#CrossBorderRail Train 33
802 Riga - Daugavpils
Ave speed: 63 km/h
Operator: PV
Train type: DR1AM
⛽️
🚲: ✅ (high steps, but plenty of bikes on board and space for them)
🦽: ⛔️
📶: ✅
🍽: ⛔️
Today is the same as yesterday - these trains in Latvia are heavily used, and the tickets are cheap enough to be accessible for all. But the train isn’t good - it’s a world away from the quality of the trains in Estonia
Some of the windows in this Riga-Daugavpils train open. But clearly not enough… the CO2 PPM value here is not good
The first new Škoda trains for Latvia are starting to be shipped to Latvia. These are for commuter routes from Riga first, and they can’t come a minute too soon!
Quick coffee break (and some clean air finally!) in Daugavpils. 🚲 to Turmantas Lithuania 🇱🇹 starts shortly!
The Lithuania rail site has been down for 2 days. And its trains aren’t in the international databases. Is there an earlier train from Turmantas to Vilnius than the one I plan to take? 🤔
Ah now solved. bilietas.ltglink.lt works. Main site doesn’t. Anyway there’s no earlier one. So I’ll cycle via the Daugavpils fort en route to Turmantas…
🥵
Border village Latvian side
The train line. If only there were (passenger) trains…
Turmantas 🇱🇹
The train to Vilnius is already here. LTG Link could *so easily* send it to Daugavpils and back in the time available
😡🤬😡 this makes me so angry. You could solve this one SO EASILY!
I’m crossing all the main borders here! Zemgale 🇱🇻 to Turmantas 🇱🇹
A few sights from the route… Zemgale bus station and train station now turned into a church
Public transport
Where tarmac turns to dust…
The LTG Link DR1AM at Turmantas in all its retro glory 😊
Turmantas - some aerial shots
Detail of the DR1AM. Built by RVR in Riga in 1988. These also have a weird suspension that looks like it’s upside down
More detail of the LTG Link DR1AM. It was renovated (I presume with a new engine) by MTU Friedrichshafen
The steps are super high. But there are bike racks. They’re Thule car roof racks, hung vertically! Odd, but I suppose it works. Theoretically there’s a wheel chair space, but how do you get someone up?
#CrossBorderRail Train 34
802 16:05 Turmantas - Vilnius 18:22
Ave speed: 78 km/h
Operator: LTG Link
Train type: DR1AM
⛽️
🚲: ✅
🦽: ⛔️
📶: ⛔️
🍽: ⛔️
Ignalina 🇱🇹
No nuclear ☢️ power plant in sight (it‘s actually 40km from the town of the same name)
Švenčionėliai
Location at In Vino - outside, red tables
Vilnius #CrossBorderRail meet-up - super discussions over a glass of wine. The next meeting is Friday morning in Warszawa…
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This morning I’m one of the first new regional trains Maubeuge 🇫🇷 - Charleroi Central 🇧🇪 #CrossBorderRail
It was a bit of a #fail at the station. I needed a ticket to Erquelinnes, the first station in Belgium. But prior to today trains from Maubeuge didn’t stop there!
Ticket machine ⛔️
Ask at the ticket office. “Le train ne s’arrête pas à Erquelinnes!” I politely told the SNCF employee that yes, it did stop at Erquelinnes. I explained the situation to the SNCB train manager and he laughed, confirmed it did stop there, and I bought the ticket online!
Delays in my favour. Maybe? S-Bahn to FFM Flughafen. Get a late running ICE to Köln Messe/Deutz there. Then try to blag my way onto a Thalys Köln Hbf to Bruxelles? It’s a long shot but it might work…
ICE 612 Frankfurt Flughafen to Köln Messe/Deutz.
This is why accurate live running data in apps matters. Were this not running 10 min late I’d not have caught it… but live data allowed me to plan a connection that’d otherwise not work
Already on the 2nd train of the day: TGV Montbard - Paris. All being well I’ll be in Denmark tonight… but that feels a long way off just now! #EGPCongress#crossborderrail
Across Paris RER Gare de Lyon to Gare du Nord, walk to Gare de l’Est (faster than changing into a Métro to Est) and it’s onto the TGV to Mannheim. So far so good, but I banked on this bit working 🙂 #EGPCongress#CrossBorderRail
Franco-German train service. Very French prices! And no, it’s too early (and expensive) for #beerontrains 😉
Jeez. It could take until 2025 until TGVs are approved for the line.
And the whole effing point of Stuttgart21 - of which this line is a part - was to create a Paris-München high speed corridor!
Really, how can everyone mess up *so badly*?
And to those going “yeah but there are few TGVs anyway” true, but so it goes on and on. International services are the lowest priority - even when *they were the stated rationale for building the line*