With a mobility grant from Formas, I had planned to perform parts of my four-year project at UC Dublin. I have a family and wouldn’t go without them, but luckily Formas mobility grant supports the increased travel and living costs, including school fees, for bringing the family.
The first time we took the train to Dublin was in July 2019 when the project started. By this time, we only had one child. When we returned in October 2021, we had two kids and were in the middle of a pandemic. We wouldn’t let these conditions force us to fly, but crossing Europe by train with a baby and a seven-year-old, during an ongoing pandemic, certainly required some preparations. We carried valid PCR results, a bunch of face masks and Passenger Locator Forms for several countries, and we struggled to stay updated with the covid restrictions of each country.
We had no reason to worry. When we – two days later – arrived in Dublin, we had enjoyed live swing music and dancing in Copenhagen, sushi with good old friends in London, coffees, juices, and cakes at stations along the way, two movie nights on the train, and Frozen II on the ferry between Wales and Ireland. And the only time our oldest child had asked if we weren’t there yet was before we reached Malmö.
How to make travelling with kids fun
When I decided to stop flying, I also decided to make our train journeys a more exciting alternative. We usually try not to hurry, but to have time for an extra ice cream or some fun in the cities along the way. On the train, we draw, read stories, and play games. As the evenings can be challenging when travelling with children, we make each evening a proper movie night, with a good movie and surprise snacks.
The most beautiful way to Dublin
We have taken the train to Dublin twice and we hope to do it soon again. With the new night train to Hamburg, it is possible to leave Skåne in the evening and arrive in London – or Paris, if the schedule allows a little detour – the next evening. The highspeed trains connecting London with the mainland arrive at St Pancras station, an impressive Victorian Gothic building from the 19th century. Within walking distance, you’ll find Camden Town where loads of people enjoy street food and a couple of beers along Regent’s canal. From London the trip continues to Chester and along the Welsh coast with an astonishing view over lush green hills, old castles and the sea. The train takes you all the way to the isle of Anglesey where the entire coastline has been classified Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The train’s end station is Holyhead, from where the ferry takes you the last bit across the Irish sea to Dublin.
Last summer I was going to a conference in Switzerland. The same summer, me and my friends were planning an interrail trip through Germany, Slovenia and Croatia. Instead of going on two long-distance train travels, I decided it would be beneficial to put them back-to-back. This would save me time and money (but not be very good for my poster as you will see). Luckily, it worked out with my friends’ schedule to put the interrail trip just before the conference! So when they travelled home, I continued from Slovenia to Switzerland.
I actually decided to go from Slovenia (Ljubljana) to Italy (Milano) via night-bus, and then enter Switzerland from there. From time to time I travel by night buses, due to their very low price and ability to travel long distances without change. It is however not the option for those who desire to travel with great comfort. In my travel-plans, I had scheduled the whole next day for just arriving to the conference location (Lausanne), so having one rough night did not ruin my conference experience. Something to think about when travelling with buses is that they might not run from the same stations as the trains, so remember to check this in advance.
In Switzerland, you buy tickets from the Swiss railway company that is called SBB or CFF or FFS depending on which language you speak. SBB (which is the German name that I will use) has a wonderful map on their webpage, outlining all stations and routes included in their system. And amazingly, you can buy ONE TICKET called a “day pass” and just travel as much as you like. All trains and even boats are included only with some rare exceptions such as tourist panorama trains. If you buy this pass well in advance, it also costs much less, which gives you very high flexibility in your travel to a surprisingly low cost. The SBB app is also good for buying the tickets, just remember that since Switzerland is not part of the EU, you need to check with your phone operator what deal you can have for getting internet there.
Alp view without the tourist panorama train
Since I had a full day to get to Lausanne, I thought why not go around a bit. The first leg of my travel was to cross the alps, which you could do quickly by going through a tunnel. That I definitely did not want to do. Instead I took a small regional train up to a village on top of the alps, and what a view! I had never before experienced trains going in loops to be able to gain the needed height. Also never had I seen such turquoise alp lakes hiding in the valleys between the mountain tops. Even when travelling by a regional train, I could see a lot through big windows, and I am sure there was less people than in the tourist panorama train. The train ride across the alps also highlighted that Switzerland is a country of many languages. The train conductor who had just asked for tickets in perfect Italian, now instead spoke perfect German after we had crossed a small tunnel in the mountains. To say the least a rare experience compared to travelling in Sweden or Germany.
