Why does everyone think train travel is for old people?

Who is "everyone"?
Even in the US, millions of people travel to work by train, every day.

If you're talking long trips ... it's probably because most people don't have the time to take a train, instead of a plane.
Even driving a car is faster, in many cases.

I am old and I do like trains.  When I was young, I liked them, too.
 
I'm in your small group of the few, included in the "Them" group.
Train trips, long distance, are very romatic and fun all wraped into one!
I am also included in the "Them" group of not having the time to take the train and flying is quicker if going long distance.  
Split personality.  I've been working on it. ;)

*A quick note. If you don't have a trip in your future or time to jump on a train, Fear Not!
Plan a trip to your laundry room.

Grab your partner and try sitting on your dryer. It can also give you that shake/rattle/and roll experience right there, in your own home.  It is rather warm, too!
;):)


This post was edited by Merlin at June 17, 2019 12:49 PM MDT

Because no one does.  

I can't imagine where you got that idea. 

Never heard of that notion, not here anyway. It may be an American thing.

Answering Walt O'Reagan's point about flying being faster than by rail, I can see that true in a continental the size of the USA, but for shorter trips (no more than a few-100 miles) it can be slower. It's not just the time actually moving in the air or along the rails that counts.

You need to think of the comparative times between start and destination and the air-port or station, and the very long booking-in times enforced by airports. There may be a sort of cross-over time where the one loses to the other.


There are not many sleeper-train services in Britain now, but modern fast main-line passenger trains on mostly welded rails, don't give anything like the shake, rattle and roll familiar in the old days of running along bolted track, despite the speeds being a lot higher now!

 

Train travel for us is convenient and cheap  if the trip is under 400km.  In France on the TGV, Austria Rail Jet, and the list goes on great distances can be  traveled in speed & comfort.  The 'Old Folks"  since we can afford it used 1st Class, 2nd Class is primarily anyone under 40 and those traveling with kids.  

From my doorstep to Budapest, 3.5 hours driving; 3.0 hours train and I do not have to pay for parking.  The trains come evry half hour.  Prague is a wash, 5 hours driving 5 hours train due to the stop in Bratislava etc.  It is faster for us to take a plane to Spain than a train. It is faster for us to take a plane, then car to Croatia etc.  Black Sea plane.

The trains are heavily subsidized to avoid building more Freeways on the limited landscape.  They are also a greener alternative to driving.  Our .05 alcohol tolerance also makes taking the train a no brainer, especially on heading out to the local vineyards.  Anytime of the year especially during the Fall wine festivals "Old Folks" are rarely found on the loical vineyard trains.

Yep you do reinforce  my memories of the 4th World US, once great now falling apart with Libertarian greed

I think that being old is being stuck thinking negative things about new experiences that may be exhilarating.  When I think of most train rides, I think of a temporary escape that is relaxing.  I have a good book or a window and I'm off to an adventure.  I hope.  Unless the train derails or I forgot my wallet. But that is old people thinking.  

I made two return rail trips last year for weekends, from my home in the South of England, to destinations in the North. It was easier for me to travel via Bristol and Leeds, so the necessary changes were on the same stations (via London would have meant crossing from Waterloo to King's Cross).

A very large proportion of the passengers on the Friday out, and Sunday return, were students; but the Friday service was also crowded with commuters around Leeds and the towns on the Leeds - Settle - Carlisle line, when I reached that area in the late afternoon.

In fact all the trains I used (two each way for one journey, three for the other) carried people of all ages, the elderly yes but also many young people, families with young children, and so on.

No-one in the UK thinks trains - and buses come to that - are just for "old people". Given the choice they act by convenience or preference for the particular journey; and on week-days the country's many rural and suburban railway-station car-parks are full of cars owned by commuters using the trains as a sort of extended "park and ride" system, some up to 100 miles from the city in which they work. 

Recently I saw a big display board on a housing-estate being built in the English Midlands town of Banbury, extolling the train taking only about 3/4 hour from the local station to London (Marylebone): it's about 80 miles, and you'd never drive it in that time.

(The UK's motorway maximum speed-limit is 70mph assuming traffic volume allows it; most of our main railway routes have long stretches cleared for speeds from 90 to 120mph.)

Of course, you've still to reach your work-place from the station by public transport; but I think the whole door-to-door journey would still beat trying to drive from home even if your work-place has its own parking.

I wonder if the HS2 project will really only extend London's commuter-belt to Birmingham and beyond. These extremely expensive Governmental-prestige projects  - the French TGV, Japan's "Bullet Train", the UK's planned but highly-contentious HS2 - each need special, dedicated lines of their own, each serve only a very few cities; and whilst relieving congestion on existing lines are really only useful over very long distances: I'd say 300 miles minimum.   

What is for young people then? In their opinion.