European International Rail SUCKS, Here's Why 

Thoughts on the Saudi Line City?

Woh... two videos about european rail from two of my favorite youtubers, (Wendover Productions & Adam Something). Nice!

I'm really impressed that a man like you who endlessly praises trains actually criticizes them for a change. Excellent content as always Adam.

thanks so much for making this, really looked forward!

Hey Adam, What's your opinion on the following: If NATO (or let's say US & EU) would have reacted faster and more decisive against Russia's occupation of Ukraine (2014 or 2022), we wouldn't have the mess we have in Ukraine, would have stabilized Russia and made an example out of it (to China x Taiwan)? The point being, that if NATO would have found pretext to get involved as it did with Yugoslavia, overall the world would have agreed to this and Putin would have been thrown out of the government. Hope you will make an analysis of this in a future video (unless I missed it)

Sorry, I am confused, how does this have to do with rail service?

@@theunknown4834 boring company

@@alexmoberg8943 ya... but this is about trains service so I didn't get it at first lol

@@theunknown4834 It's the 'solution to traffic'.

London has fixed that ages ago. They just made them very long and put them on rails.

Facts

@@ThatWolfArrow money

@@ThatWolfArrow I don't know, maybe because... THE FREAKING PLANET IS ON FIRE

@@ThatWolfArrow but fixing bad rail connection is easier than building from scratch

@@ThatWolfArrow money 🤏

I would love to see another video on this topic, though. The more awareness, the better. Just awareness won't get us very far, but it is the start for speeding things up. :)

"I hate that when I don't do my research the results are worse" Dimwit detected, opinion rejected

Can't you do a collaboration together?

1st You need to understand that European Union is not Canada or the US. This is not "one country" and if not, then there are different interests in every country. 2nd Most of the railways are national and are highly subsidized. And that means there is no political way to make changes. No politic will risk losing the votes of a few hundred thousand people working in the rail companies only to open the tracks for operators from the other country. If you want to know how radical the situation is, then I can tell you that a few years ago French gov. decided that French Rails need tu buy new trains which they didn't need only because the national train producer had financial problems. In this atmosphere of interventionism, you can't think about "open rails" at all. 3rd Switching the gauge it is too expensive. It will be cheaper and more cost effective to buy a hydrogen plane fleet than to remake the gauge of the tracks in a few countries. 4rd The multisystem locomotives which can switch from 3kVDC into 25kV AC in the blink of eye are on the tracks already, but the problem is that it is too expensive for rail companies to put them on the rails in other countries. For example, there is a lack of drivers who fave the certificates to run the train in a different country because of safety regulations which are different in each country.

Unfortunately nobody involved in decision making gives a fuck about "urban policy" RU-vid, but kudos to you for resisting the opportunity to make the ad revenue bucks off of this I guess...

Orient express is well connected with a lot of capital cities along the way to Istanbul. But when you try to travel not in ancient main route it becomes a nightmare

Rolled a natural 20

Wow, I did not know that exists

What kind of train was it?

And that, my son, is how you were created

@@Rockden probably ÖBB Nightjet. But assuming it was Italian it could also be a Trenitalia Intercity notte Edit: wait a second Trenitalia does not offer international sleeper trains, must be the ÖBB

Somebody had to! It might as well be the sharpest tongue/mind on the internet!

Guess he had some time to kill on a 9 hour train journey in which he almost certainly wasn't going to get any sleep. 😜

But the community posts are so naaah.

Yeah, bashing would title the video better. This man is talking so much shit, it’s crazy😂

Trust me, I've taken more than 40 international train journeys throughout Europe, and he's spot on.

Yeaaahh interrail has the problem of Seat reservations tho. Would love if these shitty western European countries would get their fucking act together and NOT CHARGE 30 EUROS FOR A "SEAT RESERVATION" WHEN ITS INCLUDED FOR FUCKING FREE IN A REGULAR TICKET.... I'M TALKING TO YOU ITALY, SPAIN, FRANCE AND ESPECIALLY YOU, *BELGIUM*! Greedy ass motherfuckers, WE PAID FUCKIN 300 FUCKING EUROS FOR THESE SHITTY TRIPS

I used an Interrail pass (Eurail but for Europeans), it was great not having to buy tickets for most trains, and it skips most of the ticketing mess.

Can there be some All-trains?

And I thought Amtrak was bad, holy shit. At least trains from San Francisco to LA (roughly the same distance) are daily instead of every other day, and the West Coast is the worst part of the network (although the trip time is 12 hours. We need CAHSR to be finished soon).

How long is that journey by car and plane?

@@FlorianHWave About seven hours driving, or an hour and a half by air (depending if you fly a jet or a turboprop).

Holy fucking shit, it's New Zealand and not the US?

@@sygneg7348 There are places outside of the US that are terrible with trains too, it's just that they usually have the excuse of being poor with corrupt governments, being sparsely populated, or having difficult terrain. The US is none of these things, we just stupidly decided that Amtrak needs to make a profit despite that not being possible.

what about "rail europe" (if I post the URL youtube will eat my comment, not sure when that started.)

