Martin HoffmannHere’s a map! As there was a lot of waiting again today, a larger scale will work.
Good morning! Did you know there is a ferry from Pozzallo to Malta and it only takes an hour forty-five to cross? No that’s not the plan but it certainly is duly noted.
Pozzallo doesn’t have a ticket machine. Good thing ticket purchase through the Trenitalia app works quite well (only since August, if I understand the constant announcements correctly).
The next station announcement for Scicli is also in German but not in English. Did Baedeker like the place or something?
Quick change of plans. I wanted to take this train to Ragusa, but since Siracusa Depot hasn’t gotten the memo about Trenitalia’s new policy of keeping trains graffiti-free, I jumped off at Modica. From the map it looks like the section between Modica and Ragusa is the most scenic (with a helix and such), so should be worth re-rolling the dice.
But looks like this was my last ride on the Punk. Possibly for ever.
Palermo Centrale, where they have electrified the waiting area.
Stazione di fine giorno.
“It’s not cities that are loud, it’s cars that are loud.”
“What?”
“IT’S NOT C… ach, never mind.”
And today’s map. We started at nearly sea level, climbed up past Ragusa – a breathtaking section with gorgeous gorges*, then went down again to sea level at Gela, along the coast to Licata, then way up again to Caltanisetta, and from there down via Xirbi to sea level. Spectacular tour, this! The difference between the very dry south coast and the fertile north is markable.
* Oh, yes, he did!
G’day! Today I am trying something completely new: I will be using only one train for the entire day. It’s still a nine hour ride, mind.
But first, have a picture of a man on a horse.
Don’t underestimate the size of Sicily. The express train takes three hours from Palermo to Messina.
The plod is checking everyone’s documents. Like, properly, with scanning and typing names into phones and waiting around while we’re in a tunnel without coverage.
We’re going on a boat trip!
For the day Intercitys, they now just keep the locomotives on with the trains which speeds up operations quite a bit. Once your train has been pushed onto the boat, you can leave and wander around. Or not. Up to you, really.
Each four carriage plus locomotive half of the train (one from Palermo, one from Siracusa) fits exactly into one track.
How long does an iPhone last on a video call? Asking for the Australian lady across the aisle who’s been going on for an hour at least and won’t shut up.
Complaining to her friend on the speakerphone that people here are rude.
We’ve arrived in Villa San Giovanni exactly one minute early. Now just five more hours mostly north.
(The chatty Australians are going to Salerno. Guess it’s going to be a headphone afternoon.)
Twenty minutes past departure time in Villa and our driver just got bored and left the locomotive.
In many European countries you will find a white line going up and down in tunnels. They aren’t decoration but rather lead to a rescue alcove in the tunnel wall where you could hide from a train. The line is at the floor at an alcove and at its highest half way to the next one. Thus, wherever you are, you just need to follow the white line downwards to get to the nearest point of safety.
I miss my one hour breaks to take a walk through some small town. This is no way to travel!
The railway up the southern Tyrrhenian coast quite spectacular. Glad the night trains were all sold out.
(The sun is too low for train window photos, so you’ve got to go see it for yourself.)
Battipaglia, where the loop through the south closes. The end is getting nearer …
Almost on time in Napoli Centrale. We were a couple minutes early but got held up entering the station.
No map today since it is all very straightforward: Along the north coast of Sicily from Palermo to Messina and then along the west coast of the mainland from Villa San Giovanni to Napoli.
Good morning! The breakfast room was busy, so I went for a morning stroll through the old town of Naples instead. Much as expected, it is delightful, crumbling chaos.
Let’s do a bit of a train test this morning as these things are likely to appear in more places in Europe.
First issue: my seat is double booked. No, really. I checked. One reservation from a Trenitalia counter, one from ÖBB, both for the same day, train, carriage, seat. Let’s see what the conductor’s pad has to say.
Aha. So my question “Is that actually a 5?” was correct. The other reservation wasn’t for 5A but for 6A.
The ride quality of the train is as you would expect from a train designed jointly by Bombardier and Ansaldo-Breda. The suspension is very rough, lot of jittering and bumping and there’s a rather loud drone from the rolling of the wheels.
I guess the rule still stands: if you want smooth trains, go for Siemens or original Alstom.
