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Where can you go in Europe by train in 8h?

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Re: Where can you go in Europe by train in 8h?

#341

Post by dspillett »

bpye wrote: post #217
Beijinger wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I’d arrive in a new city each morning feeling refreshed because of the train’s sleeping accommodations." Aeh, where were you travelling? Many countries did not have sleeper trains. Don't get me wrong. I did the same, travelling at night in trains, and it saved me a night in a hotel. But I did not arrive well rested, I arrived train wrecked.

I spent a couple weeks travelling by train across Europe a few years ago on an Interrail pass. I found sleeper cabins were generally pretty comfortable, though you do have to pay extra for them. If you were just sleeping in a seat then yes I can believe you felt awful the next day.

I travel by train regularly in the UK and it isn't unusual to take up to 8 hours to get anywhere :)

The closest I've been to a sleeper in recent decades has been five hours on a cold station because cancellations & delays have meant missing the last onward connection of the day so waiting for the first morning service (there are supposed to be provisions for that by way of providing accommodation or replacement taxi service, which do sometimes work, but at that time of night there isn't always someone available & reachable to enact such policies).

Re: Where can you go in Europe by train in 8h?

#342

Post by ericmay »

GuB-42 wrote: post #280
freetanga wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or no planning at all, as I did 26 years ago. Meet some people in a cafe in Paris, agree to all go to Amsterdam for 2 days, grab your bag and then find a hostel when you arrive. I spent 2 months without knowing where I was going to wake up the following day. No mobiles, only lifeline home being a pay phone call every week. Not the same stores in every city as it is today. Life was beautiful back then and we did not k…

I understand what you are talking about, and you can still do that, but it is going to be expensive. Or at least, expensive for a typical 20-something heading out to explore the world. Times have changed, and now like it or not, we are in the internet and smartphone age. The best travel deals are online, the cheapest accommodations are also found online. The Interrail pass is a bit of a relic, it can still be useful,…

> But I also think we gained something. The language barrier is breaking down. More and more people speak decent English as a secondary language, smartphones come with pretty decent translators

Is that really something that was gained? As we lose more and more languages we start to lose unique cultural features right? It’s like “we gained McDonald’s in every city - my comforting home food is available everywhere”.

> When travelling in a group (even a temporary group), having mobile phones cuts down on the time waiting for people to gather

Kind of the same thing. It’s a focus on efficiency. Speed run through life experiences. Why even go to the Louvre when you can throw on your Meta headset and do it from your couch?

I’m not a travel elitist or anything like that, I just think these “benefits” come with a lot of drawbacks too. As the world gets smaller and more efficient it becomes homogenized and travel starts to become pointless.

Re: Where can you go in Europe by train in 8h?

#343

Post by switch007 »

ricardobayes wrote: post #150

What a shame we don't have yet a high-speed line between Lisbon and Madrid. Two "sibling" countries, intertwined Iberian history and heritage, yet to travel between the capitals it's a 17-hour journey passing through Lisbon, Porto, Vigo (Galicia) and then Madrid.

Siblings who can't stand each other and turn their backs to each other

Re: Where can you go in Europe by train in 8h?

#344

Post by Am4TIfIsER0ppos »

And run the risk of being set on fire. Seriously how long will it be before that happens over here? There's already been an incident of a person throwing a bucket of excrement over someone on the metro here. Not to mention the dude I saw wiping his wart covered feet all over the seat.

Re: Where can you go in Europe by train in 8h?

#345

Post by caseyy »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #175
bialpio wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"sleeper train" is the key here. Another keyword to search for is "couchette", I think that's how it's called in some places. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couchette_car and the map.

I've used the Caledonian Sleeper a couple of times. The first time it worked reasonably well, I got a reasonable amount of sleep. The second time not so much, not really any fault of the train, I just didn't relax enough to get a reasonable amount of sleep. Both times I'd say well rested would be a stretch. The first time felt a bit like a magic carpet in that I got somewhere while using up no useful hours but it sti…

That’s exactly what I mean. I never sleep much better than I would sleeping in a car.

I suppose it’s the novelty of sleeping in a moving vehicle, my flight attendant friend said it took them a while to start sleeping well on long haul flights.

Perhaps with a lot of benzodiazepines or drowsy anti-histamines I could attempt to sleep well in a sleeper train, but not normally. Happy for those who can of course.

Re: Where can you go in Europe by train in 8h?

