June 2, 2025
We recently attended a sustainability workshop event in Switzerland, which included travel from London by high-speed rail. Journalists and event planners joined the trip, which toured northern Switzerland solely by rail, with a brief dash across a lake by boat. The premise is that train travel is better, faster, and more sustainable for many locations across Europe for meeting, incentive, and conference events.
Eating up the miles
The Eurostar and TGV covered most of the ground. It also offered the chance to drink, dine, converse and educate. The contrast with air travel was marked. Flights are the only practical solution for many routes, yet there are increasing options to take faster city-centre to city-centre journeys by train. The food is excellent, the views are fascinating, and the chance to roam and mingle within a group carriage is one of the advantages of train travel.
Historic Swiss train
In Basel, we switched to a historic electric train, the Red Arrow. Open windows, wine flowing and rubbernecking platform dwellers gazing on as we trundled through stations on a nationally celebrated machine. Whilst the trappings on offer on the Eurostar and TGV services added value, on this leg, the machine itself added to the thrill of the ride.