@Sega-16 Summer time is a nonsense that ought to be abolished, no need to give yourself jetlag twice a year without even travelling

I gave up one day after trying to plan a trip by rail, bought a car, I'd rather drive 3000 km than go through the hassle

@@huginug "I'd rather drive 3000 km than go through the hassle" lol. Well 3000 km, Americans would fly. Basically if it's over about 200 miles (321 km) we would fly. 200-300. Less than that is when you take a bus or train or drive it. :) Believe it or not 3000 km is a typical distance over here in North America. For example from San Francisco Bay Area to Dallas, Texas is 2838 km. Going east from SF, Dallas is the next major city. Well ok there's Las Vegas. That's still 915 km though. But both of those are trips for aviation. Even a French TGV would take 10 hours to get to Dallas, and it's only three hours to fly! Las Vegas would be three hours on TGV (well, not using the route the California HSR management chose to get to LA...if you had to use that, 4 hours just to LA...) but the flight is just over an hour (1.5 hrs by the official timetable...in practice it's usually a little faster than the official prediction. If the pilot gets up to cruising altitude and there's not much traffic, looks like there won't be much turbulence, they'll open the throttle a little more. :) ) I don't know Ug Ne, I am still shocked that Adam Something was willing to waste 10+ hours of his life taking a train when he could have flown in 1.5 hours. The only time I have taken a long distance slow train was with my ride home from the Navy (after doing 4 years), Seattle to San Jose. The train took 24 hours. It was a very nice ride, and the train filled up with passengers, but it's definitely not a replacement for aviation. Normally if I want to go to Seattle I'll hop on an airplane and get there in 2 hours. :) btw as far as planning, have you tried "rail europe" (type it in as all one word.) It seems to be the Expedia of European train travel. :)

@@huginug This channel doesn't have any content

Well, to be fair, we know that this is not fully true. The sun will turn into a Red Giant, not a Supernova. Aside this the statement likely is correct.

@@justanotherguy2824 Supernova stage would come after red giant / supergiant stage if it happens. Instead of going supernova, the Sun will collapse into a white dwarf with much less drama.

@@justanotherguy2824 well if it's never going to happen, that's even better, isn't it?

@@Alpostpone thing is, in the red giant phase, most likely the sun will swallow Earth (as it'll grow in size to slightly beyond Earth's current orbit), so the planet won't survive to see the supernova

@@Kram1032 Probably, but supernova will never happen. Also is probable that Germans will continue using their outdated electrification system on other planets, and that their bureaucratic stubbornness survives any cataclysm.

Probably because apart from the headache that is the Copenhagen to Hamburg train, its usually a pretty straight shot. Hamburg is already one of the biggest hubs in Europe for long distance trains, so its super easy to arrive there in the early evening, hop on a night train to Zurich, hop on a Swiss express train from there to Milan, and then from there onwards with high speed rail further south. And though the 3 trains with the middle one being a night train is managable, having multiple day connections can be troubling. I mean one could say take the night train from Hamburg to Vienna, spend a day there, and then hop on a night train to Rome, but even then that's not exactly viable for people who aren't holiday goers in that sense or who mostly wanna get from here to there efficiently.

@@jackthomas1191 Well DSB's service is notoriously unreliable, infrequent, and overcrowded due to a shortage of rolling stock. They're trying to fix this by getting more reliable trains starting next spring. But even still the indirect trips especially were also problematic as DSB is quite infamous for delays which often leaves passengers seeing the train they need to be on leaving the station right as they pull in. Oh yeah and the tickets are pricey and there's no service at all. Only a single vending machine with cola and bottled water for a train journey that takes close to 5 hours. They're trying to improve on all fronts but even then a lot of it isn't enough to make a major difference. But they're trying.

@@drdewott9154 Fault! Europeans are already happy to be able to ride the train! Why does everyone have to chew the softness of the USA in their mouths?

@@drdewott9154 FFS, I have no idea to whom you have responded because apparently RU-vid knows which comments are not worth looking at. Whoever came up with hidings normal comments is a freaking moron. Had my comments get removed too (for no reason, thank crap AI). Ok, on topic: Never knew that Danish trains are so unrealiable.

From those countries, if you have taken any trains such as the TGV (so by passing France), it's pretty good. But as soon as you want to go through Germany, it's hell. That's because France TGV can run on 3 different voltages because they have bulkier transformer systems.

Admit it, you went all the way to vilnius to fuck

I personally don't even need the affordable part right away. Just being able to plan a trip properly would be a great thing to have. Price and speed is something that can come later.

This won't happen! Corruption will block every project for better rail connections. Every good connection between two cities will reduce the necessity for a big comfy car with long range. And as you know, every country loves their car industry... The real fight is between rail vs road.

For 1700km train is hardly ever a good option. If at all, I had considered sleeping on a ferry from Sweden. And these are all low populated countries. There are not much people traveling this direction.

to be fair this is PKP problem (polish national rail). They stucked 20-30 years in past. Seriously. Last time i was in poland i feared for my life with this old wood (literally, it was wooden. It was making very scary sounds) trains. Buying tickets online? You wish. Punctuality? Well... you will be lucky if next one will arive but you still cant take it because tickets are locked on previous train which didnt arrive. Their train cars are very old and was purchased from czechs when they started inovating their old train cars. Even their PKP logo looks like something from 90s. Its pain to ride train in poland. Which is paradox because poland is one nice flat of country.... At least this is my experience from... 2 years ago? Things may change but knowing poland i seriously doubt it. They are too busy pushing conservative catholic laws to deal with down to earth problems like fixing their public transportation.

True, already used that

Yup. Great feature. Though it sucks that you can't get them to be completely flat.

or if you are alone on your side of coupe you can lie on seats

I once saw guy use them on a trip from Wien to Münich. It was like revelation that magic pretty much exist for me 😅

I remember as a kid we used to pull out all six of the seats to have a king sized, full compartmend bed area. Good times

Shit, Im glad I have never taken one of their trains.

Where do you even look up the arrival punctuality? I haven't even found that. (Also - similar experience except I got stranded.)

That's Deutsche Bahn for you... 😂 I seriously always thought that these things with DB is merely just an internet joke. Until I experienced it myself literally everytime I use DB's train. Every Germans is punctual, except for Deutsche Bahn

@@FauzulRizal I think germans got time travelling or step on the train like 2 hours before time for an hour trip because the way DB works makes it IMPOSSIBLE for people to be punctual, and it's not only the trains, all their transport systems suck!