#346

Post by mattashii »

helpfulContrib wrote: post #54
ctenb wrote: post #29

The geographical information is not 100% accurate. E.g. it labels "Enschede" as being in Germany, but it's in the netherlands. Cool app though.

Enschede is serviced by German rail operators though, so that might be a reason. In fact a lot of trains in this region of the world are operated by neighboring countries ..

> Enschede is serviced by German rail operators though

Yes, there is a train service to Germany, but the majority of the connections from Enschede are to/from the Netherlands.

> In fact a lot of trains in this region of the world are operated by neighboring countries

If a service to Germany causes the whole station to be labeled as German, the website might just as well label Berlin as Czech, or Brussels as Dutch: CZ (Czech national railway) has train services that extend to at least Berlin, and NS (Dutch national railway) has trains to Brussels.

Re: Where can you go in Europe by train in 8h?

#347

Post by Moru »

dspillett wrote: post #341
bpye wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent a couple weeks travelling by train across Europe a few years ago on an Interrail pass. I found sleeper cabins were generally pretty comfortable, though you do have to pay extra for them. If you were just sleeping in a seat then yes I can believe you felt awful the next day.

I travel by train regularly in the UK and it isn't unusual to take up to 8 hours to get anywhere :) The closest I've been to a sleeper in recent decades has been five hours on a cold station because cancellations & delays have meant missing the last onward connection of the day so waiting for the first morning service (there are supposed to be provisions for that by way of providing accommodation or replacement taxi…

8 hours won't even get me out of Sweden from where I live.

Re: Where can you go in Europe by train in 8h?

#348

Post by thecopy »

throw5959 wrote: post #155
sebtron wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was an example of a train going slower on purpose to let people sleep a full night. A regular high-spees train could do that trip in 2-3 hours, beating a 1:15 flight in convenience by a huge margin.

Since we're citing European trains, let's also cite European airports - I can arrive to the airport for an EU flight 20 minutes before take off and still have plenty of time to get everything sorted out. And I'm out of the airport within 15 minutes after landing - usually stepping right into a subway or something. I don't think it's such a huge margin if you fix your airports, which is going to be many orders of magn…

While i agree that EU airports are very efficient, 20 minutes before schedule take-off must be impossible. Surely you mean 20 minutes before boarding starts?

Re: Where can you go in Europe by train in 8h?

#349

Post by pjmlp »

gambiting wrote: post #154
lotsoweiners wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure about that. I’d imagine that trains are going to have the worst of both worlds. They will take a long time (closer to amount of time to drive to destination). They also will have costs approaching that of a flight. To me a train trip makes sense if you enjoy trains and feel that the travel itself is part of the reward.

Have you ever taken any trains in Europe? I cannot think of any route in any country where I've lived in Europe where driving would be even remotely close to taking the train, and in some cases it's faster than flying. Newcastle to London is 2h40m by train, about 5 hours of driving. Flight is 40 minutes but you're nowhere near the city centre, so once you take into account going through security plus necessary transf…

Portugal, unless you happen to be a lucky one travelling on the Lisbon - Porto connection line, good luck travelling faster than taking a car, or eventually a long distance bus.

Spain, outside of the lines connecting Vigo, Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga, axis.

Greece, anything outside Athens - Thessaloniki.

Re: Where can you go in Europe by train in 8h?

#350

Post by frankvdwaal »

mr_toad wrote: post #295
lotsoweiners wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure about that. I’d imagine that trains are going to have the worst of both worlds. They will take a long time (closer to amount of time to drive to destination). They also will have costs approaching that of a flight. To me a train trip makes sense if you enjoy trains and feel that the travel itself is part of the reward.

Don’t forget to factor in all the additional time getting to the airport and dealing with check in and security.

...and because they want you to be on time, you end up waiting for another half hour at the gates to sit in a cramped seat near a narrow aisle.

I went by train to Germany during the autumn of last year and oh man, what a pleasure it was. I got there about 5 minutes before the train, got in, dumped my suitcase and had room to spare.

During the trip I sauntered between carriages, bought some (mediocre) food to scoff down in the restaurant carriage, which I opted to do at my seat rather than right there because I felt like some quiet time rather than the buzz.

Later I traveled by plane to Spain in the spring and as nice as Barcelona was, I couldn't say the same about the plane trip, which was a necessity rather than a pleasure.

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