FQ's trips around the globe

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Nice one
I don’t like Snow Hill either.

 

[fishquinn]

Hi everyone,
Some of you may have noticed my recent absence from here. I haven't really been writing trip reports at all, with other stuff getting in the way. I've decided I'm only going to write reports when I really want to document a trip to read in future, and I'm lucky enough to have had one of those trips last month. This is a 6-parter report, with only the first bit being done so far. It does go into excruciating detail but I hope some of you enjoy reading it anyway. Some photos will be on Flickr, others embedded into the forum because I don't want to put everything on Flickr. The embedded photos on the forum will be seen as very small images in the trip report but clicking on them will increase the size. I haven't added all the photos yet and will add the rest tomorrow morning.
Thanks

Going global day 1 – Orange welcomes you to France


My first time bashing outside the UK happened on June the 18th. I’d been out of the UK on one previous occasion, this being a 5-week trip exploring Canada and the USA in an RV. As such, the only trains I’d managed to get for haulage were multiple Vancouver Skytrains and a run to the airport and back in Seattle on the tram. I think it was that trip I really saw how much I liked the rail networks in other countries. Seeing freight trains with over 100 wagons with a couple of locos on the front, in the middle and on the back never got old. I’d heard a lot about how great the rail networks were in countries that aren’t ‘unit focused’ like the UK and really wanted to try them out at some point. With all that said, when Cactustwirly suggested a trip to Austria back in December 2017 I wasn’t going to say no without a good reason! To be honest I didn’t think my parents would approve it but was pleasantly surprised when, after much talking, they allowed me to go. The thought of going to Austria was one I loved but, with a lot of planning coming in the next few days, plans changed massively. I wanted to explore more places so I suggested, for not much more money, a global interrail, covering 30 countries and allowing us to explore much more of the continent. Now, with a much larger area to choose from, we needed to choose where we wanted to go. This is where things got complicated!

After much planning we’d decided on a route. Hotels were booked where required and reservations got for the mandatory services, including one sleeper. We’d decided to do Eurostar one way, by request of myself so I could try it out, but a flight was booked for the return journey, this being Munich-Gatwick on Friday night. With all that needed to be done done (or so I hoped) it was just a waiting game, wading through the months before June, glancing over at my interrail each night as it sat waiting to get used. Then, having waited what seemed like an eternity for this massive step forward, my alarm sounded on the morning of the 18th. To misquote The Matrix, ‘buckle your seatbelt Dorothy, 'cause Britain is going bye bye’.

Relatively little needed to be done on the morning itself, most of the packing having been taken care of the night before. I was just taking one bag for this trip, a large purple rucksack (instead of my smaller one that I tend to use). I had to be careful with what I took thanks to the luggage dimensions required for the plane back but was pretty sure this wouldn’t be an issue, having done a very rough measurement using a tape measure a while back. I just did the usual morning stuff before heading out. Plans for getting to London had changed more often than the continental ones. It was originally going to be Leamington to Solihull and into London from there, with the assumption that dad would be doing his usual Leamington-Birmingham run on the 0624 train. I then found that he was going to be working in Derby on this day so would need to travel in from there. No problems with that at all with a good 128 HST miles into the capital! This was the plan until a week before the trip, when dad found that he needed to take the day off instead. I didn’t want to do a 68 into the capital when my interrail allows travel in the UK for one journey out and back so tried to work out a move that would allow me to get into London using an HST, preferably of the East Midlands variety. A move from Rugby-Nuneaton-Leicester-St Pancras was noticed but it involved leaving Rugby on the 0606, and getting one of my parents out of bed to give me a lift. Understandably, neither were thrilled with this option but said they’d do it anyway as it was known that I’d need a lift a while in advance.

Dad was to take me this morning, along with one of our two dogs, and we set off for Rugby at about 0530 to give plenty of time for the train. Traffic was obviously non-existent at this time so we got to the station by 0555, giving plenty of time to get to the platform. Dad accompanied me to the platform and waited with me to see me out. A 350 could be seen approaching after a few minutes and I wasn’t pleased to see that the very first move of the trip would go to a 350/2, with their awful 3+2 layout. Still, 350245 was lightly loaded this morning and I was one of 3 people in the entire coach so spread myself across a bay of 6. I waved to dad as we pulled out of Rugby and swung onto the fast lines for the speedy run to Nuneaton, smiling as we passed a favourite spot of mine at Cathiron. Many fond memories of boat trips down there and just sitting on the back of the boat in the sun watching trains speed past. Nuneaton was reached on time at 0617 and I got off the train, noticing a 170 to Leicester leaving just after we arrived. I wasn’t expecting to get that service so all was OK and I just wandered down to the Tamworth end of platform 5 to watch the Highland sleeper, which was due through a few minutes later.


