Vienna to London by train, in 1 day...

I found this inspiring video on youtube, and thought it might also interest some Amtrak fans.

Mr Smith, of "seat 61" fame seems to travel first class, but still an interesting comparison to American rail travel.

https://youtu.be/u2MlMk9j2vM

Ed.

Wow, that is impressive! Would love to go back to Europe again, but I can't see any foreign travel in my crystal ball.

h34r:

In October I put together a ride from Salzburg to Barcelona in a single day well like 22 hours on the move. Although I didn't end up executing it I did have it all pieced together on Loco24. It was funny my European colleagues seemed to be very skeptical about just how much rail service they had. I took a direct sleeper from Salzburg to Zagreb. The guys in the office refused to believe there was a train that covered that route. Let alone that I had taken it and spent the day in Zagreb before winding my way back to Salzburg via Ljubljana on some day trains. I was also impressed by a OBB Railjet train running from Budapest to Zurich over the course of like 14 hours. You can cover quite a bit of ground in Europe if you look at schedules carefully.

Of course I fully endorse Seat61. I have submitted corrections or more information that has been requested on some trips from around the world. He has always answered in a few hours and has it on the site in days. I have followed some of his advice in all corners of the planet and it has yet to let me down. A great way to spend a few hours day dreaming and laying out trips. I enjoy the three or four times a year I can line up a trip that was simply something I found out about on Seat61 or a similar site, and then actually visit and ride through the proposed itineraries.

I have been lucky to find some cheap train fares in Europe in the past, but now retired, it is hard to justify the longer train ride fares. I can fly from Nottingham to Barcelona next month for £20 one way, or go by train one way for £180+. Much as the train is my prefered mode of travel it is hard to justify to my wallet.

By booking in advance as much as possible, one could get a lower fare on the trains, but nowhere near £20.

Comparing chalk and cheese is not fair, but one has to economise!

Ed.

caravanman said:

I have been lucky to find some cheap train fares in Europe in the past, but now retired, it is hard to justify the longer train ride fares. I can fly from Nottingham to Barcelona next month for £20 one way, or go by train one way for £180+. Much as the train is my prefered mode of travel it is hard to justify to my wallet.

By booking in advance as much as possible, one could get a lower fare on the trains, but nowhere near £20.

Comparing chalk and cheese is not fair, but one has to economise!

Ed.

Click to expand...

Sadly this is true here in the Colonies also Eddie!
To this retired bloke, whether using points with the New and Unimproved AGR2.0, or paying Cash, Sleepers are mostly Ultra-Expensive compared to Cheapo Flights.

Even Amtrak Coach tickets are higher than Flights on lotsof LD Routes.

If you are travelling somewhere for just a day or two you may get away without any hold baggage, but if as some budget airlines now insist that you may take 5 or 7 kgs into the cabin but pay for everything that's checked then it can work out less viable.

We priced this latest journey using the ultra cheap Norwegian Air from Miami to London, the cost of 1 bag each for checked hold bags was x 2 as they didn't fly direct to London rather to Sweden or maybe it was Norway. There we would change for a Ryan Air flight to London, and Ryan Air charged a fortune again to check a bag. It came out more expensive than a British Airways direct flight, and that's not fake news.

Certainly the devil is in the small print with these "bargain" flights. I am surprised about Norweigan, their website looks as if the flight from Fort Lauderdale (Miami) to Gatwick is direct?

One of my "pet hates" is the cheap very early morning flight... Once one adds in the cost of an overnight airport hotel it often rises above the price of a more convenient flight time.

Ed.

I don't know what happened Ed, but we needed to get from New Orleans to London and I used every combination I could find. NOL to Lon, Orlando to LON, Miami to LON and in the end NYC to LON. I was arranging a lot of stuff in a hurry for this last trip so didn't keep all the details in my head if they were no good, but if Norwegian flew directly to LON on our dates or either side I would have looked seriously at it and remembered it. I thought I found a flight which did mean a transfer in Scandinavia then on with Ryan Air, it was either £100 each to check a bag on each leg or £100 each for the through trip but I think it was the first as I immediately compared it with BA and found that the 'free' checked bag made BA cheaper.

Many people use the budget airlines for a few days break so it works with close to no baggage, but we were into our 5th week and needed or had needed almost everything we took for different climates.

Maybe we were just unlucky with dates, but it did happen more or less as written. Though as I have mentioned a number of times on this forum just going into an airport compared with a rail station is enough to put me and latterly Rosie off flying and that's before having to sit for X hours in an tight box of a space like a farm animal and being offered faux food.

So many rail stations are a thing of beauty, they make you feel good before you even get on the train, how many airports have that effect on anybody?

OK, we all need air if we want to travel or are desperate, rant over.

No contest old chum, trains are my number one first choice.

I guess I was just asking the rail deities to forgive my occasional use of the much cheaper budget airlines from time to time.

Some of the connections and offers thrown up by flight search websites are bizarre indeed!

Cheers,

Ed.