Day 2 - 23/09
AVE 9737
The train AVE 9737 left Barcelona-Sants on time towards Lyon Part-Dieu, in France. Composed of a Renfe Class 100 EMU, it is very similar to the SNCF TGV Atlantique, providing comfort levels like the Renfe Class 103, but without adjustable headrests, waste containers, rotatable benches, or adjustable feet rests.
It has an on-seat bar service, with hot meals up to 15.50 €, but these have to be reserved on the internet when purchasing the ticket.
The trip in this train is extremely quiet, not suffering vibrations or hunting oscillations between Barcelona and the exit to the conventional network in Perpignan.
In Perpignan, there was a prolonged stop due to a border check by the French border police.
All passengers were targeted, including passengers who already boarded in France, with the train departing about 10 minutes late.
During the checks, passengers were offered, by the staff, one or more labels to identify their luggage, something mandatory in France. Maybe by regulation?
Trying out the Bar on the AVE 9737
On board, I tried a meal at the bar. There was a warm menu offer at 13 €, with a cooked main dish, a sweet or salty accompaniment, and a drink.
I chose the Croque Monsieur option with crisps and still water. The Croque Monsieur was served cooked on the spot in a resistance oven, and the quality of the dish was very good.
It was served with disposable kitchen utensils, with waste sorting in the bar.
The bar is operated by assistants, who also perform the on-seat bar service and support the conductor and sub-conductor of the train (who aggregate ticket selling, ticket inspection, and train safety functions).
The assistants, although they use the same Renfe uniform, are subcontracts. In the AVE 9737, there are 5 assistants in total.
Luggage racks in Renfe trains
There is one thing to note regarding luggage in all Renfe trains up until this point: the larger carry cases are stowed physically in the vestibule space, not in the passenger room.
There is poor contact from the passenger to the luggage from within the room.
In some trains, this is made even more difficult by the position of the external doors in the train’s chassis, but in other trains the luggage racks are right up against the door that separates the passenger room from the vestibule, meaning that the rack could be swapped with the door for the luggage to be inside the passenger room.
A security issue that leads passengers to feel anxious about their luggage throughout the whole journey.
The first great blunder
In Agde, the AVE 9737 was temporarily halted by the malfunction of the Sète railway bascule bridge. This resulted in a 30-minute delay.
The train departed from Montpellier 25 minutes late, Nimes with 19 minutes, and Valence-TGV with 18 minutes, but eventually arrived at Lyon Part-Dieu 30 minutes late, motivated by rail improvement works on the approach to the station.
Lyon Part-Dieu
The loss of connection with the European Sleeper 453
I had already reserved the European Sleeper 453 train from Brussels to Berlin before the beginning of this trip. For this, it was necessary to reach Bruxelles-Midi before its departure, scheduled for 18:20.
Confirming the delay of the TGV 9866 train I needed to make the connection between Lyon and Brussels, I quickly left the AVE towards Lyon Part-Dieu’s ticket office.
Unfortunately, the station was under renovation works and the ticket office, as indicated in online SNCF maps and Google Maps, was closed. Asking the SNCF staff at the station about where tickets could be manually booked, I was told that the SNCF and other high-speed train operators’ ticket offices were in a newly built gallery. This represented an additional 10-minute delay.
The new ticket offices also operated as customer support, with four manned cabinets, controlled with queue number tickets.
The TGV 9866, bound for Brussels, was already overbooked. And the TGV 6622, bound for Paris Gare de Lyon, was completely booked.
Also, the time available between the arrival of this last train and the departure of the connecting Thalys 9369 train leaving Paris Gare du Nord towards Brussels was too tight to enable the connection between Paris-Gare de Lyon and Paris-Gare du Nord stations. FIP ticket reservations for the Thalys could only be done at Paris-Gare du Nord, plus passage through safety control and going through the labyrinthic access to the platform meant I would not be able to make it to the departure of the Thalys in time.
There was no other method of intercepting the European Sleeper 453 since its stop in Amsterdam had been suspended by rail improvement works. As a result of the circumstances, the reservation for this train had to be, unfortunately, canceled. This represented a loss of 133,00€ out of pocket.
Alternatively, I chose to divert through Mulhouse, where I could continue the trip via Basel, Switzerland, hoping to get a viable link to Berlin by the Basel SBB station’s ticket office, or a cheap place to stay overnight.
A little talk with Trenitalia France
With time in abundance before the arrival of the train TGV 5500, I took the fact that the Trenitalia ticket office was devoid of customers to talk with the ticket operators and learn about the environment that existed in the station from having three residing national railway operators.
The ticket office operator who talked to me was very receptive, speaking well in English.
She confirmed that the Renfe ticket office was still closed to the public.
In addition, we talked about Trenitalia's situation (or Ferrovie Dello Stato Italiane) in France. I was told that the Frecciarossa train to Paris, which was an alternative I previously flagged, was a train that I could not get FIP reservations. This is because the train was operated by Trenitalia France, an independent subsidiary of the Italian railway company, equal to Iryo in Spain except that Trenitalia France is completely owned by Ferrovie Dello Stato Italiane and not a public-private partnership.
The operator I was talking with was also an employee of Trenitalia France, under a French contract, which denied her any benefit that her Italian colleagues are entitled to (as well as the French SNCF employees, the Spaniards from Renfe, and myself from CP – Comboios de Portugal).
Despite this dichotomy, she could sell and reserve tickets in Italian services, including FIP reservations, even if the ticket office is physically in France as if it were an Italian station’s ticket office.
TGV 5500
I boarded the train TGV 5500 bound for Metz Gare, departing from Lyon Part-Dieu on time, composed of a double-decker TGV Duplex EMU.
The trip to Mulhouse would last about 3 hours, with the scheduled time of arrival at 19:09.
