As @mrak@totalcroatia1 Silvana Mendusic & Dora Koretić know… this tends to not end well
A quick thread…
I want to go from Split to Rijeka on 4th October
That’s Croatia’s 2nd city to its 3rd city
There’s a railway line - shown in orange
So it ought to work..? Via Ogulin (roughly)
Here’s a zoom in on the bit around Ogulin
If there is no direct train, changing in Ostarije ought to work, or possibly Ogulin, or both
HŽPP site…
Says “here’s a connection, but with… 20 hours 47 minutes in Ostarije. Just 1 change though!”
Like as if there is no way to get from Ostarije to Ogulin, and Ogulin to Rijeka?
(Aside: please don’t go “ah but can HŽPP site handle just 1 change…” No, it can handle 5 changes. Inc. 6 hours in Kastel Stani and 16 hours in Knin. So whatever the problem is, that isn’t it)
Anyway, so back to the manual planning… If I take the 08:31 from Split I get to Ostarije at 13:25
Then…
Ostarije - Ogulin
Plenty of trains!
And it takes only 4 minutes. 15:14-15:18 will do just fine
Ogulin - Rijeka
5 trains a day, and the last one - a bit early at 16:02 - but it’s OK, it will work
So Split-Riejka is possible with 2 changes
Split D: 08:31
Ostarije A: 13:25
Ostarije D: 15:14
Ogulin A: 15:18
Ogulin D: 16:02
Rijeka A: 18:19
Trip time: 9:48, 2 changes, with plenty of time to change
Why oh why is HŽPP’s site incapable of telling me this?
And because HŽPP doesn’t upload its timetable data into UIC Merits you can’t use a better travel planner like DB to sort this for you… This is what DB gives you - over 24h, via Ljubljana
As ever I *despair* about the state of railways in Croatia!
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*