you're spitting in the wind. But it's a pretty crazy proposition to ask people to voluntarily pay much more and go much slower. It's the reason rail doesn't work in the US.

So in some cases not only is rail travel environmentally better it actually saves time, and a load of stress.

Sure, but stress is an individual consideration, not something one regulates, and the reason UK air travel emissions are so high is because it's at the western edge of the continent, floating out there. Trains don't float on thousands of miles of ocean and the Chunnel is a bottleneck.

Sure the WDM argues its corner using stats that probably show the extreme of the arguement lets say for example that they are 30% inflated for campaign impact- that still makes it a large subsidy compared for example to the £19 million grants available in the UK for micro-generation.

That's kind of cherry-picking. The relevant question is modal choice, and what are the respective subsidies for rail, automobile, bus, air, and water. It's not really fair to pull air out and talk about its theoretical subsidies (ie, not paying a gas tax the same as some car does). Rail almost certainly doesn't get some massive tax on top of its normal electricity and diesel costs, either.

Now all we need is to price air travel at its true cost by ending its tax free status and placing it on a par with other forms of transport.

It's not tax-free -- not by a long shot. I can go price a ticket now for $150 in the US, yet once taxes and fees get added on, it can easily balloon up towards $300. I highly doubt other modes have that kind of regulatory overhead -- and justifiably so. Air requires a lot more security, safety, and oversight.

We lived in Brussels for nearly eight years. Travel to London started out at 3h20m, and went down to 2h20m once they upgraded some of their track on the UK side. Travel to Paris was 1h30m.

Flights would probably technically be about as long, but then you'd have all the hassle of going way the heck out of town to the airport, going through massive security checks, waiting for the plane to load, waiting for the plane to takeoff, waiting for the plane to land, waiting for the plane to unload, waiting for your baggage, waiting in line for a taxi, then waiting through massive traffic problems trying to get into town.

When you consider door-to-door travel time, the train beats the crap out of the plane for shorter journeys. Okay, so maybe you don't want to take the train from Brussels to eastern Germany, but Frankfurt is only a few hours away either by train or by plane, and that's one of the biggest airport hubs in the world.

Air France cancelled all their flights from Brussels to Paris. They now book them as "flights" on the Thalys train, and they help with transfers, luggage, etc... just as if you were changing planes at a regular airport.

And the newer maglev trains will be much faster still.

I really wish they hadn't ripped out most of the passenger train infrastructure here in the US, so that they could subsidize the expensive highway infrastructure.

Give us back our trains, and make them high speed maglevs.

First I would like to thank Peter, and others, for taking their valuable time to make a moral argumentative stand in this forum and to counter arguments that are both detrimental to the environment and to poor people. Sometimes I have taken the time to do the same when I have had the time to do so. This time it has been Peter who has had the time and patience.

Second, even though I do not have the time nor much desire to address some of the irresponsible comments being made here, I nonetheless feel morally obliged to do so. So a few moments and frustrations I will spare.

'Does lowering costs help people down the economic ladder? Of course it does. There's mixed messages being sent here.'
Economics is not a pure science. Its laws are generalizations, not certainties. If prices go up, demand goes down. That is one general 'law' of economics that holds for most situations most of the time. But not always. There are plenty of exceptions to this 'law'. Hopefully, I don't have to whip out a college text book and list some of the more common exceptions. So your automatic assumption is just that, an assumption. And one that I believe misplaced. I do not believe that lower air ticket costs helps the poor in the third world, which is the poor being indirectly discussed. No more than cheap guns and cocaine helps the poor in inner city ghettos. There are some products that would make society better, and especially the poor, if they were MORE expensive rather than less. Sometimes much more. There are countries that tax the hell out of gasolihe and car ownership to promote use of public transport and therefore public transport revenues and improvements in public transport. This is a net benefit to those truly poor people that can not afford car ownership and must rely on buses and trains to get to work. But your argument would be that it would actually be better for the poor thar cars and gasoline be as cheap as possible since this is actually what is in the best interests of teh poor. Make it cheaper for them to afford a transport medium that they still can not afford, thereby reducing the quantity and quality of the public transport that they can afford, and at the same time making that public transport more relatively expensive because of the lack of high-capacity use because everyone else who can afford to drive those cheaper cars with cheaper gasoline are doing that rather than using the public transport they were using before. And all this leading to vicious cycle whereby disimprovements in public transport lead to less desire to use public transport and further disimprovements all the while leading to increasing car use, increasing traffic congestions, increasing parking problems, increasing air and noise pollution, increasing car, bicycle and pedestrian accidents, increased stress, etc. all to the grand benefit of the truly poor, who can not afford increased medical bills due to increased pollution, accidents, stress, decreased public transport 'value', etc. The same holds true for air transport. Making it cheaper doesn't help the truly poor. And all this before taking into consideration the negative impacts on global warming from the inappropriately high increase in world-wide air traffic - global warming that will affect the poorest people in the poorest parts of the world the worst. Mixed messages are being sent - but not through Peter.

