Welcome to today's thread - 2025 #CrossBorderRail Finale Day 16 - 2 July - Praha - České Budějovice - Linz Hbf - St Anton am Arlberg

Today's new borders:
Summerau 🇦🇹 - Horní Dvorište 🇨🇿

Borders map, inc. borders re-crossed:
https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crossborderrail-all-the-borders_935041#13/48.5888/14.4260

Today's trains on the routes map:
https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crossborderrail-2025-finale_1163738#8/48.621/12.501

Praha to St Anton im Arlberg, taking the line from České Budějovice to Linz that I have taken before, but not during this project. Ideally also some nice landscapes and comfortable trains too!

Here's today's #CrossBorderRail music track

Funkasin street band
České Budějovice Buskers fest

This is just suitably funny, and you can see the crowd is having a laugh in the video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_G1tqHLZLk

Funkasin street band-23.6.2017-České Budějovice-Buskers fest-video 01

YouTube

However... Ding-ding-dong-dinnnng!

As Praha Hlavní nádraží is right next to where I am staying 😀

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD3QlR98--A

Hlavní nadraží Praha - znělka 02 (Dlouhá verze)

YouTube

Here's where I am going later https://openrailwaymap.org/?style=maxspeed&lat=48.432389796908886&lon=14.522552490234375&zoom=10

Look at the low speeds! But you cannot do much better given how curvy the line is!

OpenRailwayMap

OpenRailwayMap - An OpenStreetMap-based project for creating a map of the world's railway infrastructure.

And here's today's intro video

I am off to give a speech. More later on the thread!

https://peertube.netzbegruenung.de/w/koQ6oAX28DT5RBPKhArp6A

#CrossBorderRail live stream - 7/2/2025, 6:37:50 AM

PeerTube

Agh 😡

Listening to a presentation from the public transport National Access Point of Slovenia here in Prague

https://simo.si is a nice tool, but trains that *start in Slovenia* and cross the border... cannot be found

FFS

#CrossBorderRail

I ask the speaker why I cannot find Spielfeld Strass in his tool (the first station in Austria served by Slovenian trains)

We cannot get the data on that from SŽ Potniški promet he says 😡

It's a state enterprise not giving data to a state National Access Point

This is *maddening*

The contrast between European Cyclists' Federation event in Gdanśk and this event in Praha is so stark

To perhaps a too extreme extent, the ECF people *are* cyclists, and work on cycling - they're users, they're intrinsically motivated

None of these people from ministries or running National Access Points seem intrinsically motivated, there is no spark, no energy at all here

Interesting presentation here about gathering data on public transport in Tirana - PDF background https://www.giz.de/en/downloads/giz22-en-factsheet-SUTi.pdf

#CrossBorderRail Finale Train 65 of 158
IC 535
12:20 Praha hl. n. - České Budějovice 13:59
ČD

Train type: Škoda 380 locomotive, 5 carriages
⚡️ (3kV dc, 25kV ac)
🚲: ✅
🦽: ✅ (lift on board)
🛜: ✅
🍽️: ✅
🧳: 🙂 (large racks)
🧽: 🙂

🎫 Interrail: 🙂 (accepted)

It gets a top score!

IC 535
12:20 Praha hl. n. - České Budějovice 13:59

Distance: 164.2km
Average speed: 100km/h

2 stops:
Tabor
České Budějovice

This train, mapped: https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crossborderrail-2025-finale_1163738#9/49.5145/14.5940

#CrossBorderRail 2025 Finale

The final big #CrossBorderRail tour - to the eastern borders of the EU, and missing intra-EU borders. In June-July 2025. Each day of the project is a Layer in the map - these should be displayed by default, or if not click the three layered diamonds icon "Open browser" to the left side of the map. The icons are all for borders, roughly coloured to differentiate the borders. A cross through a track means NO TRAINS CAN RUN. A cross through trains but not track means TRAINS CAN RUN BUT NO PASSENGER TRAINS. And TRAIN AND TRACK (no crosses) means there is a passenger service.

uMap
We're +15 due to a police intervention, and no we're absolutely racing along here to gain time. To the extent that everything is rocking and rattling on board!

Ah and it wasn't enough

Arrived in České Budějovice +10, and the connecting train to Linz did not wait 5 minutes (which it would have been allowed to do, as per the rules)

So I am stuck for 2 hours

Again 😡

Ah, well, when rail messes up, make the best of it!

At 15:05 there's a train to Rybnik, the border station, arriving 15:58

And I would need to depart at 16:50 from Rybnik to Linz, or 17:07 from Summerau (first Austrian station)

I could even cycle across the border, although in these temperatures... 🤔 We'll see

Škoda classic here

And this Škoda EMU will take me to the border

No idea about the data, this wasn’t planned! 😀

Just had to get the train manager (!) to turn down music blaring out of her mobile (she’s sat in the same part of the train as me)

Come on! Shouldn’t train staff at least set an example on this?

🤯

I don’t know when I’ll be at Summerau 🇦🇹 - Horní Dvorište 🇨🇿 again. So let’s make the best of it

Sun cream applied. Light coloured t-shirt on. I’ll bike across the border and get the train again in Summerau

Right then

Ready for some Horní cycling!

Horní Dvorište 🇨🇿 - Summerau 🇦🇹

Schlager should be called this
Österreich
Fun little border lane Czechia - Austria near Horní Dvorište

It’s hot today

So it’s an alcohol free #BeerOnTrains

That’s a little thing to tie onto a kid’s pram to stop it rolling off the platform!

And the station is called Beetle Market (roughly)

@jon they installed these orange ties after two deadly incidents where prams have been rolling onto the tracks, I believe that all ÖBB stations got them. I haven't seen anyone ever use them though.

2015 incident: https://www.bmimi.gv.at/dam/jcr:315d5ab5-f7d0-4940-aed9-6d2be0c2d52a/150408_zk_linz_ebelsberg_eub.pdf

2017 incident: https://www.bmimi.gv.at/dam/jcr:22de8d7a-072d-4588-a58d-acf3bcd4002f/795389_EUB.pdf

@wanisbunes But the station platforms are flat, right? No slope towards the edges?
@jon @wanisbunes Island platforms are often sloped towards the tracks to drain rain water. Otherwise you need a drainage channel in the centre.
@partim @jon @wanisbunes i clearly see a drainage in the middle on the pictures 😅
@maartje @jon @wanisbunes Indeed. That platform seems very narrow, though. So maybe in this case it is about the draft of passing trains? I vaguely remember them producing a force towards the train.
@partim @jon @wanisbunes quickly scrolling through the reports mentioned above with my very bad german it seemed that was the case
@partim Ha. On the Summerau line that'd be a nice problem to have! No trains go any speed :-) @maartje @wanisbunes
@jon
@partim @maartje These ties have been installed in every station (at least ÖBB, not sure about non-ÖBB infrastructure) and in some cases they have been installed in places where it is physically very unlikely that anything unpowered would make it's way onto the tracks.
@partim
@jon From the incident reports it seems that there was a slight slope towards the edge in the 2015 incident, but in the 2017 incident the pram actually rolled upwards („entgegen des Gefälles“), probably moved by the air.