The Great Circular European Railway Challenge

[Glenmutchkin]

this X2 in Sweden is a titling train I see, which I understand uses "active tilt" technology which it says was developed by the APT team, am I right in that ?. Can we claim to have invented this ?. what I also didnt know is that APT actually ran in service of a whole year. where did they run ?.

http://www.apt-p.com/APTMemories.htm

Looks like it was on the WCML.

 

[Mark_Lester]

I have travelled on the EN Jan Kiepura Amsterdam-Warsaw a few times so I can give some information based on past experiences.
1. The train travels via Koln because it is a major interchange and so a very useful stop. If the train is substantially delayed it tries to make up time by omitting Koln (and Dusseldorf?) with passengers from Koln travelling to Dortmund to catch the train there - this is not a rare occurance.
2. The train does not reverse at Koln. The train generally travels over the bridge before arriving at Koln in both directions, so the train arrives at Koln from the east both to Warsaw and to Amsterdam.
3. Delays on the EN Jan Kiepura are very common especially travelling eastwards. A delay of an hour or two is to be expected, but the last time I travelled on it I had a 6 hour delay!

thanks for the 1st hand report aleks
The obvious route is to go from Dusseldorf straight to Wuppertal if it's late.
I'm not complaining at all about beng able to tick Koln off, I just want to work out precisely what route it takes, which I think we've concluded.

 

[lemonic]

thanks for the 1st hand report aleks
The obvious route is to go from Dusseldorf straight to Wuppertal if it's late.
I'm not complaining at all about beng able to tick Koln off, I just want to work out precisely what route it takes, which I think we've concluded.

I think when the train is substantially delayed it doesn't just go straight from Dusseldorf to Wuppertal avoiding Koln. I think it goes Duisburg-Essen-Dortmund but I have never been on the train at this point so can't guarantee it!

Also occasionally due to planned engineering works, the train goes on a different route namely Utrecht-Eindhoven-Koln-Dusseldorf-Duisburg-Dortmund instead of Utrecht-Arnhem-Emmerich-Duisburg-Dusseldorf-Koln-Wuppertal-Dortmund.

 

[Mark_Lester]

I think when the train is substantially delayed it doesn't just go straight from Dusseldorf to Wuppertal avoiding Koln. I think it goes Duisburg-Essen-Dortmund but I have never been on the train at this point so can't guarantee it!

Also occasionally due to planned engineering works, the train goes on a different route namely Utrecht-Eindhoven-Koln-Dusseldorf-Duisburg-Dortmund instead of Utrecht-Arnhem-Emmerich-Duisburg-Dusseldorf-Koln-Wuppertal-Dortmund.

OK I'll take your word for it. Lets hope we're on a good day, though I've already noticed it running late on bahn.de.

And dash, while I would have loved to have travelled on it, just to see the APT coming in and out of Euston would have been fab, and I would have been very much in the area ob:
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On the subject of this rodby - puttgarden ferry, has anyone done it ?, can you board the boat while on the train (I guess surely yes), but then can you get off and at least grab a blast of sea air and then get back on the train ?.
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I found this
http://www.andrewgrantham.co.uk/as-the-vogel-flies/
I've bumped into Andrew already I'm sure, possibly in here. Anyway, it seems you get everything, ride onto the ferry, get off and sample the sun deck, and ride off again.
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Just doing Berlin-Praha-Wien. I think I've nailed the Rhine/Danube watershed at 1:30 in the morning just east of Pardubice . No fear, I am not proposing we toast the occasion with an 06:30 kick off looming, but this geog stuff is important, to me anyway.

The Dresden-prague bit is highly rated by some, though on searching for "most scenic" I found this to fuel my daily anti-trans-sib rant http://travel-inspiration.net/top-5-most-scenic-railway-journeys-in-europe and "Passengers ride in comfort and style" on the trans-sib, Well yeah, If you want to spend 6 grand plus doing it on the golden eagle, else bring plenty of deodorant and dried fruit.

