deltic
Established Member
- Joined
- 8 Feb 2010
- Messages
- 3,719
First leg from Linz to Prague was like travelling on a secondary long distance BR route in the 1960s. Czech railway coaches and loco with a restaurant car, stopping at stations in Austria where noone got on or off but where there were goods sidings with rakes of wagons. Single track line but electrified despite in effect a two hourly service. The restaurant car served less than a dozen people and only about 4 of us had anything to eat the others just drinking coffee or beer. Main course and beer was less than £15 due to their happy hour pricing on less busy services. Train filled up in Czechia and the first class carriage was full.
Second leg Prague to Dresden, another loco hauled Czech railway service to Berlin. Second class very busy, first pretty empty especially after the guard threw out half the passengers who didn't have first class tickets. Again food was cheap with staff serving passengers at their seat saving a trip to the restaurant car.
The train formation diagrams at stations are useful but they are not always clear which direction the train is going so you can end up at the wrong end of the platform.
Arrived at Dresden Hautbahnhof on time but then sat there for 10 minutes which meant missing my connection at Dresden Neustadt. App implied that the next train to Gorlitz required a further change of trains but the station departure timetable implied that the train split part way and it was a through train. The platform indicator only displayed the destination of the front section of the train and not that the rear section was for Gorlitz. Not the best example of customer information.
Arrived at Gorlitz and surprised to find a 12 platform station despite it only having around 4: departures and hour. A key difference between many European railways and Britain is what we would see as excess capacity in terms of tracks and platforms but presumably it helps to provide greater resilience.
Second leg Prague to Dresden, another loco hauled Czech railway service to Berlin. Second class very busy, first pretty empty especially after the guard threw out half the passengers who didn't have first class tickets. Again food was cheap with staff serving passengers at their seat saving a trip to the restaurant car.
The train formation diagrams at stations are useful but they are not always clear which direction the train is going so you can end up at the wrong end of the platform.
Arrived at Dresden Hautbahnhof on time but then sat there for 10 minutes which meant missing my connection at Dresden Neustadt. App implied that the next train to Gorlitz required a further change of trains but the station departure timetable implied that the train split part way and it was a through train. The platform indicator only displayed the destination of the front section of the train and not that the rear section was for Gorlitz. Not the best example of customer information.
Arrived at Gorlitz and surprised to find a 12 platform station despite it only having around 4: departures and hour. A key difference between many European railways and Britain is what we would see as excess capacity in terms of tracks and platforms but presumably it helps to provide greater resilience.