@@justsomeguywithamustache3188 my German friends telling me that the only acceptable reason for being late in German is if you have an accident or if you travelled there by train 😂

But that's not a surprise. Trains are focused on the major hubs, connecting them. Regional trains are for outer areas. If trains serve every village, they'll become unbearable.

I interrailed in the early 90s. Good to see it’s still going

If those high speed trains would stop in every village, they wouldn't be high speed any more .-.

Interrailing literally tomorrow morning, glad to hear that, that video got me scared shitless

@@Sullian_dF oh as long as you have a decently organized friend going with you you've got nothing to worry about. btw just so you know, eating kebab every day is the best way to stay on budget. good luck with the journey

As an American, I consider it great when Canadians come into the United States to cross the continent on the Interstate system. At least I have heard that happens a lot, I do not know if that is true.

It's pretty common for passenger trains in the US and Canada to be held up by cargo trains, due to a mix of factors. We've got the unified rail services thanks to government action in the 1970s. They aren't as good as they could have been, and this video shows that there are some problems with countries that have a good rail network. Both Canada and the US chose to prioritize road travel, and we're stuck on them. Europe's hodgepodge of systems isn't really an issue here. Almost all of our railroad is standard gauge, and operates without electrification. We've got a long way to go.

@@jessebrook1688 Well ofc. Cargo is what makes money. So it's important. While people ... well end of the day it was their choice to travel like this so ... who cares?

@@Member_zero let's give them better choices then. Bullet trains.

@@bigstar66 I would love to travell with a bullet train on semi regular basis, and keep both of my kidneys intact. But the reality, at least at this moment, is I'm probably going to have to sell at least one.

Hi just came looking for a comment mentionning Trainline. All of the countries (western europe) mentionned in the video are included in their search function. Whare it really becomes tricky is when you want to book trains in eastern Europe and the Balkans. Now that's a real challenge.

I have never taken a train outside the UK, but I only ever book through trainline. It's just, by far, the easiest and most headache-free way to get where you need to.

pin this comment dude

No, they're conclusions (Wendovers) are pretty spot on. Eurorail is general good. But integration is less than ideal, might have something to do with being separate countries, but hey, given that, works well. In my experience. Of course one could judge world air travel by one airport experience over the last crazy couple of weeks. But one would never do that. But I'm carping. Good summary.

I would be ok even if you were inspired by them because your video is much deeper

Yep, I though that too

@@doraspoljar697 they both have clearly not been inspired from each other because obviously videos like that take weeks to produce

Bro… there is a nightjet between Amsterdam and Innsbruck and an Eurocity between Innsbruck and Rimini. 1 or 2 changes in Italy and you should be able to travel everywhere

Actually, in the 80 ies we had great trains from brusselx to milan every night!

In September I'll go from Northern Germany to Sicily by train. Wish me luck. It's only one day on the interrail ticket, since I'll leave early in the morning and the night train to Palermo starts before midnight.

Depending where you are from in IT you can take the NJ420 to Innsbruck from Amsterdam and than continue into Italy with an EC

You do have an alternative to flying. You just choose not to use it.

Yeah, I'm so jealous, I sat together with four people instead of three while other compartments were less full or even completely empty but closed off. He's travelling like a king there with so much space and privacy!

So what are some examples of competent companies?

Or something funny like when Czech Republic wanted to install a highway vignette checking system that turned out to be so expensive, that volunteer programmers decided to do it for them and kinda found out that the system was also supposed to check the identity of all drivers *and* passengers and send the data to local counterintelligence.

Oh man have you ever heard of the great czech online service for buying highway passes? The ministry had this genius idea of spending millions to buy hardware just so the system can obviously collapse the first day while a few months later there'd be no traffic at all... And that was two years ago. Any sensible person would deploy this on any cloud kubernetes like aks with fraction of cost and better performance.

@@8bitorgy I work in security and let’s just say you get what you pay for. “Competent companies” is a nebulous term because it depends on what the application is and what your criteria are, but at least in security we find that organizations that outsource to shit third party contractors get shit work while those who outsource to professionals with good reputations get, on average, a much better product. Neoliberal governments love when companies promise them they can do the same job at a better price though. Especially with government contracts we constantly lose out to cheaper firms who do subpar work because all these types of governments care about is paying as little as possible without regard for quality.

Don't forget too that for an EU Cross platform website, the development firm will have to jump through endless woke hoops to get the contract. So until your firm's staff is comprised of 19% non gender specific members from uncontacted Indian Ocean tribes, you don't get the contract. The firm that achieves this will have the one qualified developer on its staff just recycle his broken freshman year webpage for the 2 billion Euro contract and voila, an integrated EU rail website that Amazon will buy out in a few years EDIT: and then charge the EU 25 billion EU a year to lease or else the trains get halted. That's social justice's final destination!

It can be similarly inside a country too. In Poland there are at least 4 passenger railway companies which don't sell tickets online. I guess they don't want to turn profit.

Sounds like you also got lucky on the fact it wasn't slow, in Denmark the trains are so bad...

@@nickonerd i often take the train between Osijek and Zagreb in Croatia, it's a 270 km journey that takes 5 hours partly because the track most of the way hasn't been properly maintained since austria-hungary, partly because the train stops at every single village along the route and partly because 2/3 of the way there the train switches locomotives. Oh and those trains only run twice a day per direction.

You took a ride between amsterdam and paris. Or amsterdam and berlin

@@GTAmaniac1 Oh! I see there's another HŽ Putnički prijevoz connoisseur here. Pazi na zdravlje i um, sretno!

I think it depends on wiche countrys you are travelling becaus in switzerland, germani, france, italz and england, sweden, norway, denmark, bekgium, netherlands the trains are really good compared to the rest of the world.