Having watched the sleeper and a couple of freights come through I headed over to platform 7, the Leicester bound one. I was getting a Stansted train so would have a fast run to Leicester and was pleased when I saw a three-car unit approaching the station. The headlight cluster told me that it was one of the two 170/3s that Cross Country has and, much to my disappointment it was 170397 on the 06:53 to Stansted Airport this morning. I was hoping for 398 instead, having only ever been on it for University-New Street a couple of years back, having had 397 multiple times. I got one of the single seats at the very front of the unit and had the first ticket check of my interrail on board. The guard looked at it for a couple of moments and accepted it, continuing with her ticket check. It was the checks in Britain that I’d been most worried about because I know what some guards are like, so I was relieved that it had worked out and that I’d reach Leicester OK.

My 170 droned out of Leicester station, me thankfully no longer on board, and I changed platform to get in position for my choices of train to London. There were two HSTs within 10 minutes of each other so I decided that I’d view the first and go for the second if it wasn’t interesting. Some music was played as I waited, making use of the station’s free Wi-Fi to browse the forum so time passed quicker (because it seems to stand still when you have a wait at Leicester). I then saw my first available HST approaching, a service from Leeds. This is the service that I probably would’ve picked up at Derby had I started from there and I was very pleased to notice that 43058, my lowest mileage EMT powercar (except 484, which hasn’t yet entered service), was leading. It was on about 89 miles so the run to London would clear it for 100 rather easily. I ran down to identify the back powercar before boarding (43066) and then hopped aboard to get a bay of 4 in the rearmost standard class carriage. Music went back on and I was soon watching the countryside go past with a route I haven’t done for years.

Intermediate stops were at Kettering and Wellingborough, both having been reached on time. Someone sat diagonally opposite to me at Wellingborough and I was surprised to see the guard come through after there, having not seen him for the whole journey. He was doing a ticket check but only for ‘tickets from Kettering and Wellingborough’, having clearly forgotten about Leicester (something that I have done a few times, I’ll admit). I obviously didn’t show my interrail, having not been requested to do so (and seeing no reason to start a potential argument) so just relaxed and watched GTR stuff pass us south of Bedford. Well, it’s probably more likely that we were passing them, with the 700s stationary awaiting train crew. It is GTR after all!

Our very good run came to an end just before St Pancras due to early running. A 222 had to clear the platform before we could proceed in but we still ended up arriving a few minutes early.
Awaiting platform by fishquinn1, on Flickr
I had no problem getting through the barriers by showing my interrail and was the other side of the barriers by 08:55, about 35 minutes before Cactustwirly would get here on his tube from Paddington. I decided to check out Kings Cross to see if there was anything of interest in the station. A couple of HSTs were present along with several 91s but all I wanted was a quick look to kill some time. Breakfast was the next order and, knowing that Euston 1st class lounge has pastries in the mornings, I wandered over and headed in to get a couple of danish for breakfast. I received a call from Cactustwirly whilst in the lounge to say that he’d just got to St Pancras so I decided I’d just finish my quick breakfast and then head back to meet up with him. I was in the lounge for no more than 10 minutes, but this was plenty of time to get myself some food and drink.

Back at St Pancras, having taken the familiar walk down Euston Road, I headed to M&S because we’d arranged to meet there. Unfortunately I didn’t realise that there were two M&S stores on St Pancras station so headed to the one I knew, next to the escalators for the HS1 platforms. When I couldn’t find Cactus I gave him a call and we found out what the problem was. Unfortunately another error in communications saw me go to the M&S he was originally at and him come to mine so we must have walked past each other on the way! Another phone call was taken and we finally managed to meet up, with Cactus coming over to me. It was now about 09:35 so we had over half an hour before check in would start for our Eurostar, the 10:58 to Brussels. I needed some lunch for later and also needed to visit the currency exchange to get some euros so we headed over to Boots first (situated right next to the HS1 escalators and… the other M&S!). I noticed that sandwiches in Boots are actually really cheap compared to other locations, even on London’s only international railway station Each of the ‘simple’ sarnies were only £1 so I got three (yep, I know) chicken mayo sarnies and a bottle of water, coming up to about £4.50. Not bad when the meal deal, covering one sarnie, a pack of crisps/small snack and a drink was £3.99!

