A perfect train trip
Shortly after nine o´clock last Sunday morning, I boarded my train. I was heading from Umeå to Malmö, a 12-hour journey with one train change at Stockholm central. Lunch and dinner were pre-booked, and the transfer time was very short. I had booked a 1st class seat with a table and downloaded a bunch of files so that I could work offline during the trip. The trains worked perfectly, I arrived on schedule, well-rested and with proper lunch and dinner. In addition, I managed to do a full day of work onboard. Arriving at Malmö central, there was a short walk to my hotel.
Needless to say, the following day I was in much better shape than if I had taken the usual evening flight. I would have been able to leave home around 16 in the afternoon and arrived at the same hotel around 21-22 in the evening. That is a six-hour journey but one must obviously consider every transfer, queue, security check, etc that comes with flying. Even if you fly premium ticket, you will only get a coffee and a snack on board. So that means you basically miss dinner that day. And forget about doing any meaningful work during the waiting periods. They are too short, and my brain can’t focus well under such conditions. Consequently, you “save” six hours of time give or take, by flying. But you miss out on the ~8 hours of productive work, dinner and lunch onboard the train. And perhaps most importantly, you miss all the stress involved with all the transfers. Tomorrow Friday, I plan to take a day off to be with me family because I was gone last Sunday the whole day. That is also a nice deal. The next time I need to go to Malmö, the train is on the top of my list.
The return trip was also perfect. We had a business development day with our company and in the evening, we had dinner together. My return train left the station at 22:30 so I just walked from the dinner, got onboard my sleeping cabin and off we went. The night train replaces a hotel night. I need to sleep either way, so why not be on the move while sleeping? Economically it is a no-brainer. It was an early morning train change in Stockholm, but grabbing at least five and a half hours of sleep should be easily withing reach. After boarding the next “bullet train” heading north, I was served breakfast and a couple of hours later, I was served an early lunch before arriving back home in Umeå C around lunch-time. And throughout all these journeys, I had free access to fruit and coffee in my train car.
The quality of life onboard the trains is lightyears ahead of any flight. And when it works as well as it did this time, it is an absolute pleasure.