YOUR OPINION: What's your ranking of continental European train operators and why?

[renegademaster]

through a long undersea tunnel, 800 or so passengers at a time along high speed lines, without Government subsidy.

How many 50 million big, well off and friendly countries are either side of a hard border. The best analogues would be the Singapore Malaysia and Hong Kong- Mainland PRC border services. Singapore and Malaysia have a relatively short and frequent line between eacother for connections onwards at either end.but Hong Kong has quite good service but the international trains don't run far into Hong Kong but instead terminate just inside, it a huge processing terminal with good metro links with the rest of Hong Kong.

 

[JonasB]

I'd strongly disagree on SJ. […] and the regional trains they run are generally pretty tatty with nasty 3+2 seating and can be extremely full.

You are of course entitled to your opinion, but SJ has no trains with 3+2 seating so you can't blame them for that

The people I'd nominate as worse than SJ are SJ Nord, whose dreadful efforts at train services are a stain on Norway. A single engine breakdown caused them to bus-replace the 10 hour Bodø to Trondheim and vv day services for 7 days in a row earlier in the month, and even then only managed to stagger back to a service with 2 trains and a bus section in the middle.

Good information is always needed, I agree with that. But what are they supposed to do when the loco that was supposed to haul the train isn't working?

 

[RT4038]

How many 50 million big, well off and friendly countries are either side of a hard border.

Not many, and that is exactly the point - E* does not bear comparison with anywhere else in Europe, for reasons almost entirely out of E* control. I suppose the USA and Canada have similarish border conditions. Very few International train services [nearly as many in a week that E* run in a day], which are slow and have relatively few passengers on those that do run.

The best analogues would be the Singapore Malaysia and Hong Kong- Mainland PRC border services. Singapore and Malaysia have a relatively short and frequent line between eacother for connections onwards at either end.but Hong Kong has quite good service but the international trains don't run far into Hong Kong but instead terminate just inside, it a huge processing terminal with good metro links with the rest of Hong Kong.

Yes, but they are not that similar to E*, using cramped historic City Centre terminals. Not sure I would want to trade the inconvenience to use huge suburban terminals/processing centres, for much more space while awaiting departure. Of course both Hong Kong and Singapore are final terminals, with no long distance connections to be made anywhere. However both Paris and London are awkward in that there is no central Hbf, and it is awkward to transfer between many of the lines, but that is hardly an E* failing. As said in post #25, the inadequacies of the infrastructure configuration is a political (funding) issue, which cannot really be resolved from the fare revenue of the train operators

 

[Gordon]

Switzerland has to be top of the list, but not specifically 'SBB'. Switzerland is IMHO unusual in respect of the thread title in that you really have to take the 'Swiss Travel System' as a whole rather than an individual operator. Integrated, multi-mode (everything from marked walking paths to water transport to high mountain top cable transport to high speed line trains is connected) and multi-company operation, frequently on or close to right time, taktfahrplan system with 3 - 6 minute official connections so no hanging around (and services frequent enough that even if they have to break an 'official' connection 'there'll be another one along in a minute'.
Add to that the 'route' fares system whereby (with a very small number of specialist exceptions) a normal ticket is valid for a route not a type of train or specific railway operator.

In Switzerland it matters not one jot what type of transport turns up to take you from A to B. For example on Zurich to Chur you can get on an SBB Intercity hauled train, SBB double deck semi-fast EMU, SOB Traverso EMU, DB ICE set etc to undertake the same journey. Even where trains have been replaced by buses, the buses line up right outside a station, or even adjacent to station platforms in some rural places.

If something untoward happens, 'the system will get you there', for example a while ago a cable railway to a mountain town was under repair and a replacement helicopter service was provided for residents. Following the recent flooding, the only links completely broken are those where the parallel road has also been washed away.

 

[deltic]

Having used Eurostar occasionally from it's first year of opening to a couple of months ago I'm not sure why people rate it so badly. It certainly beats the airline experience every time.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Having used Eurostar occasionally from it's first year of opening to a couple of months ago I'm not sure why people rate it so badly. It certainly beats the airline experience every time.

The main issue I have with it is that it is outrageously expensive unless booked well in advance. Flying is far, far cheaper.

 

[deltic]

The main issue I have with it is that it is outrageously expensive unless booked well in advance. Flying is far, far cheaper.

Not my experience - when traveling to Amsterdam recently for work the flights were more expensive and that's before adding on the cost of getting to and from airports. Last minute flights are often exorbitant. Obviously depends where your origin and destination are.