This EN477 Metropol sleeper down to Vienna originates in Berlin I just twigged (I thought it was an odd service), can someone verify that we can actually get a bed on this, it's not a case of "you can get on but you cant lie down mate". What's concerning me about this is that this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroNight, shows the berlin train as going to budapest, and indeed is operated by the Hungarians. "Kurswagen nach Wien ab Breclav" translates to "Coaches to Vienna from Breclav", does that just mean that the Vienna couches split off there ?

ah, this chap must have got the same train
http://www.eatalmostanything.com/2005/10/night-train-berlin-to-vienna.html
so we just need to verify that you can actually board onto a sleeper compartment in Prague.
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reading that eat anything post a bit closer, i see it's in 2005, when it seems you had to change at vienna to get to budapest, according to his account anyway.
I'm sure we're cool, it's only 5 past midnight, but it's worth double checking all these possible "doh!" issues. It sits for an hour in Breclav, which is fine as long as no one wants to wake me up for the privilege.

 

[87015]

On the subject of this rodby - puttgarden ferry, has anyone done it ?, can you board the boat while on the train (I guess surely yes), but then can you get off and at least grab a blast of sea air and then get back on the train ?.

Yes spot on - train onto boat and you then get off to go up to the passenger decks, the boat has got some decent facilities although I can't remember if they were Danish or German prices!

This EN477 Metropol sleeper down to Vienna originates in Berlin I just twigged (I thought it was an odd service), can someone verify that we can actually get a bed on this, it's not a case of "you can get on but you cant lie down mate". What's concerning me about this is that this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroNight, shows the berlin train as going to budapest, and indeed is operated by the Hungarians. "Kurswagen nach Wien ab Breclav" translates to "Coaches to Vienna from Breclav", does that just mean that the Vienna couches split off there ?

There is definitely a through (CD) bed coach from Berlin to Vienna, portion divides at Breclav, consist as shown on the superb Zelpage website http://www.zelpage.cz/razeni/12/vlaky/cd-477

 

[Mark_Lester]

it's waiting for the train from warsaw at breclav
this site is awesome
http://www.vagonweb.cz/razeni/vlak.php?zeme=CD&cislo=477&rok=2012&lang=en#v2
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Yes spot on - train onto boat and you then get off to go up to the passenger decks, the boat has got some decent facilities although I can't remember if they were Danish or German prices!


There is definitely a through (CD) bed coach from Berlin to Vienna, portion divides at Breclav, consist as shown on the superb Zelpage website http://www.zelpage.cz/razeni/12/vlaky/cd-477

thanks. I guess that's similar to the one I simultaneously put up, amazing stuff.
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Oh (massive understatement)

I knew they were doing engineering works and that you couldnt get all the way to Istanbul, though I was
a) hoping it wasnt going to be taking over a year, they are "scheduled" to finish october 2013.
b) didnt realise that kapikule is basically the border. it's like 200 miles to Istanbul.

This kind of puts a massive flipping spanner in the whole project. And yes, someone did tell me this, I just assumed Kapikule was like Watford is to London, not that they'd basically just bottled out completely.

I think I am going to have to have a lie down now. The whole blinkin point of the project was to do Istanbul, on a train!
Even swallowing this but, it makes both directions as night journeys on a bus.
Some radical re-thinking is afoot now. We could just scotch the whole thing for another year but the way things are going at that end of the continent you have to wonder if it will ever be up and running again.
We might need to get the map out and have a look at the western side of the Balkans.

ho hum.

 

[Glenmutchkin]

I knew they were doing engineering works and that you couldnt get all the way to Istanbul, though I was
a) hoping it wasnt going to be taking over a year, they are "scheduled" to finish october 2013.
b) didnt realise that kapikule is basically the border. it's like 200 miles to Istanbul.

This kind of puts a massive flipping spanner in the whole project. And yes, someone did tell me this, I just assumed Kapikule was like Watford is to London, not that they'd basically just bottled out completely.

