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World warming to greener train travel
January 11, 2010
Steve Mollman, for CNN
Take more trains and fewer planes. That’s what Sarah Kendrew pledged to herself a few years ago. An astronomer at the Netherlands’ Leiden Observatory, she travels frequently to nearby countries on business—and prefers to not leave vapor trails in the sky when doing so.
“I’ve been making a conscious effort to take trains rather than fly,” she told CNN, “for environmental reasons initially, but I’ve also found them to be much more comfortable and convenient—so it’s not really an effort anymore.”
Faced with global climate change, many around the globe—from governments to companies to individuals—have also warmed to train travel.
Traveling by rail is on average three to 10 times less CO2-intensive compared to road or air transport, according to the UIC, a Paris-based international organization of the railway sector.
