London to Frankfurt: plane or train?

As a train lover who enjoys the pleasure of the trip with none of the hassle (and who hates the hassle of airports) and a scenery over, I'd vote train. The beautiful experience would be worth more than the savings of a flight.

I think the train might be the most cost efficient way, but not the fastest. With advance purchase up to 3 months in advance, you can get Savings Fare tickets on the Bahn website for as low as 59€/person. That will get you from downtown St. Pancras station to Frankfurt Hbf. One change in Brussels; possibly a second one in Köln. No need for any other transportation. Correcting for the change of time zones, the trip takes about 7½ hours.

Some low cost airlines might seem lower, but be sure to include the cost of transportation from downtown London and to downtown Frankfurt. Also include the time to get to the airport, check in, go through security, wait to board, fly, deplane, find surface transportation, and get into town. Rule of thumb is that a one hour flight consumes 5-6 hours of actual time, more if you use an airline that uses distant airports.

To find train schedules, use the Bahn (German Rail) website http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en, following Rick's tutorial: http://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation/trains/online-schedules.

To find flights, use Skyscanner: http://www.skyscanner.com/.

The advice above about airports is important. London has six airports (as far as the airlines are concerned), and some can take a lot of time and/or money to reach. Frankfurt's "real" airport, FRA, is close to the city; Frankfurt Hahn airport, HHN, is practically in Luxemburg (a train from London will be faster than a flight to HHN followed by the time it takes to get to Frankfurt).

Thank you for the replies.

I wasn't entirely sure where to post my inquiry and had done so in both the Germany and England forums.

This is Nigel's response in the England:

Frankfurt am Main is a fair distance from London and budget airlines may be a good choice. Frankfurt airport is well connected by a frequent quick train to the centre of Frankfurt.
By train it would be 2 hours to Brussels by Eurostar, Thalys train from there to Koeln and change to ICE train to Frankfurt; there are a few ICE services straight through from Brussels to Frankfurt.
The minimum time on the train would be 5 and a half hours, up to 7 hours or so, central city to central city
All in on the plane would be an hour to the airport, 2 hours check in, 1 hour flight, 30 to 60 minutes with the arrivals process, 30 minutes to reach Frankfurt Hbf by train including waiting: - 5 to 5 and a half hours.
Pretty much even. No security theatre for the Eurostar, although there is a security check in London.
The cost for the flight is likely cheaper than the combined cost for the trains. The German train company DB sell inexpensive combined tickets on their website, as low as €69.
All bets are off if you take RyanAir on that route.
If you consider RyanAir you will go from a remote London airport like Stansted to a very remote airport closer to Luxembourg than Frankfurt called Frankfurt (Hahn) by RyanAir, which is then quite a long bus ride to Frankfurt.

I've found that I could get a flight as low as 70.08 £ (~$100.00) through Lufthansa, flying out of Heathrow. As Nigel pointed out, the time could be about the same. Either way, I won't be missing out on the train experience as I expect to travel by rail later in my trip (Frankfurt to Maastricht, Netherlands and from there to Belgium). I do realize stopping in Belgium on the way to Germany is a logical approach but am working around a friend in Frankfurt's availability to be hostess.