The high-speed line between Rome and Florence has a top speed of 250 kph and still is electrified with 3000 V DC. Took them quite some to make that work as there are all sorts of unexpected physics things going on. By the looks of it, the wires are about twice as thick as normal, too. Should probably go and look up what the current limits are.
Look, if you fly over all the way from America, get on a train from Rome north and immediately get your iPads out, close the window blinds and watch some TV series, I’ll judge you. Sorry, can’t help it.
Past Firenze and right into the tunnels completing the full set of three of lines between Firenze and Bologna. (It really is a lot of tunnels, this.)
Ten minutes early in Bologna. This new underground high-speed station is a rather soulcrushing place. But at least it is right under the real station.
Regionale Veloce (what once was an Espresso) from Bologna all the way to Brennero at the Austrian border. I’d rather have a half hour, one hour transfer in Verona, but it is what it is.
Darn. Too slow to take a picture of the Bologna Gadgetbahn, a single carriage monorail complete with advertised-over windows connecting central station and the airport.
“We inform passengers that a check by railway police is now in progress.”
Trenitalia surely is pulling out all the stops on this last train. We left Bologna 10 minutes late, had a long slow order, had to step aside for an Italo train, arrived in Verona 33 minutes late, and are now standing here.
Aaand we are off 36 minutes late. Transfer time in Brennero is 37 minutes.
Half an hour later is the Eurocity which I assume I can use without surcharge from Brennero?
New development. They will turn the train early in Vipiteno (two stops before Brennero) but are holding the regional that was supposed to run behind us and is now ahead. Or that’s their plan at least. Let’s hope it works.
This would all be kind of fun, but it is getting dark and therefore boring.
Oh goody. They didn’t hold the train, they just made it sound like it in the announcement. 45 minutes wait now.
I mean, I kind of asked for an hour to walk around. But it is dark and raining. (Rain. I forgot about rain.)
Be careful what you ask for.
This gives me time to talk about the bell.
In many Italian stations, a bell starts ringing a while before a train is due to arrive. It’ll keep ringing for ages and then suddenly stops and seconds later (or longer, depending on the station) the train will come around the corner. Which is quite practical if you want to photograph the train but that’s probably not the purpose.
My theory is that the bell is ringing while an entry signal is green and thus stops when the train passes the signal.
Oh, good. The next train is ten minutes late and I bet ÖBB won’t wait in Brennero.
Brennero/Brenner … and that’s kind of it. But I’ll be back, Italy, if you promise to return trains to some of those lines with bus replacement. (And probably even if not.)
And never mind the connection, the Austrians are as late as the Italians.
Good morning from a world where there are self-service coffee machines in hotel breakfast rooms.
Today’s adventure: get back home. Let’s see if I make it or give up somewhere, spend another night, and roll directly into the office tomorrow morning.
Sighs and closes the ViaggaTreno tabs. The what, you ask? http://viaggiatreno.it/ has all of Trenitalia’s real-time information. It shows current and upcoming disruptions, station departure and arrival boards, and delay information for trains. The latter is automatically updated whenever a train passes a scheduled point (including junctions and such) and is thus quite accurate.
Disclaimer: Only works for Trenitalia, Trenord, and Trenitalia TPER trains on state railway infrastructure.
Seth 🎙️
@partim cool shot!
quinta - Stefano Quintarelli@partim you shoud have stopped in Verona. The fourth/fifth (depending on the years) Italian touristic city
@quinta Yes, I probably should. Never happened, I always had somewhere else to go. Today I need to continue homewards.
Giorgio Comai@partim Before it was a "regionale veloce", it was an "interregionale", and behaved much the same (Espresso was only for longer journeys). By the way, you will still have about 20 minutes if not more in Verona. No change of train, but it will invert its direction (so, if you were looking front between Bologna and Verona, you'd be looking backward going ahead from Verona).
@giocomai Schedule is for fifteen minutes, but we are running half an hour late, so I’m hoping they can cut the stop time by a few minutes.
@partim Back in the days, it stopped for a full 30 minutes, so when they cut it a bit shorter it already felt as a big improvement! Enjoy your journey, it's been a real pleasure following you these days!
@giocomai Would come in handy today ;) Although I have 35 minutes in Brennero and there is another train half an hour later. So not worried yet.
Thanks! I really enjoyed this journey! I still have Sardinia to do, so definitely will be back.
franco_vazza@partim that's an internal kiss & ride tunnel that allows you to drop people at the level of Frecciarossa tracks almost. Very convenient also for people like me, who use it to short cut across the trafficked area of the station, to play tennis just when the street emerges again on the surface (crossing is free).