 

[WestCoast]

certainly, the worst must be Albania with trains hardly running at all. For the Rest you can choose any company in the Balkans.

Middle tier, NS, SNCB/NMBS and DB for reasons already mentioned,

Top tier: Any of the Swiss companies really, Luxembourg's CFL (good system and its free) and again ÖBB.

These are my thoughts too, but Switzerland is really in a league of its own. It’s extremely high quality but also high cost for non-Swiss (without a half fare card or interrail).

The best network of the larger European countries is still Germany in spite of all its faults, the D-Ticket for regional transport is incredible value and the stock is generally of a high standard. My mind still can’t make sense of being able to travel all over the whole country for a month for less than a return from Glasgow to Dundee on Scotrail, despite how superior our UK network is now claimed to be.

 

[paul_munich]

19€ Sparpreis for IC(E)s if you book in advance, 49€ Deutschlandticket per month for ALL public transport, exceptional customer rights with full flexibility if a train in more than 20' delayed, one of the highest network coverages in the world, despite an investment-backlog of hundreds of billions of Euros in the former GDR, with an overall punctuality (5'59'') of more then 90% and generally more or less clean trains... I think many of you are not fair with DB, can you really compare it to CFR???
According to Phillip Nagl, he is the boss of DB InfraGO who occasionally posts in DSO, the German equivalent to this amazing forum, in 2024 for the first time, more money is being invested than is required for renovation at the same time...
But sadly, many of your points are true, the areas around the stations, the famous "Bahnhofsviertel" is nearly always the social hotspot of every city with many people you don't wanna drink a beer with...
But still many questions, why does it take up to 5 hours to reopen a line after someone has been hit by a train, why do ICEs have these massive routes, from Munich via Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Cologne through the Ruhr area to Hamburg? Why not just M-Frankfurt? Why do even massively delayed ICEs always have priority over local services and mess up their timekeeping then?
Still a long way to go for DB, but they are lightyears ahead of many other, even Western European companies.

 

[Bletchleyite]

19€ Sparpreis for IC(E)s if you book in advance

(Super)sparpreis are basically Advances - quota controlled. You can get cheap fares like that in the UK too, and in Germany their availability is equally sparse.

 

[duesselmartin]

as to Germany and InfraGO, engineering seem to take place nowadays by total closure. The east Bank Rhine line will be fully closed for 5 months. A major European freight artery. The Riedbahn has often been discussed here,
although I am being OT here, is that standard practice in Europe nowadays? In the 90s they seem to have kept lines open single track at least. That pushes DB into the middle league for me.
As to comparing CFR to DB. Of course that is not fair on the surface but then CFR and BDZ do a good job if take into account the means they have.

 

[MarcVD]

is that tandard practice in Europe nowadays? In the 90s they seem to have kept lines open single track at least. That pushes DB into the middle league for me.

In Belgium, the national rail regulator now forbids to keep one track open for traffic while heavy works take place on the other. This decision follows a serie of accidents, some of them deadly, where the loading gauge of the other track was mistakenly occupied by heavy machinery.

Now the way works are planned has become totally different. Amy significant work is grouped with other interventions, and the line is entirely taken out of service for a weekend or a whole week, while everything takes place at once. And usually, no effort is made to route trains via alternative ways. It's bus replacement service most of the time.

 

[rvdborgt]

And usually, no effort is made to route trains via alternative ways. It's bus replacement service most of the time.

That depends on the route. E.g. Brussels-Luxembourg will normally be diverted via Leuven for engineering works between Brussels and Ottignies. Liège-Eupen will be diverted via Montzen for engineering works between Liège and Welkenraedt. Gent-Brugge or Antwerp-Gent will also be diverted, and there are some more examples. Often, only some trains (1 per hour) will be diverted and the rest cancelled or replaced by bus.

 

[Krokodil]

Anyone else remember the Top Gear Cool Wall? There was a "DB9 Fridge" because the things were deemed to be so good that they were off of the chart. The Swiss system falls into that category. One thing I will say though is that the lack of WiFi on everything bar the Glacier Express made life very difficult when I was with a mobile provider who didn't include Swiss roaming (shout out to O2 who do).

As others have said, DB is plagued by issues these days. I've had some bad luck with ÖBB but that might not be representative.

The NS trains I've used have been "OK". Not outstanding, not terrible.

I haven't actually used any SNCB trains, but my experience of travelling north from Brussels on a Eurostar is that the network is quite slow. Not just because there is no high speed line at that point, the train didn't feel like it was doing the 160kph limit. Some kind of extended temporary speed restriction I suppose, or maybe just running under restricted signal aspects. It is a sample of n=1 so I shouldn't extrapolate but what I do feel I can generalise is that I have barely seen a single SNCB unit without graffiti. Quite a contrast to the UK where no unit enters service with graffiti on.