Many countries, but also an union, we should do better.

hey don't bash bike lanes! But it probably would have a bigger impact, yes

And your Ph.D. was about starfish, right?

Yes, degrees. Billions upon billions issued and yet the world is as fucked up as it ever was. In most majors at most schools, degrees are about as important as male nipples in that besides making yourself feel good......I have two STEM degrees out of my three degrees and none were instrumental to acquiring and mastering my previous STEM occupation, which I got with only a high school diploma and some electronics knowledge retained from a Boy Scouts ham radio class. Degrees remind me of some wisdom a high school physics teacher told us about an architect, an engineer and a mathematician all staying in separate rooms in the same hotel. A faulty model coffee pot was in each room and thus at the same time in the middle of the night, they all woke up to nearly identical electrical fires across their rooms. The architect grabbed a fire extinguisher, but being an architect made a bunch of calculations as to how to perfectly arc the extinguishing agent across the room and onto the coffee pot. The architect followed the mathematics and in one perfect squirt, put out the fire and went back to bed. Then the engineer did all the same calculations as the architect, made the same shot on the coffee pot, but being an engineer, sprayed the whole table, the closet, the bathroom, the bed, the floor, the hallway and the stair well, to make sure the fire was truly out and then the engineer went back to bed. Next, the mathematician discovered the fire and made the identical mathematical calculations as the architect and the engineer and then went back to bed.

@@mirensummers7633 oh, i wasn’t bashing on bike lanes, just pointing out the hypocrisy in governments pushing so much for them just because they get to say “oh we installed X km of bike lanes” at the end of their term. Rail improvement is a long term project so no government wants to do it since they know they won’t be able to take credit for it so they just don’t care.

@@_JotaroKujo_ it is also super expensive and lets be honst, even if it is a super smooth experience, most people would still fly instead of spending 9h in a train.

Yeah, this explains the horror story I saw the one and only time I tried to plan a trip by train/bus from my place of work to my home country.

True. It seems that what happens is that unless you are a massive railfan, you often find many flaws over time in a system that might have appeared as flawless once you’ve lived in that place for long enough

But you still lose about 10 mins at the gauge change. Still impressive to make it work though. Expensive in the long run, but well...

@@aurelspecker6740 and for that reason the spaniards are actually considering re-gauging to European Standard in the long run. The only real solution is to harmonize rail systems to one gauge, one current standard and one rail block safety system.

That's very cool.

@@daszieher Not considering, but actually doing (albeit very slowly)

@@daszieher We don't actually plan to convert our rail network to international gauge. What is being done is to build the international gauge high-speed lines and leave the Iberian gauge lines for freight trains, suburban trains and medium-distance trains.

Good, now I won't have to leave that comment :)

So we need to wait until the gas from the nebula, formed after the Sun dies, becomes a part of a larger star which eventually goes supernova, for the German side to convert to 25kV AC? :C

@@piotrrywczak7971 Exactly.

Germany will change a few days before sun blows in a supernova. So if the sun will never, Germany will never. 😅

One can also interpret it as meaning that it will never happen

Where did you find a rail trip that is supposed to take 32 hours? Do you mean the Ghan or the Indian Pacific, because those are more like cruise ships then long distance trains, and if you instead booked a trip from Melbourne to Cairns, well, generally the Spirit of Queensland is quite reliable, but the XPT is a different storey, caused mainly by a lack of a will power and the fact that next to no one cares about it.

@@pwhnckexstflajizdryvombqug9042 Brisbane-Cairns (1681km)... This was certainly no cruise ... Well sometime later I did the trip in a sleeper ... and that "only" took 32 hours.

@@pwhnckexstflajizdryvombqug9042 indeed sounds farcical. Not as farcical as our lack of high speed rail though.

MELBSYD is one of the busiest flight routes in the world High Speed Rail would be a huge boost to livability and sustainability

that's why we fly in USA, Canada and Australia. You could fly that in like two hours or less.

That is because trains are convenient up to 500km

@@jackjoyce1744 trains could be convenient for every distance

@@jackjoyce1744 railways can go up to 200km an hour, A car can do an average of only 80 km. Planes are very expensive

@@Killroy007 yes they certainly could but there will become a point where is still quicker to fly

@@delgermuruntsagaankhuu6951 trains are a superior way to travel but here in uk it’s far cheaper to fly than take a train which I know is sad

Yes because SBB and Trenitalia work together closely, that's not the case for most rail operators who only do it on certain routes.

Switzerland is afaik constantly pressuring the Italians to get their shit together and cooperate in order to reduce cross Alps road traffic (both people and freight). It's even less sustainable to build "just one more line" if you've got protected villages, a national image and a god damn mountain range in the way than it already is.

lmao yeah thalys is having a stroke rn

I think you are talking about the ICE to Brussels and yep, it's an absolute mess because of bad maintenance on the ICE 3M rolling stock. Went on interrail few weeks ago and avoided at every possibility to get on ICE 3M.

this. I recently moved from Cologne to Leuven and the Performance of the ICEs running from Frankfurt to Brussels is astonishingly terrible. Earlier this year, on the way to leuven i'd miss my connection in Liège, which is around 15 Minutes, so frequently that i started taking the delay reimbursement into account for my price calculations. And the last train of the day, with which i would arrive at midnight, i always board with the fear of being stuck there after missing the last train. Since then it's gotten... much worse, but Tickets are now 40€ instead of 30€. Thalys seems a little more reliable, but the lack of through tickets as mentioned in the video make them very unappealing - you can't even use them in place of a cancelled ICE, they're an ecosystem on their own entirely and it fucking sucks. It should be less than 2h by train with just one change, but the 4h Flixbus ride or the 3h/2 changes ride with regional trains is in reality often about the same speed and much, much cheaper.

