"Through" trains which aren't!

[duesselmartin]

Portugal. Villa Real d S Antonio to Lagos listed as a service to Faro only. After a 5 minute stop the same unit continues to Lagos.

 

[Taunton]

Well known was the Orient Express, ostensibly Calais to Istanbul, but which in more recent times remarshalled its formation multiple times so no vehicles went right through. By 1973 the Calais vehicles mostly only got as far as Milan, and one coach to Trieste, while others added on the way went through to Istanbul. Plus, to the dismay of scriptwriters setting scenes in the restaurant car, these did not work through, but were just added locally for daytime segments of the four day journey.

 

[popeter45]

Well known was the Orient Express, ostensibly Calais to Istanbul, but which in more recent times remarshalled its formation multiple times so no vehicles went right through. By 1973 the Calais vehicles mostly only got as far as Milan, and one coach to Trieste, while others added on the way went through to Istanbul. Plus, to the dismay of scriptwriters setting scenes in the restaurant car, these did not work through, but were just added locally for daytime segments of the four day journey.

i assume the same could be said for the fort william seats on the cally?

 

[Watershed]

i assume the same could be said for the fort william seats on the cally?

I'd have said so. There's no actual through vehicle for seated passengers. Having to get out and wait around on Edinburgh's chilly platform at 4am isn't exactly my idea of fun!

 

[rg177]

I remember joining a EuroCity service in Ljubljana circa 2018.

In theory it was a Belgrade to Villach train but everything from Belgrade terminated at Ljubljana, with carriages that had been added at Dobova being the only ones through to Villach.

In practice I'm sure it was advertised as two separate services - despite technically being one!

Edit - yes. It looks like it was train B 410/MV 410 joined to train MV 314/D 314.

 

[JGurney]

Well known was the Orient Express, ostensibly Calais to Istanbul, but which in more recent times remarshalled its formation multiple times so no vehicles went right through. By 1973 the Calais vehicles mostly only got as far as Milan, and one coach to Trieste, while others added on the way went through to Istanbul.

I vaguely recall, from about 35 years ago, a similar arrangement for a train listed by Cooks timetable as a through service between, I think, Amsterdam and Rome. No vehicles made the whole journey. If memory serves, at one end it was a seated day train, then sleepers got attached further along, then some more seated stock, then the original seated stock was detached.

 

[popeter45]

I vaguely recall, from about 35 years ago, a similar arrangement for a train listed by Cooks timetable as a through service between, I think, Amsterdam and Rome. No vehicles made the whole journey. If memory serves, at one end it was a seated day train, then sleepers got attached further along, then some more seated stock, then the original seated stock was detached.

Train of theseus

 

[AdamWW]

I vaguely recall, from about 35 years ago, a similar arrangement for a train listed by Cooks timetable as a through service between, I think, Amsterdam and Rome. No vehicles made the whole journey. If memory serves, at one end it was a seated day train, then sleepers got attached further along, then some more seated stock, then the original seated stock was detached.

The footnotes in the Thomas Cook usually made it clear where through coaches actually ran (and what type they were).
I seem to recall looking at one from 1972 or thereabouts that showed day trains from London to Paris as if they were a through train, but the footnotes made it clear that actually there weren't any through coaches.

 

[riceuten]

I can certainly attest to the fact that "through" former FEVE trains in Northern Spain are not actially always through, as advertised, though I remember the conductors of both were very helpful with luggage and patient and they've always been from adjacent platforms. But whether this happens I think is more likely to be down to operation consderations like stock availabiity and driver hours - sometimes the journey is through, sometimes not.

Additionally random are "through" trains to Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia from Austria, which occasionally require an unadvertised change of trains at Villach Hbf, and again, this seems to be random rather than consistently one or another. I also had a similar experience on the Maribor/Spielfeld Strass border going to Graz.

A few years back, I travelled from Bucharest to Munich, and changed at Budapest for a sleeper from there. I didn't realise that there were two CFR seating cars that actually went all the way through! Indeed, what had started as a 5 carriage solely CFR train in Bucharest turned out to be a behemoth of various seating cars, couchettes and sleepers from all over central Europe by the time it reached the Bavarian capital.

 

[Taunton]

I remember that main London bus routes used to be like this, there was a given number for the route but often no bus actually ran from end to end, it was run in a series of overlapping sections. You might get a through run at the quietest time, like Sunday morning, but there was no real indication of how far down the route you could get at any time, though the parts that were run suited the vast majority. You had to pay close attention to not only the number but also the destination shown, and have a good idea of geography. There were no transfer tickets or anything like that, you would have to pay again to get on another bus, of the same route number, to the end.

It's a style which carries on to an extent on the London Underground, such as the west end of the Jubilee Line, it has no branches but only about one in three trains actually go through to the end at Stanmore, others just show intermediate termini and you need to know if you are going beyond there or not.

 

[coppercapped]

Back in the 1970s I was working in Ulm in southern Germany. I used to use the sleepers in the Tauern Express three or four times a year to come to see my family. The train left Ulm around 23.00 arriving at Oostende the following morning . A short walk over the quayside saw me on the ship for the three and a half to four hour crossing to Dover.

I found the Tauern Express (known as D218 in those days) fascinating as at the outside only one coach ran all the way from Split in Jugoslavia to Oostende. My sleeping car was added at either Klagenfurt or Salzburg and various other coaches went to and from a whole series of other destinations such as Hamburg to Oostende. A (German language) listing of the composition of the train can be found at:

https://www.vonderruhren.de/aachenbahn/seiten/d218.php#1

A different world.

Added in edit: It was always a dramatic experience as the train swept into Ulm Hbf at night through swirling snow in the winter. Snow lying in the vestibules and the underframes and bogies covered in the stuff.

 

[duesselmartin]

I remember the Oostende trains in Cologne being displayed as follows:
Oostende (London)

 

[Birkonian]

An example of the exact opposite of the thread title a few years ago I travelled from Lille to Namur. I lugged my heavy suitcase off the train at Tournai in accordance with the itinerary only to find that the same train then continued to Namur.

 

[nw1]

In 1999 I made a Eurostar/TGV trip from London to Montpellier, booked via the work travel agent.

This wasn't the example (obviously!) but I do remember noticing in the timetable they used (Thomas Cook, I think) what appeared to be through TGVs from Paris and Lille to Barcelona.

Consequently, for many years I thought that through TGVs to Barcelona existed as long ago as 1999. It was only when I actually visited the Barcelona area, in 2010, that I realised otherwise!

 

[riceuten]

In 1999 I made a Eurostar/TGV trip from London to Montpellier, booked via the work travel agent.

This wasn't the example (obviously!) but I do remember noticing in the timetable they used (Thomas Cook, I think) what appeared to be through TGVs from Paris and Lille to Barcelona.

Consequently, for many years I thought that through TGVs to Barcelona existed as long ago as 1999. It was only when I actually visited the Barcelona area, in 2010, that I realised otherwise!

There *were* through trains to Barcelona from Paris if I recall correctly, but these were non-TGV ‘Hotel’ trains that passed through the ‘cambiador’ at Port Bou. Likewise trains from Montpelier and Toulouse using Talgo technology.