'On one hand people are complaining about how cheap air travel is and how that then leads to wastefulness with respect to the planet. But then in the same breath, people are saying that the wealthy are abusing the poor with flying. That's logically inconsistent.'
Indeed the wealthy are abusing the poor through flying. For the reasons mentioned. Global warming will affect those who can least afford to deal with its consequences the worst. But hell, at least air tickets will be lower so that maybe they can afford to become indentured servants to some human-smuggling gang and illegally fly to the first world to get away from the damage and desperation that global warming has caused them, their families, communities and countries in the thirld world. Logical inconsistency there is - but it is not coming through Peter.

--Equally at the level of climate change air travel is the fastest growing emission sector in the UK, and in most developing countries.--
'UK yes, most other countries, no. The UK is the air gateway to Europe -- it's not really a relevant example. It's the reason that bunker fuels aren't included in greenhouse gas emissions inventories as they apply to individual countries - it biases places like the UK.'
Sam, air traffic emissions are one of the fastest, if not the fastest, growing emission sector in the overwhelming majoirty of countries in the world - developed and developing. In Europe and outside of Europe. I posted a bunch of figures showing just such increases for most EU countries and other developing countries. The UK numbers were not significantly higher than most of the rest of EU countries, and Spain's (my own country) was many times higher than the UK's. And China's was many, many times higher than Spain's. Oh, and these figures were with regard to domestic and international (bunker fuel) travel combined. I will put this bluntly since I think it is the best thing to do with these statements: Peter is right, Sam is wrong. Oh, and as a sidenote, I posted those figures a year ago while counterarguing with someone else who was trying to excuse away environmental air traffic concerns because he was arguing that air traffic emissions increases in teh world, and PARTICULARLY in the UK, were so small as to be beyond insignificant. Interesting and ironic. People in the same boat using completely opposite logic to reach the same illogical conclusion.

'No, I didn't say that, but if you think the whole world is going to go more slowly, you're spitting in the wind. But it's a pretty crazy proposition to ask people to voluntarily pay much more and go much slower. It's the reason rail doesn't work in the US.'
No one is asking the WHOLE world to go more slowly. What IS being asked is for the whole world to only go fast when really necessary - there is a big difference. And if you are about to say: How do we go about implementing such a 'crazy' concept, setting up a Responsible Air Travel Ministry to monitor everyone?, the answer is: No, by placing high taxes on air fuel, tighter restrictions on airplane efficiency and emissions, including the air industry in the cap-and-trade system (as the EU has recently done), etc. All of this increases the air ticket prices, reducing irresponsible flying, increasing demand for train and bus transport, decreasing long distance vacations and unnecessary travelling in general. Increased use of train and bus leads to improved revenues, which leads to improvements in quality and quantity and eventually to cost reductions. And if you are about to say: How is it possible for increased demand to lead to decreased costs, nonsense?! It happens. Increased demand for computers has lead to continually decreasing costs. This holds true for MOST industries. Increased demand leads to more competition, which leads to cost reductions and improvements and innovations, which eventually leads to lower costs. This also holds true for most state monopolies - increased demand means higher revenues, which means more money for improvements in infrastructure and capacity, which makes is possible to implement cost-saving technologies. As for the 'costs much more to travel by train or bus' statement, I don't know what country you are talking about. I assume the US based on some of your other statements. I have lived in the US (Texas, Illinois, Arkansas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania), in Spain, in Finland, in Germany and France. I have visited a number of states and countries within the US and western Europe. I have travelled by plane, train, and bus. And from my personal experience, the vast majority of short haul trips in western Europe are both CHEAPER and FASTER to get to by bus AND train than by plane. In the US, I travelled by bus or plane - never got the chance to use train - and buses were always cheaper. Main problem with the buses was that they were used only by poor people (probably because they were CHEAP) that didn't come from the best of conditions and the bus stops always seemed to be in the rundown (and somewhat scary) parts of town. Buses are clearly much cheaper than planes, as was more than evident by the clientele. As for trains in the US, I do think they probably are overpriced from the little I know of their pricing. But this has nothing to do with what you said, and everything to do with Americas love affair with the car. Trains used to be everything in America. They used to be the PRIMARY method of long-distance travel. They were effective and efficient. Until Ford came along and started selling cheap cars. And then America started shifting all of its transport infrastructure spending on roads and highways. Cheap cars, cheap gas, cheap roads, cheap parking, cheap everything related to cars transformed the way Americans moved about and railroads came into disuse. That vicious cycle mentioned earlier. Less use, less money, less improvements, lower quality, higher costs and prices leading to less use and so on. The airplane just added to this vicious circle. Trains are relatively expensive in the US not because planes are better alternatives but because the transport priorities in the US have been so warped for so long that trains have been at the negative end of that vicious cycle for decades - as opposed to many EU countries that never allowed such warped priorities and such a negative vicious circle to take hold. That is the reason rail isn't 'working' in the US as it does in western Europe. It is also why buses ARE 'working' in the US - the same things that helped cement car use helped buses, cheap gasoline, free roads and highways, lax rules, etc.