What are you talking about, that is the typical DB experience? It's not an ICE if it's not at least 15-30 min late and if it snows in the alps then they start hitting 2h late in Cologne. The damned DB app didn't know that our central station was shut down, mind we aren't a small town, this is the former capital of the BRD, so it happily routed people through a station where all the trains were stuck. Had the same happen on an intercity to Munich, stood in place for 9h, cause we were packed tight standing in the bike compartment. Frankly it takes longer but the regional carriers are more reliable, RE10 to/from Krefeld not withstanding, of which a DB rep at Krefeld once said that they only find out if it is coming at all a few minutes before arriving.

Last weekend I was at San Diego Comic-con and I was planning to head home Sunday on the 1510 train. I opened up my Amtrak app, used the Status feature and found the 1510 train was going to be 30+ minutes late and the next one at 1610 was 90 minutes late, so I hustled to the station and was the last one on the 1410. And yes, those later trains would be packed with tire, angry people. So, if Amtrak here in the US has an app that shows things like the status of trains (either by route or train number) don't the European lines have the same?

As he said: connections between neighbouring countries are usually pretty smooth. If you want to cross one tho...

lol ur glad to live in a country that have gun violence like daily lmao

I can attest that a bad US rail system is better than not having one. I live along the surf liner route in California, and while the tickets are expensive, frequency sucks, travel times are long, and I wish it connected to some in land locations…..it’s still awesome not having to drive my car in order to see my sister. Instead I get to grab a beer, put on a movie, and just chill!

After spending 7 weeks using this stuff in Europe I can say they that it’s unreal compared to the US. We are missing out.

How do our planes suck? What am I missing, I fly alot in the US and never noticed anything overly annoying. Navigating the terminal is like the most annoying thing right behind the 1.5 hour drive to the airport.

@@Valkires1 tsa sucks

They are afraid of the competition to their state owned railway companies. With a centralized open booking system private railway could much easier cherry pick the most profitable routes.

@@Psi-Storm The spanish rail network has already been liberalized, French SNCF on the other hand keep making up excuses to avoid competition with Renfe 🤨 in France.

There isn't any HSR train line through the Pyrenees and no plans to do any. You made all that up! Stop lying. The link is made at the coastlines, both mediterranean (currently in operation) and atlantic (expected by 2029, maybe earlier)

@@BlackHoleSpain See fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligne_de_Perpignan_%C3%A0_Figueras .

@@marcvandyck8052 Yes, that's the Mediterranian link he's referring to (Eastern part of the border) The other one is on Irún/Bayonne (Western part of the border) But there is no plan to cross the Pyrenees in the "middle" through Jaca/Pau.

I highly doubt that the tunnel will ever get built but if people want to reach Lapland from western/central Europe it might even be a better idea to build a new railway that connects Haparanda/Tornio to Rovaniemi.

That's fine though, as long as the connections to national rail services aren't too overbearing. Be a bit of an issue if the international station was a half hour drive away from the nearest national line, but hopefully whoever designs things won't be that silly. Trouble with the more geographically central regions is that they're kind of crisscrossed all over the place with international rail, often running through the same cities and towns as their regional lines, so it makes a lot more sense to standardize rather than running a bunch of parallel lines and systems.

It is. Very slowly.

Thats what I thought. You would think that the EU, which absoutely loves making laws for all of Europe, would have a standard for rails, trains etc.

To give some credit to the NWO conspiracy theorists, thats what they are afraid of. Giving away autonomy for very little gain.

@@TheIIIJulianIII EU has the standards and they are good. But the countries are fighting back because they usually cost money. Politically new highway sells better than switching your trains from 3 kV to 25 kV, unfortunately.

@@TheIIIJulianIII The standards are there. its the countries that dont implement it.

That's how it was in the old trains up to the 90s in Germany, too. Travelling with a few friends was awesome, the compartment felt like a big couch! Only drawback was that on night trains: sometimes 2 or 3 people would already block a whole compartment sleeping when you got in, leading to a shortage o free seats...

There probably was an option to convert the seats into a sleeping arrangement and he couldn't figure it out. And the Czech guy replying is just telling him they don't sell BEDS, a misunderstanding due to language. Perhaps thought it was a joke.

As much as I like European rail, how you got to cross the Austrian border on Utrech-Basel baffles me. :)

Yeah. As much as I like adams videos sometimes, this one is really bad. Like: HOW BOUT INFORMING YOURSELF IN ADVANCE ABOUT WHICH TRAIN TICKET TO BUY??? ITS THE SAME AS BOOKING A ECONOMY FLIGHT, THINKING ITS BUSINESS AND THE COMPLAINING THAT THE ECONOMY FLIGHT WASNT BUSINESS😂😂😂

@@jimi272 Airline tickets are still not that easy if you want more than trivial bookings, but the train world is worse, in my opinion. Both worlds are real bad in believing that the customer comes last and is an inconvenience. What both worlds miss is proper regulation of service standards, and if someone could unify train and airplane services that would be a very nice utopia.

@@jimi272 Everyone who has ever tried to book an international train ticket knows this is simply not true. It's _extremely_ hard to get proper information. There are examples like this when cooperation between countries and operators makes it easier, but that is not the norm, it's an exception.

@@ahooogerhuis I think he mistook Switzerland with Austria. At least it wasn't Australia.

perspective from a neighbouring country - Croatian railways are considered a joke among the general public. Common train delays of 7+ hours, lines which inexpliciably stop and the passengers are transported the rest of the way on buses, the fact that you could travel via train from Zagreb to Belgrade faster in the 70s-80s than you can today, the fact that many railways haven't been upgraded since they were built 50+ years ago, the fact that Istria and Pula aren't connected to the rest of the country directly but to go there by train you have to go via Ljubljana or take the bus, it's just such a clusterfuck that even though we got new, modern trains what use are those when the infrastructure is shit...

