That one was interesting. I try to go everywhere by train in Europe (7000km, 98 hours over the past 2 months...) and I love having that opportunity compared to Australia, but you also start to see the issues, especially inflexibility to cope with problems or periods of increased demand.

Like I had a night train cancelled in Germany because of storms - doesn't happen to buses. I could get on another one a few hours later (an uncomfortable overnight seater not a sleeping bed) but then

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wouldn't have been able to get to Paris, from anywhere in Germany or Switzerland, the next day - it was a Friday in summer, and absolutely every high speed train that would get in by the time I needed to be there was fully booked.

So I did a 16 hour bus trip - not fun but seats were available, and I'm sure nearly always available, because the bus companies can scale demand up and down to the holidays quite easily. Perhaps this is possible in theory with trains but not in Europe right now?

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Anyway, the current energy that appears to be in the Welsh government to pivot transport planning towards meeting access & climate goals rather than increasing mobility was impressive.

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@jroper What Wales is doing re climate and transport is indeed an inspiration.

We are working to reach a similar reckoning in Denmark: https://concito.dk/en/concito-bloggen/groen-omstilling-kraever-ny-tilgang-til-infrastrukturbeslutninger

@jroper He can say that, but I'm never taking a bus instead of a train. Would rather fly (and I don’t much like flying).

@timrichards well, British rail is fine at catering to people like you at the moment - people with choices who can pay 120 pounds for a fare or who have flexibility to find cheaper ones in advance. But there is a lot of unmet demand over that, and massively expanding the capacity of their rail network would be very expensive.

@timrichards he may also have been thinking more about shorter trips, between adjacent towns and <1-2 hours, say.