The journey's highs and lows

(I meant to post this earlier but have had a busy week, and am bout to go away for the weekend)

Our first Interrail trip was an overwhelmingly positive experience. Every day we had to pinch ourselves on how lovely the countryside was; how fascinating the cities were, and some truly stunning; how beautiful the mountain scenery was; and how enjoyable the train journeys were; along with some lovely places to stay, and almost always very helpful and courteous rail staff. Not to mention that we mostly had glorious weather while Britain was still suffering from the downpours. We also had to pinch ourselves as to how easy the interrail app worked, at least most of the time.

But while it was overwhelmingly positive, there were some problems it is worth highlighting. Also, while there is obviously much the railways here in Britain could learn from those on the Continent, there are also some things they could learn from our railways.

So a brief look at our journey and where these problems arose.

Before we set off there were several things that worried me about what could go wrong. The main ones were:

a) If we hit the rail strikes and found all our plans awry. As we neared the date of departure, it became obvious we wouldn't be troubled by strikes here, but I had heard about strikes on the German railways. Fortunately they didn't affect us either, but unexpectedly we did find ourselves in Italy on a day they were having a 24 hour strike. Fortunately, it was a day we were only travelling locally, from Padua to Venice and back, and though many of the trains were cancelled, there are so many trains that make this journey* that it wasn't a problem.

*I worked out there are about 10 trains an hour from Padua to Venice, and even right through the night there is an hourly service, which is very impressive.

b) If the train from Paddington, which had been subject to delays and cancellations almost every day until we travelled, let us down, and we missed our Eurostar. We had given ourselves plenty of leeway if it was delayed, but as it happened, the Bath to Paddington train there and then back 15 days later both ran completely to time. Ironically, unlike almost all our trains abroad.

c) If the app played up and didn't work. We had tried out the app as much as we could before we left, and I felt reasonably confident that it shouldn't cause us any problems.

So on 5am our taxi arrived and took us to Bath Spa station, getting there 25 minutes before our train was due to leave. We had had a very busy weekend, and this along with the anticipation about our trip meant neither of us managed to get much sleep that night - I had only 1 hours sleep, so was not in the best state to start a journey that if everything went well, would take 17 hours to the final station.

My partner opened her app and it worked perfectly. I opened mine and had an error message, saying I should send a query to Interrail to sort it out. I closed it down, opened it again and got the error message again. So I tried to send Interrail the query, to find that I couldn't access the query form as I wasn't getting any wifi. Normally my phone logs on automatically to Bath Spa's wifi, but I tried to log on and was told I needed to set up an account, and then tried to start doing this. By this time the train was due soon, and we decided we would just get on and if necessary explain it to the train manager. So we did, and when on the train I turned my phone back on and the app worked perfectly, no error message. I have no idea why all this happened, but can only assume it was a wifi issue.

This did leave me worrying that if this happened when abroad, it would be much more difficult for us to explain and deal with. Fortunately, the app continued to work well, and by about the third day I had stopped worrying about it (but more on that later).

We got to St Pancras with more than the 90 minutes we needed to be there, and the Eurostar took us to Paris, though a few minutes late. But we had 2 hours to cross Paris and mastered the metro, which we had not used before, and got on the TGV^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) to Bordeaux, which we have used before, with seats on the top deck so that we could get a good view. All going well so far. The TGV becomes an ordinary inter city after Bordeaux and literally crawled along for the first 20 or 30 km on its way to Toulouse, so we arrived there late, but still with plenty of time before our final train was due to depart at 8.20pm. only to find that it was cancelled, but that there was a rail replacement bus.

We had been warned by our friends that this might be the case, and indeed we have had this problem before at Toulouse station, also late in the evening, though then we were going on a different line. On that occasion, when the rail replacement bus turned up, late, there were too many people for it to carry, so about 10 people, including ourselves, were left behind. We had to literally plea with the one rail staff person we could find at the station, who then arranged for us to be taken in a taxi. Fortunately, this time the bus was on time and could carry everyone, but it took far longer than the train would have done. So we got to our final destination, Auch, which is at the end of a branch line, after 10.30pm, with our friends waiting for us. We were incredibly pleased to see them, and had a wonderful and restful time at their place, taking no trains at all the next day, but enjoying the brilliant weather and the views of the distant Pyrenees. And getting some sleep!