'Sure, but stress is an individual consideration, not something one regulates, and the reason UK air travel emissions are so high is because it's at the western edge of the continent, floating out there. Trains don't float on thousands of miles of ocean and the Chunnel is a bottleneck.'
Society regulates 'stressful' conditions all teh time. Speed limits help reduce my stress by giving me piece of mind that some a--e won't accidentally crash into me at 200km/hr. Blood alcohol levels. Car inspections. Driver's licences. Restaurant inspections. Fire regulations. Smoking regulations. And so on to infinity.
I thought the reason the UK air traffic emissions were so 'high' was because it was a 'gateway'. Now it is because they are floating? The UK has very high traffic emission growths like the majority of other countries in the world - it is not an exception to the rule, it is a demonstration of the rule. As for your statements, the Chunnel is UNDERUSED. There is no bottleneck situation in the Chunnel. The stockholders of Chunnel stock could only dream that your statement would be true because then their stock would go back up to levels above worthless from how underused it was only a few years ago. The train had to do massive price discounts to get people on board and compete with the ferries. As for your 'trains on water' comment, they are called boats. Very common in the UK. Used very extensively. They tend to be even more energy efficient that trains - and consequently slower too. There are ferries and boats going to every imaginable part of Europe and the world. Think of them as thousands of miles of waterborne trains - except that they are even more efficient than trains. So where exactly does this leave your argument that the UK has 'high' air traffic emission levels compared to other countries because it is an island; much like an island I would say, soaked and isolated.

'That's kind of cherry-picking.'
And what exactly have you been picking, plums?

''The relevant question is modal choice, and what are the respective subsidies for rail, automobile, bus, air, and water. It's not really fair to pull air out and talk about its theoretical subsidies (ie, not paying a gas tax the same as some car does). Rail almost certainly doesn't get some massive tax on top of its normal electricity and diesel costs, either.'
Theoretical? Please define theoretical and then define cherry-picking. Because my definitions make you a grand theoretical cherry-picker. And, by the way, air fuel tax is zero. Its not the difference between 1 kilo of cherries and 2 kilos. Its the difference between 2 kilos of cherries and not cherry-picking at all. So I think it more than fair to single out air traffic. Actually necessary. Just like we single out alcohol tax and demand it to be higher than fruit juice tax. Or cigarette tax and demand it to be higher than bread tax. And yes, air traffic is overly detrimental to the environment considering the perfectly ACCEPTABLE substitutes. You don't need alcohol to quench your thirst when water is more than ACCEPTABLE. Regardless of whether you think alcohol is faster in meeting your fancy or water wastes your own personal time. We tax alcohol HIGHER because we want to discourage its overuse, and we do this because this is what is best for society as a whole - regardless of the excuses drunks come up with to argue how beneficial cheap alcohol is for society, or the poor, or whoever. Rail SHOULD get lower taxes AND subsidies; air SHOULD get high taxes AND no subsidies. That is what is best for the environment, for poor people, and for society in general.

