Shoulda Rode The Train!

[RRUserious]

PARIS (Associated Press) – French officials say that new President François Hollande's plane was hit by lightning en route to Berlin. They say no one was hurt but that the plane returned to Paris as a precaution.
French Defense Ministry spokesman Gerard Gachet said the Falcon 7X aircraft was struck by lightning shortly after take-off today, and returned to the Villacoublay air base for inspection.

Defense officials say the president and his entourage were transferred to another aircraft, a Falcon 900, and took off shortly thereafter.

No good trains from France to Berlin? That's crazy!

 

[fairviewroad]

PARIS (Associated Press) – French officials say that new President François Hollande's plane was hit by lightning en route to Berlin. They say no one was hurt but that the plane returned to Paris as a precaution.
French Defense Ministry spokesman Gerard Gachet said the Falcon 7X aircraft was struck by lightning shortly after take-off today, and returned to the Villacoublay air base for inspection.

Defense officials say the president and his entourage were transferred to another aircraft, a Falcon 900, and took off shortly thereafter.

No good trains from France to Berlin? That's crazy!

545 miles from Paris to Berlin as the crow flies. Even in Europe that's going to take the better part of a day.

 

[Shawn Ryu]

Would need to transfer at Amsterdam or Zurich if I am not mistaken to connect from TGV to ICE.

 

[saxman]

PARIS (Associated Press) – French officials say that new President François Hollande's plane was hit by lightning en route to Berlin. They say no one was hurt but that the plane returned to Paris as a precaution.
French Defense Ministry spokesman Gerard Gachet said the Falcon 7X aircraft was struck by lightning shortly after take-off today, and returned to the Villacoublay air base for inspection.

Defense officials say the president and his entourage were transferred to another aircraft, a Falcon 900, and took off shortly thereafter.

No good trains from France to Berlin? That's crazy!

Planes getting struck by lightning is quite a common occurrence.

 

[amamba]

I took the train from amsterdam to berlin about 10 years ago and it was pretty long and overnight.

 

[guest]

Would need to transfer at Amsterdam or Zurich if I am not mistaken to connect from TGV to ICE.

Transfer at Köln, if taking Thalys to ICE. Also possible transfers at Stuttgart, Strasbourg, or Mannheim, all faster and more frequent than going all the way to A'dam or Zürich.

 

[RRUserious]

Wow, is this a plane-lover's sight masquerading as a train site? And some of the arguments sound like reasons never to take a train. I stick with the topic title.

 

[trainviews]

Wow, is this a plane-lover's sight masquerading as a train site? And some of the arguments sound like reasons never to take a train. I stick with the topic title.

Well as for me I guess I'm more of an efficient transport lover

Which means that I root for trains when they are the economically and environmentally sound solution, sometimes weighing the two concerns against eachother.

But back to the European train system it is overwhelmingly run to be the efficient transport solution on short and medium haul routes. HSR has lengthened the scope of these, but the true long distance network is about as sketchy as the US one.

On top of that the strategies of France and Germany have been quite different. France has championed a network of dedicated bullet trains running on new and dedicated ROW, but has slashed a lot of local and regional service in the process. DB (Ithe German railways) run a very impressive operation in terms of density of the network and frequencies, but the approach to HSR has been much more incremental. A few places new ROW has been built, but many others are just upgraded existing ROW, typically to 250 kph, like the Berlin-Hamburg run. So the French network is more efficient on longer runs especially going to/from Paris, but pretty lousy if you want to get across the country between two midsized cities. The German network is second to none here but at the cost of very fast connections between the major cities. The long distance of Paris-Berlin is streching it even if there was a direct bullet train, but there isn't, and the current connection is not competitive with flying timewise.

As for the night trains there is no comparison at all, as they are not high speed trains. They are standard engine pulled cars running no more than standard intercity speed (about 180 kph/110mph) and often slower. A day train on the same route (if upgraded) will normally be much faster.

 

[Porter20]

I'm just kind of shocked that France's President flys on a Falcon. There are lot of corporations with nicer planes that that. No wonder Air Force One makes such an impression when it flys around the world.

