To Fly or To Train?

By Martin Johnes

Professor of History, School of Culture and Communication

The lone-scholar model, where researchers plough lonely furrows working on their own, is one that has held sway in the arts and humanities for a very long time. The funding councils have pushed against that by prioritising collaborative projects. Given how conservative academia can be in its working practices, that has not always been welcomed but writing and researching as a team does create opportunities to learn from each other and produce more reflective and insightful publications.

Academic collaboration has been made easier by Zoom, Teams and the like but such platforms are not substitutes for actually meeting and working in person. As such, the team for our new project Beyond Borders: The Second World War, National Identities and Empire in the UK have decided to meet in person twice a year for extended writing and discussion sessions. This summer this meant myself and the Swansea-based research officer travelling to Edinburgh.

The cost of flights within the UK is inconsistent and varies significantly with demand. For me, booking a few weeks ahead, a mid-week flight from Cardiff to Edinburgh, returning the next day, cost up to £200. Booking further ahead can be much cheaper but there are also bus costs to and from the airport at both ends. The flight time is 1 hour 15 but the airport advises arriving two hours before that. With connection times at both ends, the journey time from Cardiff to Edinburgh is around 5-6 hours depending on bus times. Flight times themselves are very limited, with nothing in the morning.

In contrast, booking a few weeks ahead, a return train from Cardiff cost £136 and took 6 ½ hours (although not booking ahead would have added around £95 to the price).  It was thus slower to get from Cardiff city centre to the centre of Edinburgh but around £65 cheaper. The financial saving, plus the environmental benefits, meant we went for the train. A significant added advantage was the choice of train times that allowed us to maximise our time in Scotland.

A train doesn’t have the glamour of an aeroplane, but budget airlines are not exactly luxury experiences. In contrast, the route up the west coast of England and into Scotland is a pleasant one with plenty of rolling hills and green fields to look at. For a me, a bigger benefit was being able to work on the journey. The number of other passengers and poor Wi-Fi meant the working conditions were not perfect but they were certainly a lot less cramped than a budget flight.

As it turned out, our train was over an hour late and thus the journey ended up being a fair bit longer than a flight. But, unlike with a flight, an hour’s delay to the train journey means you can claim some money back. On the return leg, everything went smoothly.

When deciding how to travel for work or pleasure, I do try to make the ‘greener choice’. Sometimes this doesn’t make sense when working with a budget, especially if the money is not your own. When travelling as a group or family, then far too often it’s just cheaper and easier to use the car. The cost of petrol for a return trip between Cardiff and Edinburgh is about £140, half what we paid for two train tickets for the same journey. Of course, driving that far is tiring and the cost doesn’t take into account wear and tear on the vehicle, but car journeys being cheaper for long distance travel is not good public policy. It encourages congestion, pollution and maybe even accidents amongst tired drivers.

The travel policies of universities rightly discourage car use. Swansea University’s Business Travel Policy includes this travel hierarchy:

Travelling the length of the UK by aeroplane rather than train is generally quicker, especially if you don’t mind not leaving much time to clear security at the airport and aren’t reliant on public transport to get there. Costs seem to vary wildly but booking ahead on the train can be much cheaper than flying on a business route on a work day.  Neither mode of transport is as reliable as it might be but, for me, if the costs are similar, the greener credentials and more comfortable journey make the train well worth it.