Europe's rail open up

By James Stone

'The Railteam Alliance' may sound like a group of anorak-wearing, weak lemon-drink quaffing not-so-super heroes, but it is in fact one of the best things to happen to British travellers for a long time.

Only a fool could argue that air travel is stressful and a generally thoroughly unpleasant means to an end, in comparison to the leisurely sophistication of rail travel, however, the simple matter of cost has always meant that the airlines are the first choice for holidaymakers.

Even increased environmentalism of recent years has failed to impact upon this situation.

When it comes to our hard-earned breaks abroad, Britons are sadly unwilling to give up on a week in the sun for the sake the Earth and of future generations.

Only now however have Europe's rail operators got together and realised that, if they lower their prices, then maybe significant numbers of people might be willing to take the overland option rather than immediately turn to the websites of the low-cost airlines.

This is where the Railteam Alliance steps in.

Made up of representatives of France's SNCF, Germany's Deutsche Bahn alongside Austrian, Belgian, Dutch and Swiss operators, the alliance's aim is to create a single system to book cross-border train fares.

Rather than passengers having to buy a ticket from London to Paris and then a separate one to, say, Munich, they will be able to just go to an online one-stop shop and, since the process is more efficient, it is likely to be cheaper as well.

"For the first time, we can promote and sell Europe's high-speed rail network as an integrated whole," Richard Brown, chief executive of Eurostar, said at the launch of the Alliance in Brussels recently.

"Railteam can highlight gaps in the current prices and then it's up to individuals to decide what to do."

Indeed, the train operators are so confident that they can win over air travellers that they have set themselves a target of increasing the number of international rail passengers by almost 70 per cent to 25 million by 2010.

Karl-Friedrich Rausch, a member of both the board of the German state railway as well as the new alliance, explained: "It's got to be our objective to make sure our fares by train are competitive with those by air.

"We're principally targeting leisure journeys below six hours and business journeys below four."

It is that key word, leisure, that the alliance needs to focus on in order to reach its objectives.

Given the tax breaks given to airlines over fuel and the cost of getting Europe's railway infrastructure into shape, it is unlikely that the industry will ever be able to give away journeys for the price of a cup of tea, as low-cost air carriers currently do.

However, if they play to their strengths, enough travellers are likely to come round nd see that a holiday is above all about enjoyment and relaxation, both of which can hardly be associated with air travel these days.