A statistic in a media release from Destination NSW has given me cause for thought about train travel.
The peak tourism body for the Australian state of New South Wales revealed that 5.3 million international and domestic overnight and day-trip visitors used the train to travel in NSW during the year ending March 2017, up 4 per cent on the previous year.
As some in the transport industry want to revive supersonic air travel, others are looking at ways of making rail travel faster.
And, as with flight, some of the claims of speeds achieved, and reduced times from point to point, are difficult to get your head around.
We know that air flight has become ridiculously affordable in recent years, but this story really underscores that.
In England, a young woman who wanted to catch a train from Newcastle to Birmingham to visit her friend discovered that it was cheaper for them both to fly to Spain.