CFR: Everything to do with trains in Romania is grim.

Not quite everything to do with trains in Romania is grim. I boarded a privatised train at Sinaia to go to Brașov and it was operated by a brand new unit. Fare was cheap too and the young female conductor friendly when pointing out that Interrail and FIP not valid (yeah, it suffers from the same non-interavailability as certain other privatised European operators). The operator was Transferoviar Călători. I've also seen good reviews of Astra Transcarpathic.

But yes, CFR and Regio Calatori are stuck with ancient rolling stock and grumpy staff. Compulsory reservations on trains which book out are a pain too, at least no one objected to us standing.

Bosnia (ZFBH/ZRS)

Not sure how long ago you travelled, but there are no longer any through services. Not just across the border into Croatia, there's also nothing across the internal border. ZRS runs around four trains per day on the remaining routes, electric services are local hauled with one or two carriages, and diesel services use Fiat DMUs. I would describe the passenger accommodation in both as "grotty". Very punctual though. Not sure what's left on the ZFBH side, Tuzla (where I went) has lost its passenger services (as they're at the end of a branch line from Republika Srpska) so I only saw freight.

The Volinja-Zagreb service (what's left on the Croatian side of the former through trains to Sarajevo) is run by new EMUs. Very nice, but no WiFi.

 

[43096]

what I do feel I can generalise is that I have barely seen a single SNCB unit without graffiti. Quite a contrast to the UK where no unit enters service with graffiti on.

That’s not actually true for the UK. SWR regularly have units in traffic with tags on and it’s not that long since GWR had a unit running round for a while with swastika graffiti on it.

 

[Bemined]

In Belgium, the national rail regulator now forbids to keep one track open for traffic while heavy works take place on the other. This decision follows a serie of accidents, some of them deadly, where the loading gauge of the other track was mistakenly occupied by heavy machinery.

Similar in the Netherlands, dual track lines are typically fully closed, but on lines with four tracks they do sometimes keep one or two tracks open. Although next Tuesday when there is such a situation between Eindhoven and Boxtel they still run replacement busses, there seems to be just one passenger train that day, the rest of the capacity on that single track is needed to run freight trains.

 

[gysev]

Not mentioned so far: Iarnród Éireann. A few weeks ago, I travelled through Ireland by train and I was very satisfied with IE's service. The trains (and stations) were clean and they ran pretty much on time. Only the low frequency on some secondary lines is a drawback.

 

[rf_ioliver]

VR of Finland not mentioned yet.

After doing 6 months of long-distance commuting my impression of them has gone up. Clean trains, reasonably good service between Helsinki and Tampere - ok, lots of trackwork at the moment. Connections are usually held, staff are superb - when things go wrong, they're really pragmatic and in my experience have done everything they can to work out a solution. Service on-board is excellent - their restaurant cars serve excellent food. Economy class is comfortable, excellent wifi (even good enough for a video conference)

Bad points: service levels could be higher in some places, speeds could be improved

Otherwise 8.5/10

 

[StephenHunter]

I would have to say that while PKP aren't the best for station information, their restaurant cars are superb - the best meal I've had on a train to date, beating even Caledonian Sleeper.

 

[43096]

I would have to say that while PKP aren't the best for station information, their restaurant cars are superb - the best meal I've had on a train to date, beating even Caledonian Sleeper.

A lot of the Eastern European operators have good restaurant cars. ČD, ZSSK, MÁV and PZP InterCity all recommended from experience.

 

[Davester50]

Those defending DB, I honestly do agree the quality of their product is in general very good. I was not slandering that by any means, but there's an element where a good offering can be scuppered by hideously bad punctuality. I'd rather an 'average' train turns up with fantastic punctuality than a very high spec train but with a delay of 60, 90 or even 120 minutes on a daily. Hence why I ranked NS as highly as I did.

That's my take too.
An average train that runs is a little better than a nice train that doesn't, or makes you miss a connection or meeting.

 

[kingston_toon]

North Macedonia seems to be terrible too.

Jon Worth (@[email protected])

Timetable says: train to Tabanovce Reality: no train to Tabanovce *FOR 3 YEARS* FFS

gruene.social

Jon Worth has just been on a tour of the Balkans. Here's his thread about a train ride in Albania.

