My European trip in October has been postponed due to health issues. I’m living vicariously through you until next year, Paul. Thank you for your dedication to quality content.
Kudos to you Paul for not throwing a fit about equipment changes like other reviewers would , seems like they handled it rather well. I also enjoy train travel and am a former rail manager and things like this happen quite often.
Try it bro, you can ride the highest speed train for the first time in Southeast Asia. The highest speed is 350 kilometers per hour, the Indonesian fast train Jakarta - Bandung, the newest, most sophisticated in Southeast Asia, the first,.,the way to the beautiful and comfortable and beautiful and cool and cool city of Bandung, thank you sis and bro.,Try it bro, you can ride the highest speed train for the first time in Southeast Asia. The highest speed is 350 kilometers per hour, the Indonesian fast train Jakarta - Bandung, the newest, most sophisticated in Southeast Asia, the first,.the way to the beautiful and comfortable and beautiful and cool and cool city of Bandung, to lembang is Ciwidey ,kota Bandung BRAGA,...thank you sis and bro.~*
The key is whether customers still get the same level of service with the substituted equipment or not. If they don't, they have every right to complain.
That Innsbruck to Verona section is just beautiful, I stood the whole way for 3 hours in the vestibule! But it didn't matter, it was just glorious on a summers day. Thinking to myself "This is just fantastic!!" 🙂 Happy memories
Try it bro, you can ride the highest speed train for the first time in Southeast Asia. The highest speed is 350 kilometers per hour, the Indonesian fast train Jakarta - Bandung, the newest, most sophisticated in Southeast Asia, the first,.,the way to the beautiful and comfortable and beautiful and cool and cool city of Bandung, thank you sis and bro.,Try it bro, you can ride the highest speed train for the first time in Southeast Asia. The highest speed is 350 kilometers per hour, the Indonesian fast train Jakarta - Bandung, the newest, most sophisticated in Southeast Asia, the first,.the way to the beautiful and comfortable and beautiful and cool and cool city of Bandung, to lembang is Ciwidey ,kota Bandung BRAGA,...thank you sis and bro.~*
Try it bro, you can ride the highest speed train for the first time in Southeast Asia. The highest speed is 350 kilometers per hour, the Indonesian fast train Jakarta - Bandung, the newest, most sophisticated in Southeast Asia, the first,.,the way to the beautiful and comfortable and beautiful and cool and cool city of Bandung, thank you sis and bro.,Try it bro, you can ride the highest speed train for the first time in Southeast Asia. The highest speed is 350 kilometers per hour, the Indonesian fast train Jakarta - Bandung, the newest, most sophisticated in Southeast Asia, the first,.the way to the beautiful and comfortable and beautiful and cool and cool city of Bandung, to lembang is Ciwidey ,kota Bandung BRAGA,...thank you sis and bro.~*
Looking at the locomotive number the train was pulled by a Class 1116, which lacks the 3kV voltage and Italian train protection system required to run past Brenner station. Nice to see the IRROP was handled adequately by OBB. Regardless; looking forward to using one of those sets in the future, they look like a great addition.
I enjoy watching you go places and do things that I know I can't. It is quite fun to watch you. You aren't full of yourself like some content creators and are clear, concise and not a bit whiney. Keep 'em coming.
My dad is Austrian and used to tell me about his steam train journeys from Linz to Bolzano in the summer when he was a child. Now I can why he loved it so! Beautiful
Railjet in its different iterations is one of the recent great travel products like the 777-300ER that's simply superb. Thanks for the best review of this service!
As a fellow Liverpool FC supporter I am watching this video the day after the Crystal palace defeat and of course today is a very sombre day for Liverpool supporters April 15th I have been following Paul from the beginning and enjoy his videos I have looked at some of these journeys but never been on any trips by train in Europe but having missed a family holiday because due to my wife not being allowed to fly after having a blood clot We are planning a trip possibly this one my wife's disabled so the information was very useful Although I know very little about train journeys in Europe I was surprised how cheap you can get tickets for one trip I had in mind was flying to Amsterdam from Liverpool and you can then take a train to Munich and then this journey through the Alps If you get the very early trains they are unbelievably very affordable Keep up the good work Paul
This is probably my favourite rail route in Europe, love how the scenery evolves from Germanic efficiency to Italian style 😊 I like the look of the new train and nice to have competition to DB's old EC units, which are usually packed. I wish they would offer more face to face seats because my daughter and I usually argue over who gets the window seat so face to face solves this but these side by side ones are less social somehow. I also prefer sitting higher up, especially on this scenic route, which economy doesn't seem to offer. Can't wait to try it out though 😊 but thanks will leave the beer coke and stick with Almdudler!