My lunch was put in the top of my bag (with very little room in there after that) and we wandered back over towards the Eurostar check-in location for me to visit the currency exchange next door. I hadn’t had a chance to do this beforehand at somewhere with a good exchange rate so I ended up paying £22.68 for €20. Sure, it’s just a small loss but would definitely have been a good idea to do this in the local bank while I was there a couple of days previously. Once that was complete it was up another escalator to go back to the Midland Mainline platforms. Why, you may ask? Cactus had pointed out that there was the ex GC set due in from Derby at some point so we wanted to go and see that. 43467 was sat on the blocks in its new livery and I heard that 43468 was on the other end at the time. I didn’t get any photos that day but here’s a more recent one that I’ve taken, showing the livery on it:
The new ones at Nottingham by fishquinn1, on Flickr
The new ones at Nottingham by fishquinn1, on Flickr

The plan was not to check in until about 45 minutes until departure, to minimise our waiting time ‘line side’. In the end we just decided to do it sooner rather than later and went through the weird queuing system thing to get to the barriers. All that was required at the Eurostar barriers was to scan the barcode with our compulsory reservations which cost an extra €30 on top of the interrail itself (which is just money grabbing in my opinion considering you can get a flight for not much more than that to somewhere more convenient and in less time). When we scanned our reservations, me going first, a piece of paper appeared saying that there had been a change of seat and coach, from coach 6 to coach 3. We knew that our service was a booked 374 because coach 6 is the buffet on a 373 so theorised that there’d been a change of traction.

Our interrails weren’t checked at all and we got through security with no problems, through both sets of passport control (one French, one British) and into the waiting area, complete with free WiFi and, really surprisingly for a major station, plenty of seats. Boarding was to begin 20 minutes before departure so I gave mum and dad a call and just waited until our service was called. Boarding started at the expected time and we headed up to platform 5 to see an unrefurbished 373 waiting. Coach 3 is towards the buffers at St Pancras so we went to identify the back ‘powercar’ and found out that it was 3223, my first of the class. As the 373s tend to be paired in order (3201 with 202, 203 with 204 etc.) we worked out that it would be 3224 up front so we knew what it would be without needing to get it in Brussels if we were running a little late. A photo was got of the Eurostar from the other side of the glass wall and then we went to get our seats, with the most amazing view in the world – of a pillar. I sat on the outside seat, Cactus taking the one next to the plastic pillar and I put my bag up in the luggage rack for my first ever international rail journey, and first one at speeds over 140mph.
The other side by fishquinn1, on Flickr

We left 3 minutes late for some reason but I had an odd feeling of excitement when I felt us moving forward and out of St Pancras. No HSTs were present in the station, oddly, so the last EMT thing I saw was a 222. Still, it could be worse. Actually no, it couldn’t… Anyway, back to the Eurostar! We accelerated out through the tunnels, Stratford International and more tunnels to be doing a very good pace when stuff could actually be seen out of the windows. 66604 became my last UK loco observed this day (and, as I naively thought, my last 66 but more on that later) and we sped away towards the border. It didn’t feel like long before the brakes were coming back on though to stop at Ebbsfleet International, where we were to pick up more passengers. Departing here a few minutes late we then accelerated right up to 186mph for the race towards Ashford. My god this is a fast run! After no time at all we were looking down at Ashford as we sped by on the flyover and then ran alongside the domestic lines towards Dover. Then, all of a sudden, the outside world went dark. Farewell Britain – see you on Friday.

The channel tunnel seemed to go on forever and was really boring. After a long time underwater getting bored we finally surfaced, thankfully with land instead of water. When that happened, France became country number 5 ‘visited’ with the UK, The Netherlands (if changing planes in Amsterdam counts), Canada and the USA taking spots 1-4. At the same time I lost an hour of my day because we moved into the time zone GMT+1.