I think I am going to have to have a lie down now. The whole blinkin point of the project was to do Istanbul, on a train!
Even swallowing this but, it makes both directions as night journeys on a bus.
Some radical re-thinking is afoot now. We could just scotch the whole thing for another year but the way things are going at that end of the continent you have to wonder if it will ever be up and running again.
We might need to get the map out and have a look at the western side of the Balkans.

ho hum.

AAaargh!

But let's go back to the capitals thing. This must give us the chance to get Warsaw in. I've forgotten how far east we can get on Inter-rail but if we can let's do it.

And Luxemburg.

 

[Mark_Lester]

and the tottenham fans go grazy .... oh, hang on.

right, I'm looking at Bosnia and Herzegovina, the 13:00 train out of bucharest now seems to go to sofia, gets in late, but we have seriously good contacts there.

though there's a problem then going back north as mark smith is telling us to get the same late night train, we dont want to be speinding nearly 24 hours in sofia, contacts or no..

Anyway, once at Belgrade, we there this line down to the sea at a place called Poce, and a 2 hour bus up the coast to Split. thre's a sleeper out of there up to zagreb

back in 30 minutes
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I have to say, that's a bit rough on spurs.

So, I was trying to work backwards from ljubljana via the adriatic
I got back to belgrade and then found out there is no direct train any more from sofia! the only way to go north from bulgaria is via romania.

so i have this sketch so far

Bucurest 20:45
Belgrade 08:45

Belgrade 10:28
Strizivojna-Vrpolje 14:41

Strizivojna-Vrpolje 15:50
Sarajevo 21:16

night in Sarajevo

Sarajevo 07:50
Ploce 10:52

bus to split

split 21:18
zagreb 06:26

zagreb 12:30
ljubljana 14:50
could now do the bohinj line

we migt want to look at gooing from vienna straight for the adriatic
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everything is perfect up to hamburg.
bulgaria isnt running trains to serbia (I think, mark smith was saying that they are running out of things to pull the trains)
and bucharest is a dubious destination at the best of times, though if it fits in then OK.

so,
I want to get a few more hits on the scenic stuff, semmeringbahn and also bohinj should both be worked in, if this means making the great multiple figure of eight european railway challenge then so be it.
there's loads of wiggly stuff in yugoslavia, I have as yet no informed opinion on what we should do, but ljubljana-rijeka-split (bus) ploce-sarajevo might work

i think we have both set our hearts on that trieste tram, the route back home from there I think is stable, but I dont mind doing ljubljana several times to make that happen.

if anyone has any opinions on croatia/bosnia, please speak up.

more news as we have it.
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I think we lose romania and bulgaria. bulgaria for sure is seriously suspect. if the only trains in and out are to romania, not exactly mr reliable to begin with, then we are just going to have to abandon the southern extremes.

I've come up with this, which means we can keep to the plan as far as budapest, actually have a more considered departure of vienna, and still do budapest to death, cogs and kids and everything.

budapest 22:29
belgrade 06:06

then
that 10:28 out of belgrade as above. which overall gives:-

more time in vienna and budapest.
sarajevo stop over
line to ploce which is a score I am told
genuine time in zagreb (twas a platform shot of palinka before)

but I still dont have my semmering, or bohinj. there is a handy 08:02 from vienna to ljub but I cant really make it happen from there.
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that ljubljana zagreb train is now suspect, as it originates in serbia, smith recs getting the night train whenn going north from belgrade.

we should be able to get to split for 14:41, then zagreb 20:41, but I doubt that's a reliable arrival time, so would mean camp in zagreb.

we could then get a 09:00 north, and actually do the bohinj by staying on to jesenice, next stop after that is "faak am see", which kind of sums up where we are right now.

 

[Glenmutchkin]

I'm struggling for time this morning as I have chums coming round to run steam trains in my garden for a few hours today.
I will get thinking cap on again later.

