Jon McGregor
Travelling by Train Rather than Plane
Interview with Jon McGregor, written by Andy Barrett
With many people wondering how they can cut down on air travel I went to talk to Jon McGregor, who has been travelling abroad by rail with his wife Rosie, and their family, for many years
So, how did this all start?
We initially took the train to avoid flying; although we’re not puritan about it, both Rosie and I fly to places for our work, and we found that it was just a much nicer way to travel. We have five children between us and have always done our family holidays by train; always in Europe. Rosie and I also make sure we have a holiday each year with just the two of us, and again we travel by train to Europe.
You find that people tend to pull a face when you say you’re going to take five children on a ten-hour train journey, especially when they were younger; but kids love trains! They can get out of their seats to walk around; they can disappear along the length of the train to find the buffet car; they can spread out on the table with their colouring books and games. When you travel by plane there’s a lot of time involved in getting to the airport, getting through security, getting through the check-in; you’re shuffling round an airport for two or three hours without being able to sit down and relax. Whereas with a train you get to the station and you get on the train; and then you can relax for the rest of the time.
It is quite an adventure, quite an experience; you have to change trains and the most adventurous bit is often getting across Paris on the Metro. When they were younger that was bordering on stressful, but it was also kind of fun. Now they’ve been doing it for years and are really used to it.
How young were they when you started?
It was 2016 and they were between 3 and 11 at that point. Those first two or three years we had to do quite a lot of preparation. The first trip was to the Netherlands and actually for that trip we went on the overnight ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland, and then three or four local trains to the campsite. The summer holidays with the kids have mainly been to the Netherlands and France; but door to door that still often ends up being a ten-to-twelve-hour journey.
Was there a lot of preparation involved in taking a whole family, with young children, on such a long rail journey?
When they were younger the main objective was to think through how we were going to get them to the other end of the journey without tempers, tears, or getting lost. We made sure that each one of them had their own backpack with everything they would need to keep them entertained on the journey and which they were in charge of. So, they looked after their little iPods, and colouring books, snacks, raisins, all of that while we had the big bags with all of the luggage. That was our system and it worked really well; they liked that sense of responsibility, of having to keep that stuff safe and choose when to eat their snacks.
In terms of planning the actual travel it’s not as simple as it should be but it is getting easier every year. There’s a booking site called Rail Europe, which is really easy to use and which clearly lays out the different steps you need to take to get to your destination and the different fares that are available. Trainline, which is a website that a lot of people are familiar with and probably use for travel in the UK, now also do tickets all over Europe. There’s also a website called Seat 61, run by ‘The Man in Seat Sixty-One’ who is very enthusiastic about train travel, which will tell you how to get from London to anywhere in Europe. It has up to date routes and timetables, advice on which trains to choose, how to get the cheapest fares, photographs of what the trains look like, what the sleeping trains are like; just everything you need. It’s brilliant for getting a general sense of how your journey is going to work.
What we found really helpful is rather than picking a destination and then working out how to get there, you instead start with the train line. So, if you want to holiday in France, you look at where the main trainlines are going to, the fast trains, and then you start looking for holiday destinations that make sense, that aren’t too far away from the stations that they call at and which have decent connections. This makes everything a lot easier.
Here is a map of the main European rail lines.
The big thing I’ve discovered, and I discovered it too late, is that almost always the cheapest way to do it is to book an Interrail ticket. You tend to associate Interrail with weeks long, complicated expeditions but you can get a four-day Interrail ticket. Even if you’re just going there and back and only end up using two days it still usually ends up being cheaper; especially because under 12’s travel for free. So, for a family with younger children, as we were for years without knowing this, you get two adult Interrail tickets and then the younger children can travel for nothing, which makes a big difference. You have to book an Interrail ticket for them, but it’s a free ticket. You pay reservation fees on some intercity trains, you pay reservation fees on the Eurostar, but it still almost always works out cheaper than booking normal tickets.
Does that include the use of UK trains?
Yes. If I have an Interrail ticket and we’re going to France then the ticket from Nottingham to London is included as part of your outward day. You can’t just cruise around the UK but you can use it to travel out of the country.
Train tickets vary in price hugely; it’s a dynamic pricing system as with airlines, and in the school holidays the cheapest tickets are almost impossible to get. So, it can become quite expensive, whereas with Interrail tickets you don’t have that worry. As long as there are seats on the train you can book a ticket and book a reservation on that train. That would be my number one tip for anyone looking to getting into European family holidays by rail; to look at the options that are available through Interrail passes, and there are many. There’s also a youth price up to the age of 25; and they usually run a special offer in the winter with 25% off tickets. So, if you’re thinking ahead, you can book them then, ready for the summer.
But ultimately it is almost always more expensive travelling by train than it is flying. There’s no getting away from this. Although when people book cheap flights, they’re often having to get up at four in the morning to get to some out of the way airport.