Actually the new trainsets don't run in competition to the ECs, but will gradually replace them. Mostly because the older DB cars will soon lose the certification for Italy.
I rode business class on Railjet a couple times. It was real good. When I rode it I think I had a single seat layout. But you're right, it makes no sense to have a seat set up like that. First class would be just as good I realized with that 2 by 1 seat layout.( maybe I upgraded just for the one free beer, haha)
Unfortunately, on the four new trains there are only 3 four-seat compartments left in Business class. The seats are narrower, lost their leg rests and some leg room and - which is really a problem for dedicated business seats - the new tables are too small to work or eat on.
Thank you for this video, Paul! We LOVE flying from the states into munch airport and then flying to Italy from there. This is a great option for us as Bologna is always our fav place in Italy. While I do love the new design with the wood accents and the luggage locks, I too am puzzled by the bathrooms and ADA accessibility for those who need it. Thank you for the review! Always best in class videos! 👌✌️ Cheers from San Francisco Bay Area.
There is no _A_mericans with Disabilities Act in Europe 🙂 The trainset is fully compliant with European regulations. There are wheelchair spaces and an accessible toilet. Access to the dining car is not required by law, but ÖBB offer at-seat service for wheelchair users anyways (there is an attendant call button next to the wheelchair spots for this purpose).
That train looks beautiful. I wish Portugal had a train like that Railjet . We have a Pendolino train with the top speed of 250 km / hour between Lisbon and Porto . They also serve the northern city of Braga and the southern city of Faro in the Algarve region . Although , in those routes they can't run at 200 km per hour . Is mostly around 160 km per hour of top speed . Portugal is starting to build a brand new high speed railway ( 300 km per hour ) between Lisbon and Porto but is gonna take several years before become a reality. Greetings to you , Paul Lucas from 🇵🇹 Portugal.
Those trains can reach 220kph, not 250kph and only on a few sections, but they are nice, comfortable and still pretty fast. The new planned HSR line will be a big improvement but it should have been built with standard gauge, not the planned Iberina gauge, as those train will be the ones that will connect to Spain and France (through Irun) and the rest of Europe and most have standard gauge (Spain uses standard gauge for high speed trains and Iberian for regular trains). You will be able to use gauge changing trains, of course, but this severely limits your rolling stock options, mainly to the new Talgo Avril, which is great, if they'll manage to start service after so many delays - current date is end of May, but it's not a great idea to limit yourself to one model of one manufacturer.
As commented elsewhere the section from Munich to Innsbruck was hauled by an ÖBB 1116 Taurus which is not equipped for going into Italy and that is why I suspect you had a set swap as the replacement train was hauled by an ÖBB 1216 Taurus which does have the required equipment. The easy way to,tell them apart is that the 1116 has a single cab side door in the middle of the body side, whereas a 1216 has two cab side doors, one just behind each cab. I am off soon on another European tour and I am hoping to go on both a new Railjet and also a new Nightjet so looking forward to both!
I wonder why they chose Bologna as their destination? I would have thought they would have finalized in Venice or Milan? Especially Milan with all the connections there that go elsewhere. Great video by the way...very well done as always
Looks like the sort of train journey which you could really enjoy. Particularly impressed with the ability to keep your luggage locked. While travelling by train over the years I have always been concerned about not being able to keep your eye of your luggage (if it is too big for the overhead space provided). Very good idea.
Love your posts Paul. Travelled o'seas 10 years ago and missed out on a journey because it finished in the off season. It went from Milan (I think), through Stresa and Domodossola in the alps, into Switzerland and then getting the ferry through Lago Maggiore back to Stresa. If ever you get the chance would love to see it.
Having travelled through the Brenner Pass in 2022 (again) on another trip from Australia, agree it's a wonderful route. The supplement for my Global Eurailpass was not huge. Enjoying a beer and snack in the small dining car section was terrific. The train seemed poorly patronised. Let's hope it improves as more know about the new RailJets. The seats look hard. Perhaps Paul, you ignored that. On the older RailJets, the seats have been comfortable when I've used those trains. Why fly on a crappy airline when you can enjoy rail travel?