 

[Mark_Lester]

I will also have to submerge myself into some extensive bean counting before long, but we're very much in drawing board city for this whole middle section. i would even start looking at the whole thing in reverse, but as we are already post solstice then the sooner we get oop north the better, and I've already looked at going west-east through the alps and couldn't get it to work.
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necessity is the mother of invention
this isnt perfect yet, but shows promise
we get skopje and sarajevo, and this line to ploce, and it's convex, so the T-shirt may still survive, and it's theoretically the same time as going to istanbul, but the zagreb connection to ljubljana is highly suspect, and we;d be getting in late so the crack of dawn kick off would be open to question, i.e venice is going to lose out a bit.

bucresti 13:00
sofia 22:25

night in sofia

sofia 09:56
Gjueshevo 15:15

pre arranged road transport to skopje (we have Bulgies to sort this)

skopje 20:10
belgrad 05:53

Belgrade 10:28
Strizivojna-Vrpolje 14:41

Strizivojna-Vrpolje 15:50 (if we miss this we should be able to road it)
Sarajevo 21:16

night in Sarajevo

Sarajevo 07:50
Ploce 10:52

bus to split

split 14:41
zagreb 20:45

and potentially make it to ljubljana on a 21:15.

semmering is going to have to wait for the "not-the transiberian express" via kars and alamaty.
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right, our man in sofia has said we should at least get the train to Kyustendil
Sofia 09:56
Radomir 11:10

Radomir 11:37
Kjustendil 13:06

then bus, be in Skopje for 16:00 easy.


also, I think we still have an extra day to play with else we'll be in geneva too early.
So we could burn up an afternoon in Split, and get the night train to zagreb

split 21:18
zagreb 06:26

than various zagreb-ljub, best is prob
zagreb 12:30
ljubljana 14:38
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I have fixed up the route page. still need to calc the mileages for these new sections.
We've lost those two 360s in stara planina, though we do have a very nice gorge on the way into sofa now.

if we get the 09:00 out of zagreb, then it's feasible to do the Bohinj
zagreb 09:00
ljubljana 11:21

ljubljana 12:10
nova gorica 15:22

nova gorica 15:24
jesenice 17:28

jesenice 17:40
ljubljana 18:31
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actually, while it means losing the david blaine funicular in ljubljana
we can do this, which gives us the Bohinj and gets to Venice for night fall. so we can do Venice at dawn. which is worth forking out for and solves all the bag drop nonsense, and of course will also mean we can have a sensible time in Rome to boot.
apart from the trieste tram decision below, this is a no brainer.

zagreb 09:0
ljubjana 11:21
we could just stay on but we'll be getting the same 14:35 below, so we can at least have 90 mins in ljub
ljubljana 12:50
jesenice 14:05

jesenice 14:35
nova gorica 16:45

the question now is, do we wait a further 2 hours at nova gorica in order to get back east to sezana (there is no train for 3 hours from half past 3 to quarter to seven), in order to do the lovely tram into Trieste, or just get the 17:40 from Gorizia Centrale and be in Venice for 8 o'clock and sun set.

Much though we both wanted to do that tram, I think this is a no brainer alas. Well, we would at least need to provide it as an option. I know what all the "normal" people will be doing.
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I've provisionally taken the 13:57 out of Venice. Hit Roma for 20 to 6. One hell of a train service that, every half an hour. We have to pick which one though.
So we get to do stuff without bags all morning, then get a final vaporetta for an hour or so and arrive at the station with plenty of leeway. We can stay anywhere we like, doesnt have to be right under st mark's.

This gorge we now go through north of Sofia is the Iskar gorge. Alas it will just have gone dark by the time we get there , even if we are on time.

 

[Glenmutchkin]

Does that Sofia - Gjueshevo train really exist. Not listed on DBahn or here

http://razpisanie.bdz.bg/SearchServlet?action=listOptions

Have we found this site previously? http://www.trainfo.co.uk/european-railway-timetables.html . Could be one for the website.