Is it a lot more expensive?
You have to do the work, as you do when you’re planning a trip to London. You do often have to think a bit further ahead. But with the Interrail ticket you can get around that. We tend to budget. If we’re going on holiday to say the South of France or Italy, we aim for between two to three hundred pounds per person for the return journey from Nottingham. That does include the kids now they’re all teenagers. I’m sure if you were flying you could do it for less than that. But often when people say their flight was only fifty quid, they’re not counting the cost of getting to the airport or to their destination at the other end.
Does it take a lot of time to work through the options?
I’m quite nerdy about it. I enjoy getting to grips with the fact there will be several different ways of doing a journey and figuring out which is going to be the quickest; which is going to be the nicest; which is going to be the cheapest. It may be quicker to go through Paris but do we want to handle the Metro? Maybe we could change at Lille instead? I’ve developed a bit of a reputation of being the person to ask. But for someone starting from scratch it can be quite daunting. People are used to flying; you google the cheapest flight and then you decide which airport you want to go from. That’s all within people’s understanding whereas the world of trains can be quite alien until you’ve got your head round it. But it really doesn’t have to take a lot of planning.
I love travelling by train because I enjoy looking out at the landscape I’m passing through. Your holiday might be more expensive if you are travelling by train but in some ways, it makes it longer as well. You’re not just in a container up above the clouds, you’re engaging with the world around you.
Yes. Let’s say you’re getting a train to the South of France. You get down to St. Pancras and then on the Eurostar to Paris. (Brexit has made the process of checking in at the Eurostar a lot slower, so you need to allow more time for that; but otherwise, once you're in the EU it's as borderless as always). Once in Paris you cross the city on the Metro, having hopefully allowed yourself plenty of time to stop somewhere for a coffee and croissant; so, you’ve had an hour in Paris. Then you’re on the next train and you have that process of transition. You’re in the slightly colder North looking out at the villages and at a certain point the sunflower fields appear and your body sort of understands that you’re moving south. I really enjoy that.
I think that because trains in the UK can often be delayed there is an inbuilt worry we all have about the reliability of train travel, which may not be what people want when they are heading off on holiday. Have you had any moments when the best laid plans have fallen foul of delays and cancellations?
Of all the trips we’ve done, over eight or nine years, we’ve only had one with the kids that got really difficult. We got to the station in Paris and found that our train had been re-routed and that we had to get across the city to a different station altogether. You know how it is when Euston goes wrong and it’s absolutely heaving with people? It was like that, and we had to fight to get on the train; it was very unpleasant. But we still got there and the kids handled it. That’s the only trip that has gone badly. Generally, it’s been pretty smooth and straightforward. And it’s not as though delayed flights or plane cancellations are unheard of. I suppose that if a train journey goes wrong, you’re in a place you don’t know; whereas in an airport you probably feel pretty secure, although you might be stuck there for hours.
And unable to get out and explore. What’s the best train service you’ve used? Which country has the best trains?
Switzerland is pretty incredible. As you would predict the punctuation and efficiency is extremely high and the train lines through the mountains are beautiful; really amazing. A couple of times Rosie and I have gone to Italy and we’ve travelled via Switzerland just for the sake of the scenery; it’s really special. They’re all pretty decent to be honest; the French trains are great, Dutch trains are great. If you think of the best of the trains in Britain, particular routes, particular trains that are good quality and are reasonably reliable, that’s the standard of most European trains.
What about sleeping on trains?
I’ve been on sleeper trains quite a few times. In my experience, and in our household, you either get on with a sleeper train or you don’t. And I get on with them. You don’t have a full nights uninterrupted sleep but I generally feel well rested after a night on a sleeper train. Other people in my household do not.
The cheapest way of doing it is to book into one of the six person rooms, but unless you book all the beds you’ll be sharing it with strangers. When you’re younger that’s fine; when you’re our age it’s less fine, so you can pay a bit more to have a smaller or a private cabin. Again, with the Interrail ticket you’ve already paid for the train journey so you’re only paying for the bed. It can sometimes work out the same price as a night in a hotel. To me it feels like time travel; you’ve slept through the night and you’ve woken up somewhere else. The mattress is a bit thin; there are noises on the train; the train is shunting in and out of stations. Some people sleep quite badly and it’s not for them; but sleeper trains are starting to make a comeback. They were on their way out a few years ago and now you can get them from Brussels to Berlin; from Brussels to all over Germany and to Prague.
A couple of years ago we went Interrailing with our two youngest who were 10 and 11, which is a great age for travelling. They were quite responsible and able to follow the itinerary we had given them and to find the right platforms for us. We did eight or nine days with two or three sleeper trains which was really nice. We had a four-person cabin to ourselves and the journey would often start around seven or eight in the evening; so, you have a picnic dinner and a glass of wine, and then a cup of coffee and a dry croissant in the morning. It’s a lovely way to arrive in a new country and that was a lot of fun.
