Soapbox rant - London to Barcelona

We brits love Barcelona and half a million of us go to there each year, but a recent study by Greenpeace found the London to Barca route to be the most expensive when comparing trains with planes.

So what's going wrong and can we travel between the two places, staying grounded but not paying a sky-high price?

Let's look at the different ways of getting there and in each case, how long it takes, what it costs and what it's like as an experience. I'm setting an exchange rate of 1.1 Euro = 1 Pound Sterling

Flight

There are around 25 flights a day from London's four main airports (Gatwick 13, Heathrow 6, Luton 2, Stansted 4), and the flight time is around 2 hours. Of course you need to also add in check-in time and getting to and from the airport at each end.

A typical one-way flight emits around 1.1 tonnes of CO2e per passenger. CO2e is an equivalent scale for carbon measuring. There is ongoing research into the effects of condensation trails.

Typical costs

How much does it cost to take a flight?

Here's what I found it cost to take a Ryanair flight searching on 11/07/2023. The different price are for the travel dates:

The cost of getting to and from the airport could be a significant additional cost but they will depend on each circumstance.

High speed trains

There are no direct services between London and Barcelona despite the high-speed infrastructure being in place so going to Barcelona means first catching a Eurostar to Paris.

Eurostar

The journey is 2 hours and 24 minutes, which is similar to the flight to Barca and as can be seen from the table below is more expensive, although can be cheaper when booking a return.

Typical costs

So if time, money and climate-friendly travel matter to you, your best bet is just hanging out in Paris' Latin Quarter. There is one possible exception which we will come to, but first let's look at the quickest route - at least on paper.

There are two or three trains a day from Paris to Barcelona depending on the season, but only one is really practical without an overnight in Paris. Of course, there are worse things in the world that spending a night in the City of Light and if you do decide to stay over, cheaper Eurostar tickets become available.

It's worth reminding ourselves that the carbon emissions for Eurostar is 22kg CO2e and for the TGV 108 kg of CO2e making it 130kg or about 12% of the emissions of a flight.

Typical costs

In this sample, the cost of travelling on Eurostar tomorrow was £235, but there wasn't even an option to get a TGV from Paris to Barca - it was full. Booking one month into the future cost £381.

Comparing with flying, the cost is comparable to either the Eurostar or the TGV, but not both together...

Compared to a flight it's over double the cost and takes a full day - 12 hours of travel. On the plus side, the trains are nice places to be. You can work at your seat in comfort or relax with a book, watch the scenery and take a stroll to the bar. And most of all, you have made a 88% carbon saving. However, until the price of the ticket is similar to a flight, it' hard to see this journey having mass appeal. 

Night trains

For me, night trains are the game changer.

I used to take night trains up to Scotland for work. They were practical for doing a full day's work after a pretty decent sleep and then there was the opening of the curtains in the morning - I would have worked for free (OK, maybe not).

However, the routes to Spain are served by a limited (and aging) set of couchettes - four and six berth bunks as well as a carriage of upright seats. Think of it as a hostel on wheels and you'll be in the right frame of mind.

Night train to the Pyrenees

Each evening an INTERCITÉS de Nuit runs from Gare d'Austerlitz down to Latour-de-Carol on the Spanish border. It's a great way to get a night's accommodation and end up in Spain with a whole day ahead of you.

What's Latour-de-Carol like? It's a curiously big station for the villages of Entveitg and Latour-de-Carol and if you're feeling energetic and inspired by the mountain air, you can walk across the border to the next station along of Puigcerda in Spain. I've done the walk a couple of times. There are also some places well worth a detour like Ripoll and Vic.

Typical costs

Attempting to book for the following day wasn't possible but the prices came down. Occasionally, there is a promotion where you can get a place for €19.

This pricing is a bit steep compared to a flight but comes down to a similar level when booking well in advance if you consider that you've got a night's accommodation taken care of.

Night train to Cerbère

Throughout the summer and Fridays and Sundays the rest of the year, the train to Latour-de-Carol splits and part of it heads off to the coast and the Côte Vermeille. The last stop is at the border town of Cerbère.

From there you can pootle to Barcelona on a local (R11) train which takes around 3 hours. There are plenty of places to hop off the train en-route such as Portbou, Llanca, Figueres and Girona.

Typical costs

Again, pricing is a bit steep compared to a flight but comes down to a similar level when booking well in advance if you consider that you've got a night's accommodation taken care of.

Adding in a stopover

If you don't have a tight timescale or your journey to Barcelona was really just a getaway then adding in a stopover somewhere like Nimes, Avignon or Narbonne will make for a much richer experience, but in doing so we're moving away from the idea of just popping to Barcelona.

Accommodation has to be added unless you are trading a night in Barcelona for somewhere in France - it'll work for some and not others.

Typical costs

The cost of getting from Paris to Nimes can be pretty cheap if booked well in advance. The cost of getting to Cerbere is the same whenever you buy your ticket, although you may find occasional 15 Euro tickets.

Conclusion

As it stands, persuading the 25 flights-worth of plane passengers to take the train is a tall order - planes are quick and cheap. The only real competitor on both of those factors is the night train which has a night's accommodation built in.

So how can things change?

A different kind of journey

Now let's go on another journey - a trip into a possible future.

It's around 9:30 on a wet Wednesday in St Pancras. You're looking for your train on the boards trying to concentrate while someone is plonking away on the piano.

You're booked on the next duplex which runs hourly from London to Barcelona and you're kind of regretting not going for last night's sleeper but you have work to do. Anyway you prefer working on the train rather than the office.

You've already booked the little video conference booth for your 3 pm meeting, but you want to try and move the meeting slot as you want to see the flamingos on the saltwater lagoons around Sete.

However, there's a problem. You're preparing for the upcoming conference in Barcelona and you can't get in touch with one of your colleagues. They didn't respond to your email this morning - you just got a message saying they were stuck on the way to the airport. They responded once they were in the departure lounge but you had further questions and they can't answer them while they're on the plane. Never mind - go to the bar, get yourself an aperitif and take in the view. As the train slows down, you catch a glimpse of Beziers. Perhaps that would be a good place to hop off on your holidays.

How does that sound for a working day?

Modal shift

What scale of change would be required to current services if everyone who currently uses a plane went by train instead?

According to a 2022 study by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the average number of passengers on a flight from London to Barcelona is approximately 150. So 25 flights would account for around around 3,750 passengers. 

A TGV duplex can take around 500 passengers so 8 trains a day would just about meet the demand. That's the equivalent of hourly TGV duplexes running from London to Barcelona direct from 8am until 3pm. To give a sense of the scale of this change, there are currently just 4 trains a day running from London to Amsterdam which itself needs to accommodate passengers from 37 planes a day.

But what proportion of the public would want to trade a (nominal) two hour flight for an 8+ hour train?

The savvy will take a night train. A good example of a night train would be the current Nightjet trains which vary in capacity but typically take around 250 people, so if it would need 15 night trains to take all those who currently fly. Clearly, one or two night trains (or equivalent of) isn't going to be sufficient.

Of course, some passengers might prefer to take different options hopping off the train at Paris, Nimes or Avignon and perhaps not going to Barcelona at all but being happy with the other options that a healthy, grounded public transport system can offer.

In any event, a significant ramping of train services from St. Pancras would be needed just to add in this route. Which brings us to a problem.

Given current border restrictions, Eurostar is already at capacity...