More Belgians want to travel by train coming summer holiday. ABTO, the Association of Belgian Tour Operators, says 7% indicate of surveyed holidaygoers in Belgium stated that they will travel by train this summer. In 2019, that was only 4%. 

And according to the Vereniging Vlaamse Reisbureaus (VVR) or Association of Flemish Travel Agencies, train travel is gaining popularity. Neither ABTO, nor VVR published their findings. Both websites aren’t really up to date.

“Most travelers stay within Europe and travel by private transport or by bus. Then comes the plane. Traveling by train is gaining popularity”, according to a Belga article in De Tijd on 3 February 2024.  

 “The increase in frequencies, the relaunch of night trains and a European network that is better connected are paying off and clearly respond to growing demand,” VVR says.

‘Win-win’, the consumer programme of Flemish public broadcaster Radio 2, investigated. Radio 2 spoke with travel expert and journalist Britta Baek of Travel Like A Pro. 

Trains more expensive

Baek says while more people wánt to travel more environmentally consciously, the train remains expensive. “Moreover, you pay a lot for little luxury”, Baeke says.

It’s a recurring argument, and it’s not false. Train travel is more expensive than flying and it can be quite rustic. And the reason is simple. Air doesn’t cost a penny and doesn’t need maintenance, while rails and infrastructure do. You also can’t put tracks everywhere so the capacity is more limited. 

Rising popularity

Quizzed by Radio 2, NMBS / SNCB spokesman Dimitri Temmerman says the Belgian railway operator sold a quarter more international tickets than in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“We currently sell tickets for 5,500 international destinations in 14 European countries”, he says.

The most popular destinations are Paris, Amsterdam, London and the south of France. Destinations with direct links to Belgium.

Competition

“The train is not always, but often more expensive than traveling by plane or a car holiday. This is firstly because there is much less competition on the railways,” Britta Baeke explains. “In addition, the airspace is much larger than the European railway network. This makes it easier to add extra flights than extra trains. The railways need more infrastructure, maintenance and personnel. You can also transport fewer people in the same time period.” 

In other words: during the time a train travels from Brussels to Bordeaux, several planes fly to the same destination.

Finally, there is government support for air traffic and no tax has to be paid on kerosene, the fuel for aircraft. Dimitri Temmerman of NMBS: “To compete fairly, we ask for the same rules as the aviation sector.”

Moreover, you don’t always get your money’s worth when you take the train. Britta Baeke: “People still associate traveling with luxury, and traveling by train can sometimes be quite an adventure and come across as student-like.”

The night trains in particular are quite outdated and the facilities could be improved. Rolling stock, certainly for long journeys and night trains, can be very old and not up to today’s expectations. The lack of couchette and sleeper coaches is infamous. But a company such as ÖBB in Austria shows with its new NightJet trains built by Siemens it can be done, still. 

Challenges

These arguments are valid and true. Although the value of competition is oversold. There is just much more space and less obstacles in the air than on land and in casu on rails. 

While more competition and more uniform technical, operational and commercial regulations and working methods would help augment the use of international train travel and make it less expensive, long-distance train travel will always be more expensive than flying. 

Competition should not be a fetish. Smaller, private rail companies piggyback to some extend on existing, publicly developed rail infrastructure or use second hand rolling stock once built for government-run rail operators. 

Private passengers rail companies starting from scratch are nowadays extremely rare. I can only think of Brightline in Florida, California and Nevada in the United States.

So?

While the challenges and reproaches for long-distance, leisure train travel are valid,  we shouldn’t keep it at slogans. The eternal discussion ‘planes v. trains’ is far more complex than any short news article or blog post. 

More on night trains and transcontinental train travel

• European Sleeper finally connects Belgium and the Netherlands to Berlin, Dresden and Prague.
• Slow(er) Eurocity Brussels – Mons – Paris for Olympic and Paralympic Games in July and August 2024.
• Tri-Country Train between Maastricht, Liège and Aachen will start on Sunday 9 June 2024.
• Brussels to Luxembourg by train under 2 hours by 2030?.
• GoVolta wants tourist trains from the Netherlands to Berlin, Paris and Basel and from Antwerp to Germany.
• Heuro wants to operate high speeds trains between Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, Paris and London from 2028.
• Eurostar and five more train operators joined the European Agreement on Journey Continuation.
• ÖBB’s new Nightjet sleeper cars accommodate solo travellers with Mini Cabins.
• Trenitalia orders new Hitachi Frecciarossa trains suited for France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
• ÖBB’s Nightjet to connect Berlin to Brussels from December 2023.
• EUROCITY EC-8 | Basel to Cologne in SBB’s Panoramic Car.
• Trenitalia / FS confirms interest in connecting Spain to Brussels, Amsterdam and Berlin.
• Deutsche Bahn and Trenitalia want piece of Amsterdam – Brussels – Paris HST service via subsidiaries Arriva an Qbuzz.
• SNCF and NMBS / SNCB to link Paris to Brussels with ‘slow’ classic train in about 3 hours from December 2024.
• Sampling NS’ new train and future Benelux rolling stock ICNG.
• REVIEW | Trenitalia Frecciarossa 1000 Paris – Milan in Business Executive.
• RAIL TOUR OF EUROPE | How easy is touring Europe by train?.
• Eight train connections between the Netherlands and Belgium by 2030?.
• REVIEW | ÖBB Nightjet Amsterdam – Zurich night train.
• European Commission wants booking train tickets to be as easy as booking flights.
• Nightjet Vienna/Innsbruck to Brussels, or how we got thrown off the train in Aachen.
• Why the expensive ÖBB Nightjet is really not that expensive.
• Reliving the era of the great railway journeys, travelling overnight on Nightjet.
• How we plan a big rail trip.
• Ticket Distribution: the failure of railways to sell themselves.
• To use night trains in Portugal and Spain or not?.
• Night trains in Europe.
• Low-cost, long-haul trains to conquer Europe?.
• Fly now before it’s taxed and consider using the train instead.
• MIDNIGHT TRAINS | Unified Rail Europe? Coping with rail network challenges.
• MIDNIGHT TRAINS | Choosing rolling stock is more than following national technical rules.
• Midnight Trains abandon United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark and Portugal to aim at Nice, Milan, Rome, Venice, Barcelona and Madrid.