Re:What's the environmental impact of these machin (Score 1)

The biggest problem of all: while there are reasons to debate whether or not to take the train over the plane for a trip of about 250 miles or so, once the distance extends to about 400-450 miles, there's no effective alternative to air travel

I disagree. Paris -> Marseille is 480 miles (check on http://www.mappy.fr/). It is a 1h15 plane flight. The TGV trip time is 3 hours (check on http://www.sncf.com/). It is 3 h. Paris downtown to Marseille downtown. Without all the hassles of going to, through, and coming from the airports. From my point of view, at 480 miles the TGV still beats the plane.