On the rails again… #Interrail #CrossBorderRail
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And as I approach the marshlands on the Perpignan- Narbonne line, I’m trying out a new addition to the photo/video capture setup.
Sadly, it’s only a so-so day, and I’m on the wrong side of the train for all of the pretty views, but it’s still hopefully going to be good
So, why is this travel day so long?
First of all, the route is long. It's pretty optimal as far as the geography is concerned: I'm doing about 1,562km in slightly over 10 hours. This is mostly on high speed railway that's rated to 300km/h, although by this calculation, it's an average speed of 150km/h. Part of this is due to the fact that the Perpignan-Nîmes section of the route is on conventional speed tracks. I'm currently doing about 120.
There is a plan to improve the Montpellier-Perpignan line, but that won't be ready for another decade, and will at most shave an hour off this total time.
The original recommended route gave me a 40 minute changeover time in Lyon Part Dieu, and a 1 hour 15 minute changeover in Lille-Europe. And then there's about an hour extra in faffing around the various line changes in the UK. This gives an optimal time of around 13 hours total. Still far from ideal, but assumable.
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So, why is this travel day so long?
First of all, the route is long. It's pretty optimal as far as the geography is concerned: I'm doing about 1,562km in slightly over 10 hours. This is mostly on high speed railway that's rated to 300km/h, although by this calculation, it's an average speed of 150km/h. Part of this is due to the fact that the Perpignan-Nîmes section of the route is on conventional speed tracks. I'm currently doing about 120.
There is a plan to improve the Montpellier-Perpignan line, but that won't be ready for another decade, and will at most shave an hour off this total time.
The original recommended route gave me a 40 minute changeover time in Lyon Part Dieu, and a 1 hour 15 minute changeover in Lille-Europe. And then there's about an hour extra in faffing around the various line changes in the UK. This gives an optimal time of around 13 hours total. Still far from ideal, but assumable.
The extra 3 hours though?
That's a combination of 3 factors:
⁃ a lack of passenger rights,
⁃ a lack of capacity on the networks; and
⁃ a healthy fear of getting stuck due to foreseen circumstances.I originally booked this trip on the recommended route. The 40 minute changeover in Lyon is pretty reasonable, as this train is rarely late.
But after I booked it, the tragic accidents happened in Adamúz and Gélida. And that made train travel in Spain much, much less predictable. The news was full of speed restrictions and trains that were being delayed beyond reasonable amounts. And whilst this train spends most of its time in France and has a pretty good on-time record, well, there were still reports of problems on the Barcelona-Figueres line.
And so I looked at my trip, and decided the 40 minute changeover was too risky.
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The extra 3 hours though?
That's a combination of 3 factors:
⁃ a lack of passenger rights,
⁃ a lack of capacity on the networks; and
⁃ a healthy fear of getting stuck due to foreseen circumstances.I originally booked this trip on the recommended route. The 40 minute changeover in Lyon is pretty reasonable, as this train is rarely late.
But after I booked it, the tragic accidents happened in Adamúz and Gélida. And that made train travel in Spain much, much less predictable. The news was full of speed restrictions and trains that were being delayed beyond reasonable amounts. And whilst this train spends most of its time in France and has a pretty good on-time record, well, there were still reports of problems on the Barcelona-Figueres line.
And so I looked at my trip, and decided the 40 minute changeover was too risky.
Why was it risky? I had two more long distance trains to catch.
So, the first problem is the third train train of the day, the Eurostar, is notoriously difficult to get an interrail reservation on.
Rants on SNCF group's attitude to #Interrail have been had by many in all sorts of places. I'll summarise them as: There is a limited number of seats on the train network, and the operator artificially limits those even further with a maximum number of interrail seats on each train. This sucks.
When I started looking to change my reservations, the first thing I did was try to work out if I could even change my booking. I had the possibility of two later trains, the next one had space in Basic class, and the later train had space in Eurostar Plus, too. And it would be a free change of seat for either one.
So, knowing that, I decided to look at trains from Lyon that would have a more reasonable chance of being doable.
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Why was it risky? I had two more long distance trains to catch.
So, the first problem is the third train train of the day, the Eurostar, is notoriously difficult to get an interrail reservation on.
Rants on SNCF group's attitude to #Interrail have been had by many in all sorts of places. I'll summarise them as: There is a limited number of seats on the train network, and the operator artificially limits those even further with a maximum number of interrail seats on each train. This sucks.
When I started looking to change my reservations, the first thing I did was try to work out if I could even change my booking. I had the possibility of two later trains, the next one had space in Basic class, and the later train had space in Eurostar Plus, too. And it would be a free change of seat for either one.
So, knowing that, I decided to look at trains from Lyon that would have a more reasonable chance of being doable.
