Help on a European Voyage :-)

[Tom C]

Evening to you all

I am a UK Railwayman and I am planning to do a 9-10 day tour of Europe by rail (mostly sleeper services) and I was wondering if anyone could help me with a few things.

Basically my itiinary is........

18th of June 0909 Waterloo to Paris, 2032 Paris to Barcelona (Elipsos)
19th of June 2040 Barcelona to Milan (Elipsos)
21st of June 11:10 Milan to Zurich, 22:40 Zurich to Vienna
22nd of June 22:33 Vienna to Prague
24th of June 21:18 Prague to Warsaw
25th of June 23:30 Warsaw to Berlin
27th of June 21:35 Berlin to Basel
28th of June 09:05 Basel to Geneva
29th of June 12:57 Geneva to Paris
30th of June Eurostar back to Waterloo

Does anyone know the standard of the sleeping accommodation on any of the trains and what tracton I can expect on the non Eurostar legs i.e ones to stay up and enjoy the thrash or ones that should be used for sleeping

Also if there are any rail staff out there! How do I stand with the FIP coupons on sleeper services and are there any which I should upgrade to 1st (the Polish legs sound a bit dodgy) or perhaps any of the others which offer a reasonable upgrade to 1st?

Any help would be appriciated, doesn't seem to be any resources to show you the stock they use and as for rail staff travel having to fill in forms just to get quotes for the trip let alone actually getting reservations

Anyway thanks in advance

Tom C

[Trev]

Can't help you at all Tom, sorry. Looks like one hell of a trip though. Enjoy it.

[Albula]

The more hardend of European Railway Gricers can be found on www.groups.yahoo.com/groups/europeanrail

[swisstrains]

Tom, that is one heck of a journey. You should certainly see a good selection of trains on your travels.
I am not an expert on night trains in Europe but a quick look through the timetables and websites on the internet reveals the following details. Your "Elipsos" journeys from Paris-Barcelona and Barcelona-Milan will be in Talgo trains. These are high quality hotel trains consisting of rather strange dumpy coaches which share the same single axle truck. "Elipsos" have a website here
Your daytime Milan-Zurich journey is over the scenic Swiss Gotthard line and will be an Italian/Swiss "Cisalpino" tilting electric unit (like this one) "Cisalpino", the operating company have a website here
Your night journey from Zurich-Vienna is on the EuroNight "Wiener Walzer" which as far as I know uses OBB Austrian Railways standard sleeping cars. Motive power from Zurich to the Swiss/Austrian border will be a Swiss SBB Re4/4 ll electric loco (like this one). An Austrian electric loco will take over at the border for the rest of the journey through to Vienna.
I don't know anything at all about the Vienna-Prague-Warsaw-Berlin part of your journey but I suppose this could be your only chance of diesel haulage but even then I doubt it.
You will return from Berlin-Basel on a "CityNightLine" service. This is another high class service and some of their sleepers are actually double deckers. "CityNightLine" have a website here Loco will be a German DB electric.
Your Basel-Geneva daytime journey is on a Swiss SBB ICN tilting electric unit (like this one) and the leg from Geneva-Paris is on a French SNCF TGV high speed train.
As you can see most of the motive power is guaranteed to be electric so there will be more sparks than thrash
Hope this helps,
John.

[Shed Cat]

Errr?

The date of the original post was Nov 2005 for a trip in June 2006, or three months ago.

So either Tom C is still stuck in Eastern Europe waiting for a train home , or he is back and not telling us about the trip.

I would love to hear all about it.

[swisstrains]

Hi ShedCat,
Tom C joined the Forum in Nov.2005. His post is dated 20th Sept 2006.
I am assuming that he is planning his journey for next year...........I hope
John.

[Tom C]

Trip is for June next year

Thanks very much John for that info it is very much appriciated, I was using www.bahn.de for the timetable details and all the night trains seemed to be nachtzug so couldn't tell them apart but thanks for the clarification

Looking forward to it even more now

Tom C

[Shed Cat]

Originally Posted by swisstrains

Hi ShedCat,
Tom C joined the Forum in Nov.2005. His post is dated 20th Sept 2006.
I am assuming that he is planning his journey for next year...........I hope
John.

What a silly mistake for me to make....