We sped through Calais and I heard a very common noise coming from my bag in the luggage rack above. It was my phone’s text alert so, as I went up to check the text I was wondering who had the honour of sending me my first ever text received outside the UK. I’d been chatting with two people over text that morning (Nat and another close friend) so it was a guessing game at this point. I grabbed my phone and checked who the text was from, getting a massively underwhelming feeling when I saw the name: Orange. I opened the text from my phone company and the first line was ‘Welcome to France!’. I was tempted to look around for spies but figured that’d just make me look like a total idiot (stronger words are also usable . The text then went on to say loads of guff about using my phone in the EU, saying that it was free and everything (nothing I didn’t already know). Thank you Orange for that delightful information. What’re the odds I’ll get the same in every other country visited now?

The speedy journey through France continued and we reached our first drop off location, Lille, on time. I sent a couple of texts and had a chat with dad just to confirm that my phone did indeed work overseas and was pleased to say that there were no glitches whatsoever. I received another text from Orange just after crossing the border into Belgium (country number 6), saying exactly the same thing as the one I got in Calais except the word France had become Belgium. Over the interrail I’ll be getting quite a few of these texts then! We continued forward towards Brussels at speed and I got to see my first few continental loco hauled trains on the approach. Our fast (2 hours) journey then came to an end, to be replaced with another high-speed journey from Brussels 15 minutes later.

On the way across Britain we’d heard that 3224, the 373 we thought would be at the front of our train, had been running around with a different one. This meant we needed to walk up to identify the front one on arrival. No big deal though because we needed to walk in that general direction anyway and because it meant I could get another few photos. There must have been another swap at some point because it was indeed 3224 up front on this service. A couple of photos were got before we changed platform, nearly going the wrong way (stopped ourselves from doing so though), and ended up looking at the ICE 3 that was to be our unit for the next 3 hours, all the way to its destination, Frankfurt. This was the 14:25 service from Brussels and we had a couple of minutes to get photos of the unit before doors unlocked to start boarding. 4682 was to be my first ICE and, having located the coach with our reservations in (for this service is reservations compulsory until the German border), we climbed aboard.


Frozen? by fishquinn1, on Flickr
I was expecting the interior to be rather crap, kind of like a pendolino. This meant I was pleasantly surprised to see that it actually had a very good one, with lots of real wood before entering the passenger saloon. The seats weren’t brilliant unfortunately and I couldn’t help but laugh when I found out that it was these same seats in 1st class on the GWR 800s. Crap seats in standard, crap seats in 1st. The layout was very spacious, obviously helped with the larger loading gauge, and the windows were a decent size. Sure, the ICEs don’t have tilt so can have more room there but pendolinos could’ve been made more like this and would actually be pretty good comfort wise. Before making it to my seat I was stopped by a couple of people and asked a question. I was holding a pen at the time and instantly knew what they were asking: could I borrow your pen for a moment. It was really easy to decipher what they were asking because the question was asked in English. Turns out they were both British and on interrails too.


We left Brussels Midi right time and headed out towards our first stop, at Brussels North. It was fun travelling out from here towards the German border, passing all of the old local stuff that makes London look good. The amount of graffiti on some of the trains in service out here was quite disturbing and didn’t display the area in good light. Not that we needed to worry about that of course because we were on a fast train with next stop Liège, 40 minutes after leaving Brussels North.

My phone alerted me when we’d left Belgium with yet another text from Orange, this time welcoming me to Germany. Seconds after I’d received that text I saw my first German loco, this being sat just outside Aachen. I’d done a little research and seen some photos of German locos so recognised it. It’s amazing how such a small thing like thinking ‘I’ve seen a photo of that class before’ can cause a sense of achievement. Just me? Oh well…

We’d had some slow running and lost about 5 minutes so far (so much for these German trains being incredibly punctual) but had plenty of time in Frankfurt before our connecting train so this shouldn’t be a problem. After Aachen we were next stop Cologne (Köln in German). This was appropriate for our ICE because it was ‘named’ (I say named but it was just a sticker so doesn’t count in my opinion) Köln. It was a very impressive station building, with a full glass roof, and I couldn’t help but notice that there was a coffee shop on the platform that did coffee for €0.99. Very cheap! The departure from Köln was very pleasant, crossing the Rhine on a large bridge. Once we were clear of the city it was a case of getting up to 186mph again for some high speed running towards Frankfurt, next stop Frankfurt Airport in 50 minutes. Zooming along at 186mph is very fun with Cactus and I agreeing that it was more fun on the ICE than on our 373 earlier on, feeling much faster than on the Eurostar.




