Modern travel is great. Airports and budget airlines help make the world smaller and make it easy for us to visit new places, see new horizons and travel further, faster.
I used to travel a lot by plane - using cheap flights to open quick travel all over Europe.
I never considered using the train, considering it "too slow", "inconvenient" and "expensive".
Coming to KISC, with a fresh environment and different way of thinking persuaded me to try taking the train home to the UK for a holiday. So I packed plenty of books and magazines for the hours ahead of me. Next I got on the internet to see how many connections it would take me to get home. The answer, pleasantly low - 4 from sleepy Kandersteg village, through to a similarly sleepy commuter belt town near London.
My journey was all booked for Kandersteg - Bern - Paris - London - Welwyn Garden City. I found it slightly cheaper booking the different segments separately with Rail Europe (Bern-Paris), Eurostar (Paris-London) and local tickets at either end.
I'll take you through my day of travel and race myself on a similar journey - but by air.
As I travel down the valley, looking back up to the Alps, I think about the equivalent flight and realise that I would be on this same early train - travelling to Bern on my way to the airport.
07:29 see's me leaving Bern on the TGV - who knew that French high speed trains came so far into Switzerland?! I settle into the coffee and gipfelli that I hunted down in Bern station and wonder what to read first. First impressions of the TGV - very comfortable - but disapointingly slow for the fastest passenger trains on the planet.
09:30 see's me travelling through france like a speeding bullet. It turns out that the TGV travels through Switzerland at the speed of a regional train. Across the boarder in France, high speed rails let our driver put his put on the accelerator.
Where would I be if I was on the plane? Well, I'd just have arrived at Geneva Airport and would be fighting with baggage checkin and security checks for the 11:25 flight to London Luton. 2 hours checking procedure (compared to 2 minutes for the train) - means that train is winning the race.
12:30 see's me in Paris, enjoying the sun. I'm travelling light, so decide to walk from Gare de Lyon across to Gare du Nord for Eurostar. Walking in Paris is lovely - lots to see and I pick up a fresh baguette for lunch. The metro provides a quick simple alternative for a rainy day. In the plane, I would be passing high overhead now, moving into the lead in this race.
You may be wondering now, who won the theoretical race - of train vs plane. Well, unsurprisingly the plane pulled through and won. It landed at 12:05 GMT, a short taxi around the airport, the wait for bags and then a 30 minute drive sees me at the finish line for 13:30.
But despite this, I am happy. As they say, "its not the destination, but the journey". I had a great day watching Switzerland and France slide by, exploring Paris and reading. The experience was a lot more relaxing than the stress of airports and security checks. And in any case, I expected the plane to win by more than 4 hours.
Also, more importantly, I had produced in the region of 1/20 the amount of Carbon Dioxide as the equivalent journey by air.
This method is maybe not so easy with a Scout group in tow -changing trains and organising the logistics. But having said that, it is not much more difficult then getting a group through the airport. We spoke to 8th Holborn Scouts who travelled to KISC by train this winter.
"I was at times rather apprehensive of making the trip this time all the way by rail, but actually it all worked out. It may assist others coming from the UK to have the following details on your website, as it took some effort to work out the logistics!"
They took the following journey:
London St Pancras dep. 0923
Eurostar to Paris Gare du Nord arr. 1247.
Go downstairs to the Metro,
two stops on RER (Express Metro and Metro): follow signs to RER line ‘D’. (Buy
a metro ticket from the machines. They have a touch screen and an English
button. Cash and cards are accepted. All southbound RER ‘D’ trains stop at the
Gare de Lyon, but always check the TV screens. At Gare de Lyon look for ‘Grand
Lignes’ in the main hall upstairs.)
Paris Gare de Lyon TGV dep.
1423 to Basel SBB arr. 1726.
Basel dep. 1731 Eurocity to
Spiez arr. 1902 (change trains across platform).
Spiez dep. 1912
Regional-Express to Kandersteg arr. 1941.
Rail isn't the answer for every trip, but it is definately worth consideration - on the carbon saving alone. But also for the overall experience and as a mode of transport, it is full of surprises.
Jon (UK)
Programme Director
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