Shame about the Tranvia. I seem to have a vague memory that it knocks off quite early in the evening so a detour might turn out to be a dud anyway.

 

[Mark_Lester]

yeah, bahn doesnt want to admit to Gjueshevo , you have to go for dolno selo and then view the route detail. it's 3 trains, and that last one up to the border is suspect but stoy is going to get confirmation when he's back next month.
if necc we can just road the whole bit, takes 5 hours on a public bus and we'll org something private.
stoy suggests getting the bus from Kyustendil, though if we've got that far we may as well do that last bit if it runs, the bus can tail us as that's where it wil come from anyway. Apparently they were supposed to be linking up with the line on the macedonian side, but the Greeks have been blocking euro funds being spent on it. considering the money those guys have wasted on a railway that is certain to be all but shut down now, that's quite a cheek.

 

[87015]

Does that Sofia - Gjueshevo train really exist. Not listed on DBahn or here

Yes - but it (Kyustendil-Gjueshevo) only runs on certain days of the week. By all accounts it is very slow even by Bulgarian standards and the average speed is fairly painful.

If you are arranging a fast bus it might be possible to cover the superb Bulgarian Narrow Gauge line through the Rhodope Mountains, get the early IC out of Sofia to Septembri then the morning Narrow Gauge to Bankso or Dobrinshte for your bus - the line is a long slog but has some superb scenery through the Velingrad Gorge and then up to the summit at Avramovo before dropping into Bankso.
http://87015aewn.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/bulgaria-bdz-2010/77002_avramovo/

 

[Glenmutchkin]

. By all accounts it is very slow even by Bulgarian standards and the average speed is fairly painful.

You're not kidding. Over 5 hours for about 100km

If you are arranging a fast bus it might be possible to cover the superb Bulgarian Narrow Gauge line through the Rhodope Mountains, get the early IC out of Sofia to Septembri then the morning Narrow Gauge to Bankso or Dobrinshte for your bus - the line is a long slog but has some superb scenery through the Velingrad Gorge and then up to the summit at Avramovo before dropping into Bankso.
http://87015aewn.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/bulgaria-bdz-2010/77002_avramovo/

This gets my vote especially as the only other real NG (as opposed to MG) has been brutally cut out of the route. What say you Mick?

 

[Mark_Lester]

That narrow gauge is well cool, certainly the eastern end of it, but I dont think the rest of the gang are going to quite dig it enough, and actually we'll still be pressed unless we dive out of sofia early.
all the trains are legitimate ways of getting from capital A to capital B. the fact that a whole stack of them are gob-smackingly good is just intended to look like pure coincidence.
we are now looking for groovy hostel type places at
Sofia
Sarajevo
and Venice.
Those first two wont be a prob I'm sure, we're not on some silly bottom end budget and we've got natives to help out anyway.
Venice though, even with 15ish of us, is going to need some research. I guess Guidecca is prob where we should aim for though.
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This gets my vote especially as the only other real NG (as opposed to MG) has been brutally cut out of the route. What say you Mick?

I've done this, it's great fun, but you are prob going to have to kick off early to do it. There's also the monastery at Rila, you certainly wont get both those in and get to Skopje, not and do anything of it anyway.
Also, the tramvia could be done but not as well as the Bohinj, so it may be a case of splitting up.
I've done both the septembri and rila, so would rather hang about the market in Sofia, which imo was the best part of the city and we'll need some supplies for the train later, and then do the Muslim quarter of Skopje.
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I found this which suggest that the works on the Brasov to Bucharest line, and in particular the Prahova valley bit, has been completed.
http://ec.europa.eu/budget/competition/27projects/results_en.cfm
Which is all good news for our critical 11:00 to 13:00 Gara Nord connection.
They are claiming 160 km/h, which would make it a good 120 km/h better than the last time I went on this line about 20 years ago. I wonder if they've done anything with all those T34s that used to line the track.
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I am looking at the Sarajevo-Ploce train. According to Bahn this once a day train leaves Sarajevo at 7am then doesn't stop till it's crossed the border at Metkovic, which is almost in Ploce itself, i.e it doesn't stop again, particularly at Mostar, which seems odd.
Is this true ?.
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Also, along the Neretva river, is this fallen bridge, part of Tito's work and a monument.
http://atlasobscura.com/place/bridge-on-neretva
I assume this is just south of Jablanica and can be seen from the new line.
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yes, bahn just doesnt have the data, it stops everywhere you'd expect it to.
http://www.zfbh.ba/zfbhenx/konekcija_en.php
and it's twice a day for the record.