We left Frankfurt Airport about 15 minutes late and the last 10 minutes of our journey was, thankfully, uneventful. After over 3 hours on this train I just wanted to get off. For some reason I see it as the clock resetting when I get off one train and board another and that it’d take me a while to get sick of the next train. This works in theory but in practice I’d been travelling for about 6 hours since London, with a very short break in Brussels and was already starting to get sick of it. With only 15 minutes until departing Frankfurt on our next train, that also being the longest journey of the day, I knew that I’d be sick of it by the first stop (wherever the hell that may be – I really don’t sign Germany). Some photos were got one we alighted at Frankfurt Hbf and I was able to see dozens more locos here, including my first couple of ‘rabbits’. The rabbits are class 218s and are known by that nickname thanks to their exhausts looking like rabbit ears on the body of it. This is one kind of loco I really wanted to try out because they’re apparently very loud hydraulic locos. There was a chance we’d be able to sample one on day 5 around Munich, thankfully.
Frankfurt ICE by fishquinn1, on Flickr

Frankfurt hbf by fishquinn1, on Flickr
Frankfurt hbf by fishquinn1, on Flickr

Cactus got some dinner on the station while we were here, me deciding to wait until Munich as I’d eaten my last chicken sarnie a short time before this. The next train was the 17:50 through to Munich, an ICE 1 via Stuttgart. An ICE 1 is, as I found out, basically an electric HST, with powercars at each end sandwiching several coaches. We went to find our seat reservations and found that it was busier than expected. A tiny bit of thought towards the fact that this was a service from a major German city at 17:50 would’ve made it less of a surprise but oh well, we had reservations. A couple of people were sat in them but we still had reservations. They moved when we turned up allowing us to take our seats in a bay of 4, sat opposite each other. I didn’t realise how little time we’d actually had in Frankfurt so having departure happen just a minute or two after we got our seats was a surprise for me. As we left Frankfurt I did something that I’ve never, ever done in Britain. I always observe a certain rule on British trains and for the first time I failed to notice it, be it through fatigue or my eyes glazing over all the German writing and failing to notice the bits of English in there. I gave dad a call as we left Frankfurt to update him and I only realised that I was in the quiet zone when it was pointed out to me. I quickly ended the phone call, apologised to dad via text giving my reason and turned my phone to silent. I get really annoyed at people who don’t pay attention to the quiet zone so being guilty of it myself wasn’t great…

Once that was done I decided to just relax. I fell asleep fairly quickly and woke up just as we approached our first stop, Mannheim. Loads of commuters got off the train here and the loadings were much nicer as we progressed towards our second stop, Stuttgart. It was about a 40-minute journey but didn’t feel too long and we were soon arriving at Stuttgart. Many more people got off the train here and we were only stationary for a couple of minutes before leaving the station…
In the same direction we arrived from. I didn’t know that there was a reversal on route so it was a surprise to see that I was now facing direction of travel. There must have been a driver change here because there was no chance the original one could get to the other end of the train for us to leave after just 3 minutes there.

Between Stuttgart and Ulm it was a pleasant journey, along the edge of the Black Forest for the most part. It was pretty slow but the good scenery made it all right for the hour it took to get there. I hopped off the train upon arrival and quickly grabbed a photo of the ICE in the platform for the hell of it. I wasn’t on the platform for long (because I didn’t really want to be stranded in Ulm with no ticket, phone, wallet or anything) but it gave me a leg stretch. It wasn’t long enough though so I decided to go for a wander down the train. The journey after Ulm was rather boring and it was really starting to drag so I headed towards the front and noticed that there was no one in the front coach at all. I sat there for a few minutes and then moved to a compartment, also in the front coach (something Britain is sadly lacking). I was in there for about 10 minutes; just relaxing and watching the world go by in total peace.
Ulm ICE by fishquinn1, on Flickr

I headed back to Cactus and then decided that I preferred to be moving so headed towards the back of the train to see what it was like down at the 1st class end of things. There’s a really spacious bar car on this train, with sofa style seats down the sides of the train and bar tables. Next to that was the restaurant car, which looked very posh with seats arranged around tables that were complete with tablecloths. I got a couple of photos to show, but it was amazing how great it was compared to pretty much anything over here. By the time I got back to my seat we weren’t far from Augsburg so I just sat down and watched as we progressed on our really long journey. Another few photos were got of the train at Augsburg by hopping out and back in, with the sun now getting fairly low and reflecting off the train in a cool way. I then went back to my bay of 4 and just sat back, with half an hour to go until Munich.