Train coming into the city of Luzern, Switzerland.
Unexpected meeting in Lausanne
After travelling in the alps and also next to many of the beautiful Swiss lakes, I decided it was time to head for Lausanne. At the main station in Lausanne, looking for the metro, I was stopped by a British gentleman. He had seen me travelling with a backpack featuring a now quite worn poster, and asked if we perhaps were going to the same place. After travelling a full day and night, my brain did not figure out that this was a professor in my field that I definitely should have recognized. This became embarrassingly obvious on the metro ride towards the conference location, where also my hotel was. But, being a true gentleman, this of course did not make him upset and I will now apply for postdoc grants together with the professor who saved me in the metro!
Backpacking with a paper poster
Some piece of advice from my side: always print your poster on fabric! I had at some point during covid-times made a “preliminary” poster which I printed on paper, since I thought this would only be used at a local meeting in Lund anyway. The preliminary status however turned into my most used and permanent poster as a PhD student… But backpacking with a paper poster meant quite some wear and tear. My poster at the time of the conference was not in a good shape, but luckily I could buy some tape and mend it together. It however clearly stuck out from the rest of the posters in a charming way.
My worn poster, patched together at the conference.
Especially affected customer
After having taken the mandatory picture of the solar cell wall at EPFL and convinced the British professor that I was not always confused, it was time to go home. I had it all figured out; first I would take a train to Zürich, then an ÖBB night jet to Hamburg and finally the normal train ride through Denmark. Since I am a pessimistic person who likes to play it safe, I can easily plan 2 hours change time for important connections, such as those of a costly night train. This is especially important if tickets are bought from separate companies, as they then will not be obliged to help you if you miss the connection. The likelihood of travelling on a delayed train in Switzerland is however low, which some Swiss persons in the conference assured me and I also experienced with even regional mountain trains keeping the timetable to the minute. But, when I was travelling home it suddenly happened. A COMPLETE STOP between Fribourg and Bern, which I had to cross to get to Zürich. It was not possible to pass by train, and the whole country went into complete chaos. I got extremely stressed and headed for the SBB office, facing a queue of 20-30 people ahead of me. My brain calculated the chance of getting to the night train in time as very minor… But, this was after all Switzerland where they are proud of their train system and make sure to plan also for bad incidents such as this one. After only waiting 10 minutes it was my turn, and I, together with a small family who had a connecting flight, were prioritized as especially affected customers. Therefore SBB paid a taxi for us going past the problematic area, and we could from there find a train taking us to Zürich. Luckily for me the 2 hours change time came in handy, and I safely made it to the night train home.
Travelling with ÖBB, the Austrian railway, is often not a nice experience. But, they seem to run most of the central European night trains, so there is not much of a choice. This time it went smoothly, with only a small delay, some confusion with an exchanged room, and some dripping water into my bed… Only minor things considering travelling with ÖBB in my experience. I got to practice my German, sharing sleeping cart with an Austrian girl, and even got a decent breakfast. All-in-all a good backpacking-interrail adventure had come to its end. And I have now promised myself I need to let my poster retire and make a new one, this time in fabric.
Train station in Luzern.
Breakfast in the night train from Zürich to Hamburg.
SwissTech Convention Center at the EPFL campus. The building is covered in dye-sensitized solar cells.
It is widely known but there might still be people who haven’t heard yet: There are EU passenger’s rights for railroad travellers as there are for air travel within Europe, which means:
25% ticket price return on 60-119 minutes delay at final destination* 50% return on 120 minutes or more*. *Unless due to an Act-of-God or a third person’s unlawful interference.
On top of that, the travel agency has to make sure you arrive at your destination and is responsible for accommodation etc in the case of a major disruption/delay. But, this only works if you book the whole trip at once! VERY IMPORTANT! And that is why I recommend to book every train journey to and through Germany, and that will be most of them unless you stay in the Nordic countries, with Deutsche Bahn (DB; be it on the website or via the app).