alas I am coming to the conclusion that you dont get to see this bridge, I think it crosses, or crossed, up stream round a huge bend in this gorge, just near the jablanica grad station., i.e not conveniently slap bang right next to the new bridge.
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I'm up to Venice now, just 2 or 3 more of these to go I think. Worth the effort from my point of view, quite a few railway triviata picked up along the way.
How did you work out the mileages before ?, we ought to get things in order and sort out these new trains.

 

[Glenmutchkin]

I used this site

Enter the start and finish stations then click on more

http://jizdenka.idos.cz/IT.aspx?ResetHandle=1&ResetParams=1&Lang=69

 

[Mark_Lester]

ta.
I make this now 16,990 km

 

[Glenmutchkin]

We must be able to find an extra 10km somewhere.

 

[Mark_Lester]

well, I was concerned we might plummet below 16,000, i.e 10,000 proper units.
actually, there's that last train up to the macedonian border which I've left off if you are gagging for the extra .
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oh my word!
http://www.ntvspa.it/en/index.html
these have just landed I take it, but they are claiming it will be running out of venice later this year.
We just have to get one of these, bugger the expense. Lets just hope there is one running between say an 11:00 and 16:00 window, although with only 25 of them, and Milan-Napoli being the main route, I dont suppose there will be many a day.
Still, this Frecciargento is a damn fine train if that's what we have to put up with.

Forza Italia, and Vive Alstom!.

 

[Glenmutchkin]

these have just landed I take it, but they are claiming it will be running out of venice later this year.
We just have to get one of these, bugger the expense. Lets just hope there is one running between say an 11:00 and 16:00 window, although with only 25 of them, and Milan-Napoli being the main route, I dont suppose there will be many a day.

Very nice but it looks like they fly round the Rome loop rather than going into Roma Termini. Not sure if there is a connection with the Metro at Tiburtina. If so no probs. This metro line goes through to Colosseo.

Presumably not included in Interrail

 

[Mark_Lester]

Very nice but it looks like they fly round the Rome loop rather than going into Roma Termini. Not sure if there is a connection with the Metro at Tiburtina. If so no probs. This metro line goes through to Colosseo.

Presumably not included in Interrail

are they actually using tiburtina yet ?. wiki says it opened last year and has 140 high speed trains but bahn doesnt have any direct trains from anywhere that you'd arrived at speed from. wiki also says it's on metro line B.

 

[Oscar]

bahn doesnt have any direct trains from anywhere that you'd arrived at speed from.

Lots of southern European services are not entered into the www.bahn.de site.
This includes Regionali in Italy and Cercanias in Spain as well as various services operated by private companies. I can't see NTV's Italo treno in www.bahn.de either.

 

[Mark_Lester]

Lots of southern European services are not entered into the www.bahn.de site.
This includes Regionali in Italy and Cercanias in Spain as well as various services operated by private companies. I can't see NTV's Italo treno in www.bahn.de either.

I guess I knew that already, I know for instance that bahn insists on sending you via the simplon to get to tirano from milan.

So where are NTV's trains listed then ?, I can't see them on trenitalia either. I gather that trenitalia, or to be specific RFI the infrastructure controller who are effectively all part of the same gang, are playing what we call "silly buggers" with NTV making life as difficult for them as they can.