We had a bit of 4 track running and it was amazing at how frequent the freight trains were. I’d seen loads already and it was a constant procession passing us – 3 of them in 5 minutes was the best I had on the stretch of track towards Munich. It was beginning to get dark as we progressed towards Germany’s third largest city (Berlin, Hamburg, Munich in that order) but not to the extent where seeing out of the window wasn’t possible so, despite being boring, it was quite pleasant. A German lass (why have I randomly gone into Northern mode?) heard me talking in English and came up for a conversation, giving me suggestions of things to see in Munich and just chatting about home-ed, something that’s apparently outlawed in Germany. By the time I’d finished chatting we weren’t far off Munich-Pasing, our penultimate stop. Loads of yards were passed on the way into München Hauptbahnhof and we got to see a Railjet with a Taurus on just outside, probably overnighting there ready to work our train the next morning. I also saw something that looked really familiar and swore when I realised what I was looking at. The thing I’d left the UK hoping not to see for another week. The thing that is everywhere in the UK and is as dull as anything. I was looking at a German 66 – a class 247 to be precise. Is there nowhere you can go to get away from them?! I never got any photos of these on the trip so am showing someone else’s from Flickr just to show you what they look like. All credit to teles333.
DSC_7115 by teles333, on Flickr

The rail journey finally came to an end and we alighted at Munich’s main station. It’s a huge station, with 36 platforms (including S-bahn, if I’ve worked it out correctly), and had a good amount of food stuff on the station. This was what I was interested in after getting photos because I hadn’t yet had dinner. I decided to get some ribs for dinner in a takeaway thing on the station and they were very tasty to eat as we headed over to the S-bahn. S-bahn is the shortened form for the German phrase Stadtschnellbahn, with this translating to ‘City Rapid railway’ in English so the S bahn is a fast metro service. Many German cities have this although Munich’s is the only one I got to try out on the trip.

We needed the S1 line, which is the one of two out towards the airport. There are 2 s-bahn tracks at Munich hbf, both underground and on an island platform. All but one of Munich’s s-bahn lines pass through hbf (and the other city centre stops) so it’s incredibly busy. We weren’t waiting long for an S1 to arrive heading in the right direction, this being a class 423. Munich’s s-bahn is almost solely worked by these 423s, with a few class 420s also being out and about on the S20 (the one line not to go through the city centre). Our last train of the day was to be pair of 423s, these being 423183 and 423121. We got on board and travelled in the near darkness out a few stations to Moosach, where our hotel was located.

On arrival I got the rear unit (we boarded towards the front of the train at hbf so I didn’t have time before then) and we exited the station. The hotel, which was called LetoMotel, is incredibly well located for the station, being about one minute’s walk into reception from the platform. Checking in was done without hassle, with the lady on reception speaking English and commenting on the football game that England was currently playing when she found out where we were from. We were in room 222. Not a great number I thought, my mind going back to the worst class of train I’ve travelled on, but when I noticed which side of the hotel our room was on I couldn’t help but wonder if it overlooked the railway line. It can’t do, surely. That’d be too good. I got in and immediately found what looked to be a windowless room. Shame. I was really pleased when I looked in more detail and found that what I originally thought was a tapestry was instead curtains and that our window had a brilliant view over the lines of Moosach station, all 5 of them! This was by far the best view I’ve ever had from a hotel room! The room itself was very good I found too, with little packets of sweets being provided on the pillows too. Looking back from my time there it is certainly now my go to hotel in Munich and was one of the best hotels I’ve ever stayed in and is definitely much better than any Travelodge I’ve stayed in over here.

It was really fun looking out of the windows at the seemingly constant procession of trains. This is one of the mainlines out of Munich so, along with the s-bahn trains every 15 minutes each way there were also a few loco hauled passenger trains (including some from Prague, a city we’d visit later in the trip) and loads of freights and light loco moves. Loads of German 66s were passing too, with that dull GM sound. As I’m sure I’ve said before, increase the size and change the type of engine a little to the kind found in an SD40-2 across the pond and you’ve got GM at its best! It was still really cool being able to look down and see loads of locos, this being something that I’ve always enjoyed whenever we’re lineside on a boat trip. I gave home a call before heading to bed, this ending up being my longest ever phone call, lasting about 45 minutes! Dad really is enthusiastic about stuff over here because from what he’s heard it’s so much better than in the UK. He’s right… Euro fever has struck and I’ve not got rid of it as I type this, on the 18th of July 2018, exactly a month on. It’s currently 20:07, a time I would’ve been arriving at Ulm one month ago.