'It's not tax-free -- not by a long shot. I can go price a ticket now for $150 in the US, yet once taxes and fees get added on, it can easily balloon up towards $300.'
First, taxes and fees are two separate things. Here in Spain when one bought an air ticket, it used to be that one paid that ticket cost, then there was a FEE from the airline company for printing up the ticket (it is now illegal to do so since this FEE is nothing more than part of the operating cost of the airline in providing the service and should justifiably be incorporated in the full-price of the ticket rather than be a separate expense), and there was the AIRPORT tax - which has nothing to do with the fuel or the airline. The airport is a separate operating entity and needs its own revenues to operate. It charges travellers a tax for use of their airport - not for use of the plane. Would you mix up car registration tax with fuel tax too? Would you mix up toll road pricing for fuel tax too? How about car parking fees, is that also basically the same as fuel tax? When you add all these taxes and tolls and fees, it also balloons the cost of car operation. So let's make this clear: airlines DO NOT pay fuel tax. It IS free. Quit cherry-picking.

'I highly doubt other modes have that kind of regulatory overhead -- and justifiably so. Air requires a lot more security, safety, and oversight.'
Really? Do you really believe that? I mean seriously. Let us take the US for instance. Are you saying the road infrastructure DOESN'T require MORE regulatory overhead than the air transport sector? No, really. Do you really think the US road infrastructure doesn't require MORE money than airports to continue to operate properly - for security, safety, and oversight. Quick question: do more people in the US die from road traffic or air traffic? I know, silly question since everyone knows the answer. How many airport security guards do you think there are in comparison with the number of highway patrolmen and border crossing guards? Less or more. Another silly question since the answer is obvious. Oh, and do the airport security go driving through the airport in cop cars and motorcycles like the highway patrol? I think the point is getting overly obvious now. But now you say road and rail are different. Really? So different that rail doesn't need to worry about safety, security, and oversight? Just a week ago five workers died when there car was struck by a train because the crossing point barriers weren't working properly. It was a big deal here. New rules and regulations have been implemented. A few crossings closed. Meaning people now have to drive all the way around to the other crossings. Railroads have control centers much like airports, you know. They aren't free. They cost money to build, operate, and maintain. Then there is all the cost of building, operating and maintaining the rail system itself. Do you think this to be free? I remember long ago arguing with someone trying to convince me that air traffic is better BECAUSE air traffic requires so little infrastructure with its associated costs in building, operation and maintenance. Here is what I believe: air traffic has no special right to tax-free fuel and priveleged transport regulations. Just the opposite. It needs high fuel taxes, much stricter regulations, and other disincentives to INCREASE air traffic costs and tickets. Just like EU countries do with gasoline and cars to dissuade from their use and lead more people to use public transport like buses, trains, metros, or to walk or bike or teleconference. The same needs to apply to air traffic - and the sooner the better.

A six pager. That's close to the seven page record-setter from last week.

I'm going from Hertfordshire to Suhl in Germany this year. It is my only annual holiday. The total cost, including £60 air fare, from the moment I leave my front door to the moment I return, is going to be about £200, plus another £100 for gifts & fun.

By coincidence, £300 is also the cost of getting from Suhl, from London. This doesn't cover the costs of getting to London, or hotel costs, or food, or any spending money once I get there. I'm rather poor, and I simply can't afford that.

In addition, the train route takes 13 hours rather than 6, involves about 5 connections, stumbling around poorly signposted train stations, and the train companies refuse to put their prices up online; so you cannot price match. As minor fringe benefits, you can also afford to close your eyes on an airline without worried that someone will steal your bags, and you don't usually find beggars wondering up and down the isles.

Finally I am skeptical of a direct comparison between trains and planes. To be fair you woudl also need to include the infrastructure needed to support them. How much CO2 is put into the atmosphere maintaining all that train track?

I also think it's unfair to specifically target the aerospace industry when they've been fighting the hardest and the longest for greater fuel economy. A good percentage of the £10B it costs to develop a new airliner is to make sure it is as efficient as possible. When fuel costs for a passenger flight can reach half a million pounds or more they have *real* incentive not to be wasteful. What little improvements can be made are usually down to ATC and government regulations - not the airline manufacturers or operators.

Can the same honestly be said about the car/coach industry, or the train industry? And at the end of the day *why* does the train cost 5 times more than going by air? That money has to go on something, and I find it hard to believe the 400% increase doesn't translate to a lot more CO2 than the train itself produces.