@@Nightraven26 you have some things right, but most are misconceptions, first of all 7+ hours delays are not common, they can happen but not "common". Second, yes the train journey between bg and zg last longer but only in comparison with some express trains back then that served only couple of big cities along the route, same as today, but they did not have a border crossing and the passport check on each side and loco change, also the serbian side of the line is much worse, although our isn't that great either and speeds aren't too great, barely over 100 on a track that is constructed for 160. For the infrastructure, it is not true that that it is not upgraded at all, it was, especially that main line along the sava river, but our railway lines are not 50+ years old, they are way older, as a matter of fact not a single kilometer of a new line has been built here or in slovenia during yugoslavian times, only closed down, all we have is mostly austrian times built, they did build new lines but in the eastern part of the country. I remember before the war, that podravka express run from zagreb to here, virovitica, in 1 hour and 59, only ever train to go below two hrs, but back then it was that french dmu that looked like an airplane inside together with a stewardess with coffee and magazines, the train was relocated to international routes after the war started as that and mimara were only two decent train sets we had, and there was that shelling by the serbs in slavonia ofc. But back then podravka was a business class train, not sure we have that at all now, and stopped only in đurđevac, koprivnica, križevci and vrbovec between vtc and zg, so ofc it was faster, now it has at least two more stops, pitomača and dugo selo, and loco exchange in kc and so on. But yeah our railways are sad, but not true we invest nothing, we upkeep all the time in fact just not enough of it, but you should watch some cab vids to see the state of the railroads in serbia, bosnia or montenegro and macedonia or albania that lost the railways all together to see a decay, we were stil way better, but kept on status quo instead of improving, hope it gets better as they announced it. For the record, the western slavonian line that connects this podravina line and the main posavina line thru the papuk range (for darovar, pakrac etc) has been reconstructed in the past decade, busses were starting from here for years until it was finished, the zagorje line has been electrified just recently, last year electric haulage started there, now for a few years already the double track for koprivnica and hungarian border is under construction, so it is factually not true that nothing is done, just as i said it, not nearly enough.

Also why do I have to go to Deutsche Bahn website to see international schedule. Like I’m just trying to get to Belgrade, what does Germany have to do with any of this?

@@dannyboy_vtc8980 It’s not true that Yugoslavia didn’t build any railways. Divača-Koper opened in 1968, 7 years after the port and now it is arguably one of the most important pieces of infrastructure in our country.

@@justsamoo3480 well that info i've gotten from a slovene maybe a year ago on another railways video, he was maybe wrong, but i do know that they closed much more lines than they oppened the new ones, for instance here bjelovar kloštar line has been colsed down in yugoslavian times, and was reconstructed again in the 90s, my comment was that it was better then than now, but it wasn't, we didn't improve much, or not as much as we should, but we at least kept it in status quo with several times less resources and people at the railways, and at the moment things are improving somewhat and are better than during the yu times even in cro, not to mention slovenia, we also converted our 3kv dc in the south to 25 kv ac to have one system across the country, it's not that nothing is done, just not enough or not quick enough, we also have a new rail terminal in rijeka port that was extended, but they are saying that the big works are only yet to come, i for sure hope they mean it, they did announce the other day a start of the work on double track for karlovac as the first part of the lowland line for rijeka, so we'll see, i just don't like bashing wuthout a lot of insight into the matter, the railways here have a lot to be desired, but it also can be soo much worse, but i do think we should measure ourself with the better than us, not the worse so the criticism is due, but not in a way people that have no clue depict it.

Are talking about getting from say Paris Gare du Nord to Paris Gare de Lyon? Because that's pretty easy in my opinion

@@murphy7801 In theory, yes, but dealing with (potentially several) local transit systems' timetables is certainly going to make transfers more difficult.

@@murphy7801 From Gare de Lyon to Gare de l'Est. I needed to take 2 metros and it took 20 minutes. Not as easy and quick as just changing platforms. Experience a delay in your previous train and you're done for.

Your statement is entirely true, it is still better having this, then nothing. But we can not settle with "meh it is okay" mindset, and should always criticize bad system. And never settle for less then perfect.

The booking issue is one that could be solved within like... two years if enough politicians would care about and want it.

I guess you mean the "9€ ticket" currently sold in Germany for three months only and valid for local transit (but in all of Germany). It will certainly NOT become permanent as it was (my interpretation) a somewhat greenish and populist add-on to the populist petrol price subventions agreed on by the federal government. It has already been found out that it just created additional traffic without actually convincing people to permanently switch from car-centric to public transport. What a surprise.

Tbh national rail companies *would* be competing with each other in a truly integrated system, at least on some lines.

hello, and welcome to the inevitable effects of increased socialism in a market environment. it is because the firms are free from competition, and they make money even if nobody uses them, (because if nobody used them, the tax payers would be forced on pain of imprisonment, or death if they resist, to bail out the nationalized/ effectively nationalized a la regulation industries) that they are in no hurry to improve. if there was the potential for competition, they would have to improve to be able to continue having their jobs. socialism is bad. government is bad. hoch die anarchie

National train companies are doing the best job not to be competition to individual traffic

8:40 Bureaucrats: "Nein"... "Non"... "No"

Same hapened to me and a French friend when we traveled to eachother's countries (I'm Swiss). I'm sure the DB and the SBB/CFF/SFF have their share of responsibility but the fact you need to physically go to a SNCF station to physically print your ticket in 2022 feels like a frustrating retrograde thing on the part of the SNCF resulting in the absurd "To go to France, you need to go to France first"

Well at least it is possible. Like everywhere Else in the world it is not easier to travel via train internationally

And imagine you are a tourist from another continent trying to book tickets from home before your trip to Europe... you end up spending hours trying to find the proper website from the proper train operator and crossing your fingers it's gonna work out!