Here is a site with information about sleeper train routes.
Is there generally assistance available at the stations? I imagine that some people may be worried about having to change trains in what might be large train stations in countries where they don’t speak the language.
I can’t think of many occasions when we’ve had to ask anyone for information or help and technology is so great for guiding you through this. Trainline has an app, Rail Europe has an app, both of which allow you to see how your journey is going and which can make things much more relaxed. They give you live information about times and delays; they tell you which platform you are going to arrive at and which platforms you need for your next connection. We always make sure that the kids have printed itineraries with all this information on as well. You’re really just getting off the train and looking for the platform; it’s all pretty straightforward.
And if you do ask someone for help, they’re usually just looking at the same information that you have on the app anyway. I’ve only had to talk to someone once or twice for information on our travels.
So, what are your main tips?
Just to reiterate to look at where trains go and then think of destinations around that. If you want to find out which are the most interesting routes then there are a some really good books which can help you with this which I’d recommend getting hold of, because there are some incredibly scenic routes that you can seek out, especially if you want to travel by train to take advantage of the way it goes through the landscape. There’s Great Railway Journeys of Europe, Europe by Rail: The Definitive Guide and Lonely Planet's Guide to Train Travel in Europe
If you just want to get somewhere efficiently a painless introduction to European train travel is to get the Eurostar to Lille, rather than Paris, and then from Lille, and the connections there are very easy, you can get a TGV to the South of France. (The TGV - Train à Grande Vitesse - can reach speeds of 320 km/h on high-speed rails). That can take you all the way there in four hours, to Marseille, Montpelier, Nice; so, from St. Pancras in the morning you’re in the South of France by mid-afternoon. It’s very straightforward and quick, you’re only booking the two trains, and it’s a good way to start experimenting with travelling across Europe by train. From there you can start getting more adventurous.
There are two timeframes. If you want to make a journey from Nottingham that just takes a day you’re talking about France, the Netherlands, maybe Switzerland. If you want to go further, say Italy and beyond, then you probably need to go down to London the night before so you can start the journey early from the Eurostar. Or maybe go to Brussels or Paris and spend the night there. Or that’s where the sleeper train comes in. And of course, travel light. You are going to have your luggage with you the whole way so make sure you have wheeled suitcases!
Have you any plans to do any of those great world train journeys?
Not really. I did some of that when I was younger. In my mid-twenties I went to Japan by train, which was quite incredible; a train to Moscow, the trans-Siberian railway to Vladivostok, and a ferry to Japan. That was an amazing journey which we broke up, otherwise we could have done it in ten days. I’ve been from Vancouver to Toronto which is also incredible. There are journeys in Europe I haven’t done which could take longer, two or three days, to Greece or Finland. I’ve got the patience for that but it’s too much with the kids; and it’s a lot of time off work.
I go to Scotland a lot on the train. I nearly always manage to find cheap tickets and the journey alone, the landscape I pass through, is worth the fare. Trains often have much better views from their windows than cars travelling along roads.
Yes. And modern trains are really smooth and comfortable. You have a table, you can work, read, get up and walk around, get some food. There are amazing landscapes to see and I really like the way that as you travel through a country you are registering the changes in the architecture, what crops are being grown, how wild the landscape is; even the way the architecture of the train stations is changing. You really get that sense of moving from one place to another.
Trainline now tells you how much carbon you have saved by making your journey using rail. Do you ever look at that?
Not really; but it is striking. A train journey uses around ten to twenty percent of the carbon of a flight. But you could argue that’s using more carbon than not going anywhere. It is part of our thinking but I’m not judgemental about it. I find that when I tell people about our railway holidays, they start apologising to me. It’s fine! There are choices I make which I know are carbon intensive. But it has always suited us and the travelling is much more a part of the holiday in a way that flying perhaps isn’t. And, especially when the kids were younger, so many conversations have taken place.
The first time I took a sleeper train with Rosie there was another bloke in the compartment who had been playing a concert in Edinburgh and was travelling back to Italy. He took out this strange instrument that was about eight foot long with around twenty strings, some kind of medieval thing, and started playing it for us. It sounded incredible. You don’t get that on a plane.
Here are some other links that Jon has provided to help you plan your European rail travel:
Here’s an example of the sort of information ‘The Man In Seat 61’ offers; the detail for the journey I mentioned to the South of France, via Lille
One of the new sleeper train companies, specialising in routes to Berlin and Prague
Lonely Planet's top 10 scenic train journeys
If you're feeling fancy and/or you want someone else to do all the planning, this agency lets you just enter a vague destination and some dates, and will programme a full travel and accommodation itinerary for you. It can be a useful tool to look at the sort of things that might be possible.