Tourist train, Nova Scotia, Canada.
I was blessed to live in Europe for 15 years of a 20-year military career and rode just about every type of train, regular service and tourist/museumsbahn, I could find. Most memorable was the Allied Duty Train that departed Berlin every evening and arrived in Frankfurt the following morning. Being in Berlin, our only way to the West was hopping a C130, driving the official corridor, or the train. It wasn’t exactly the most comfortable - 6 to a sleeper compartment - but was always memorable, especially after the Wall came down and our Soviet military escorts realized they would be going home soon... they actually started to smile at us!
1. London Underground--tube
2. British Rail--overground
3. SNCF--through France
4. DB --West Germany to East Germany(took the train around West Germany)
5. East Germany to warsaw Poland
6. warsaw to Krakow
7. Eurostar to paris
8. Paris to Brussels
9. Eurostar from Brussels to London.
I think that's it
lessee - UK: London underground; Heathrow - London express; regional trains London - Bath, London - Salisbury; Eurostar* London - Paris
Continent: Thalys*: Paris - Antwerp; TGV*: Paris - Bordeaux; Deutsche Bahn: Luxembourg City - Koln; ICE*: Koln - Bremen - Berlin; Norwegian regional: Oslo - Flam; Italo*: Rome - Venice; Trenitalia*: Venice - Florence; Italo: Florence - Rome; DB (long ago) Salzburg - Copenhagen ("night train - back when the Germans insisted on smoking on the train - aargh")
Bucket List: ICE or TGV Paris to Berlin; Berlin to Milan (high speed rail - all DB?); TGV: Milan to Paris (inspired by the man in seat 61 -- website: seat61.com -- a great train travel website, especially for Europe); also something trans-Canada - Vancouver to Ottawa on VIA, or is it CN??
* high speed trains
Yes Siree, I one rode the Amtrak train from Boston to NYC, hauled by an F40PH as far as New Haven and a Swedish electric for the remainder.
(well its foreign to me) :-)
@Limey posted:Yes Siree, I one rode the Amtrak train from Boston to NYC, hauled by an F40PH as far as New Haven and a Swedish electric for the remainder.
(well its foreign to me) :-)
Sorry, but that was NOT in a foreign country.
Does West Philadelphia count?
Does the subway in Montreal count??
Lets's See:
London Underground, Tokyo Subway, British Rail, and Dublin to Blarney Castle County Cork.
We are booked on the Toronto-Vancouver later this year. Any words of wisdom? John
Commuter train from Leuven, Belgium (the home of Stella Artois) to Brussels, then the Thalys from Brussels to Paris (at around 160- 180 mph). Paris by Thalys back to Leuven.
John
Montreal Metro at Lucien-Allier, first time riding the new trains with open gangways (2017):
---PCJ
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Took quite a few trains in the UK. Edinburgh (Princes Station) to Glasgow, Edinburgh to York for the National Railway Museum, and more. Fast, clean, and frequent. Some were DMU, others were locomotive-hauled.
@Hot Water posted:Sorry, but that was NOT in a foreign country.
Well it has been since 1776.
A Train
Local, express, bullet, subway in Japan. The subway in korea. The tube in London. Thats about it so far. No other OCONUS/canada places I have been have either not had rail at all (caribbean e.g.), or I just car'd it (canadia).
Only one was in 2019 on the Rocky Mountaineer from Banff Canada to Vancouver. Went 1st class on their gold leaf service. Full dome car with a full service restaurant on the first floor and unbelievably beautiful views from our seats.
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Dalat Vietnam
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"Montreal Metro at Lucien-Allier, first time riding the new trains with open gangways (2017):"
Is that what those are called? I never knew what the correct term was for the space between passenger cars. I always called them vestibules. Learn something new every day.
Vestibule is inside (inside your ear, for instance, or just inside a building). Gangways are external to the body, so boats, trains, as a point of entry into the vessel. Any walk between cars is across a gangway. The "open gangway" in the photo you will see in, of all things, busses nowadays:
-> https://articulated-bus.com/in...ucts-category-1.html
ATG can provide custom solutions for your application, whether you require a complete gangway solution or a single component such as an articulated joint, platform, cable guide or centre hoop with bellows.
Almost every bus in the DC/Metro area nowadays is a newfangled articulated with enclosed gangways. :|
This is a great topic with many nice pictures. Happy Traveling Everyone.
My wife and I have ridden the subways in most European capitals. We also took the cog rail train to Jungfrau glacier in Switzerland, ridden the Canadian VIA from Windsor to Toronto, taken train service from Calais, France to Bremen, Germany and the TGV from Paris into Spain as far as it went at the time. All very pleasant experiences. The TGV was absolutely wonderful. We took along a bottle of wine and some baguettes which we shared with some French citizens who instantly became our traveling companions. They supplied the "fromage" and we, the rest.
35 years ago I rode VIA Rail in Canada from Niagara Falls, Ontario to Toronto numerous times. Trains were always Budd RDCs.
Rode GO Transit with F40s and Hawker Siddley double deckers on occasion.
Used the TTC subway in Toronto, often too. It was a class operation 35 years ago….
Tom
England, Germany & Canada
Yes. England's tube and a commuter train as well as Montreal's subway.