There's trainline which would work between Germany and France. Doesn't cover all of Europe but most of Western Europe is.

The irony of all this is within france you don't really have to print any ticket ever. I haven't needed to print a ticket in years here.

And by destroying the planet. Planes are inferior to trains.

Me too from southern Germany. I tried to book the sleeper train from Munich to Rome. Every date at the weekend from mid September to mid November is fully booked. You literally cannot book it. It's insane. Of course there are multiple flights a day available. It's just sad.

I live in north Italy. I understand your frustration... I can just cross the fingers they will finish the Brenner Base Tunnel by year 2030 ... just a little of patience *ironic*

well no tmillennia

@@mareksicinski3726 Some of the major road systems and city layout concepts date back to the ancient era. Same goes for cultural views, values and specialties that played a role in all later developments. Sure, you won't find concrete systems that have remained completely the same for thousands of years, but several aspects that affect them result from extremely old roots. Like industrial centers and their sphere of influence, or cultural identity and subsequent uniformity/distinction from "others".

If you got a ticket and there's no more train available and it's the fault of the train carrier they are of course obligated to get you to your destination OR a hotel. If you organize this yourself, you can get your expenses refunded (though not sure how that works if you book a 5-star hotel or go hundreds of kilometers via taxi). The "trick" here is that it's only true if you got a single ticket for that specific trip (but I bet that's the same in the US). If for example you book Paris to Munich, and then Munich to Rome, but as a separate ticket, and you get delayed in Munich, well, that's your problem now*. If on the other hand you got a single ticket that has Paris - Rome (via Munich) on it, it's the problem of the train companies (or of course if you got to switch trains anywhere between Paris - Munich or Munich - Rome). -> never book your train tickets "in pieces" (if it can be avoided, which it can't always). Again, I think that's the same for flight tickets too. You want a connecting ticket there over two single-journey tickets as well. *you'll still get compensation for the train being late if it's more than 60 minutes I think but nothing else

What?! Please don't say anything positive about the USA. It is a garbage country

Exactly. If I book easyJet Rome - Berlin and ryanair Berlin - Dublin and I miss my connection I have a problem. Same with two train tickets from two operatiors. If the whole journey is in a single ticket (say Lufthansa Rome-Frankfurt, Frankfurt-Dublin) a missed connection is (mostly) the operator's problem (hotel) and I do get compensation (cash). At the counter you can (often) book single tickets from anywhere to anywhere else but that is often a lot more expensive than two special fares.

@@user-jk2zm7uq5s I just think the person who made this video is so in love with planes and has no clue how Europe's rail system works. It's not even that difficult, just book your tickets and go 😂

New Amtrak management has been really neat. They're even planning to expand the network across the country which is awesome.

No, but China has a larger network that has been able to be built because it was centrally planned. Hint, maybe European countries need to look at a central EU planning body for rail infrastructure - As a planning body only, then independently countries can choose to ratify the plan which both enables countries to keep control over their own infrastructure, but also gives everyone a plan of what everyone else is working to.

Adding to Ben Harris' point, India has a great interconnected railway network where you can book tickets from anywhere to anywhere in minutes, though I don't think we have through tickets here. Only possible because the railways operates under the union government, and Indian states are basically less autonomous EU countries, so all railway planning can be planned without competition and sabotage.

@@benharris7358 Difference is that China is a single country, Europe is not a single country

@@mr.memmer8097, yeah obviously. But the EU gives a mechanism to use central rail planning

@@mr.memmer8097 That there is literally the problem, BORDERS

to be honest, you also live in Austria, which is one of the most pro rail nations in all of Europe, as well as a hub for long distance night trains, thanks to ÖBB's vast network. That alone makes it super easy to go long distances.

I recently took the Eurostar direct from London to Amsterdam going through the UK, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands with no problem.

wtf. One would figure that a ticket to show on one's phone with a QR code would do.

The idea that Arizona should have a passenger train is hilarious to me.

@@stephenjenkins7971 No mein Führer, I'm from Arizona.

just because a system is "better" doesn't make it without fault. criticism is necessary for improvement, even if this system is better than amtrak's.

@@stephenjenkins7971 maybe one day you’ll visit another country and leave your suburb.

@@gingerqueer22 I have yet to experience a better rail system. Maybe in Japan but I haven’t been there yet. China is getting there too.

also my brother bought some kind of european ticket this summer, which allows you to use for a few weeks ALL trains in europe (I think also ICEs...) and he bought it via db. So some system has to exist.

@@MusiXificati0n It's called EuroRail (for non-europeans) and InterRail (for Europeans). They've got good deals. You can get all trains in most European countries, as long as booking a seat on said train isn't required. So basically al sleeper and high speed trains are excluded.

@@wraldpyk6698 You can then specifically book those high-speed or sleeper trains. I once went from Bologna to Lecce via night train and the reservation was 6 EUR only on top of the Interrail (two-person independant sleeper aka wagon lit)

@@alphanet72 Yeah that is true, though when I traveled with it there was only a certain amount of tickets for InterRail per day, and I had to buy the full ticket unfortunately. So it's not always possible.

@@wraldpyk6698 Yes. Although remember that before, Interrail was only for young people. I used Interrail the first time of my life being 40! Let's hope it gets better :)

Japan is also an island and has a dedicated track network for the shinkansen with a wider gauge. imho the best solution would be to have a dedicated high speed rail network between all major European cities separate from the national/regional trains.

@@Bioshyn agreed. Though the demand/capacity thing still stands, the regional trains, atleast DB ones, aren’t well equipped for demand surges. They have small standing areas, and don’t handle bike traffic well.