I have been doing this on a monthly basis now for many years and overall is has been working fine. After Covid, though, there has been a notable increase in rail travel compared to before and a major – if not THE – bottleneck for leaving Scandinavia by train is the connection between Copenhagen and Hamburg, the latter acting as a gateway between Northern Europe and “the rest”. You will quickly get a feeling of affection when you see Hamburg’s iconic “Wandelhalle”, the central station hall. However, especially for the main travel times like summer or Christmas tickets will sell out quickly and there is nothing more frustrating than having to change your travel plans or even choose a flight instead. Option 3 is to not have a seat for about 6 hours, but, I promise, you won’t do this too many times 🙂 The second thing on booking early is that you can get quite a discount (SuperSparpreis/Sparpreis Europa) but, beware, there are quotas on these, i.e. once they’re gone, they’re gone.
Two modes of travel
There are a couple of things of interest when travelling with DB and I would like to introduce you to the two modes of travel that I normally choose between:
1. Play it safe. 2. Take a chance.
Obviously, option 1) is for when you really need to be at your destination in time, 2) is a gamble between fastest travel and some compensation for a missed connection.
But HOW do you choose? Well, the tricks lie between the lines. Once you entered your travel details and hit the search button you’ll see a list of possible connections. Click on the “Show details” link below one that seems reasonable and you will see another link reading “Adjust transfer time” for each station you have to change trains. Here you can either choose to arrive at that station earlier or leave on a later train plus how much of a lay-over you wish. Once you have adjusted these, you can find a new, tailored connection at the bottom of the list of offered connections.
I almost always go for option 2) when going south. First of all, it worked for me in about 90% of my trips from Malmö to Köln, including a changing time of 7 min in Hamburg (challenging but doable and trains might wait a little, see below; also, check Skånetrafiken ahead of travels for possible hick-ups in the Swedish system). Secondly, there are trains to every major German city from Hamburg at least every hour during daytime and you might get some compensation. If you’re going North, though, I’d recommend a little bit more of a buffer in Hamburg (at least 30 min) as your next train is probably going two hours later (if at all) and it might already be fully booked. It can be disappointing if you booked wisely and planned a trip with ample pauses for food and a leg-stretcher when in the end delays eat up all your buffers and you still have to run for your connections without being compensated. Remember though: At least you arrived and you had a seat! That is worth a lot 🙂
I only ever once had to spend a night in Hamburg because I missed the last train to CPH and it wasn’t as funny as it might seem. You’ll have to find and book a hotel for yourself and DB will only compensate you for 80€/person/night for accommodation. But: keep your dinner/lunch bills, I got them reimbursed (i.e. don’t book Hotel w/ breakfast as that might break your 80€ allowance; have it reimbursed separately!).
In case you anticipate a missing connection at your next location of change (because you are keeping track of real-time information on the bahn-app!), tell the train attendant ahead of time which connection you’re about to miss. Depending on the amount of travellers with the same destination, the connecting train might wait a couple of minutes. This has worked especially well in Hamburg when travelling North. The Copenhagen connection often waits for 10-15 minutes and usually catches up with the delay until Padborg. A final note on the purchase of online tickets: Every (!) ticket purchased online (app or website) can be cancelled at no cost within the first 12 hours, i.e. you get the full price back.
It all started when I was invited to Stockholm to present some research findings at Svenskt Handels Hus. To be honest, I wasn’t super enthusiastic about going. However you go about it, travelling from Malmö (where I live) to Stockholm is likely to take a huge chunk out of at least one work day, if not two. The train takes 4-5 hours each way and flying might seem quicker but, by the time you get yourself to the airport in good time, and transport yourself into the city at the other end, I think ends up taking just as much time.
In addition, the timing of this trip was particularly unlucky because Beyoncé and I were both going to be in Stockholm at the same time (if for slightly different reasons). Perhaps the hotels were all booked up because people were flocking to the city to hear about my research. I’m not sure. But it was really hard to find anywhere to sleep in the city centre. And what was available was really expensive.