That’s it for day 1, I hope you enjoyed and will continue reading for days 2 to 6, whenever they may materialise. Cheers folks!

 

[DanNCL]

Another very good, very detailed trip report!

On the way across Britain we’d heard that 3224, the 373 we thought would be at the front of our train, had been running around with a different one. This meant we needed to walk up to identify the front one on arrival. No big deal though because we needed to walk in that general direction anyway and because it meant I could get another few photos. There must have been another swap at some point because it was indeed 3224 up front on this service. A couple of photos were got before we changed platform, nearly going the wrong way (stopped ourselves from doing so though), and ended up looking at the ICE 3 that was to be our unit for the next 3 hours, all the way to its destination, Frankfurt. This was the 14:25 service from Brussels and we had a couple of minutes to get photos of the unit before doors unlocked to start boarding. 4682 was to be my first ICE and, having located the coach with our reservations in (for this service is reservations compulsory until the German border), we climbed aboard.

That was me, reporting the gen I'd had that 3224 had been paired with 3217, either that gen was wrong or the sets had been swapped again - sorry!

 

[47403]

A brilliant start Quinn. Looking forward to the rest, seemed a long first day of travelling but I'm sure it was worth it.
Think it was rg177, who said the Bunnies are excellent, so I trust you'll enjoy them.
I've read a few stories about them in different Railway magazines and they sound brilliant locos. In fact it's said, a lot of the old Western bashers made regular pilgrimages over to Germany to satisfy their Hydraulic haulage needs with the Bunny's and somewhere in Greece too, where they had locos of a similar hydrsulic ilk. Bad news unfortunately, the Combined European spotting books will cost a small fortune.
I eagerly wait the next instalment and hope there's some 87 bashing involved.

 

[backontrack]

Ooh, how exciting! A good report, Quinn; 66s really are inescapable, aren't they?

 

[fishquinn]

Another very good, very detailed trip report!

Thanks! You're not wrong about the 'very detailed'...

That was me, reporting the gen I'd had that 3224 had been paired with 3217, either that gen was wrong or the sets had been swapped again - sorry!

No worries. We managed to get photos and confirm it, which is something I like to do anyway.

A brilliant start Quinn. Looking forward to the rest, seemed a long first day of travelling but I'm sure it was worth it.
Think it was rg177, who said the Bunnies are excellent, so I trust you'll enjoy them.
I've read a few stories about them in different Railway magazines and they sound brilliant locos. In fact it's said, a lot of the old Western bashers made regular pilgrimages over to Germany to satisfy their Hydraulic haulage needs with the Bunny's and somewhere in Greece too, where they had locos of a similar hydrsulic ilk. Bad news unfortunately, the Combined European spotting books will cost a small fortune.
I eagerly wait the next instalment and hope there's some 87 bashing involved.

Thanks! I've always liked the Westerns, Warships and Hymeks so I'm sure the bunnies will be brilliant too. It may be a worthy investment for the books, even if it just means I can learn what's what over there to a better level than I currently do.
No 87 bashing involved unfortunately but I'm trying to persuade Cactus to get out into Bulgaria for the next one so I can see the old locos again. They've always been my second favourites (behind 47s of course )

Ooh, how exciting! A good report, Quinn; 66s really are inescapable, aren't they?

Cheers! Yep, wherever you go a 66 is following close behind...

 

[D841 Roebuck]

Enjoyed readin that. Great fun.

 

[fishquinn]

Cheers

 

[Vectron]

A long day and a long report (not that I'm complaining!), looking forward to the next installment. I did the same journey as you in 2012 and arrived on the evening of the European Cup Final - Bayern Munich against Chelsea in Munich.

 

[Vectron]

The numbering of 'class 66s' in Germany has a convoluted history. I think they were all delivered to France as class 77 (a modified class 66) and owned by Euro Cargo Rail. When DB Cargo bought ECR some were moved to Germany and classified as 247s but that classification had already been allocated and DB were told to reclassify them as '266', however DB have left the 247 number on the front of the locos.

 

[Vectron]

Rabbits on Thunderbird duties, which is presumably what the two you say at Frankfurt were are naturally Thunderbunnies.

"Thunderbunnies are go"

 

[Cowley]

What a trip Mr Quinn. I’ve read Cactus’ report too and I’ve got to say I’m green with envy.