We were very pleased to find on the third day that our fairly early morning train from Auch was a train, and it turned out to be a beautiful journey back to Toulouse, and then another lovely, though slightly delayed, journey down to Marseille, where we just made our connecting train to Nice, where we were staying the night. This set off to its first stop at Toulon perfectly on time, and then announcements started to be made, which we had to get another passenger to translate for us. It appeared that the train was having 'difficulties' and a little later, that it wouldn't be going anywhere, and we were advised to wait 2 hours for the next train to Nice (or strangely to return to Marseille, though no other trains would be going towards Nice, so this didn't make much sense to us or to the other passenger). The train arrived 2 hours later, and then crawled along, losing time as it did so, so that our hopes of seeing the magnificent views along this coast disappeared into the darkness. But at least we got there and had a great time in Nice, which included a trip up into the Alpine foothills, which was superb.

From there to Ventimiglia on the Italian border, with some fantastic views, and disappointingly a tunnel right through Monaco, and a train along the Italian coast to Genoa, which went so slowly in places that we were an hour late arriving. This train continues to Milan, where we were due to get a connecting train to Padua, and fortunately decided to become a much faster train, so we got our connecting train at Milan, and had a wonderful two days there and at Venice.

From there we were heading to Innsbruck for a night there, and looking forward to seeing the Italian Alps up to the Brenner Pass, which indeed were stunning. Unfortunately this train was also an hour late by the time it was climbing up the pass, and darkness was again descending, so we had to peer out to spot the snow by the lines, and saw nothing of the views. Next time hopefully, though I understand a long tunnel is due to be built here. The next day we had the most fantastic ride to Zurich, climbing up the snow as the Tyrolean Alps rose all around us - it really is a stunning landscape. And only 30 minutes late to Zurich, so things were improving! (OBB were very apologetic that it was this late, so presumably it is unusual).

We caught our overnight train in Zurich to reach Prague, and on our way towards Prague the next morning I had my second problem with the app. After we had woken and had the breakfast they supplied, and with the train running 100 minutes late, my partner went to the seating carriage to get a better view, and had her pass checked by the train guard. She returned, and later I did the same. However, I had turned my phone off overnight, and turning it back on, when the guard turned up to check my pass, the app said I had no journey booked for that day, and wouldn't recognise that i was still on the journey that I had started the previous evening. The guard wasn't impressed, and at one stage I thought she was going to charge me the full fare from Zurich, as she didn't seem to believe I had a valid ticket, although she could see I had the Interrail pass. But she did relent, though she wasn't happy! So a lesson learned, don't turn the phone off if you are travelling overnight.

Two wonderful days in Prague, and then we went to catch the train to Berlin. I turned on my app, and a message came up saying that it appeared I had finished my entire journey, i.e. that the app seemed to think I had done all my 15 days travelling, though this was just day 12. Why this happened I have no idea, but for a minute I could see myself having to buy tickets all the way back to Britain. Fortunately, after turning the phone off, and then back on, the app worked perfectly, and we had a lovely, though again delayed journey. to Berlin, and two great days, which included a trip to Potsdam.

Leaving Berlin, it was my partner's turn to turn on her app and have an error message, while mine worked perfectly. Again we have no idea why. She turned it off and then back on and it worked perfectly, and our slightly delayed train got to Cologne just in time for our connection to Brussels, where we went to Ghent, and spent a day there before coming back to Brussels and home.

So a wonderful trip marred only by a few hiccups with the app. I would feel very unconfident travelling on my own with the app, but two people travelling together at least gives some reassurance if it should misbehave again.

I'll post separately after the weekend what we saw which we thought the railways could learn from, both here and abroad.

