EUROSTAR SETS PRECEDENT FOR SPEED TRAIN BOOM

Richard Moor - Jan 27, 2009
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Although the airline industry has long been perceived as the fastest way to travel around, this mentality is somewhat changing amongst business and leisure travellers. Although the actual travel time itself is deemed to be very quick, there are a host of other complications, which people would love to avoid. These complications involve extra payments for almost anything, delayed flights, check-in times, environmental complications and the constant additions to the lists of restrictions for passengers. The fast train services of companies such as Eurostar have been quite successful because the trains provide a way of getting from A to B without such complications and only taking a little longer in travel time.

The results of Eurostar from 2008 show that the high-speed train industry is now being preferred to air travel in a number of parts of Europe, especially Britain and the Benelux. Ticket revenue went up, last year, by 11% and in pounds this was equal to 664 million. The industry was also benefiting from the weakened pound as many French, Dutch and Belgian travellers wanted to make use of the cheaper shopping in London and other parts of the UK.

Especially the links between London, the channel tunnel, Paris and Brussels are clear signs that travellers prefer to make these journeys by train. It is simply more convenient and involves a lot less hassle.

There are, of course, environmental issues. In an age where more and more people are becoming more concerned, in some cases feeling guiltier, about the state of our planet, the facts comparing train and air travel say a lot about the advantages of the train. Eurostar has claimed to be carbon neutral and it is widely accepted that their trains use up one tenth of the carbon dioxide of the equivalent flights. When all of these advantages are put together, it is clear to see why fast trains are becoming more popular in countries such as Spain and Turkey too.

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