What we need to work out is - when are they planning to run out of Venice to Rome (I believe it to be October, certainly should be before next summer) , and more specifically - what services they are going to be running, i.e will there be a mid day/early afternoon service that will slot nicely into the plan. we dont need to know that for certain till much later, but would be nice to know asap.
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here are the NTV time tables
http://www.italotreno.it/en/Pages/default.aspx
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I compared the difference in times between NTV and the eurostar italia's from milan to napoli, and there isnt any.

Actually, I now see that these "New Pendolino" ETR 600 things that do Venice-Rome are, obviously, tilting, so while this AGV has got a damn fine paint job and is well worthy of some unashamed train spotting, I'd rather do the ETR anyway.

Also, I was amused to see wiki referring to this 357 mile an hour V150 record as a "land speed record". So are these guys planning to produce airborne trains in the next generation ?

it's all bloody amazing stuff anyway.
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I'm on my way down Italy now. This Bologna-Florence high speed link is something, 94% of the 78 km is underground!.
Anyhow, it says we stop at Firenze Santa Maria Novella. But that's a terminus. So I assume we just go back out the other way, he's got 8 minutes to get to the other end of this ETR 600.
I've been trying to see what chance there is of just getting any glimpse at all of the famous skyline and of course the cathedral buildings. It's elevated to begin with so there's a chance. Can I just confirm that the route travelling east out of SMN, which I assume is the way to the high speed line, goes over a level crossing right in the middle of town ?. I guess if that's what it always did then it's not the kind of city that you want to muck about with any more than the original railway engineers would have already done.

Another point of order though is the Venice railway bridge. Now the Tay claims to be a bit longer, but my investigations make out that the part of the Tay bridge that actually does any river, including the curved bit at the end, is barely 2 miles, the rest is made up of the stone viaduct on the way into Dundee. Where as Venice is a full 2.4 miles over water. As such, I am going to claim that the Venice bridge was the longest railway bridge in the world over water for 150 years (according to the wiki list, the only rail bridges to beat either of them didn't appear till this century). What have you go to say about that then Scotland ?

 

[Oscar]

So I assume we just go back out the other way, he's got 8 minutes to get to the other end of this ETR 600.

Yes, that's correct.

I've been trying to see what chance there is of just getting any glimpse at all of the famous skyline and of course the cathedral buildings. It's elevated to begin with so there's a chance. Can I just confirm that the route travelling east out of SMN, which I assume is the way to the high speed line, goes over a level crossing right in the middle of town ?

I don't think you'll see anything, I'm afraid, having done this line before. You are correct in stating that the line to the east is the way the Frecciarossa and NTV trains go to the Linea Diretta heading south. It doesn't go through the city centre though.

 

[Mark_Lester]

thanks oscar. I just had a close look on streetview, there is the Fortezza da Basso on the right as we pull out and swing to the right. The railway is elevated at this point, but there's also a new elevated road that follows this curve to the right. You just get one tiny glimpse of the skyline including the basilica at that point, but it's over a mile away.
We are in tuscan countryside over 3 miles away by the time we cross the river.

 

[Glenmutchkin]

Venice-Florence-Rome is one of the few parts of our oddyssey that I have done before and I don't remember any spectacular views of Florence. Once you get cracking towards Rome it seems pretty fast and yes the tunnels last for miles

Another point of order though is the Venice railway bridge. Now the Tay claims to be a bit longer, but my investigations make out that the part of the Tay bridge that actually does any river, including the curved bit at the end, is barely 2 miles, the rest is made up of the stone viaduct on the way into Dundee. Where as Venice is a full 2.4 miles over water. As such, I am going to claim that the Venice bridge was the longest railway bridge in the world over water for 150 years (according to the wiki list, the only rail bridges to beat either of them didn't appear till this century). What have you go to say about that then Scotland ?

I didn't realise that it was a bridge into Venice - it looked more like a causeway to me.

