The Air Traffic Controller travels by train

I have made three trips for work this year, one to Toronto, one to Cornwall, and last week to Edmonton.  I’ve already confessed my ecological sins from the Toronto trip in a previous post.  After that trip I promised myself I would do better on future trips.

The schedule for the Cornwall trip did not allow any method of getting there other than the usual airplane ride (Winnipeg to Montreal crammed into an RJ – uggh) but a look at the train schedules revealed on opportunity to ride the rails back to Winnipeg.  My meeting ended at 3:00 on Tuesday, and at 4:40 I was on the train from Cornwall to Toronto.  At 9:30 I boarded the Canadian at Union Station in Toronto, and at 10:00 we were rolling north.  The train arrived in Winnipeg 7:00 Thursday morning (one hour early!) and I was at work at 8:30.  If I had flown back, Wednesday would have been my travel day, and I would have been back at work at 8:30 on Thursday, so taking the train did not cost me any work time.  This seems surprising given that the total time on board was 37 hours, but the train offers the advantage of comfortable overnight travel.

For my Edmonton trip last week, I did even better.  I travelled both ways by train, in sleeper class.  The total cost of the trip was the same as if I had flown, and again, I did not miss any extra time at work, and in fact was away from home only a few hours longer than if I had travelled by air.  This statement has been met with disbelief.  One friend commented that he “didn’t see the wormhole option on the VIA website.”  There is no wormhole (though if you think the idea of trains traveling through wormholes is cool, then I highly recommend “Pandora’s Star” by Peter Hamilton) but only the magic of overnight travel.  Here’s how it worked:

On Monday I left home at the usual time to go to work.  I spent 3 hours at work before heading to the train station for a noon departure.  There’s no need to arrive 90 minutes early to check in, go through security and all the other hassles of the airport experience.  From curbside to sitting in my compartment on the train (including check-in) took 6 minutes.  The train arrived in Edmonton 6:00 on Tuesday morning (that’s 30 minutes early for anyone keeping track).  I picked up my rental car and headed to work.  Wednesday evening after work I enjoyed the sights in Edmonton and then headed back to the train station.  The train left just before midnight, and arrived into Winnipeg at 8:00 pm Thursday (again, 30 minutes early). I was home by 9:00.

With sleeper accomodations, the train did cost more than airfare, but the overall cost of the trip was the same because I required two fewer hotel nights ($250 savings), one less rental car day ($50 savings) and meals were included in the train fare.  And this isn’t the crappy food you pay ridiculous prices for on the airplane.  I feasted on roast beef and yorkshire pudding, grilled arctic char, a lamb burger with mint infused mayonaise, and perfectly cooked prime rib.

Many of the people I met on the train were amused by the irony of an air traffic controller traveling for work by train, but all agreed that the train is a much more civilized and human way to travel.

Of course, the most important question is how much I reduced my CO2 emissions.  If I had flown back from Cornwall, the trip would have been 105 km by van to the Ottawa airport, and then 1688 km by air.  Instead, I travelled about 2500 km by train.  This results in a reduction of 200 kg of CO2.  My round trip to Edmonton was about 2600 km by rail and 108 km by car, whereas flying would have been 2372 km by air.  This results in a reduction of about 350 kg of CO2, for a total of 550 kg for both trips.  How significant is this?  Best current estimates say that we need to reduce emissions to about 1,200 kg/person/year to avoid a climate catastrophe.  550 kg is almost half of one person’s sustainable level of emissions for an entire year!