In terms of 2nd class comfort levels on this train, there is one electrical socket for every two passengers in the front-to-front seats, including two outlets in the vestibule for people making calls (this car was also a silent car, and calling on the phone wasn’t allowed on the passenger room).
The armrests have a reclining button equal to that of the CP Class 4000 (by the way, the structure of these seats appears to be the same) but the seat does not recline.
There is a luggage rack inside the room and another in the vestibule. Wi-Fi is available but is equally dependent on mobile networks. There is a single 4:3 screen in each passenger room with itinerary information.
In terms of vibrations and bumps, this train had the best experience so far, being extremely stable on the upper deck, even at high speeds, attesting not only to the quality of the train but also to the track maintenance in the high-speed network and on the conventional network.
There is no on-seat bar service on this type of train.
Mulhouse Gare
At Mulhouse station, the ticket office was already closed at the time of arrival of the TGV 5500 and there was no staff at the station linked to the commercial area of SNCF.
Unsure if it was ok to travel on a TER without a valid ticker, a ticket to Basel was acquired at one of the automatic selling machines, just in time to catch the TER departing at 19:19.
The train in question was the TER 96141 which, despite departure boards informing that this train was delayed, was already on the respective platform, having left the station on schedule.
TER 96141
The train TER 96141 is an SNCF Class Z 27500 Hybrid EMU, operating on behalf of the Alsace-Lorraine region.
It has plenty of onboard equipment, including bicycle racks, a PMR bathroom, 1st class seats, low-floor areas with external doors, and a passenger information system.
It is particularly dirty, with black powder accumulated on the ceiling, sand in the bathroom and adjacent area, and seats and their covers that were dirty and/or worn out.
Front-to-front seats have tables in both classes, and all seats had their waste containers removed.
There is no discernible difference between the 1st and 2nd class seats. The assumption is that the 1st class seats exist so that their passengers can travel with a reserved spot in the train, not having to subject themselves to standing on an overcrowded train. They are in the area before the driving cab on both ends.
Basel SBB
The Federal Station of Basel, called Basel SBB, is classic-styled, but filled with commerce, including a supermarket with a dining area.
The ticket office, without any problems or issues, reserved the ticket for the train NightJet 409/Intercity 60409.
The ticket provided was an ÖBB ticket, together with a travel plan with useful and summarized information from SBB, and the FIP for Deutsche Bahn was used as proof of validity.
This showed, in a way, how “relaxed” Switzerland’s incumbent operator is with dealing with inter-operator sales, as well as with forming and operating a train composed of Austrian, Swiss, German, and Czech vehicles.
At the ticket office, I was also informed that the platform of departure written in the ticket should simply be ignored and that the true boarding platform will be presented by the passenger information system of the station before the arrival of the train.
As for this information system, it is quite rich and dynamic, capable of identifying the locomotive, the numbers of each of the coaches, the sectors of the platform in which the train will stand, where in the train the screen being watched by the passenger will stand, what on board services are in each coach, and the respective seat occupation in real-time.
All this is done for a multi-operator train, whose reservations are managed by different companies, at different times, at different geographical positions, and using different ticket reservation solutions.
NightJet 409/InterCity 60409
The Nightjet 409/Intercity 60409 consisted of an SBB 1st class coach, a 2nd class coach of the same company, two 2nd class ÖBB compartment coaches (despite the 6 seater configuration being traditionally 1st class from the Portuguese point of view), one in daytime livery and one in NightJet livery, two couchette coaches and one bedroom coach, all in Nightjet livery.
The SBB coaches were access-free and had compulsory seat reservations, but the ÖBB compartment coaches already required reservations to be accessed.
The compartment coach in question is a ÖBB type BMZ coach.
Upon the arrival of the train to the platform, the passenger should approach the staff of the coach to which they have a reservation, to check in. This is necessary because, in the absence of passengers, the empty compartments are locked throughout the journey.
The first compartment was reserved for staff. The second was reserved for a company, with measurement and diagnostic equipment inside, and the rest were available to passengers.
The coach contains two bathrooms, one in each end, with a vacuum toilet and wastewater container, and a wash basin with soap and a hand dryer.
For some reason, the entire coach floor was evenly sticky, even inside the compartments. It made me think that the cleaning product used is to blame for the stickiness, as there was no sight of rubbish or dirt spots on the floor.
The compartment has a very peculiar feature: if there are 3 or fewer passengers, the seats can be folded in such a way that two seats, front-to-front, touch each other and form a bed.
This was a feature I took advantage of to sleep during the trip.
Above the seats, there are two luggage racks, the lower one for small luggage, and the one on top for large luggage.
The window has a partially opaque roller blind that does not completely cover the window. The compartment door, however, has an opaque curtain.
In front of the window, there is a small piece of equipment with two folding tables and two CEE-type 7/3 outlets.
The seats on the corridor side also have their folding tables, but the seats at the center of the compartment have no tables.
Sound and temperature dials above the compartment door did not seem to have any influence on the passenger information system or the compartment AVAC system. It was possible to turn on and off the compartment light, turning on a pilot light next to the respective switch when the main light is turned off. And each seat had its reading light.
The train staff gave its usual announcement, warning that the announcements would be suspended up until Berlin so as not to disturb the passengers, being the responsibility of each passenger to wake up early enough to anticipate the arrival at their respective destination.
The trip was relatively quiet, if not the best pair of wheel and rail quality of the entire trip. The only negative aspect was the roller blinds that, by not covering completely the window, didn’t prevent the strong platform lights in stops and passings through stations from flashing my face.
In the middle of the trip, another passenger occupied the compartment, using the seats on the opposite side to sleep.
The train arrived at Berlin Hbf 10 minutes ahead of time. Something unusual in the current railway reality of Germany.
