It’s long been known that travelling by train is one of the most sustainable forms of transport.
Certainly all the calculations show the greenhouse gas emissions from using rail are far less than driving a car, particularly a petrol car, on the same route. Green train travel is a sustainable transport option with fewer greenhouse gas emissions than using the car.
You’d have thought that the train operators would want to take every opportunity to shout about the green nature of train travel. And keep shouting about it.
They certainly do in France and Spain as I discovered on a recent rail tour in those two countries.
Listen up Rail Delivery Group: here’s how travelling on a TGV in France and with Renfe in Spain do it.
Train tickets
Printed tickets indicate that by choosing rail, passengers are making a sustainable travel choice.
So there it is in black and white – well, green and white – on every ticket.
What could be simpler.
But there’s more.
On-board announcements
As the trains arrived at each station (British train announcers note: trains arrive AT and not INTO stations), an automated announcement thanked passengers for choosing to use a sustainable form of transport for their journey.
Now doesn’t that make you feel good as you stare out of the train window at the traffic jams on the roads running alongside the train tracks. Smug, moi?
Allez les bleus
And the French are going even further with France’s football teams travelling to all matches under three hours away by train instead of plane in a bid to cut carbon emissions.
OK, our train tickets aren’t the same as those in France and Spain and some online booking engines do show the comparative carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions from train v car journeys but it’s not the same as having green train travel prominent on every journey.
The National Rail website carries some promotion of green train travel yet I feel there is far more to be done if we are to replicate the strong and consistent environmental message you hear in France and Spain.
Let’s go green by train – and let’s get everyone promoting the message. Everyone’s a winner – most importantly, our planet.