Patrick Hadfield@partim I've only been to Bologna once, in 1979. We were travelling cheap and, arriving late at night, slept in the station as many other did. The early-morning cleaner swept around people in their sleeping bags, which has given me a huge respect for the city.
A year later the station was blown up by terrorists.
I really must visit again to see if the city lives up to my memories!
@patrickhadfield I wanted to say that the city is great, but I’ve also only ever changed trains here since a proper visit fifteen years ago.
@partim actually Italy has the most tunnels and bridges in Europe. (maybe that implies also worldwide)
Italian orography is hard.
Italian orography is hard.
Cathelijne@partim Exactly. Went from Bologna to Firenze last spring. Booked window seats. Complete waste of effort: it's basically one long tunnel.
IIVQ@partim I hate people who close window blinds on trains. I chose the window seat explicitly to look outside.
Garry Keenor@partim a quick calculation suggests that a 3kV high speed train might draw around 2500A when accelerating
@25kV Couldn’t find the limit in the network statement. I know Prorail lists theirs which is in a similar range.
Schleifleistenbruch@partim @25kV by this document it should be 2400 A.
https://www.era.europa.eu/system/files/2023-02/ETCS%20variables%20and%20values.pdf
https://www.era.europa.eu/system/files/2023-02/ETCS%20variables%20and%20values.pdf
@partim incorrect. the top speed is 300Km/h
@quinta Design speed, yes. The operational top speed is 250. There were plans to increase it to 270 but the hasn’t happened.
@partim c'mon... I've travelled on that line for 5 years twice a week...
@quinta And yet you never did more than 250.
Just to be sure: We are only talking about Roma – Firenze.
@partim yes.
close to arezzo maximium speed is 300km/h
are you talking average or peak ?
I'm talking peak
@quinta This talks about an increase to 275. Wikipedia adds when referring to that link “non più realizzato.” RFI’s own documents list 250 (Numero 092 here: https://normativaesercizio.rfi.it/NormativaEsercizio/detail.xhtml?doctype=FCL&compartimento=FI)
@partim
I may be wrong but it seems to me it says 275+15% and that the test in 2016 was at 305.
likely the pilots of my trains didn't read wikipedia! :-)
I may be wrong, but I have clear memories of a former colleague making me notice the top speed on the monitors. (he is from arezzo and joked about it)
thela
Andrew Price@partim
Interesting that they've kept the DC electrification on that line, whereas they've moved to 25 kV 50 Hz on more recent high speed lines.
Interesting that they've kept the DC electrification on that line, whereas they've moved to 25 kV 50 Hz on more recent high speed lines.
@andrewprice I read an argument somewhere that they wanted to keep it as a backup for the classic line, but with ETCS L2, that’s not really possible any more. It does have a lot of connections, though, which would all need neutral sections which may be difficult to retrofit into the existing line geometry?
Jon Worth@partim I’m surprised. I’ve found those on HSLs to be perfectly fine. Not quite as smooth as a Frecciarossa 500, but better than the Italo AGVs that are noisy.
@jon It feels similar to the ICE 4 but worlds away from ICE 3 or the Duplex TGVs.
Curious how the new TGVs are going to turn out.
Apicultor 🐝@partim Are you talking about an ETR1000? I've taken one between Milano and Paris and it was smooth as silk. Perhaps the infra was of poor quality where you took it? Suspension and bogeys cannot work miracles, no matter who makes them.
@apicultor But on the flip side, everyone can make rolling stock that runs smoothly on perfect infrastructure. I found its ability to deal with imperfections to be lacking. There were stretches where the phone shook so badly in my hand that I couldn’t read a thing any more.
@partim Then it sounds like the infra isn't up to scratch in those areas. Trains are not miracle workers and you cannot expect them to glide over shit infra, especially at high speed.
@apicultor All I’m saying is that there are trains that can do this better.
@partim Maybe, but how do you define "better" re the whole train? Where do you put the most money during design and build? The interior of the ETR1000 is gorgeous, spacious, and comfortable, and the ride is buttery smooth on decent infra. Is that worth sacrificing for the areas with poor infra?
As NASA once said: "Faster, better, cheaper — pick any two."
I think that, broadly, they put their focus in the right places.