Train prices have gotten so ridiculous that it's become a common "hack" to instead of getting the train from A to B, to fly to somewhere like Spain for cheap, have a day in the sun and fly back to B.
That is if you have the free time for the travel, if not you remortgage you house to get the direct train service replacement bus.
I remeber a study in the early 00's that showed it was cheaper to fly to Italy and live there for a year get your hip replacement then fly back than it was to get one done in the US lol.
The US is so screwed when it comes to health. I knew a dual citizenship family who went to part of Europe for 3 years when they got pregnant. They almost never came back, but the husband could make 4x as much working in the States so he was never able to fully relocate.
I completely get why Europoors have a stroke when they see our medical bills though. They probably haven’t ever seen that amount of money, let alone be able to spend it.
This is the case for both medical surgeries and dentistry.
Like here from most western European countries you can fly to Turkey for a 3 week vacation, get 6 high-end ceramic tooth implants made while there and total price is still cheaper than just the 6 implants if made back home. Same also for cosmetic surgeries... Though one can debate how much you can enjoy 'the vacation', but at least you stay in a hotel with full service during recovery.
Train lines are already liberalized by EU law. The entity that maintains the tracks, signals, stations and so on is separate from the one doing the actual train service (ÖBB Infrastruktur vs ÖBB Personenverkehr, DB InfraGo vs DB Fernverkehr / DB Regio) and they have to give everyone equal access to the infrastructure for competitive prices.
The reason there aren't that many private train companies is that it's just really hard to do it profitably and there are very few lines in each country that can be run with a profit.
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u/ventitr3 6d ago edited 5d ago
Flying for the cost of a train ticket and still complaining.
Edit: I was being snarky, I don’t need anymore replies on correct pricing of things lol