Eurostar and TGV

This week I’ve taken two trains for the first time: TGV from Luxembourg to Paris and Eurostar from Paris to London.

I like travelling by the train a lot on short-medium distances, certainly more than flying. I don’t really mind flying and I’m not afraid of it or anything, but trains are just more convenient for the following reasons.

There’s no airport hassle. Most trains go straight from centre to centre, whereas in airport there’s the added hassle and money/time cost to get to/from the airports.

Trains are much less noisy. In the airplane, you can’t really listen to music or relax since the noise level is pretty high. The train is more quiet and you can mind your own business more. Good noise-cancelling/inear headphones help in either case. I don’t have good inears but I’m planning to get some shortly.

Trains have more space. Airplanes can be really cramped unless you’re flying business.

I thought of a point to make in favor of flying too, and the only one I could come up with is that you can rise above the clouds and see the sun even on cloudy days

Comparing the Eurostar and TGV, they are comparable experiences, but in Eurostar I’m taking 1st class and on TGV I was 2nd. TGV 2nd class is pretty convenient, from the window Eurostar 2nd class looked much more shabby. There’s a two-course breakfast in Eurostar 1st class. Power sockets are good too. I’m not sure if there are power sockets in Eurostar 2nd class, there certainly weren’t in TGV.

The only reason I took Eurostar 1st class was that turns out they use airline-style pricing structures that can yield silly outcomes. They had some promo where 1st class return trip was cheaper than 2nd class one-way. (I’m not sure how would 2nd class return have compared, didn’t ask for that.) So as it sometimes happens with airlines, the cheapest option is to get a return ticket and just discard the return part.