Why Fly?

I love that Flygskam (flight shame) has started some great discussions and behaviour change in Europe where there are legitimate transport alternatives for short haul flights. But I fear down under our interstate infrastructure is at best woefully insufficient and at worst completely ignored even as an option. 

At the end of last year I took the Melbourne to Sydney XPT on a return trip to find out more.

I was attending an awards night where our office was nominated for a Sustainability gong so it seemed inappropriate to fly, and I was spurred on by our office's carbon neutral commitment for 2020, with the significant majority of our footprint being attributable to flights.

A common myth I encountered when discussing this initially with others, was that with the interstate trains, many thought you had to change at the state border due to different train and track gauges (not true, direct trains only).

There was also little familiarity with how often this service is available or where to and from (two trains every day in each direction, one at 8:30am and one at 7:50pm, between Southern Cross in Melbourne and Central Station in Sydney).

The duration was also surprising to most, at ~11 hours it is a significant undertaking, but how different is it to our typical office day? I'm usually away from home for 10 hours most workdays and spend most of that time sitting, at least there's a great view, and you can get stuff done!

It all turned out to be very simple, just getting on the train at Southern Cross directly opposite our office, hardly different than using the local public transport. I could have been at the station just 5 minutes before it departed. 

However, it was a bit like going back in time. Unfortunately the age of the train (80's) and maybe it's apparent customer demographic (50+), meant it had also not caught up with 21st century basic sustainability basics. With A4 print format paper tickets (I did manage to just use my phone), disposable plastic packaging on everything from tea bags to cutlery with single use cardboard 'trays' and no recycling bins on board. This is similar to planes I guess but for an extended period so the amount of waste really accumulates over the day. This would be so easy to improve.

Another unforeseen missing mod-con was electricity... with no power plugs available for laptop charging my computer died after ~4 hours. My iPad came to the rescue and I spent the afternoon sketching some design options and principles for a masterplan. Coming prepared with a spare battery pack for the day train next time would be a good strategy.

I tried both the day and the night trains intentionally to experience the options and was pleasantly surprised at the comfort provided by the sleeper carriage. After enjoying my tasty vegetarian curry and the experience of the unnecessarily cramped toilet (including fold down toilet with shower) I had a good night's sleep, waking occasionally as we went though the 13 stops on the route and passing the other train half way (single track line with passing points), but easily falling back to sleep and arriving first thing in the morning around 7am.

With future replacements for the current XPT trains planned on the Melbourne to Sydney line in 2023 including power and wifi on board, the premise of using the trains for occasional work travel should become more palatable. But I don't think the journey itself is going to get much quicker with this upgrade, probably due to the lovely curved scenic single track which ultimately limits the speed of the trains. A whole new line would be required and theoretically a high speed train could run the ~1,000km trip in 3 hours - planes wouldn't be able to compete with this city to city service - one can dream.

In greenhouse gas emission terms, the difference between short haul flights including secondary effects is significant but ultimately limited by the age and type of the XPT train. With no direct source to refer to (NSW Trainlink, the operators, are missing a trick here) I've done some back of the envelope calcs and cross referenced these against other countries' plane vs train studies so think it's in the order of a 60% reduction. This would increase to ~80% for more efficient trains and more than ~95% for the high speed electric trains.

These BBC graphics were best at showing the relative impacts, noting the Australian trains are not as efficient as the UK or European trains as reflected in my ~60% reduction above.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49349566

So finally, in terms of costs, my office supported me on this adventure and found the cost of first class (extra large seat with abundant leg room on the day train and shared bunk sleeper for the night train) to be comparable to the mid-range flight options at ~$400 return. With airport to city transfers for the flights and potentially an additional night at a hotel for the train option, the difference in cost can vary but is in a similar ballpark.

All up, I would do it again, but will also try to keep interstate travel to a minimum by utilising all the great video conferencing tech we have these days. I call my dad every week in England over FaceTime, so why can’t we do the same to Sydney? I think the next generation will naturally adopt video calls and wonder what all the fuss was about. Why did we take a whole day or two to fly interstate for a meeting or two?

Changing my default travel option to train will help keep the most important question at the front of my mind, is the travel even needed? 

So next time you find yourself needing to travel interstate, give the train a go!