Nathan,
the trains inside the countries (national transport) are all mostly
fine. It is the international connections that detoriated the last
years. In this Europe 'without' borders, the borders for the locals
are becoming real borders again (financially). I could travel a 330 km
trip in 3hrs for 20 euro's two months ago (I have a fidelity card).
Now it should have been replaced to 330 km trip in 2.45 hrs for 88
euro's (no fidelity cards possible). With the old train, I did not
have to make reservations, so if my class would be late, or early, I
could just take the train before or after. With the 88 euro this
option also exists, if seats are available, and I have to change the
ticket in the station at the desk before boarding, so I have to be
almost one our earlier at the station?
The worst part is the people living in cities just across the border:
Antwerp - Rotterdam, Liege - Maastricht, Aachen - Maastricht. All the
normal IC trains have been deleted over the last years, so a trip that
would last say 30minutes - 1hr now last 1hr-2hrs with the very slow,
old train stopping in every possible station in between.
So for the 'poor' people it has become worse. And not to forget,
EU-workers taking the new train could have taken it for 40 euro, and
they get all travel expenses covered. No, I don't see much improvement
over the years for international cross border train transport.
Iwert
2013/2/1 Nathan Wajsman <photo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> I don't know...I use the low-cost airlines a lot, but also the trains here
> in Spain and abroad, and they are fine. Even the UK ones have improved
> lately, at least the parts I use with reasonable frequency
> (London-Bath-Bristol-Cardiff).
>
> To get home from Brussels on Thursday afternoon, I will take a train from
> Brussels-Midi, just a few metro stations away from the Commission where I
> will be in meetings during the morning. That train will bring me directly
> to Schiphol in under 1.5 hours, and from there I have a direct flight home
> to Alicante a couple of hours later.
>
> The alternative would have been to spend another night in Brussels and
> take an obscenely early morning flight on Friday. Not my favourite option
> :-)
>
> Cheers,
> Nathan
>
> Op Vr, 1 februari, 2013 14:58, schreef iwert bernakiewicz:
>> 2013/2/1 Chris Trask <christrask@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>>
>>>>And Frank: the story about the fyra: I choose from the start not to
>>>>take it, 280% more expensive for an unpredictable service that could
>>>>be 15 minutes faster for my total trip, no thank you... so now I'm on
>>>>the slow train.
>>>>
>>>>Nathan, I hope it will be all right (or was all right?) the Thalys is
>>>>also notorious for being late.
>>>>
>>>
>>> How I envy you having passenger train service. Last one I rode was
>>> the TGV (orange and silver livery) from Geneva to Paris in 2000.
>>>
>>> Chris
>>> --
>>
>> It used to be very well organized over here, with good connections
>> throughout Europe, trains going from Moscow to Brussels to Ostend,
>> from Brussels to Marseille, we even had a direct connection to Zurich
>> from Brussels. Now all this is gone and replaced by fragmented private
>> 'fast' connections (but they do not connect to each other, so much of
>> the speed is lost in transition) with obligatory reservations. I
>> remember the time you could simply think: of to (fill in any capital
>> in Europe) and hop on the train and arrive smack in centre town. There
>> is one alternative: discount low quality air-travel brings you to an
>> airport 10-20km into oblivion with mostly no public transport.
>>
>> Iwert
>> --
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>>
>
>
> --
> Nathan Wajsman
> photo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> --
> _________________________________________________________________
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