Lapland logistics

[johnckirk]

It's now 8 weeks until the Winter Swimming World Championships, and I've just finalised my travel arrangements. There's a team of us going from my local swimming club, and most people are flying from Stansted to Tampere, then taking the train to Rovaniemi. However, I try to avoid planes nowadays (to reduce my oil dependency) so I'm taking a

Comments

[shuripentu]

You definitely want layered clothing in cold climates in general, not least because they tend to be well heated once you're indoors anywhere and it's handy to be able to adjust your insulation level to suit. If you have a balaclava, bring it; if you don't, bring either a scarf that's long enough to go around your neck and face, or bring two scarves. Once temperatures go below -20C, covering your face and ears becomes desirable (and possibly necessary if there's a good wind).

Pretty much everyone you meet will speak English; that said, Finnish is written entirely phonetically and has totally regular stress patterns, so if you learn how to produce all the sounds associated with all the letters, you'll at least be able to read signs and be understood.

[johnckirk]

Thanks, that's useful. I don't have a balaclava, but I do have a "buff" and a scarf, and we're all getting team hats that will cover our ears.

[sammoore]

I used my buff extensively in both Arctic Norway and Finland, in combination with a warm hat. I found it useful as a scarf to stop hot air escaping from my jacket and useful to pull up around my ears and over my nose when the wind got up, like a lightweight balaclava.

When I was too hot and needed to take it off it wrapped neatly around my wrist a couple of times and I could forget I had it with me.

I can also recommend a pair of magic gloves (google them) which, for about a pound, are a great base layer to wear under warmer gloves or when you are out of the wind. They also don't matter if you lose them or leave them in a cafe because they are only a pound!

Don't forget you will probably be able to buy stuff in Rovenami as well. Ruth bought a pair of thermal longjohns in a supermarket in Tromso for £25 that would have been £60 in the UK.

[pozorvlak]

While shuripentu has spent a lot more time in really cold climates than me - I've been to the Arctic Circle, but only in summer - I'd like to expand on what she says above and disagree with it to some extent. Layers have a couple of things going for them

[sammoore]

That's quite an adventure. I should take a book for the Finnish train journey, there is only so long that snow covered pine trees retain any interest!

Photos from Northern Finland here, about 300km north of where you are going but I'm told it looks pretty similar!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sammoore/sets/72157629401151853/

Sam

[johnckirk]

Yes, I'll definitely be stocking up my ereader with plenty of books. In theory this could be a great opportunity for me to finally read something substantial, e.g. "War and Peace" or "The Gulag Archipelago". In practice, I'll probably just read Star Trek and/or zombie novels :)

And thanks for those photos - the Northern Lights do look impressive, so I hope I'll get to see them while I'm there.

[sulkyblue]

Wow, that sounds like quite the trek. I'm very impressed at the logistics of working out the various stops.

Out of interest - how does the carbon footprint of three days on train compare to the relatively short flight? I presume mile for mile trains are far more environmentally friendly, but given that the trains go the (very) long way round, is that still the case?

Were you not tempted to stop a bit longer in the cities when you transfer? It seems a shame to go to so many interesting places but not actually get to leave the station most of the time.

[johnckirk]

That's an interesting question about the carbon emissions - I think I'll need to dig into that for a while, and make it a follow-up post. Based on some quick digging online (e.g. here), planes generate 0.09429 kg CO2/km and trains generate 0.01502 kg CO2/km. So, that means that 1 km by plane ~= 6.2 km by train. I'm certainly going further by train, but probably not that much further. The other aspect is that electric trains could theoretically use alternate energy sources, e.g. solar power, whereas planes have to use oil.

As for longer stops, the main issue is annual leave. (I've booked 8 days off for this, and another 10 days for my 4 LARP events.) That said, if I left London on Sunday rather than Monday then I could spend a bit longer in Brussels, so I'll have a look and see whether it would be feasible to change my ticket.

[pozorvlak]

There are a couple more complicating factors:

1. Planes also emit water vapour in the stratosphere, which is a GHG. Hence their CO2eq emissions are around twice their raw CO2 emissions.
2. Not all trains are equal - high-speed trains use significantly more energy per passenger-mile than slow trains.

It's not clear to me whether the site you link to takes point 1 into account, but if it uses Eurostar figures for the trains then it's probably overestimating the emissions of your train journey. I'd thought high-speed train emissions were roughly on a par with planes' - perhaps the difference is short-haul versus long-haul flying? Short-haul flights have much higher emissions per passenger-mile, as much of the energy is used in takeoff and landing.

[shuripentu]

And don't forget the ferries!