Richard Bradford, MD of Cactus UK takes himself and his young family by train to Eastern France…. for the weekend!!

26 November 2007

On Saturday I’m off to Nancy in the North East of France for a long weekend to become a Godfather at the Christening of my good friend’s latest offspring. Nothing unusual, even when I mention the fact that I’m attempting the journey from Worthing, West Sussex to the top right hand corner of France by train. What’s currently concerning me though is that it will be with my partner, and our two daughters, aged 5 and 16 months.

Cactus has a policy that it offers staff a day in lieu for their extra travel time, if they dump the plane to take the train. Dreamed up by the Cactus Green Team, this incentive has allowed me to travel back on the Monday and squeeze another night out of this already fleeting visit.

Not wanting to drag kids, pushchair and suitcase up and down stairs and in and out of tube trains in the run up the race to win Christmas, I’ve vouched to avoid London, by getting a train across to Ashford international and boarding the Eurostar there. This could be my first grave error.

We leave Worthing at 7.03 on Saturday 1st December. Change at East Croydon at 8.10, depart again at 8.21 for Tonbridge where we change yet again. Departing at 9:14 for Ashford, arriving at 09.52. This was the only way National Rail could get us to Ashford International on time for the 10.57 Eurostar to Paris Gare du Nord.

I’m starting to think I should have bitten the bullet and dragged the pushchair up and down underground steps. But the last time was desperately claustrophobic with the kids, and trying to get an angular pushchair off a crowded train at Victoria was bordering on the alarming, amidst a cramming of sweaty, obstreperous, non-child having, regular travellers.

There’s an hour’s wait in Paris as we cross from Gare du Nord to Gare de L’Est where we embark on an hour and a half whiz through the Champagne region of northern France on the new TGV line through to Nancy, our final destination. This sprint to the finish line will be the bit I’m looking forward to the most. That will see us arriving at 16.42, nearly 10 hours later. I’ve just done the maths now. In my head it was going to be 7 hours. Dammit.

We’ve got all day Sunday there, and then we’re back off on the Monday again, doing the whole thing in reverse, and landing back home at about seven in the evening.

How does this compare with other forms of transport?

By plane
Well it would take us 1 hour to get to Gatwick from Worthing.
About 2 hours in advance of the flight to be sure.
Just over 1 hour in the air.
40 mins getting our bags in Luxembourg
An hour and a half to drive to Nancy from Luxembourg after approx
20 mins getting the hire car
So that’s a rough, theoretical total of 6.5 hours.

By car and ferry
About 2 hours’ drive from Worthing to Dover
45mins’ waiting and boarding time
About 1 hour 30 across the channel
15 mins the other end
A 5.5 hour journey through Belgium and back into France + 30 mins stopping time.

This makes for about 10 hours. Any way up, it’s a long journey. Increasingly I’m realising the daft thing here is just going for the weekend!

In the next report, we’ll see if those extra 3 hours were worth it, and whether it was more or less hassle.

Richard

So, do you offset, or don’t you? The argument goes that if you fly, drive, or undertake any other activity which uses up fossil fuels and emits greenhouse gases, you should pay a fee which contributes to projects around the world which will directly reduce an equivalent amount of emissions.

The way your greenhouse gas emissions are offset which everyone recalls is tree planting. This particular type of offsetting is fairly flawed. First, because planting a sapling tomorrow is not going to offset the half a ton of CO2 you’ve already generated today from your flight – i.e. it will take several years for that one tree to soak up and store that amount of carbon. Secondly, there have been widely publicised problems relating to how monoculture crops of trees have been planted in developing countries, which have had an averse effect on biodiversity and even microclimates have been affected.

Luckily, the majority of quality carbon offsetting organisations do very little tree planting, but instead, invest your money into projects like supplying free solar ovens to developing countries, allowing them to cook efficiently without having to chop down trees to burn for firewood.

The biggest potential problem with offsetting
Even with the best managed scheme that adheres to the gold standard of offsetting, there is a big problem with offsetting.

The risk is that people think, having offset their flight to Barcelona, they can continue flying as often as they want to, and even increase their flying, since they are doing so in a “carbon neutral” way. The argument that comes straight back from the offsetting companies is first try to reduce your CO2 emissions, fly less, take greener forms of transport, but where you really can’t, at least you offset what you do create.

