Welcome to today's thread - #CrossBorderRail South East Europe Day 06 04 Jun 2024 - Arrival of night train, Budapest - Pécs - Beli Manastir - Osijek - Zagreb
Crossing these borders:
Lanžhot 🇨🇿 - Brodské 🇸🇰
Štúrovo 🇸🇰 - Szob 🇭🇺
Beli Manastir 🇭🇷 - Magyarbóly 🇭🇺
#CrossBorderRail South East Europe 2024 Train 12 of 68
IC 812
10:12 Budapest-Kelenföld - Pécs 12:43
MÁV
Train type: MÁV V63 "Gigant" locomotive, 6 carriages
⚡️
🚲: ✅ (Hungarian railways are SUPER for bikes)
🦽: ✅ (needs ramp, it’s on board I think)
🛜: ✅ (in my carriage yes, but not all)
🍽️: ✅
🧳: 🙂
🧽: 🙂
#CrossBorderRail South East Europe 2024 Train 14 of 68
6211
14:25 Beli Manastir - Osijek 14:56
HŽPP
Train type: Macosa 7121 DMU, 2 carriages
⛽️
🚲: ❓(no official space but you could make it work)
🦽: ❓(pretty sure there’s no ramp, although platform is ok)
🛜: ⛔️
🍽️: ⛔️
🧳: 😐 (narrow doors, no space for large luggage)
🧽: 🙂
#CrossBorderRail South East Europe 2024 Bus 4 of 20
Route: LuxExpress EL-20
07:10 Vilnius - Warszawa 14:45
Lux Express
Distance: 462.2km
Average speed: 54km/h
Bus type: Scania Irizar i6s 3 axels
⛽️
🚲: ❓(there’d be space in the hold but officially not allowed I think)
🦽: ⛔️ (I can see no way to get a wheelchair on here)
🛜: ✅
🍽️: ✅ (there’s coffee)
🧳: 🙂 (massive hold)
🧽: 🙂
Just a small reminder for those who might not have seen all my #CrossBorderRail work: pink pins are the 210 rail borders I’ve been to in the past 2 years
So what I’ve seen today at the Poland - Lithuania road border is no surprise. It happens all over the place. But I’m still angry about it
Now within 50km of Warszawa. Long and tedious trip from Vilnius, almost all motorway and almost all flat. The 2 drivers system meant only a 2 minute stop for them to switch. If you ever need to make this trip, take the train if you can. Lux Express is orderly and better than Flix, but it’s still a bus. #CrossBorderRail
Just had to tell two elderly Lithuanian couples to use headphones rather than playing a video at full volume in a train carriage. FFS. It’s not just teenagers who behave badly it seems! #CrossBorderRail
This Rīga - Vilnius is pretty solid. The Pesa DMU is fine, is suitable for long trips (2+2 seating throughout). Refreshments if you want them. Now if only there were a 2nd train a day… #CrossBorderRail
Just chatted to the LTG staff here on board. Is it often so full? Yes! Will there be a second daily train on the route? Only when more trains are available.
There’s easily potential for 2 trains a day here.
And as this works, I’m sure a Tartu-Rīga or Tallinn-Rīga would likewise work!
Basically
🇪🇪 a professionally run railway, short of trains (putting it right), electrifying (Tartu), buying new EMUs
🇱🇹 an increasingly professionally run railway, short of trains (putting it right), electrifying (Šiauliai-Klaipeda), buying new EMUs
🇱🇻 suburban Rīga improving (new EMUs), but rest still quite hopeless (short of trains, but not addressing it)
But even aside from Rail Baltica the picture looks ok here!
There’s this thing I’m forever asking during #CrossBorderRail - is a rail service as good as it can be given the resources available? The answer here on this Rīga-Vilnius train is YES it is.
It’s not perfect, medium term it will be improved, but right now it’s about as good as it can be given available resources. LTG Link deserves a lot of credit for this.
Hmm. Peculiar Mastodon (or @ivory ?) issue. Toots I write and post, but the image upload fails (I’m in a train, sometimes I lose signal), don’t get saved as Drafts. Any tips as to how to fix this? I’ve reset the cache already, no change… #CrossBorderRail