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=veni...w=124&start=0&ndsp=10&ved=1t:429,r:9,s:0,i:92

Whereas the Tay Bridge looks like a bridge

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...y_T9G4KIz58QPxiqH0Cg&ved=0CHEQ9QEwAg&dur=4864

Length isn't everything.

 

[Mark_Lester]

it's a bridge, there's water going under it. 1846 though, they didnt even start building the station till the 1860s. perhaps it was project managed by the london olympic committee.
I'm ready to press this now but stuck for a cheesy and SEO enhancing title. "bullet through the backbone of italy" isnt very positive. we've got two of the most celebrated ancient cities on either end of one of the most state of the art railways on the planet.

 

[Glenmutchkin]

It has to be La Dolce Vita or I will lose my bet with Lady Glenmutchkin.

or how about

"Taking a Bullet Under the Apennines" or "By ETR to the ETRnal City" or "Doge, Borgias, Pope and the trains run on time"

I need to go and lie down after all of that effort.

 

[Mark_Lester]

just finishing off milan-barca. the tren hotel has vanished from bahn, but it's still on the elipsos site so they havent gone bankrupt just yet, though we appear to have simultaneously been brought forward half an hour to just past 11pm, and landed at da Franca station 45 minutes later at 10:30am. it's still running on Fridays anyway.
we've still got an hour and 3/4 to get the few hundred yards to the lake and the jet d'eau and back.
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so I think the reason for this extra 75 minutes is that previously we may have been doing this new Perthus tunnel under the Pyrenees, which is part of the new high speed line. I guess there's more services been introduced on this and so we've been kicked off. Frankly this is no bad thing as we get to do some Mediterranean coast line between perpignan and figueres along the border.
yeah, 90 mins to do what should be 50k.
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just noseying about the border area and wiki says "since france and spain use different railway gauges".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerbère
So how the hell does this work then ?. The LGV is all on standard gauge obviously, and that this goes all the way to Barcelona. is there a standard gauge link from cerbere to figueres, I guess there must be, or may be my previous assumption that we were taking the scenic route is false. May be we just sit about perpignan till there's a slot big enough for us to get through.
but these services have been about for a lot longer than this tunnel.

Confused in Berkshire.
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So, we are using these Talgo carriages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talgo
that have these magical things
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_gauge_axles
there's still this issue of why last years trains were going over an hour faster, so my presumption that for a period when this Thursis tunnel opened Elipsos were running their trains straight through may have been right, and that they've now reverted back to going via cerbere - port bou, which out of the two I'd prefer anyway. I mean, if you are going to go to the trouble of having trains that can actually change their gauge then you may as well make use of them.

This is interesting enough to bother folks with a new thread about, but I'll read up a bit more before making an idiot of myself, again.
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thursis tunnel ?, i meant perthus.
anyway, I got sidetracked in the Andes
have a look at this
http://bolivia.for91days.com/2011/06/05/from-sucre-to-potosi-by-train/
so we know what we are doing for 2015.

I churned out the next one up to lisbon. only 3 trains and one more post to go.
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Lisboa Oriente, apparently it's "as busy as Grand Central", and is pretty flashy, in fact that canopy is absolutely stunning.

we'd located the supermarket next to apolonia (forget it's name, Portuguese for waitrose) but I guess there should be the same to be had there.

Anyway, I vote for lift off from Lisbon from Oriente
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cascais isnt the westernmost railway on mainland europe, may be.
there's a tram from a place called sintra, 6 miles north of cascais, to praia da marcas on the coast.
but according to this
http://wikitravel.org/en/Sintra
it's kind of shut.
I am now feeling very guilty about feeling good about this, though I guess we lost extremes of latitude and longitude quite some time ago. Murmansk is further north than the iron ore line, we cant do Istanbul, Sicily was deemed too daft, and now this. May be we just go to Belem and focus on funiculars and the acquisition of fine port.

 

[Glenmutchkin]

Lady G and I have booked a few days in Lisbon in October so if anything needs a recce I should be able to manage it.