 

[Porter20]

I'm just kind of shocked that France's President flys on a Falcon. There are lot of corporations with nicer planes that that. No wonder Air Force One makes such an impression when it flys around the world.

Nevermind - I forgot that the Falcon is manufactured by Dassault which is based in France. I guess that makes more sense now.

 

[VentureForth]

Should've taken a Gulfstream!

 

[sitzplatz17]

Would need to transfer at Amsterdam or Zurich if I am not mistaken to connect from TGV to ICE.

Transfer at Köln, if taking Thalys to ICE. Also possible transfers at Stuttgart, Strasbourg, or Mannheim, all faster and more frequent than going all the way to A'dam or Zürich.

You are correct sir!

Amsterdam would quite a detour.

Then again the OP said France - Berlin... e.g. an entire country to a city.

So how long it takes would really depend on where you're starting. Of course in this case it was Paris.

 

[Shawn Ryu]

Would need to transfer at Amsterdam or Zurich if I am not mistaken to connect from TGV to ICE.

Transfer at Köln, if taking Thalys to ICE. Also possible transfers at Stuttgart, Strasbourg, or Mannheim, all faster and more frequent than going all the way to A'dam or Zürich.

Oh yea theres Thalys. forgot about that. Kept thinking ICe needed to connect with TGV.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

PARIS (Associated Press) – French officials say that new President François Hollande's plane was hit by lightning en route to Berlin. They say no one was hurt but that the plane returned to Paris as a precaution.

No good trains from France to Berlin? That's crazy!

Planes getting struck by lightning is quite a common occurrence.

I've been on a plane that appeared to be hit myself. All I noticed was an extremely bright flash of light from outside, a slight flicker of the lights, and a momentary drop in ventilation noise. Everything else stayed the same. I've seen this happen a few times actually. From what I've read somewhere along the trailing edge of a wing a static discharge wick may have been burned off in the process, but it's an expected occurrence and there are usually plenty more where that one came from. To the best of my knowledge lightning is generally a non-event on modern aircraft.

 

[DingDong]

Would need to transfer at Amsterdam or Zurich if I am not mistaken to connect from TGV to ICE.

Transfer at Köln, if taking Thalys to ICE. Also possible transfers at Stuttgart, Strasbourg, or Mannheim, all faster and more frequent than going all the way to A'dam or Zürich.

Oh yea theres Thalys. forgot about that. Kept thinking ICe needed to connect with TGV.

You won't do much better than 8 hours and 10 minutes I think.

Here's two examples:

Paris Est Mi, 16.05.12 ab 13:10 ICE 9555 Intercity-Express

Mannheim Hbf Mi, 16.05.12 an 16:17 3

Umsteigezeit 14 Min.

Mannheim Hbf Mi, 16.05.12 ab 16:31 2 ICE 370 Intercity-Express

Berlin Hbf Mi, 16.05.12 an 21:25 12

or on THALYS:

Paris Nord Mi, 16.05.12 ab 06:01 THA 9401 Thalys

Köln Hbf Mi, 16.05.12 an 09:15 4

Umsteigezeit 33 Min.

Köln Hbf Mi, 16.05.12 ab 09:48 2 ICE 857

Berlin Hbf Mi, 16.05.12 an 14:12 11 D - G

 

[DingDong]

Transfer at Köln, if taking Thalys to ICE. Also possible transfers at Stuttgart, Strasbourg, or Mannheim, all faster and more frequent than going all the way to A'dam or Zürich.

There's also a nightly direct train Paris-Berlin that takes over 12 hours. Not very presidential though.

 

[transit54]

I think the primary reason for plane vs train is security. I recall when Obama took the train down the NEC before inauguration, the secret service had to nail down all the switches along the route and other train traffic was substantially disrupted. Maintaining security for a plane in the sky is a lot easier than a train on the ground.

 

[Texan Eagle]

I wonder if someone from AU became the President of United States (

) they would take the train on important official travel? It would be quite a scene to see 'AmForce One'

trudging along at 79 miles/hr and coming to a dead stop in the middle of nowhere because UP/BNSF/NS/CSX managed to derail some freight wagons a few hours down the line