Frothys Trips: Home and Away.

[Frothy_B]

Hello all. I'm going to start with an introductory post before getting in to my first report in post 2.

I'm not a prolific railway user, or at least I haven't been. Up untill a year ago I would rather not go somewhere at all than have to go by train. As young children my Dad would take my brother and I spotting, which I think planted a seed which remained dormant for many years before finally sprouting during the long recreational walks during covid restrictions. I'd start to pay attention to the trains going past as my walks took me near the Midland Mainline around Wellingborough and Kettering. I started making a note of the numbers, which grew into stopping for a while just to watch.

Eventually I started going to Wellingborough station on my way home from work for half an hour at a time. I discovered this forum, online tools like Real Time Trains and for Christmas my wife (keen to encourage me in a new hobby) gave me a Bakers Rail Atlas and the UK Rail guide. I finally started highlighting the numbers, whilst a new side to the hobby revealed itself to me: Track Bashing.

As a HGV driver, I like to keep a map of every road I've driven on (kind of a completionist thing I guess) and the idea of bashing fed right into this specific quirk of mine.

After a few small journeys here and there, and being on the fantastic Metro Marauder Tour, I've decided I'd like to log my journeys on here going forward, particularly my European ones where my job sometimes allows me to be weekended in some of Europe's Capital Cities. Hopefully they are interest to some of you reading!

I should point out I am still relatively new, both in the hobby and on this forum. Hopefully I'll refine my posts over time and come up with a format which is good to read. Alot of posts will be made on my phone however, so I'm not sure how limiting that will be.

Thanks for reading, enjoy!

 

[Techniquest]

Hi! Welcome to the trip reporting community!

I'm already keen to read your first trip report when it's ready I type all of mine on my phone too, so it shouldn't be a limiting factor for you. It sounds like your wife is quite understanding of your hobby too, which has to be a bonus!

The Euro adventures also sound interesting, bring them on!

 

[Frothy_B]

Vilnius - Klaipėda.
Saturday 4th of June 2022.

I found myself with a weekend off in Lithuania and decided this would be the perfect time to try a train journey outside the UK. I always enjoy being in Lithuania and a chance to see some of the country that I normally wouldn't be able to seemed like a good use of my Saturday.

After looking at the various journey options, I initially wanted to travel up to Daugavpils in Latvia but unfortunately cross border trains still haven't come back into operation as far as I could tell from the information given on different websites. Turmantas would have been the next option, being the border town the Daugavpils train normally passes through but as I was hoping to get different haulage on both legs of the trip and with only 4 trains a day, I wasn't sure what I could fill my time with for several hours there.

Klaipėda is a port town and the third largest town in Lithuania. Formerly known as Memel when it was part of Prussia it reportedly retains a German feel, as well as being a tourist destination. That would do for me, a few hours at the seaside.

At present there are 7 trains per day from Vilnius with the quickest journey being 3 hours 59 and the longest 4 hours 38. I planned to catch "The Seaside Express", a mostly direct train which only stops at the tourist town of Kretinga before reaching Klaipėda. I noticed whilst looking at tickets, however, that the preceeding train was second class only. After having a quick look I discovered this train was loco hauled whereas the others are DMUs, so the slow train it was.

Leaving at 07:25 meant waking up at 6 (on a day off!) in order to get ready and catch a bus up to the station. I arrived at 06:50 to see the train already waiting at Platform 1. A quick coffee from the "Baristokrat" coffee stall and I would be ready to go. I noticed that smoking/vaping are not allowed on the platforms here. Granted it's not really "allowed" anywhere, but having been spotting in Germany and Spain they seen to have quite a relaxed attitude to it. Seeing that everybody was following the rules here and going to the designated point off the platform, I followed the lead of the locals and drank my coffee round the corner out the way.

Vilnius Station (Stotis) has no barriers and platforms can be accessed either by steps either side of the main building, or through the building itself where you can find the aforementioned Baristokrat coffee stall. It sits on a South-West to North-East angle. At the southern end appear to be a couple of bars and at the northern end is a small free to enter exhibit of old Lithuanian/Soviet stock in a Siding, which was interesting to have a look around.

Boarding of the train began around 07:10, with each of the 6 coaches having its own attendant who operates the doors/steps. I was surprised at how busy it was, particularly the front coaches which I believe have a more standard seating arrangement. I'd gone for coach 6, a sleeper coach with multiple compartments. I had to share a compartment for the first half of the journey with a young woman and her dog, but there was plenty of space even for me, along with a table and plenty of plug sockets along the opposite wall. The carriage attendant did offer a menu early in the journey but I declined, and I can't comment on the toilet facilities as I didn't need to use them.

Our loco was a Siemens ER20 Eurorunner or "Hercules", the model before Vectron. Lithuania has 44 of these, primarily used in their freight division.


In the background you can see a Škoda EJ575.
And behind that, a Latvian built DR1AM from the Soviet era.

The journey was pleasant and for the most part smooth. At times we reached 115kmp/h but for the most part we were sat at 90. The views are not spectacular, a mixture of farmland, wetland and forest, but you really get a feel for the rustic nature of the country and I really quite enjoy it. The three Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have a combined population of just over 5million, with a landmass of nearly 3/4 of the whole United Kingdom. There's lots of space here, and you'll often see lovely houses with massive gardens and outbuildings nestled in a forest clearing. My dream house.

There's not alot for spotting on the journey. I manged to get the numbers of 3 more ER20s on freight duties, and we must have passed at least one passenger service somewhere but I couldn't see out the left side of the train from my compartment.

We left Vilnius at 07:25 on the dot and arrived in Klaipėda at 11:55, exactly as planned.

I spent a few hours over on the Curonian Spit national park before heading back to catch the 16:57 back to Vilnius. This train would be slightly quicker with only 2 stops en route, but would still take 4 hours and 10 minutes. For €33 I decided to go first class.

I've never travelled first class before, so my standards are probably not that high, but I thought it was brilliant. A small section at the front of the first carriage, the seats were leather with acres of room and incredibly comfortable. So comfortable I fell asleep hard about half an hour in to the return journey, probably to the dismay of my fellow passangers, waking up about 90 minutes from Vilnius. The ride was smooth, probably smoother than the outward journey but we were still limited to 90kmp/h for much of it.


The PESA 730ML I travelled back on, sat in Klaipėda. Lithuanian railways have 7 of this 3 car DMU, specifically for the Vilnius-Klaipėda route.

The journey was 376.5km which becomes a 753km round trip. The outbound journey costing €18.60 and the return costing roughly €33 first class (€23 approx for 2nd class).

Trains for Haulage:
ER20 013
730ML 005

Apologies if this first entry is rather wordy. With it being a simple there and back trip, and light on the amount of trains either ridden or seen, I thought I'd add a bit about the journey and places to bulk it out a bit.

 

[Techniquest]

I didn't do any trains when I did Lithuania and Latvia (with hindsight, some really bad planning that was!) so it's nice to see what I missed out on a few years back.

I didn't find it too wordy, trust me you should see my trip reports if you want wordy! Very much enjoyed the read, keep them coming