And there I hit my second snag: Train availability. The next possible departures involved a Frecciarossa, which is not available on #Interrail in France, or a Ouigo, which also are not available on #Interrail. The following option turned out to be 2 hours later. And that conditioned me to the last train from Lille.
This is in part because of the check-in procedures. Eurostar themselves tell you to arrive to the station an hour early in order to have sufficient time to complete border formalities. I'm unfamiliar with them on the train, and so I decided to take their advice. So I got an extra hour's wait in Lille, as the timetables didn’t line up well enough for me to have that hour for border formalities.
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And there I hit my second snag: Train availability. The next possible departures involved a Frecciarossa, which is not available on #Interrail in France, or a Ouigo, which also are not available on #Interrail. The following option turned out to be 2 hours later. And that conditioned me to the last train from Lille.
This is in part because of the check-in procedures. Eurostar themselves tell you to arrive to the station an hour early in order to have sufficient time to complete border formalities. I'm unfamiliar with them on the train, and so I decided to take their advice. So I got an extra hour's wait in Lille, as the timetables didn’t line up well enough for me to have that hour for border formalities.
And that's how I've managed to add three hours to this already-long trip.
All that being said, this first train is on time. So I am going back to my original booking at 14:00, at least as far as Lille.
My Eurostar booking is still for the last train. I can change onto the train 3 hours earlier, but that has a cost of an extra 20€ if I do it on the day, and I have to travel in Basic, rather than Plus. That's on top of the existing 42€ I’ve already paid for this train.
I'm pretty tempted to do it anyway. I think three fewer hours hanging round stations is worth an extra 20€. I'll decide on the next train, though.
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And there I hit my second snag: Train availability. The next possible departures involved a Frecciarossa, which is not available on #Interrail in France, or a Ouigo, which also are not available on #Interrail. The following option turned out to be 2 hours later. And that conditioned me to the last train from Lille.
This is in part because of the check-in procedures. Eurostar themselves tell you to arrive to the station an hour early in order to have sufficient time to complete border formalities. I'm unfamiliar with them on the train, and so I decided to take their advice. So I got an extra hour's wait in Lille, as the timetables didn’t line up well enough for me to have that hour for border formalities.
@moof
In my experience (only 3 departures from Lille, the last being last summer) an hour is overkill.
30 minutes is probably the minimum that I'd risk.
At least the waiting area is less unpleasant that Brussels, Paris or London! -
@moof
In my experience (only 3 departures from Lille, the last being last summer) an hour is overkill.
30 minutes is probably the minimum that I'd risk.
At least the waiting area is less unpleasant that Brussels, Paris or London!@MikeFromLFE I suspect that is the case. But I was not well-versed enough in the procedures to be comfortable with taking that hit that time. And the timetable was such that if the train had been ten minutes late, I wouldn't have had even those 30 minutes.
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And that's how I've managed to add three hours to this already-long trip.
All that being said, this first train is on time. So I am going back to my original booking at 14:00, at least as far as Lille.
My Eurostar booking is still for the last train. I can change onto the train 3 hours earlier, but that has a cost of an extra 20€ if I do it on the day, and I have to travel in Basic, rather than Plus. That's on top of the existing 42€ I’ve already paid for this train.
I'm pretty tempted to do it anyway. I think three fewer hours hanging round stations is worth an extra 20€. I'll decide on the next train, though.
@moof ime unless you're tall, the only important difference between basic and Plus class on Eurostar is whether you need to have a table eg to work en route.
These days I treat E* Std as "it's cramped, but I'm only on it for two hours", rather like a short haul flight.
E*, working consistently to replicate all the disadvantages of air travel on rails.
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@moof ime unless you're tall, the only important difference between basic and Plus class on Eurostar is whether you need to have a table eg to work en route.
These days I treat E* Std as "it's cramped, but I'm only on it for two hours", rather like a short haul flight.
E*, working consistently to replicate all the disadvantages of air travel on rails.
@swaldman Let’s just say I'm of the size that both the extra legroom and the extra width of first class seats is appreciated. It's why I tend to travel first when I can.
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And that's how I've managed to add three hours to this already-long trip.
All that being said, this first train is on time. So I am going back to my original booking at 14:00, at least as far as Lille.
My Eurostar booking is still for the last train. I can change onto the train 3 hours earlier, but that has a cost of an extra 20€ if I do it on the day, and I have to travel in Basic, rather than Plus. That's on top of the existing 42€ I’ve already paid for this train.
I'm pretty tempted to do it anyway. I think three fewer hours hanging round stations is worth an extra 20€. I'll decide on the next train, though.
And so, Hubris. I did get on the 14:00 train from Lyon, and I am currently heading to Lille, with a timetabled arrival of 17:20. I rebooked for the 18:37 Eurostar.
We've just left Charles de Gaulle with a 19 minute delay. This is now officially “tight”.