The solution to both problems was suggested by my brilliant husband. I should take the night train to Stockholm! I wouldn’t waste any of my work day. I would have a cosy place to sleep. And, I would be making a great choice for the environment by taking the train rather than flying. Win-win-win!
How did it go?
I chose a private first-class cabin so I wouldn’t need to share a sleeping space with any snorers. The first class cabins also come with a little toilet and shower room. And fresh towels and bedding. All I had to do was to show up at 10.30, in my pyjamas with my heatless curlers in (I’m not joking—I actually cycled to the station in PJs and curlers) and get into bed. Bliss!
When I boarded, the cabin was set up for sitting and working with a little fold-away work desk and convenient lamps. But I just had to fold the table away, slide the seat cushions up, put my phone on charge, and I was ready for bed. You get a proper duvet and two pillows and, once that train started rolling I was off to the land of nod…zzz
Actually, that isn’t totally true, there was a baby in the adjacent cabin who was having a tough night, so I pressed the call button and the conductor moved me to another room instantly, no questions asked. Then, I was off to the land of nod…zzz
The night train goes more slowly than the regular day time train so that it doesn’t get to Stockholm too soon. It arrived at 5.30 am but, since Stockholm was the final destination, there was no rush to get off the train. I took my time removing my curlers, showering, and getting ready for a day of work. Then I cruised over to the Clarion Continental hotel across the street from the Central Station for the breakfast that’s included in the price of a first class train ticket. By 7.15, I was well-rested, well-fed, raring to go, and already in the heart of Stockholm City. It was a 10 minute walk to Svensk Handels Hus, where I would give my presentation.
What did it cost?
Sleeping in the train instead of a hotel, made a huge difference to the cost of the trip. Hotel prices for this trip were especially high because of the extra demand (from people travelling to Stockholm to see me present my research Beyoncé performing) but even when demand is more normal, I think hotel prices in Stockholm are a stretch for many research budgets so it was a nice bonus that taking the train reduced the cost of trip by almost half. Note that I booked these prices last minute. If you are more organised than me, you can probably do better.
Could you really shower in that tiny bathroom?
Okay, I’ll be honest. It wasn’t the most luxurious shower I have ever had. The water pressure was a bit low. But it worked perfectly well to freshen up before going to work. I showered and washed my hair in the evening before I got on the train so I’d recommend doing the same.
Did you feel safe?
Absolutely! I could lock my cabin from the inside and there were also little key cards in the cabin so I could lock it from the outside too. Each cabin is also fitted with a button to call the conductor in case of emergency (like crying babies)!
Would you travel like this again?
100% yes! I really liked the sense of adventure and it was super convenient. Feel free to reach out in the comments section if you have specific questions that I haven’t covered here. You can also watch a short video I made on the night train. Unfortunately, I had already removed my curlers when I filmed it!
Written by: David Alcer, Doctoral student, Department of Physics
To travel is often seen as a core activity of our society. For work or for leisure, travelling for many of us constitutes an important part of our lives. Particularly in academia, which builds on international collaborations, travelling far distances – in many cases by flight – can often seem a necessity. At the same time, we are facing an unprecedented crisis that undermines the very foundations of our societies. It is a complicated situation to live in a society which still normalizes flying and encourages travelling – and try to balance this with an understanding of the consequences of the ongoing climate catastrophe. It can easily leave us in a state of cognitive dissonance in which we try to justify our actions for ourselves although we know that we are bending our conscience and closing our eyes to the consequences. For me, it felt very liberating to decide for permanently staying on the ground. This may initially sound surprising, but having restricted my travelling options to those that leave me with a clean conscience yields a powerful feeling of freedom.
