Jon WorthHere we go again!
#CrossBorderRail Extra Day 04
Heading to Basel SBB first, then onwards to Paris via Nuits-sous-Ravières and then onto a night train to Latour du Carol
Here’s today’s intro video
https://urbanists.video/w/sTWxEETdNaCbdR2jTRsHcM
PeerTube
First trip with the new (secondhand) Birdy Green - that also has different panniers
There was a little glitch with the front brake this morning (I’d accidentally dislodged a brake pad) so I had to pedal manically to Südkreuz
The massive rucksack is getting dropped off in Nuits-sous-Ravières today 😊
SNCF!
Let's build high speed lines all over!
Also SNCF!
Let's put ridiculously long dwell times at our stations!
TGV INOUI 2239 I am taking later
Do I understand it that you cannot buy tickets online for Rodalies Catalunya? There are no sales in the app, and no sales on the Generalitat de Catalunya or the Renfe sites
And I wonder what there is in Latour de Carol-Entveitg (or La Tor de Querol-Enveig as Rodalies calls it) - because as it’s in France will there be a machine there?
Anyway as the timetable is so damned bad I have 2 hours there tomorrow morning to figure it out :-)
#CrossBorderRail Extra Days Train 25
ICE 71
05:33 Berlin Südkreuz - Basel SBB 13:10
Deutsche Bahn
Distance: 874 km
Average speed: 115 km/h
Train type: ICE4 long version, 13 carriages
⚡️
🚲: ✅ (needs reservation)
🦽: ✅ (needs lift on platform or on board electric lift - not step free)
🛜: ✅
🍽️: ✅
🧳: 🙂 (ICE4 is well designed)
🧽: 😡 (wasn’t cleaned overnight inside, bit grimy outside too)
👍 DB
Got me to Basel on time. Train quiet and calm on board. Working wifi throughout the whole trip.
Next: onwards to France
#CrossBorderRail Extra Days Train 26
TER96226
13:21 Basel SBB - Mulhouse Ville 13:46
SNCF for TER Grand Est
Distance: 34 km
Average speed: 88 km/h
Train type: BB26000 locomotive, 8 Corail carriages, driving control car
⚡️
🚲: ✅ (steep steps and you hang the bikes up)
🦽: ✅ (lift on platform)
🛜: ⛔️
🍽️: ⛔️
🧳: 😡 (not a suitable design for a regional train - too narrow, too high steps)
🧽: 🤔 (ok inside, grimy outside - it’s a French regional train 🤷♂️)
I’ve also just cancelled a TGV reservation for later in my Interrail trip
Took 30 seconds… at a SNCF ticket machine. You get a receipt, and an email
The whole Interrail reservation process for TGVs is digital - QR codes. BUT they never built a web front end for it 🤦♂️ So you have to be in France at a long distance station to make it work
If you’re not you have to arse around with Trainplanet or SNCB’s suboptimal alternatives…
To recap
- If you’re on Interrail, reservations are compulsory on TGVs
- They’re €10 or €20 each, depending on how much of the contingent is used up
- You can get them online from SNCB International (yeah, B is for 🇧🇪 there!) or Trainplanet or via Interrail directly - but you pay a booking fee in addition of €2-€4
- You can get the reservations at SNCF ticket machines (and cancel them) and it works *impeccably* and digitally, but you have to be in France to do that 🤦♂️
- If you’re on Interrail, reservations are compulsory on TGVs
- They’re €10 or €20 each, depending on how much of the contingent is used up
- You can get them online from SNCB International (yeah, B is for 🇧🇪 there!) or Trainplanet or via Interrail directly - but you pay a booking fee in addition of €2-€4
- You can get the reservations at SNCF ticket machines (and cancel them) and it works *impeccably* and digitally, but you have to be in France to do that 🤦♂️
#CrossBorderRail Extra Days Train 27
TGV 5537
14:40 Mulhouse - Dijon Ville 16:04
SNCF Voyageurs
Distance: 204 km
Average speed: 146 km/h
Train type: TGV Réseau Single Deck, 2 x 8 carriages
⚡️
🚲: ✅ (3 per train, so just 6 total)
🦽: ✅ (lift on platform)
🛜: ✅
🍽️: ✅
🧳: 🙂 (single deck so it’s ok)
🧽: 🙂
#CrossBorderRail Extra Days Train 28
TER891356
16:33 Dijon Ville - Nuits-sous-Ravières 17:21
SNCF for TER Bourgogne-Franche-Comté
Distance: 89 km
Average speed: 112 km/h
Train type: AGC bimode 4 carriages, running only electric here
⚡️
🚲: ✅
🦽: ✅ (step free)
🛜: ⛔️
🍽️: ⛔️
🧳: 🙂 (good layout, good racks)
🧽: 🙂 (one of the cleanest TERs I’ve ever been on - outside. Ok inside)
Also @tops asked me why these AGC trains are so bumpy
It’s because for some reason they removed the suspension dampeners from all of them
This shows where that would be mounted
My pics from the AGC I’m on right now
And I’m stopping in Nuits-sous-Ravières for just an hour (to drop off things) - so no time to go to the house or pet Josette. Who’s probably enjoying a day in the sun on top of the cat bunker…