Are we hypocrites at Cactus?
So how can an organisation like Cactus, who facilitate thousands of people’s trips abroad each year possibly  be promoting the idea of not flying? Is this not just blatant green-washing and attempting to jump on the green bandwaggon?

Well no. A lot of us at Cactus are environmentally savvy, and have big issues with the fact that we’re encouraging flying. At the same time, it’s a reality that people have the choice of what they do with their money, whether they choose to fly or not. Basic supply and demand dictates that if the price is right for a flight, people are going to book them.

In 2006 I spent 6 months in Brazil and it has been one of the best experiences in my life. But of course everything over there is completely different to what we are used to here in Europe. The sheer size of Brazil means that crossing just one state can be the equivalent of crossing France from the west coast all the way to Germany! And since there are no passenger trains over there, you have the choice between travelling by coach and flying. I chose to travel by coach because it’s cheap, but also because it’s green.

Anywhere you want to go in Brazil, or in South America for that matter, you can expect journeys of at least 12 hours. It can be less if you travel locally of course but that’s a minimum between major cities. A 12 hour coach journey (about 850km – 1370 miles) emits 0.11 tonnes of CO2, whether the same journey by plane emits 822 tonnes! This is a good reason to choose coach travel in itself, but it’s also a lot more fun than you’d expect!

If at first the prospect of spending 15 hours (or more!) on the roads was a little bit daunting, I soon realised that it was a great way to travel and discover. I travelled with 3 friends of mine and we had so much fun in these coaches, a lot more that we would have if we had flown, with all the security rules to follow and the waiting around in airports… Instead, if we were travelling by day, we admired the landscapes, played games or chatted to other travellers seating next to us, a great way to make contacts and gather tips on where to go next!

And if it was by night, then we could just sleep and not waste precious time; close your eyes in Rio and wake up in Curitiba, ready for another day! Unlike British coaches, Brazilian coaches are designed for long journeys so they have all the facilities you need for comfortable travel: reclining seats, air con, toilets, tv, free bottles of water… it’s not the same as sleeping in your bed of course, but when you travel, you leave a bit of comfort behind, and face a bit of adventure instead! My longest journey was 29 hours and I only have fond memories of it!

I have been to Besancon twice as I have a friend who lives in a delightful little French village close by and it’s not the easiest of places to get to. The first time I ever went there was on a road trip but on subsequent solo trips the thought of driving a car on the wrong side of the road through single lane roads and getting stuck behind tractors has not appealed and I have found 2 ways to get there: Fly to Geneva and get picked up by aforementioned French friend, or get a train to Paris, change and head down to Besancon where I am picked up by said friend. Which one do you think took me longer? Answers on a postcard please!

By plane I had to first get to Gatwick – easy now that I live in Brighton but I didn’t then so I was looking at a 2 hour journey from North East London to Gatwick, 2 hours between check in and the time the flight left, a couple more hours to Geneva and 3 hours by car to Besancon. For my friend, of course, those 3 hours represented over double the time as he had to first drive to Geneva, then wait for me to get through baggage reclaim and drive me back during rush hour. The first night of my stay was a write off because both of us were so tired from our travels and we went to bed at about ten after heating up a pizza.

When I went by train the following year it took me an hour to Waterloo, where I checked in an hour before the Eurostar left for Paris, used the Paris Metro to change to a different train station, which took about 20 minutes, grabbed a quick café and a patisserie and boarded a fast train for Besancon which got me there in a couple of hours. My friend drove 20 minutes to pick me up from Besancon station and, after a quick meal of charcuterie, pain and fromage with a bottle of cotes du rhone, we headed out feeling fresh for Bastille day celebrations.

These days we think automatically that flying is the more time economic option and, in some cases, it’s undeniable that flying will save you time (you can’t argue that it’s quicker to go to New York by boat!) but particularly in Europe and if your destination is not a city with an airport, you don’t save a lot of time, or in my case, actually save time by not flying! Give it a try – if you’re taking a language course abroad, don’t book your flights before checking out how easy it will be to take a train to your destination instead of flying. Cactus will be happy to do the research for you and find out if it’s a viable option.