It's that time of the year again - #LPC and #ASG are happening soon, so time to get on the (rail) road: #Scotland to Austria and then Germany by #train! We start with a tram to Waverley Station, ding ding
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Next leg, #LNER Azuma to London - already looking forward to the complimentary breakfast, pancakes are on the menu today, yay
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5 minutes into the journey and Scooby already made friends with all the staff and half the carriage, while at the same time ensuring there are no pigeons stowaways onboard. Good boy!
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And now time for the yearly rant about crossing the Eurotunnel: there's a perfectly fine passenger train from London to France and Belgium, so why are we boarding a shuttle train in a taxi? Well, because #Eurostar hates #dogs and is the only train company in Europe that doesn't allow them on board. So instead of a nice and quick direct route, we have to get a taxi on the shuttle from Folkestone to Calais, and then continue from there, at great expense of time and money. Thanks, Eurostar.
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Made it to the continent in good time! Last leg of the day, this ye olde #TGV repurposed as regional express service will carry us to Lille, where we will spend the night. We start again tomorrow, but for now, checking the local craft beer situation in the north of France
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Local craft beer situation in Lille: j'approve
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New day, new train - this blurry boi is a #TGV that will take us to Strasbourg to catch the next connection, hopefully. Apparently you need to buy dog tickets in France - wut? He's tiny, doesn't take a seat and provides a valuable pigeon deterrence effect, they should pay him to ride onboard!
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The little stowaway, munching on his favourite (expensive) chew
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Last one for the day: a French #TGV in the hands of DeutscheBahn. A dangerous combination, and already 5 minutes late. At least it arrived! If all goes well, at some undetermined point in the next 80 minutes we should be in Stuttgart, where we'll spend a few days touristing and hunting the local pigeons.
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And we are off again, strangely on time, for now at least. Short hop to Munich on this nice #ICE to catch the next connection
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Or maybe not so short after all: the little muncher here figured out that in this carriage the door opening sensor does recognize him, unlike most others. We are sitting right next to the door. Once he's done with munching on his chew, I know exactly what he's going to do for the next two hours!
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And now, strangely with only one minute of delay, we are on the way to Klagenfurt on this #OBB museum piece. Top tip: when traveling between Germany and Austria, if you can, avoid Eurocity (EC) trains like the plague. It's a codename for extremely old and badly refurbished trains, running way past their sell-by date
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"this compartment door is broken" cries the woof, sad that he cannot attempt more escapes to sweep the carriage for pigeons. One good thing about an ancient train I guess, the doors are manual so the fluffy escape artist is stuck!
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Next and final journey for today: this #OBB regional express will carry us to Wolfsberg, where we will spend a week resting, eating and drinking. The contrast between this nice, comfy and modern regional train with the previous ancient international train couldn't be starker!
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A day late due to the deluge, time to head for Vienna for #LPC - I brought paddles just in case, but hopefully they won't be needed just yet. This nice and modern regional #OBB to Klagenfurt is the first step, and then hopefully there will be a Railjet to wait for me at the other end
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And now for the difficult part, as this line was closed over the Semmering until last night, this nice slightly tattooed #OBB Railjet to Vienna. Looking forward to a train Schnitzel!
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After a lovely week in Vienna, onwards and upwards to Berlin (north is up, right?) for the 3rd Image-Based Linux Summit and #AllSystemsGo24. On this Westbahn to Munich first, and then it's thoughts and prayers with DB
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And now, I am in the hands of DeutscheBahn. Not even god can help us down here. Hopefully I will be in Berlin at some point this week. At least the train is here!
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...made it to Berlin! And only 2 hours late, which is otherwise known as a normal Monday with DB
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After two weeks of productive and exhausting fun at #LPC and #allsystemsgo time for the long journey back home. This grei boi will hopefully deliver me from Berlin to Augsburg, where the fluffy pigeon hunter and his handler will hopefully be waiting for me, to spend a couple of days touristing and terrorizing the local city fowl before continuing north
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There he is, en-route from southern Austria, keeping a vigilant eye for possible squirrel stowaways in the carriage, for everyone's safety. Thank you for your service!
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Craft beer situation in Augsburg: within acceptable parameters
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Lots of hops today, and not the kind that makes beer tasty: first off, to Stuttgart, strangely on time (for now)
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5 minutes late which is on time for DeutscheBahn, next hop to Strasbourg on this ICE
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Priority n. 1, sweeping carriage for pigeons: ✅
Priority n. 2, finding a comfy spot for a snooze: ✅
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Strangely made it to Strasbourg on time - last hop to Lille on this doubled-up boi is next
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New day, new TGV repurposed as a regional train - from Lille to Calais. But wait a second, why Calais? Isn't there a perfectly functional train that goes from Lille straight to London? Well yes there is, excellent question, time for the second part of the yearly rant against Eurostar, coming up next. #EurostarHatesDogs
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Despite the fact that @EUCommission wants us to travel by train across Europe instead of driving or flying, people who travel with their dogs cannot take the #Eurostar as it is the only train company in the EU that refuses to accept dogs onboard, so we have to drive to the Eurotunnel instead. Around 40% of Eurotunnel drivers travel with a pet, as they have no choice. So much for green travel and reducing CO2 emissions eh @EUCommission ? Maybe it would be time to finally do something about this?
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No delays at the border checks thankfully, so already on the way to London on this speedy boi #SoutheasternHighspeed
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In London perfectly on time, that's perfect so we can get out as fast as we can with this #LNER Azuma. Next stop: home!
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Gotta love travelling in #LNER first class, slainte
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...and 19 trains, 2 shuttles, countless ubahns/sbahns and 2 trams, 5 cities, 3 countries, 2 conferences, one summit later, it finally ends just like it began, with a ding-ding! #EdinburghTrams
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@bluca @EUCommission yikes, how annoying! 😬
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@bluca Funny how each country has a (most often the historical national operator) train company with a reputation for being always late, not making sure people end up at the right destination, and so on. In France we have SNCF - which you appear to know well - which, while not as terrible as one may hear, deserves some of its reputation.
But perhaps it says more about the difficulty of operating many train lines conjointly and our relationship to time that of the operator itself ?
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@nightmared it is no easy feat, however I am firmly convinced that what makes DB distinctively worse than other railways of the same size was the decision not to pursue the construction of dedicated high speed lines where intercities could be segregated to, massively boosting capacity and reducing variance. The way DB's network works, a delay in a regional service quickly cascades to the surrounding network slowing down ICEs which slow down other local services which slow down... UK is the same
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@bluca It probably boils down to money in the end (sadly, what doesn't?), as high speed lines are incredibly expensive, but you're right that not all networks are equal from that perspective. UK has a (probably undeserved, I should hope) reputation for botching many of their infrastructure projects, that may play a role too...
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@nightmared a largely dysfunctional network like we have in the UK or as it looks like to be in Germany is also extremely expensive, but it's not a single big fat bill, so it doesn't attract headlines. I am pretty sure if you sum up all the money that it costed the UK or German economies to have these constant congested and constantly delayed networks, both directly and indirectly, the tally over even half a century would come up several times the cost of building new, dedicated infrastructure
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