The value of European trains always makes me so mad at the prices here in the UK. Had a great rail journey through Italy last year and the value and service was brilliant.
Well, European trains are heavy subsidiaries, have a single owner with total control over it, no idiotic bidding system, and are not part of system which has no financial incentive to do better due to having multiple owners. The British system is effective the tragedy of the commons in semi-private form.
Beautiful trains in Austria,and Germany, In UK, need maybe 100 years to catch up with them… for just one example look at “ grand central” - trains,. It’s something from WW2-
Nice video! We went from Vienna to Feldkirch in the week before Easter and ÖBB ran the new Railjet as an IC train on that day, but unfortunately we've already booked a reservation on the regular Railjet train after the new one so we took the old Railjet. At least we've got a glimpse on the train in Feldkrich as it only arrived a few minutes before ours there. But in retrospect I'm still a bit mad we didn't take the new train, because I hadn't have a chance to take it since. On that journey we had a similar disruption: The train was supposed to consist of two parts, one for Munich and one for Bregenz. But the part for Bregenz never made it to Vienna, so we had to change to a replacement train in Salzburg. But we left Salzburg with only a 5 minute delay and arrived in Feldkirch on-time. So ÖBB did as great of a job with managing the disruption as with your journey. Oh, and I'm verry sorry you've tried that weird German Cola-Beer mix. Austria's Beer Party (a satirical political party centred around beer) would ban it for sure ;)
There's one thing that jumped out at me here Paul - do you run a camera the whole time? It looks like you pre-emptively grabbed footage of a completely unexpected train change. If so, bravo!
Nice video, Paul, but I would wish you or other youtube travel reviewers would also ride the train on a busy weekend, to point out the problems with the narrower seats, isles and steps up and down in 2nd class. Also, the seats are harder, there is less luggage room compared to the older Railjets, a lack of trash bins, and you cannot really call the bistro a restaurant. Not only will you not be able to get up when someone is sitting next to you, on a full train you will also have lots of people queuing for the bar between the bar stools and the seats. People will be pushing you constantly if you choose to sit on the bar stools. But that is a minor problem.
13:32 owner of the luggage on the left must be a very frequent flyer normally, that’s a Lufthansa Senator tag hanging off 😅 my suitcase for uni also has one since it’s a hand-me-down from my Dad who also has the same status
Lovely looking train,nice and clean, looks comfortable as well, views nice, my late husband and l travelled on a journey like this the nineties, very interesting ,thank you for sharing this video, 😊
I was drinking in the views through the windows like cool water. Such stunning scenery! I don't think I'd need onboard entertainment with views like those. The new train looks great too. I like the wood accents and the double table option. Oh, and your face when you tried the Bier Cola! I laughed out loud. I think I'll avoid this too. :)
Looked very good. First class seat perfectly acceptable. As you pointed out some odd design choices impacting accessibility. Glad you've added the "drum" thing at the start - I quite liked the bit that followed that too (a bit like a sitar). As for beer cola - sounds awful! Great video as always.
These new Railjets are sleek and nice-looking but I hope they don’t totally phase out the previous generation. I’ve taken those trains many times, they’re modern and comfortable. The first class with its spacious leather seats is great, and the business class product is only outdone by Frecciarossa Executive (which is generally VERY expensive!).
They are meant to replace the EC-Cars on the same route. It's unlikely that they'll ever replace the previous generation. They are two carriages longer and therefore can't be coupled with another unit (like almost all Railjet Express are).
Another superb video, thanks for sharing! I myself can’t wrap my mind around ÖBBs seat design choices. Looks like they’ve gone with the in-shell recline which had already been wildly unpopular with pax when Boeing tried it. N yeah, that biz class not only looks uncomfortable but should be Aprils fool selling it more expensive than first class. Real downgrade from the previous gen. I’m a big fan of ÖBB but these new in-shell seats, stories of arrogant staff on nightmare NightJet trips, along with the new pricing strategy (let’s ask for ridiq amounts during peak times) make me doubt ÖBB management hasn’t fallen asleep at the wheel. Unpopular opinion I know, but hey, you asked 😅
I rode the train from Rosenheim to Munich. I found the second class quite comfortable. I didnt want to enter the full regional trains, as it was quite a hot day that day.