The Swanline and HoW^‡(resolve) improvements are very unfortunate. Swanline and south end of HoW are underutilised, and need a service more suited to the populations served in order to grow - huge lost potential. With recent cuts in bus services there's also the possibility of abstracting former bus demand.  As it stands the service levels keep numbers low which can then be used as a reason not to improve things. Certainly the late evening SWA^» (Swansea - next trains)-LLV hasn't looked full when I've seen it, but with few daytime trains to provide the outbound traffic, and a high cancellation rate, it's not exactly been allowed to grow demand. Presumably this comes back to funding, of course, but not good when we need to encourage public transport usage.

TFW have a consultation for the future timetable. 

https://haveyoursay.tfw.wales/strategic-future-timetable-review?fbclid=IwAR1F_zm4kuFzZ7A46IeSr7yjpw7ULTUIJaniOTA0KU57aRLHS3fCneOdrDk_aem_AdmWEoId3Rp5fsisXf-wC-Ru0xrxvH3d0e0mbEPjBbrw8s_BkdDy5LSH1ANJETC3AAQ

Apparently they hope to implement these changes from the December 2024 timetable change.  But there is a consulation open until May so things could change, but draft timetables are included.  This consultation does not include the Cardiff Metro/Valley routes as these are separate to the rest of the core network but does include Vale of Glamorgan, Maesteg and Ebbw Vale. 

It seems to me they have backtracked on a lot of the promises made back in late 2022 for the Dec 2023 timetable (most of which were deferred until this December anyway but now they have cancelled may things alltogether).

What is particularly disappointing is the lack of hourly Swanline service that was promised, although there appear to be improvements to both the morning and evening timetable with an hourly service from around 6.30am-9.30am in both directions plus extra services in the evening.

Also the HOWL has taken a step backwards by going back to 4 trains per day and pretty much the timetable used before Dec 2022. The Cambrian also loses services but I dont have any first hand experience with this route so cant comment.

Good to see extra services for West Wales particularly Haverfordwest and Milford Haven and the long awaited hourly all day service between Cardiff-Cheltenham but thats about it!

Most surprising of all is a few Camarthen-Cardiff services cancelled entirely (ive spotted at least 2 that dont go Manchester anymore due to the MK4's from Cardiff have been removed alltogether).  This results in around an hour gap twice in the morning between Swansea-Cardiff which surprises me.  Both the 0853 and 1058 services from Carmarthen to Cardiff are cancelled.

Also the 06xx Carmarthen-Manchester will go via the district line. It used to be the service an hour earlier that did that but of course that is now the daily MK4 from Swansea to Manchester (which is actually booked for a 197 at the moment but thats a different story) but running the service that used to pass Neath around 7am via the SDL isnt good news for Swansea and Neath passengers.

I only just spotted this, Chris - been a busy couple of days. It would have been good to meet up; sorry to have missed you!

I'm just back; it was a good day with enthusiastic talks from Natalie Edwards of SWR^» (South Western Railway - about), who seems pretty passionate about improving services on the WoE line, and Dan Okey on placemaking and stations. James White, who is now seconded to Western Gateway STB, also did a good piece on what they're up to in terms of the strategic view. Nothing all that new, but good to see how everyone keeps up their enthusiasm despite challenges around funding and direction.

I went over to have a look at the ceiling at Bonaparte's today. Here's my photo:



So... what johnneyw saw was an optical illusion caused by reflections in the mirrored glass! It is really deceptive; you have to look through the right window to see it properly and even then there are some odd reflections. Very odd!

Hmmm ... if you add flexibility to advance purchase "this train only" tickets, are you not encouraging people to move away from the more expensive flexible tickets, to the detriment of the overall rail industry income?   There's an argument for selling "this train only" tickets to provide more economic travel to people who can go at unpopular times, but you start adding change options on to that and it gets confused. 

I noted this in the publicity:


It talks about it being CrossCountry, and perhaps they run trains up until closing time - but that still wouldn't work for me on a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) advance / swapped ticket if I stuck around in London until closing time ... last train 21:30 which is much much better than it was, but I'm not in control ... can't get home like apparently I could with Cross Country 

There are so many "spot on" gems in there ... I give you a few from key messages


and from key recommendations

Goes without saying 

Won't be able to attend the meeting either.

You could use the excuse it was in the Hungerford sanitary district (c. 1872) which extended over the county boundary to include Bedwyn!