Welcome to today's thread - #CrossBorderRail 2026 Tour Day 18 - 14 Apr - Budapest - Praha - Ústí nad Labem - Heidenau - Dresden - Berlin

[jon@gruene.social]

#CrossBorderRail 2026 Spring Tour Train 63 of 111
EC 280
05:30 Budapest Nyugati - Praha hl. n. 12:23
ČD, ZSSK, MÁV

Train type: Siemens Vectron locomotive, 6 carriages
️ (25kV ac, 3kV dc)
:
🦽: (lift on board)
🛜: (and it works)
️:
🧳: (damned high steps to clamber up into the carriages)️
🧽:
Interrail: (accepted)

Good score to start the day!

[jon@gruene.social]

EC 280
05:30 Budapest Nyugati - Praha hl. n. 12:23

Distance: 608.9km
Average speed: 88km/h

12 stops:
Vac
Nagymaros-Visegrad
Szob
Sturovo
Nove Zamky
Bratislava hl.st.
Kuty
Breclav
Brno hl.n.
Pardubice hl.n.
Kolin
Praha hl.n.

This train, mapped: https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crossborderrail-2026-spring-tour_1361108#8/49.045070/16.853027

#CrossBorderRail

[jon@gruene.social]

Hmmm, on my phone my Mastodon app Ivory keeps repeatedly crashing this morning. That might make my I#CrossBorderRail workflow rather complex!

This morning's intro video did work though: https://peertube.netzbegruenung.de/w/p4cs2MCzY4d6mTnaiMuoUB

[jon@gruene.social]

Damn the track between Szob (final Hungarian station) and Štúrovo (first Slovak station) is bumpy! Bouncing up and down on board here. Clearly this track needs a bit more maintenance!

[matt@proud.social]

@jon I have vague recollection of being on a route very similar to that with conditions similar to how you described 15 years ago.

[jon@gruene.social]

@matt this one has never been great, track quality wise. But it feels like it has worsened.

[jon@gruene.social]

A virtual wave to @andrew_shadura as I pass Bratislava hl. st. this morning. But no stop in Slovakia today…

[jon@gruene.social]

And a sweet little maintenance vehicle here at Bratislava for @zugkatze

[andrew_shadura@mastodon.social]

@jon oh hello

[jon@gruene.social]

And there’s the sort of former #CrossBorderRail line towards Angern an der March I explored last year with @mejs & @moof

[moof@cupoftea.social]

@jon This is a @MonaApp appreciation post. It saves drafts as you type them. You can just pull the drafts up when you switch away from the app and it gets lost.

My own train tooting experience has been wonderful since then

[jon@gruene.social]

@moof thanks, but a reinstall solved the issue (was some cache issue). I’m loathe to leave Ivory that works so smoothly on Mac and iOS normally (today was the first issue for *ages*)

[jon@gruene.social]

Bratislava - Kuty is quite painful currently. Track works make it both slow and prone to delays. At least I have a decent coffee!

[jon@gruene.social]

Kúty

The renovation didn’t get here yet!

It’s the last station before
Lanžhot - Brodské
My second border of the day

[jon@gruene.social]

Břeclav

It’s only just after 9am and it’s my third country today already

[rail@social.flufftech.net]

@jon do you have any personal record of countries visited within 24h? For me it's 4

France - Belgium - Germany - Poland

[jon@gruene.social]

@rail Today alone I will do Hungary - Slovakia - Czechia - Germany

I don't know what my record is but I would bet it is higher than 4

[rail@social.flufftech.net]

@jon makes sense. I don't do travel for a living ^^

[jon@gruene.social]

The WiFi on this train is so intermittent it’s not possible to do any work. Documenting the last couple of days is going to have to wait.

Oh and the Brno - Praha route is interesting so I’ll just watch the world go by

[cycling_on_rails@mastodon.social]

@rail @jon Maybe a further question is how many countries can you cross with a single train? The Zurich-Zagreb night train visits 5! Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Slovenia & Croatia.

(Granted it doesn't stop in Liechtenstein - although just before and after in Buchs and Feldkirch.)

#CrossBorderRail #RailFacts