EU Pilot scheme for Train Links

[HobbesOnTour]

I just came across this
https://transport.ec.europa.eu/news...ervices-boost-cross-border-rail-2023-01-31_en

A plan for a pilot scheme to boost cross border train transport in the EU (but London to Amsterdam is covered).
There's no mention of bikes but I'd like to think there's hope.

Overnight trains between Paris and Milan/Venice or Amsterdam & Barcelona look particularly attractive and could be a great way of maximising the 90 day EU limit for British passport holders.

There's also connectivity between Prague and Denmark.


An overnight train journey has long been on my wishlist

 

[Pat "5mph"]

An overnight train journey has long been on my wishlist

Did it 40 years ago, never again.
It was freezing!

 

[All uphill]

An overnight train journey has long been on my wishlist

This sentence immediately sent me off into a 1930's thriller - something by Eric Ambler, maybe.

 

[mjr]

There's no mention of bikes but I'd like to think there's hope.

I remember hearing of another EU commitment to something like a minimum of eight spaces per train, so let's hope they're better at joined up policies than the Brits!

 

[robjh]

Did it 40 years ago, never again.
It was freezing!

A top experience for me - as long as you can lie down that is, no fun in an ordinary seat. Haven't done it for years but it encapsulates the excitement of travel. I did it for night after night crossing Siberia in 2001, and am sad that current situations mean that I will not do that journey again.
However I will be getting some overnight trains this April on my interrail ticket, with my Brompton stowed somewhere nearby. I'm getting excited already!

 

[Slick]

Did it 40 years ago, never again.
It was freezing!

Did the over night from central to London, not even drinking the bar dry could get me a sleep, total nightmare.

 

[Mark Grant]

A few years ago my family and I travelled by train (several) overnight from Berlin home to London after Ryan Air cancelled our flight at about 10 pm!

 

[HobbesOnTour]

Did it 40 years ago, never again.
It was freezing!

Where's your sense of adventure?

 

[steverob]

The modern sleeper trains are lovely; been on two in the last few years, once in Canada (ironically the service used carriages that were designed to be used on a sleeper service from London to the South of France via the Channel Tunnel, but they never came into service and so were sold on) and on also the Calendonian Sleeper up to Inverness and back (which I did take my bike on, as I was doing Etape Loch Ness).

And on both the facilities were great: the beds were comfy, plenty of charging/USB sockets, some sort of what passed for air-con kept the temperature nice and the food on board wasn't too bad either. But despite all this I barely got a wink of sleep - just too much rattling and vibration from the tracks meant I never got more than 10 minutes at a time on all legs. Maybe I'm just too much of a light sleeper (even on overnight flights I rarely sleep) and others will have more luck than me, but go in with that in mind that you might end up at the other end being even more tired!

 

[TheDoctor]

Done a few overnight trips on trains.
Paris to Barcelona and back - no longer runs.
Paris to Rome then a daytime train down to Sicily - this involved putting the train onto a ferry.
Paris to Berlin and back
Cape Town to Pretoria on the Blue Train. I can't afford it these days, but back then it wasn't that much more expensive than a flight, a night in a hotel, a few meals and quite a lot of alcohol. We used Creative Accountancy to convince ourselves it was cost-effective.
Euston to Inverness.
Couchette from Calais to somewhere in the Alps, possibly Bourg St Maurice.

 

[cwskas]

Creative Accountancy

I have been working on my degree in that for some time now, probably will never attain it! The particular course I am taking now has something to do with wheeled transport.

 

[slowmotion]

I've had a mixed bag of overnight train journeys. Bangkok to Surat Thani has always been fun. The 96 hour epic from Istanbul to Tehran (complete with dysentry) came close to Hell on Earth. Paddington to Truro was stifling. Win some, lose some.

 

[bitsandbobs]

There's an overnight Amsterdam-Berlin service just about to launch (the same company will also start an Amsterdam-Barcelona route).

They say that bikes (and pets) can be taken along.

I did Amsterdam-Munich overnight last year which was pretty good. We managed to book a six berth couchette for 2. The train was delayed for a couple of hours (problem in Germany where trains run pretty terribly), so we got 50% of the fare back.

 

[T4tomo]

I did Glasgow to Oxford overnight in the cheap seats after a Judo competition with a crate of beer and drinking games to help promote sleep

No sure i'd want to do it now I'm older.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I did Glasgow to Oxford overnight in the cheap seats after a Judo competition with a crate of beer and drinking games to help promote sleep

No sure i'd want to do it now I'm older.

Go on, you’re only a year older 😜