Onwards! Towards Barcelona via Paris and Latour de Carol
#CrossBorderRail Extra Days Train 29
TER17762
18:21 Nuits-sous-Ravières - Paris Bercy 20:25
SNCF for TER Bourgogne-Franche-Comté
Distance: 225 km
Average speed: 109 km/h
Train type: Alstom (now CAF) Régiolis, 2 x 6 carriages
⚡️
🚲: ✅ (well designed space)
🦽: ✅ (step free if platform allows)
🛜: ⛔️ (train built in 2021, but 🤷♂️)
🍽️: ⛔️
🧳: 🙂 (sensible design, good multi use space)
🧽: 🤔 (grimy outside, ok inside)
#CrossBorderRail Extra Days Train 30
IC 3971
21:13 Paris Austerlitz - Latour de Carol-Entveitg 08:46
SNCF Voyageurs
Distance: 998 km
Average speed: 87 km/h
Train type: BB22200 locomotive and Corail couchette carriages (3 to Latour, 6 to Lourdes)
⚡️
🚲: ✅ (not sure where - but officially it’s allowed)
🦽: ❓ (not obvious how it’s possible - will try to check later)
🛜: ⛔️
🍽️: ✅ (you can get a snack)
🧳: 🙂 (if everyone is collaborative it’s ok)
🧽: 🙂 (spotless)
This is funny
Four friends of mine are also all tonight on different night trains
So we’re musing who gets the biggest delay, and tracking it via GPS 🤓
I’m currently on time departing Les Aubrais, heading for Latour de Carol
There are 3 carriages to Latour de Carol. I’m in the 2nd class couchette - 6 beds per compartment, 4 filled tonight
This is one of the un renovated carriages. No wifi. Power only if you stand by the mirror, and 💩 goes on the tracks loo
The bed - by couchette standards - is comfortable and I can lie straight (just) - I’m 1m83 tall
There’s 1 seater (2+1 arrangement, open plan) - would be nice daytime, but the seats don’t recline much. And 1 renovated 1st class couchette with 4 beds per compartment. The other carriages have wifi too.
And to Latour there’s space for 2 bikes. And no disabled access as far as I can tell.
I can’t film a summary video here
So to close the day here’s some soothing back window view at sunset, approaching Les Aubrais
#CrossBorderRail Extra Day 04 Back Window
BoxOfRain@jon pretty
Edmund Lauterbach@jon I can counter with Munich kitsch. https://muenchen.social/@elba013/110465039805840530
Edmund Lauterbach (@[email protected])
Angehängt: 1 Bild Gut besucht war der erste PRO BAHN Stammtisch im Garten des Braunauer Hofs am ...
Quixoticgeek
Kristian Skjellum Aas@jon Have a nice trip! Greetings from Karl-Liebknecht-Straße in Leipzig!
@kristianaas I’m looking forward to this. First SNCF night train for me since - I think - 2000 (to go see a solar eclipse, bizarrely). And I’ve been meaning to go to Latour de Carol for years…
And enjoy Leipzig. Complex and sort of mixed up city, but with so many interesting things to discover!
@jon Looking very good so far! Alas, it's just a short stop, tomorrow I have to be at the pre-party for the Commodore 64-gathering in the Netherlands. So off to Amsterdam tomorrow morning!
Caledonia 🏴@jon That’s some window cleaning nightmare.
Sebastian Tobie@Caledonia @jon not so much. Think about the person that has to clean up the dead birds in front of it.
@Sebastian @jon It was tongue in cheek. Not meant as a list of all the drawbacks to a glass building.
Moof! 🔜 #JetLagTheGame NL@jon you can buy tickets on the Rodalies app. The app will tell you that you need to print them out at a station, but I can say that the QR code for the season tickets works fine, though there are only a handful of gates that are enabled to read QR codes.
@moof does a regular ticket have a QR code on it? Or do you get a code to use at a ticket machine?
@jon a regular ticket is card with a magnetic stripe. They are compatible with the Barcelona metro system gate lines, as the card T-Casual/Usual etc have to work too.
The 7-character code you get from the app is typed into the Rodalies machines, and I think it has a QR reader, too, but can’t be sure, I’m not a regular Rodalies user. This is basically a mechanism that is used for the “local travel included” fares on AVE/AVANT etc. where the QR code is printed on those tickets too.
There are a number of QR readers in gate lines, but not all the gates are QR enabled.
@moof just checked. No tickets in the Rodalies app here (iOS, German app store). Is there some extra ticketing app?
@jon my bad, it’s the Renfe Cercanias app. Mentally, I conflate the two.
@moof @Rierol So the answer is: Rodalies app only sells tickets for the lines in the zones 1-6. It can’t sell either Latour de Carol or Puigcerdà
@jon @Rierol oh, that’s annoying. On the one hand, I’m wondering why now, on the other it seems a classic case of Renfe being a Spanish bureaucracy (cf trying to get interrail reservations).
