Yep. Home

SNCF: bags without a label are a big danger! Announce! Fine! Act!

Also SNCF: passenger blocking doors (an escape route) with 4 bags. ‍️

And just one more station of #CrossBorderRail to go... Montbard now, 10 mins to Nuits-sous-Ravières and then 2km bike home

And then this monster will no doubt be sat on my knee within 2 minutes of my arrival!

Thanks for following all of this crazy project this past three weeks. I need a bit of a rest, but there will be a lot more soon!

Spent the past couple of hours working on the data, as so many of my #CrossBorderRail plans changed in the past couple of days

The map I travelled is now more or less right: https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crosschannelrail-2025_1148540#6/48.973/2.845

But all the train assessments will follow sometime, tomorrow if I have the energy!

Now on the final train home, Dijon to Nuits-sous-Ravières

It’s packed

But there *are seats* - but passengers put bags on them

I don’t know what’s more stupid: doing that to deny passengers a seat, or passengers refusing to ask passengers move bags?

I asked, got a grumpy ‍️ but the passenger complied and I have a seat

France tangent: Bourgogne Franche Comté reduction cards have not been working on SNCF for a week or so, despite SNCF issuing them AFAIK

Now all holders have received an email telling them to… … use another SNCF website to book instead

Well done everyone!

Thankfully the overhead racks are generous. Not quite as good as Talgo, but still very good.

The noise level on board is fine. The air quality good. Toilets and vestibules well designed. Gangways between carriages wide.

Put some luggage racks in, and replace linoleum floors with carpet and you’d have an excellent train.

There are some design choices made by Trenitalia for the interior that make little sense

Worst: luggage space. Most carriages have no rack for large bags at all! What were they thinking?

They don’t sell 2 seats per carriage as a temporary solution for this

It’s smooth at 300km/h, not quite as good as a TGV though

However Frecciarossa seats are designed for short people. I’m 1m 83 tall, and the seat comes only to the base of my skull. Seat is comfortable until there though!

So you can board a full Frecciarossa in 11 minutes, from a terminus gate at Gare de Lyon, with staff checking tickets instead of using ticket barriers

Trenitalia meanwhile needs 8 staff to board one 8 carriage Frecciarossa ‍️

And when SNCF goes whining to the Italian competition authority it can’t get the paths it wants in Italy, pause a moment: Italian high speed lines and stations are quite full, all day

By contrast SNCF Réseau can‘t refuse Trenitalia an off peak path in France when nothing else is going

And 2 of the 4 trains this hour at Paris Gare de Lyon are regional ones

So just 2 high speed departures

Compare that to Milano Centrale with 8 departures, or Frankfurt (Main) Hbf with a dozen

(Oh and DB doesn’t show Italo. So the Milano total will be higher still)

Arriving at Paris Gare de Lyon - the station for high speed trains to France‘s second and third cities Marseille and Lyon… and there are 4 trains in the next hour.

FOUR

That’s it.

The chronically under utilised capacity on French rail, off peak, makes me annoyed.

So my little tour of the eastern edges of Paris is done

RER back into the city now!

And here’s SNCF inviting harassment of passengers by telling them to display sensitive information

No, legally you DO NOT need to put a mobile number on your luggage!

How dare SNCF exceed what’s legally necessary in this publicity?

You can see how Marne La Vallée Chessy worked for #CrossChannelRail

Pic 1: the terminal
Pic 2: escalators secured with kind of fences, as in Lille
Pic 3: glass divider on the platform

If I’ve counted it right they have 17 staff to check inOui and OUIGO tickets before passengers get to the platforms here at Marne La Vallée Chessy. Strikes me as… rather a lot!

High speed train

Slow speed boarding