Jon Worth (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image #CrossBorderRail South East Europe 2024 Train 59 of 64 7 15:00 Durrës-Plazh - Elbasan 18:00 HSH Train type: ČKD T 669 locomotive, 2 ex-DB (even ex-DR?) carriages ⛽️ : ❓(no one would care if you did) : ⛔️ : ⛔️ (but mobile reception is v good due to missing windows) ️: ⛔️ : ...

gruene.social

This is brilliant, thanks for posting. We're off to Albania at the end of the month for a long weekend, and I've managed to persuade my partner to do the Durrës-Plazh to Elbasan train with me. I had a few questions such as where exactly the station in Plazh is located and whether the departure time is currently 14:00 (as per Seat 61) or 15:00 (as per HSH) but Jon's excellent thread answers these, as well as confirming there's a late bus back from Elbasan to Tirana.

One thing I noticed when looking at the HSH website again just now which might be of interest to some here is that a second pair of Sat / Sun only trains has just been launched (started last weekend) running from Plazh at 06:20 down to Lushnje on the Vlorë branch, returning at 15:35. It seems to pass the Elbasan service both ways at Rrogozhinë, in theory opening up the possibility of a Durrës to Rrogozhinë day return, though I'm not sure I'd want to risk the 1 minute connection.

 

[Gag Halfrunt]

More from Jon Worth on how bad things are in North Macedonia:

North Macedonia's phantom rail line, and why I am worried they're repeating the error at the other end of the country - #CrossBorderRail

The railway line from Thessaloniki (Greece) to Bitola (North Macedonia) via Florina has a long history. It was completed in 1894, before the Balkan Wars in 1913 resulted in the final 17km ending up in Yugoslavia. Trains continued to run on the cross border section until 1987, and then ceased, […]

crossborderrail.trainsforeurope.eu

So the issue – in conclusion – is this.

Whatever lines North Macedonia builds or renovates in the coming years, until they urgently address the lack of rolling stock available to run on existing or future lines, there is going to be no progress. Hiring some class 441 electric locomotives from Croatia, and buying some carriages second hand from ČD in Czechia would be the easiest way to alleviate these problems, short term.

But were I the EU – and especially the European Investment Bank that is meant to have greater rigour in these matters – I would not commit a cent to any new railway infrastructure projects in North Macedonia before I could know if any trains are actually going to be available to run.

Until then, long live North Macedonia’s phantom line, and its forthcoming half built brother.

 

[duesselmartin]

it is really shocking how the former JZ network is canibalised. So much reliance on stock that is more than 40 years old. Railways in Bosnia, Kosovo, N Macedonia are almost dead, minimal investment in Serbia.

 

[FormerBritInMe]

Not mentioned so far: Iarnród Éireann. A few weeks ago, I travelled through Ireland by train and I was very satisfied with IE's service. The trains (and stations) were clean and they ran pretty much on time. Only the low frequency on some secondary lines is a drawback.

I would second this, although another drawback is the lack of catering, even for longish trips such as Dublin - Galway. Apparently they did have it especially on the trains to Cork but it went away during the COVID pandemic and never returned.

 

[duesselmartin]

I would second this, although another drawback is the lack of catering, even for longish trips such as Dublin - Galway. Apparently they did have it especially on the trains to Cork but it went away during the COVID pandemic and never returned.

I fear Ireland's distances are not long enough for "old style" catering. Best you can hope for is a trolley.
Not much better in the UK either. On LNER catering seem to be a sporadic hit and miss.

 

[rvdborgt]

I fear Ireland's distances are not long enough for "old style" catering. Best you can hope for is a trolley.

IIRC they had exactly that.
According to Irish Rail, catering is still/again available on some services, including Dublin-Cork.

 

[MarcVD]

it is really shocking how the former JZ network is canibalised. So much reliance on stock that is more than 40 years old. Railways in Bosnia, Kosovo, N Macedonia are almost dead, minimal investment in Serbia.

And Greece is not doing much better. All Peloponnese railways gone, all cross border trafic gone, skeleton service everywhere but on Thessaloniki-Athens. I wonder why they wanted Florina-Bitola back, since they are not even capable to exploit their existing cross border lines.

 

[nwales58]

Greece: even worse, ETCS installed but actual operation using train orders.

 

[AlastairFraser]

IIRC they had exactly that.
According to Irish Rail, catering is still/again available on some services, including Dublin-Cork.

I can confirm that a trolley catering is back on Dublin to Cork. It has only hot/cold drinks and cakes/other snacks, but it was a welcome addition and I purchased something from it on my Dublin-Cork journey in early Feb this year.