A whole ecosystem has developed in France over the past two years around rail travel, seen by young urbanites as the antithesis of polluting airplanes

From specialised media platforms to travel agencies and influencers, a whole ecosystem has developed in France over the past two years around rail travel, seen by young urbanites as the antithesis of polluting airplanes. In an article on the Le Monde website, Jessica Gourdon discusses how young people are taking a more sustainable approach to rail travel.

How young people are reclaiming rail travel

When she visits her brother in Denmark, Chiara Pellas always takes the train. For this 26-year-old Parisian, air travel is out of the question. “Yes, it takes longer and costs me a bit more – I pay around €300 for a round trip – but it allows me to reconcile my environmental conscience with my desire to travel,” she explained.

She tried out different routes, both day and night, and explored different connection options: “Going via Hamburg [Germany] is best.” She even convinced her parents to do the same for Christmas. “They’re only doing it on the way there; they’re coming back by plane. But it’s a start!” said this young engineer, who has decided to devote her professional life to the train. In February, she launched a website called Mollow offering rail travel itineraries in Europe.

From specialized media platforms to agencies, train influencers, new comparison platforms and travel guides, a whole ecosystem has developed in France over the past two years around rail travel, seen as the antithesis of more polluting air travel. These initiatives are led by young entrepreneurs, often graduates of prestigious grandes écoles, or by local authorities. For instance, the Occitanie region is developing a system to encourage train tourism, featuring suggestions combining routes and activities, such as train and kayak.

Representative of this new era are the 30,000 France-Germany rail passes, distributed in June to French individuals aged 18-27, which were snapped up in a matter of hours. Moreover, the number of InterRail passes sold in France, which allow unlimited travel in Europe over a certain number of days, saw a 127% increase in 2022, compared with 2019. Additionally, the European Commission’s DiscoverEU program is gaining momentum, offering InterRail passes to randomly selected French youths aged 18 (approximately 10,000 in 2023). New offers are also emerging, such as the Occitanie Rail Tour, an unlimited pass costing €10 a day. Launched in 2023 across this region, it “targets young Europeans as a priority,” explained Jean Pinard, director of the Occitanie regional tourism committee.

For some, train travel has become a political act and one that NGOs such as Greenpeace are keen to capitalize on. This organization has someone specifically in charge of promoting train travel, through communication campaigns, reports, guides, and sometimes amusing on-the-ground actions. For instance, activists are sent to station platforms to greet passengers with a round of applause and the videos are later posted on social media.

“We want to establish a new norm among young urban elites,” explained Alexis Chailloux, who is in charge of this mission at Greenpeace. “Today, it’s still seen as positive to talk about your vacations involving air travel. We’d like this social group to question it more and more and for people who travel by train to have a sense of pride.”

Train influencers

Beyond the environmental aspect, there’s “a whole fantasy associated with the train that is being reclaimed by 18-30-year-olds,” said Garance Bazin, a doctoral student in sociology at Université de Paris-Nanterre, who is writing her thesis on young people giving up flying. She cites the Snowpiercer series (2020-2022), and Hayao Miyazaki’s films, which develop an aesthetic vision of the train, as well as the rise of influencers specializing in this field.

Bruno Maltor (who has 519,000 followers on Instagram), one of France’s leading travel influencers, recently shared his journey by train from Stockholm to Narvik (Norway), on the edge of the Arctic Circle. Meanwhile, 27-year-old video artist Thibault Constant documented his journey on the Optima Express (taking around 35 hours, including two nights), which links Austria to Turkey non-stop apart from border controls, through the Balkans. The video has 1.6 million views on YouTube. Compared to the plane, the train is also valued, according to the interviews conducted by Garance Bazin, for its flexibility, pace, the opportunity it provides to discover remote, intimate “spots,” and the ability to work on board. “The train station is also considered to be less stressful than the airport. It’s a more calming way to travel,” said the sociologist.

As for the night train – and as the Paris-Berlin night service reopened on Monday, December 11 – it’s enjoying a new lease of life. On the Paris-Toulouse and Paris-Nice routes, occupancy has risen from 40% in 2019 to 70% today. “Before the Covid-19 pandemic, I only met elderly people and railway workers on night trains. Now I see lots of young people, who are there because they don’t want to fly anymore,” said train YouTuber Constant.

One of the flagship projects of this new ecosystem is Midnight Trains, led by Adrien Aumont and Romain Payet. The entrepreneurs, completing their second round of funding, already have a small community of fans: 40,000 people subscribe to their weekly newsletter, which tells the story of their adventures. They aim to launch night trains to European destinations (Milan, Venice, Barcelona, Florence, Rome), from Paris starting in 2026, with individual cabins and on-board services (such as a restaurant and bar). “We’re aiming for prices similar to those of a low-cost flight,” said Aumont.

Access issues

Indeed, this political and cultural enthusiasm for rail travel comes up against the question of price, when low-cost air travel at lower fares persists alongside it. “This is our glass ceiling. As long as plane tickets are as cheap as they are, and aviation fuel is not taxed more heavily, rail travel will plateau,” said Greenpeace’s Chailloux.

What’s more, the whole system has access issues. It’s not easy for an inexperienced traveler to find the right combination to reach a remote European destination. “As soon as you leave France, train travel becomes complicated. You have to do a lot of research,” said Samuela Burzio, a former SNCF employee who has set up a website (Once Upon a Train) and a festival (Rurail), and organizes tailor-made train trips.

“Comparison websites like Trainline don’t include all trains and prices in Europe, due to the lack of agreements with all operators,” explained Chiara Pellas. It’s up to each individual to carry out their own investigations. “Especially since prices for the same journey vary from one platform to another,” said 24-year-old Marc Sahuguet, an engineer who has just launched a new comparison platform, Trainscanner. At the time of writing, a second-class trip from Paris to Berlin (daytime) via Brussels and Cologne (Germany) on a Thursday in January 2024, costs €158 on the Deutsche Bahn website, compared with €269 on SNCF Connect.

“What’s more, the platforms are very focused on the trip length, but have little on the journey’s interest or comfort, said 32-year-old Benjamin Martinie, a YouTuber known as Tolt, who specializes in train travel. “But sometimes there are better combinations with more interesting layovers. This can be a real plus on a trip, especially if there’s a luggage locker in the station,” said this business school graduate. In January, he launched Hourrail, a website dedicated to rail travel, offering a variety of travel stories and itineraries. He has 60,000 subscribers to his newsletter, and thanks to partnerships, generates sales enabling him to pay “one full-time person and a few freelancers.” One of his latest trips was to Sicily (Italy), via Milan and Rome, with a train that boards a ferry.

Another obstacle to train travel’s growth in Europe is the system’s reliability. “A minor delay or cancellation of a train on a segment can quickly lead to disaster,” said Laure Jacquet. Since 2021, she has managed Discovery Trains, a travel agency specializing in trips combining trains and hotels. Its sales are up 35% this year. Its best-sellers include Switzerland, Austria, Italy and a loop route in Eastern Europe. To reassure travelers, a new European regulation came into force in June, standardizing existing guarantee mechanisms in different countries. However, in the event of a missed connection between two operators, if the tickets had been purchased separately, travelers would have a hard time obtaining a refund.

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