A petty rant: no paper towels in Railjets toilets (compared to ICE). I understand the eco-friendly argument, but air vents in Railjets toilets are quite weak and inefficient, and I can't take paper towels to wipe my face or handphone screen or the door knob 😅
Did you have a lot of delay ? Last week,I went from Bolzano to Munich with the new Railjet,and we had 30+ minutes of delay.We did stay a lot of time in Brenner.Probably a technical issue,because guys from ÖBB walked up and down
I traveled by train from Bologna to Milan and remember seeing a odd mural/plaque on the wall of the Station to the "Martyrs" of some sort of uprising (communist, I think) in the '60s. It was my first rail experience in Italy, and I had forgotten to "frank" my ticket. The on-board conductor dealt with it. He was apparently familiar with American travelers.
super cool idea for a city break Paul! visiting munchen and bologna!!!! also, regarding people not using the locked suitcase locker, I'd like to think that they simply don't have the fear of stolen luggage. Europe (at least in that part of it) still relies on common sense and food behavior
That looks a fantastic trip Paul. I've travelled on German trains between Brussels and Frankfurt with my disabled son (wheelchair user) and word of warning to anyone thinking of doing it - all legs of your journey must be pre-booked. Unlike the UK, you cannot expect to 'turn up and go', they just don't work that way (sadly), so that is an access barrier (or was) for us. On the trains without level access, you have to have a 'platform hoist', to take you from the platform, up to the height of the access onto the train and these have to be pre-booked and will be waiting by the accessible carriage for you. On local routes, we loved the idea of the 2 tier carriages, with great views for those who could sit upstairs, but sadly, we were always stuck by the doors with the wheelchair. Other than that, the trains always leave on time, are clean and they usually have a great selection of food, compared to UK trains.
Making the dining car low floor also adds several flights of stairs for the staff doing the at-seat service. In my opinion the high floor section should have been the cars around the dining car, with the wheelchair spaces in the first low floor section next to it (which would coincidentally also have been the car in the middle of the trainset, making the wheel chair spaces always end up at the same location on the platform, even if the train happens to run in reverse order). Another odd design choice is the bike storage in the high floor part of an otherwise low floor car, making it necessary to move your bike around the corner and up the stairs. And then the bikes are still in the way in the corridor. @7:22 There should better be a low floor section with a dedicated luggage/bike compartment (similar to the car with the wheelchair places, only with the bike compartment in the location of the accessible toilet - which would also have made the car practically identical from a manufacturing perspective, so it's actually a "doubly odd" design choice). And the last oddity is the low number of waste bins. There are only a few next to the doors, but none near the actual seats. Granted the tiny "waste drawers" in the first generation RJs aren't that great (and getting increasingly gross, mostly because they are really tedious to empty and hardly accessible for a more thorough cleaning). But a long-distance train without adequate waste disposal will not stay clean for long either... btw. Gendered bathrooms can also be found on the Westbahn trains (with the gents also featuring an urinal).
Just a guess, but the gender separation might be just there to balance out the usage (the signs are switchable). Also Westbahn has it. And ÖBB has taken a lot of inspiration from them lately.
The Westbahn gendered toilets make sense they have an urinal in addition to a normal toilet. I can imagine a lot of guys would appreciate not having to sit down on a (maybe) not very hygienic train toilet.
This seems like a good regional train, but not much of a high speed long distance one. Just slapping a standard Taurus in front and little aerodynamic optimisations seem pretty old fashioned. Luggage locks are definitively a welcome addition
just searching for words. rail journey cant get any better than this. european union keeps fast rail journey as priority option for mass travel ahead of air transport. not old world, its the pragmatic travel, and transport of the future green world as other continents realise.
What a fantastic train (with the exception of accessibility issues). A great price as well for the length of trip. I wish we had a better transport system here in the uk!
Hey Paul, great video. Do you ever make an effort in your travels to learn a little conversational local language (except French of course)? Or do you pick travel choices where English isn’t an issue?
people dont use the locks because things dont really get stolen here. it does happen, but its really rare. even when going to the dining cart i usually leave my laptop at my seat.
Another super video matey! 👍 I agree with you about the disability access. However, I can see how having separate men's and women's toilets might appeal to some travellers, perhaps for religious reasons? Any reason why the brand new train was pulled along by a tourist engine? Don't they have their own engine cars?
The cab car still doesn’t have the certification, and at the moment those trains are pulled by ÖBB 1216 (or like the first set here by 1116, that was the reason they had to change in Innsbruck, because that loco can’t run in italy) but in the future should be replaced by Vectrons