A step towards responsibility
My most recent travel endeavour was for a project meeting in the EU project InsectNeuroNano that I’m currently working for. Meeting all collaborators in Edinburgh was a great experience, both infusing our work with plentiful of new ideas and perspectives, and building social connections. But for me, this journey got even more valuable by all the experiences I made during the travelling itself. Finding a good connection was a little challenging – I can recommend bahn.de as a search engine for European tickets, although I ended up booking some parts of the journey via other train companies as well. The train ride experience was worth this work many times over! Among others, it gave me plenty of time to listen to podcasts (I strongly recommend “Klimatpodden”, it’s in Swedish though) while watching the landscape zoom past. With layovers in London and Amsterdam I had a chance to visit friends I hadn’t seen in a while. In Amsterdam, it was an overnight stay – just enough time to eat home cooked dinner and have a beer together in the evening. At my friends place in London I stayed for an amazing weekend. These meetups, as well as the meeting in Edinburgh, have given me plenty of thoughts to contemplate on while sitting back and enjoying the view on the train ride back home to Lund.
As climate researchers remind us periodically, the choices we make in this decade will determine the fate of humanity. All of us have a moral responsibility. My train travel to Edinburgh left me with the encouraging feeling of having taken a first step towards living up to that responsibility.
In March 2022 there was a conference taking place at McMaster University in Canada. The topic of the conference was in-situ electron microscopy, which is a narrow topic but also highly relevant for the research groups at Lund University working at the National Center for High Resolution Electron Microscopy (nCHREM). The problem was however that the conference was taking place during only two days, and travelling to Canada to attend a two-day conference is simply too far, even if the topic is highly relevant. Luckily, the conference was adapted to a hybrid format. To attend the conference “from home”, 4 PhD students at nCHREM decided to create a local hub in Lund for the conference.
Due to the time difference between Sweden and Canada, the conference hours were from the late afternoon to the late evening. The local hub event was therefore combined with some nice pizza and beer to kick-start the conference. The first night the local hub gathered in one of the PhD student’s home. This really gave the added benefit not only of making it a social activity, but also of being able to discuss the talks in the group. The arrangement was also very flexible, meaning that everyone could drop in and out according to their schedule.
All-in-all, the PhD students at nCHREM got a very nice conference experience even though they did not travel to the conference location in Canada. The social interaction and discussion elements were clearly there, although the opportunity to network was not. The arrangement was also very flexible, and saved huge amounts of money, CO2 emissions and travel time. For short but highly relevant conferences, the local hub option is really recommended and probably allows researchers to attend more conferences than what would have been possible if only attending in person.
Taking the train when my work requires a visit to Stockholm is a matter of course. For this rather common trip, the university’s policy also states that we should take the train and not the plane, which should be completely obvious considering that a flight from Sturup-Bromma-Sturup has hundreds of times the climate impact (depending on the type of aircraft). And that’s not even counting transport to and from the airports, which alone has many times more climate impact than the entire train journey. This is for a time saving of 20-30 minutes door to door for me taking the airport bus. I also prefer four hours of undisturbed working time (or good sleep if I take the night train) than hopping around between airport buses and cramped aircraft seats where at least I, with my 185cm, cannot get a good working position. No, it’s easy to do the right thing sometimes. Something that I think all university employees should try to do if we want the public to have confidence in our scientifically based proposals on how they should contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
I personally prefer to take the train long distance up the country as well. If you combine a night train and an express train, you can cover a very large part of Sweden without a painful backside. For example, I have written large parts of many recent publications on the trains between Lund and Östersund where I spent some time in recent years (a night train + a fast train or a fast train + a night train). Maybe not everyone likes a change of scenery, but for me, who also takes the opportunity to change scenery when I have writing days in Lund, trains, cafés and other temporary places give a creative boost.
If you are like me and have time for research or other tasks that can be carried out anywhere, it also works perfectly well to take the train a bit down in Europe. Even though the long-awaited night train from Malmö to Brussels did not materialise, it is possible to take the train there if you are as focused on protecting our children’s future as I am. However, it is a real full day with three changes (Copenhagen, Hamburg, Cologne I usually take). Last time I was writing an application and modelling social networks on the way down and working on an article on the way home. I got a lot done but I have to admit that I was quite tired after 13 hours regardless of the short stops at restaurants and cafes at the stations along the way. Next time I am thinking of taking the night train Lund-Hamburg to have only two changes and a more normal working day on the way to Brussels.
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