[alancalverd (OP)]

A couple of days ago I spent an enjoyable few hours in the first-class waiting room at Newcastle railway station because the wonderful wind that makes the electricity to run the trains, had exceeded expectations and blown down the wires.

Whilst there, I contemplated the attached notice, and rejoiced. Apparently LNER's trains, on the days that they actually run, produce 513% less carbon emissions than a plane.

On my planet, "100% less" = 0, so it seems that these remarkable machines actually absorb five times as much carbon dioxide as a plane emits!

Is that why they sometimes proceed at the speed of a growing tree?

[paul cotter]

If painted a nice shade of green, yes indeed they would be greener than say a dull green!

[evan_au]

Perhaps the marketing department thought that "513% less" sounded more spectacular than "19.5% of"?

[Deecart]

Whilst there, I contemplated the attached notice, and rejoiced. Apparently LNER's trains, on the days that they actually run, produce 513% less carbon emissions than a plane.

On my planet, "100% less" = 0, so it seems that these remarkable machines actually absorb five times as much carbon dioxide as a plane emits!

This mean that train use energy.
Plane use energy too, but the energy used by the plane (for transportation, not for the instruments wich are neglectable) is 100% carbon (fuel).
We dont have functional electrical planes actually.

So the train use energy.
This mean that the kind of energy used by the train is composed essentialy of electrical energy.
They dont buy "only" (or they would have sayed that they produce an infinity less carbon than the plane and not 500%) the bad electrical energy coming from coal or gaz or worse.
They buy "good energy", coming from atomic reactors or solar panels or better at a ratio of 4 of 5 (1 of 5 is bad energy)
And they let the bad boys buying the remaining bad energy.

Perhaps in the futur the bad electrical plane will buy this bad electrical energy.
And nothing will change.