YUROP

I use trains to move around within my country, from a couple of hours to 4 or 5 for some long weekend trips.

I've been trying my best to stick to trains for longer trips but it's not easy: it takes a lot longer (and that's, well, expected and the least of the issues), it's less confortable (I took some night trains and the quality of my rest was very bad, so much so it impacts the quality of my first day abroad) but most of all, it's not less, not as mu ch as, but MORE expensive than planes.

I keep myself motivated by running this https://lowtrip.fr/ and keeping a lifelong count of the CO2 I've contributed to.

It's essentially a luxury though.

my mom travels between Ukraine and Poland by train regularly, but i guess that doesn't really count as Europe

Not from Italy, transalpine connections are few and not very convenient.

I did take an Eurostar from Brussels to Amsterdam, but that's like catching a regional train here lol

@Servais I'd love to do this once, but this is not practical at all where I live in order to do it more often, because I live in one of the countries marked with a shade of red on this map (in S-E Europe). And that is not taking into account various incidents that can occur with the locomotive and/or other rolling stock.

Train travels inside the country are indeed doable, and many people take them, but the speed is so low that for longer distances it is rather more feasible to travel by plane in a couple of hours than take one full day for each trip.

The problem is that cross country trains are a hassle, because many eu countries have there own booking system, gauge width, traffic control infrastructure. Unless you take a popular route between mayor cities, you need to buy multiple tickets and change trains.

The reason the tracks are not standardized is because in the 1800s the military did not want neighboring countries to just roll into their country by train.

Just a Canadian over here who cant even come close to affording to ride the train in country, being judgy of all the "airplane is easier people".

Between other countries yes, from my country no. I'm at the edge of Europe and our trains are bad so planes usually make more sense.

Just got back from a two week train trip across Europe. Overall, found it very easy and accessible to move around.

Here’s the general itinerary:

1. London to Brussels
2. Brussels to Prague (night train)
3. Prague to Vienna
4. Vienna to Zurich (night train)
5. Zurich to Bern
6. Bern to Lyon
7. Lyon to Nîmes
8. Nîmes to Barcelona

The only train problem on the trip was our night train to Prague. The carriage was 28-30° C and very uncomfortable. Especially for a 16 hour trip.

The inconsistency of scheduling, signage and trip information was a challenge. Especially when you add in the language barriers.

My ranking of the train systems:

1. Switzerland (obviously)
2. Austria
3. France
4. Spain
5. Czechia

Going to coppenhagen from sweden is really easy... except for the swedish rail network which has a horrible layout.

Yes. (I'm Swiss.)

I just took a train from Mannheim DE to Lille FR. It required one swap and cost me about €250. I felt like that price was too high for that distance and speed (5.5 hours roughly) but that's comparable to a plane ticket in the US from one major city to the next so it's a better way of traveling in this instance because trains are more enjoyable than planes for me.

That being said I agree with other commenters that we need to continue to invest in our international rail systems and continue to improve speeds, reliability, and cost.

I'd like to take trains all over the EU in the future (rather new to DE). If someone could get me a single train from Frankfurt to Madrid in under 8 hours for €250 I'd be in love. Make planes obsolete for distances a high speed rail can achieve in under 8 hours. Get me into Italy and Portugal and Sweden and Turkiye and Ukraine (after they've defended their home successfully against the imperialists) via train. I want to see the world by train.

I have done Berlin-Paris multiple times. My partner has traveled from Berlin to Manchester with a stop over in London. Berlin-Copenhagen as well. We like traveling by train