I would offer to prepurchase one for you, but frankly, I’m not sure it makes much sense for me to do so.
I also recently watched a YouTube video where Simply Railway had to do a taxi section from La Tour de Querol to Puigcerdà, despite the train physically running that route, due to some strange combination of union rules and SNCF/RENFE snafu, so that might be a reason. https://youtu.be/CMrwEELH0V0
@moof @Rierol FWIW Puigcerda - BCN *also* can't be bought in the app.
I will manage as I have time in Latour, and might even cycle to Puigcerdà anyway (only 4km). I am simply interested in how easy (or not) these things are!
And yes I’m aware of that problem Simply Railway had (he's a friend of mine - he was staying at my place last week!)
Christof Damian 💙💛@jon
I have to confess I always buy at the station.
I only went to Latour once, as most trains stop in Puigcerda and it is quick to ride with the bicycle between those stations.
I have to confess I always buy at the station.
I only went to Latour once, as most trains stop in Puigcerda and it is quick to ride with the bicycle between those stations.
@cdamian What was I looking at this morning? 🙂 https://www.komoot.de/tour/1144534987
@jon there is a much more direct and quieter route: https://goo.gl/maps/f6DJ2vUxWPdifuqe7
I am not certain why Komoot isn't showing that one.
I am not certain why Komoot isn't showing that one.
@cdamian I wanted to go via the Llivia enclave :-) So it was my fault!
@cdamian btw this is what I am doing Thursday evening: https://www.komoot.de/tour/1144431185 It's a bit peculiar as I want to go investigate some broken night trains, but do come along if you wish :-)
tops@jon you will be cycling along Avinguda Paral.lel, so named as it is parallel with the ecuator. (It looks like you will be crossing but not riding on Avinguda Meridiana.) Back in the 90s I once ventured to a spot in the middle of the Aragonese desert to find where it intersects with the Greenwich meridian. I must have a photo somewhere but no idea where.
@tops ha that’s funny. I wasn’t award that’s why it’s called that! Thank you!
Emma Byrne PhD@jon when we were there in December there was a ticket window for sure... Can't remember if there was a machine for out of hours though, sorry
@emmaByrneAuthor And the office French side - in Latour - sells tickets for Spanish Rodalies? If it does that's remarkable - as basic collaboration like this generally fails at most French borders! (I am there mid morning, so if this is a solution, it will be open - so thank you. And I know I will find a way - I am just intrigued as to what it will be!)
@jon ah mow that I can't tell you as we were coming the other way. Cross border travel in Europe does seem to involve a lot of hoping it will all work out somehow doesn't it?
(ETA that said it was a lovely journey!)
@emmaByrneAuthor Right. It’s much messier than it should be in so many places! And the timetables at Latour are absurd - the train to BCN departs 20 mins *before* the night train from Paris arrives. And the next one is 1 hour 40 mins later… which means I’ve plenty of time to get the onward ticket!
Eudaimon ꙮ@jon Hi, that's right, you can't buy online tickets for Rodalies RENFE, only at machines or attendants at the stations.
As for the RENFE line that ends/starts at La Tor de Querol, not only timetables are bad, trains usually experience delays, as far as I know.
As for the Catalan and French names, the south of France used to be Catalan for some time (centuries, if I remember well) during the Middle Ages. That's what we call "Catalunya nord", so many places have a Catalan name, even though it may have been "frenchisized" or however that maybe called. Catalan is still spoken in many parts, although its use is receding more and more (the French government has always been very centralist and has tried to suppress this kind of cultural differences, and maybe transform them into just a folkloric curiosity).
Enjoy! 🙏
As for the RENFE line that ends/starts at La Tor de Querol, not only timetables are bad, trains usually experience delays, as far as I know.
As for the Catalan and French names, the south of France used to be Catalan for some time (centuries, if I remember well) during the Middle Ages. That's what we call "Catalunya nord", so many places have a Catalan name, even though it may have been "frenchisized" or however that maybe called. Catalan is still spoken in many parts, although its use is receding more and more (the French government has always been very centralist and has tried to suppress this kind of cultural differences, and maybe transform them into just a folkloric curiosity).
Enjoy! 🙏
@eudaimon Sure, I know why there are two versions of the name. But a decent website / search would find *both versions* (hell, even the Belgians manage this!) but at Latour each side simply uses its own version.
See further replies re. tickets - tickets to stations within the Barcelona zones 1-6 are available online, but beyond that - as Latour is - are not.
And delays (and indeed the train not going beyond Puigcerdà) I am aware of. I will cycle to Puigcerdà if I have to 🙂
Martha@jon
Give yourself a proper breakfast with croissants and coffee
Give yourself a proper breakfast with croissants and coffee
Baragesi@jon Good grief that's ridiculous! Are they perhaps also introducing Indian style platform caterers to sell to passengers? A good merguez or falafel wrap might just work... 😆
Hattie