Plane or train

I can't speak to your particular circumstances, since I'm not familiar with those trains and timing can matter a lot depending on the time of year, the location and so on. That said, there are a number of factors you can look at but one important one is: what do you prefer?

Myself, I like to take trains, and I will almost always take a train unless I don't have a lot of time and it's just more convenient to fly. And definitely, flying is usually going to be faster in some respects, but you have to keep in mind that you need to get to the airport and be there at least two hours ahead of time. And airports are usually on the very outskirts of the city, where a train station is going to be centrally located in most cases. There's also the inconvenience of waiting at the airport for your flight and so on. There are also luggage issues in that you may have to pay extra if you are flying and have to check a bag,

When you take a train, you just show up about 15-20 minutes ahead of time, get on board, and you can relax and enjoy the trip with plenty of room. You can get up and walk around comfortably. You can get something to eat if you want on your schedule. And you can enjoy the scenery if there is any. Plus you don't have to worry about your luggage not fitting in an overhead bin and having to have it checked and then pay for it.

So look at all those things, then figure out the times involved to fly vs. taking the train, do the math with regard to the cost, and then decide what works for you. Everybody is different. 😊

Train is faster when you consider city center to city center. Flying is 1 hour in the air, but you have to travel to the airport from the city center, arrive at least 1 1/2 hours before departure for check in and security, then exit the plane, collect luggage, travel from the airport to center city. So that is about to 4 hours. Frequent fast trains are 2 1/2 hours Gdansk to Warsaw, and 3 hours between Warsaw and Krakow.

I have heard the trains can be late

Airplanes are never late? Not in my experience.

thank you that is what we were thinking as well

We did just what you are planning last fall, but we continued on an overnight from Krakow to Budapest.
The trains were excellent and on time. In Krakow, we walked to and from the train station to our hotel just within the wall.
We also walked to hotel and back from the train station. SO easy!
For Gdansk, we flew in, but train station in a very good location although we did take an Uber there from our hotel.

thank you!
it does sound super easy

For those routes, I'd definitely take train over plane unless you were connecting to another flight.

We are in Gdansk right now, have taken both trains and buses in our month in Poland including the Krakow-Warsaw route. We pretty much don't fly if we can avoid it, as it is nice to see the scenery along the way and as others have said, it probably takes just as long. Also, most train stations are in the city center, airports are not.
We found that buses were sometimes faster than trains, depends on the route. All buses and trains have been timely and very comfortable.

Hi Nomad, thank you for the information.
Enjoy your time