Yes, a steam locomotive in Japan, about 1975.
The Canadien in "you-know-where'. The Vista Train and others in Mexico circa 1974. Numerous unnamed trains in Ireland. Numerous trains as part of the Paris France RER.
That Mexico trip was on the line Arthur Stillwell envisioned but never saw completed as part of his Kansas City, Mexico & Orient RR. It is an engineering marvel.
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Yes we have! - Japan in particular stands out. In 2016 we vacationed using a rail pass from Tokyo in the north to Kagoshima in the south. Rode everything from the subways to the Shinkansen. Fantastic time and every train was fascinating to me!
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Kelunaboy, Wow, now that’s a fun train vacation, and I’m sure a fantastic ride. Thanks for posting pictures. Wow, this is a fun thread… Happy Railroading Everyone
1) DB Frankfurt to Mainz
2) DB Frankfurt to Fuessen -- Gotta be a tourist and see Neuschwanstein and where they shot The Great Escape
3) DB Frankfurt to Freiburg im Breisgau
4) DB Freiburg to Breisach
5) DB Freiburg to Basel Bad Bahnhof
6) SBB Basel Bad to Geneva
7) SNCF Geneva to Portbou, Spain
8) RENFE Portbou to Barcelona
9) RENFE Barcelona to Madrid - on a Talgo, this was 1988
10) RENFE Madrid to Toledo
11) RENFE Madrid to El Escorial
And back the way I came.
My regret is that I never road the DB Hoellentalbahn route while I studied in Freiburg.
I can slightly remember two rail trips in Ireland when my wife and I were visiting friends who lived in County Tipperary and we went to Dublin by train to do some shopping and another trip to Ireland when we had arranged a family trip to Ireland and took the DART between the town in which we were staying in a Bed & Breakfast and Dublin to do some sight-seeing.
On a another time my wife and I went to England to do a tour of Wales and friends, who we had met in Bermuda, in Southern England invited us to spend a few days with them before we started the tour. So we took the train from London down to a town near the White Cliffs of Dover where the friends met us and, when it was time to meet our tour group, they drove us back to London.
While assigned to the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India in the mid-10970's, rode the Taj Express from New Delhi to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal. Indian rail was still in the early transition from steam to diesel, and most to the rail equipment, including a large number of steam locomotives, was from the British Raj period. The locomotives normally assigned top the Taj were the WP-7003's, some of which were build by Baldwin. The train's carriages dated from the 1920's and first class seating air conditioning consisted of small electric fans near each seat. The windows of the cars needed to be open and a good amount of smoke and cinders managed to make it inside - the Lackawanna "Phoebe Snow" jingles always came to mind during each trip.
Canada and Mexico.
In Canada, of course, it was so much like USA railroading, that it was virtually the same. Leaving Toronto on the Laurentian, I stood in the dutch door of my sleeping car and took in all the fantastic Alco sounds of the three MLW cab units up front in cold, night air. The crews were always friendly and competent.
Mexico was like USA railroading in 1945, with kerosene marker lamps at the rear of every freight and passenger train. Again, I traveled in Primera Especial class, on a Pullman sleeping car. I also rode on those weird-looking Kinki Primera class chair cars, and, on occasion in Segunda, open window, coaches. It was always fun. I ate steak, pancakes, chilaquiles, and other delicious meals in the coche comedor. The train orders were perfectly understandable, even though written in Spanish, as they were in the same form as on US railroads.
Train handling in Mexico was always interesting. Some Maquinistas were artists in the use of the air brake, while others were, shall we say, unsophisticated. There did not seem to be any middle ground.
Germany - was there for 5 weeks during summer vacation between Jr and Sr year in high school with my girlfriend. We rode lots of trains , subways etc. Nothing stood out in my mind other than people staring at us all the time on the train.
France - Paris - was there on a business trip for 10 days when I was 20. Rode the subway every day to work and I still can remember how litter free and clean the system was. Nothing at all like the next item on my list.
NYC subway ( yes, that is a foreign country ! ) Can count on two fingers the times I went, back in the early 70's and both for Broadway - saw Hair and Phantom of the Opera.
JP
Yes, various trains in Europe (DB-ICE, TGV France, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Ulster, Great Britain, and Italy), in Japan, and the Algoma in Canada. Great experiences!
The most memorable, however, was the Belmond Grand Hibernian that a good friend and I took on a luxury tour of the Republic of Ireland two years ago. Below are pictures of the motive power (built by EMD), a dining car, and the lounge car interior.
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@rattler21 posted:Did you ride any trains in other countries?
John
Nope, never been out over the country
When I lived in Australia in the 90s I rode the Sydney ring trains almost every day. At the time they were gradually replacing their single level self propelled coaches with newer modern 2 level cars also self propelled. The early trains were affectionately known as "growlers" because of the distinctive sound their motor/axle gearing made.
I also was fortunately able to ride the green Pacific on one of its excursion runs before I left for home. Great time with lots of run by viewing. I also visited the museum at Thirlmere where they were in the early stages of evaluation of the big Garrett loco for restoration to operation. Their equivelent to the Big Boy. Quite a massive engine!. Have some pictures here somewhere but can't find them right now.
Rolland
Rode the Shanghai maglev bullet train a few years ago on a work trip. 260+ mph.
