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Can that be right? That's unexpected.

Thanks for the correction re lack of SIMBIDS on southern parts of ECML As others have said, the ability to institute emergency SLW is clearly badly needed - in other words, staff on the ground... A case for the mythical "whole-railway profit and loss account" perhaps...?

Fair point, well made!! It would seem that the rewriting of the laws of physics that gave rise to the IEP spec sadly did not cover braking systems...

Ah, thanks for the info. But I thought the ECML has SIMBIDS - what am I missing in terms of why nothing ran bang road to pass the failed train? Yep, it was supposed to be 4-tracked in the last control period (or was it the one before that?!), but it was descoped as the money ran out so we...

Ah great. Anybody know which train this was? I was at KGX at about 18:30 and very little was going north (well, even less going south......) so I presume this train has been immovable for some time? I thought that with nice Mr Baker's donkey engines the 80x were never supposed to fail and...

Precisely so. An Inconvenient Truth in the context of certain recent decisions...

Though naturally a class 93 would bring you precisely no benefit on the Chiltern line (and would not keep to time)... unlike, of course, on an electrified Diggle line, as I doubt I am the first to observe!

Ah OK, you have the advantage of me, and I stand corrected! Thanks for clarifying.

While you're right about there not being a need in the foreseeable future for 6-car working on these services from the demand point of view, the assumption is however that some may nonetheless be 6 cars, simply in order to retaining the operating & diagramming efficiencies (which are indeed why...

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Other than when (as too often!) it is wedged-out, Dresden to Prague in a Czech restaurant car is a lovely experience. Preferably sitting on the left, and if you're a proper cheapskate waiting till after the border so it's all at Happy Hour prices!

... and has SBB panoramic coaches in first class, unless like me your are bowled on the day by a no-show! (To be fair, there is a lot of worse bowling-out than a standard SBB first-class EW IV open!)

All other things being equal, I would always recommend ČD's website and booking engine, as it's one of Europe's best.

Sounds as though theoretically you are only valid on the Cologne - Frankfurt high-speed line and not the classic Rhine Valley route - but in practice I'd be flabbergasted if you got any hassle going that way.

Thanks very much - I did not know that, and this is very useful info.

That's a good point - though presumably the MD trains are compulsory res, which may be an issue if you are on Interrail for example.

Worth saying perhaps that for the Cerbere / Port Bou alternative route, the RENFE Cercanias / Rodalies trains to Barcelona are pretty awful - really basic, austere EMUs (somewhere between Pacer and EN57 in passenger ambience!), only 3 cars so grossly overloaded to/from a long way out of...

I guess that depends whether you count the so-called "IC2" services (class 147 loco and 5 double-deck push-pull coaches) as a proper IC train, or just as a Regionalexpress with pretensions...

Just one extra point: it might be worth you being explicit in your posting / advice that to use Eurostar, you need to be valid both in Britain and in the "other end" country, as well as of course having the reservation.

Ah, thanks for clarifying. Yes, of course that makes sense.