@@danielstoffel4815 The DB is kinda underfunded while they have the money to do changes the money just goes somewhere

@@danielstoffel4815 and it will only get worse since Germany is in a world of pain due to the silly government you voted in which sanctions Russia which you need for cheap energy. Say bye bye to German wealth.

as a train enthusiast and knowledge of compass directions, i know which london terminus to get a train from to go to a specific area in england

As a German, I had English in school. Lets just say instead of actually learning English, I ended up knowing the entire public transport system of London at the time. (In case you ask, I learned proper English when I spend time abroad)

‘National Rail Enquiries’ The worlds most annoying but amazing app, only ppl from the Uk can relate Also there’s trainline but that’s actually competent

@@petitkruger2175 my £3.50 train was cancelled so I got a notification saying I was due a refund, happy days, logged on and found I needed to pay a £10 admin fee to get the money back....

thats because were not looking to make hsr u realize a lot of stuff is very well standardized in the us that we try to, specifically the nerd engineering stuff (such as dns, internet protocols, and a government agency that does nothing but standardize ingredients and units not nationally but internationally, in fact the tcp internet protocol the entire world uses today was started in the us) we just need to get the engineering nerds on it

For Amsterdam to Edinburgh, book the Amsterdam to London leg from Eurostar. Book the London to Edinburgh leg from LNER or any other UK train operator. LNER will most likely be the one providing your service.

In my country (in the EU) the first (outdated) option is still pretty much the only option. The only difference is it doesn't last 2 months.

Well....before the internet (2000 and below), the borders within the EU were closed, so it was more complicated. And: We have 13 different countries (on the "main part" of Europa) with almost different languages/mentalities. Do you know what kind of a trouble this is? (But on the other hand, its quite interesting!)

@@lunamariahawke9320 the open borders are part of the EU membership and the EU has existed since 1993. I don't know which country you're from and when you joined, but open borders have existed before the Internet. That being said, even if we take 2000 as the start of European integration, we've had 22 years to fix this mess and not only is it not getting fixed, the EU parliament is trying to fix it and getting completely shut down by other member states. And that's the other problem if the EU: governance. We have way too many EU governing bodies and besides the Parliament nothing else is directly elected by all European citizens (such as the EU Council and the Commission) so it's very undemocratic. We should have one body, the EU Parliament, that gets elected directly by all EU citizens and that should be the only one that makes EU wide decisions.

@@lunamariahawke9320 Borders were FAR from closed. The first Schengen agreement dates back to 1985, and the Amsterdam agreement that opened ALL internal borders in the EU was signed in 1997. Online booking sites didn't start taking off until 2002 or so. I've had my passport checked on trains maybe a total of three times. The actual border crossing is not the issue in international train travel, it's the different systems in place and the lack of open ticketing, like the video explains.

Correct and if you set up a virtual railfan camera at Asschaffenburg Hbf the Nightjet ÖBB Baureihe 1116 1016 1216 runs through it it started at Köln Hbf or Aachen Hbf for Brussels

Why sorry

Ah yes, like EU commissioner for transport Adina Vălean who would fly between Connecting Europe Express events instead of... well... taking the Connecting Europe Express 🙄

Not all European countries have excellent domestic rail networks. And I'm unfortunate enough to live in one which doesn't.

@@TheGrejp True, Romania's national rail network/service (CFR) is a good example of a very bad railway system.

Germany, France, Poland, Netherlands and Spain have solid, extensive networks. Some others have decent ones like Italy. A lot of the EU does not though.

well, that would mean you have to pass through 5 different countries...that's just like going to the train station in washington D.C. and asking for a train ticket to nicaragua....would that work? I highly doubt it

@@mechsikaner What a weird comparison. Just... no. Everything is different for your example.

@@supaschwamal I hope you realize that the countries in europe are exactly that: countries; not "european states" inside of one country like in the u.s. - so my comparison is correct - 5 countries to go in europe (austria, italy, france, spain, portugal) and 5 to go in america (u.s., mexico, guatemala, honduras, nicaragua); and both trips start in the capital, so where is the mistake?

To be fair, that is quite an insane thing to ask for. A multiple day journey (where are you going to sleep?) with a dozen or so trains.

Interrail could be an option there

I was wondering why our system was surprisingly functional compared to all this. While also not being particularly functional, but hey, comes with the privatised territory.

As Private Eye has been pointing out at length for years, the ticketing system in the UK is an absolute mess. You've got many different types of tickets that you can use at some times but not others, with some operators but not others, get off at some stations in some towns but not others (because they're the "home" station of a different operator), can't alight from earlier despite the fact that the ticket you bought is the only one that will have you stopping at the earlier station you want to actually get off on, and god forbid if you are even one train off from the one you bought the ticket for, you're goosed. All this is, of course, completely unexplained catching out even experienced train travellers. And then the fines, oh my the fines, expect to be out a thousand pounds or more for even the teensiest mistake (by contrast under the Irish system, unless you're a known fare dodger, the penalty is usually the revenue officer making sure you buy a ticket at the destination station, or if you accidentally went too far, getting you sorted at the next station. You'll be an hour late in the latter case, but no poorer). And don't even get me started on the antiquated, barely held together trains that operate the UK system. Yeah, the UK train system is an absolute mess unless you never use it at all.

@@BrianS1981 It's a mess, but somebody already wrote the computer code to unpick all that. Certainly shouldn't need a 3rd party service to make it make sense, but it does. From experience, Southeastern doesn't really give a shit about having people on the right train, but then southeastern doesn't give a shit about a lot of things so it evens out.

The video is concerning the international rail network, not domestic ones. Basically every EU national rail network is waaay better than ours, and for a fraction of the price. In Belgium you can just get a 10 journey punch card for like 50 euros... That's 5 euros for ANY journey as long as it stays in Belgium

Obviously, the UK has made it so it's less complex to travel by train within UK than within EU. However, from my experience, even if it has largely improved over the years, it's still more complex than travelling within an EU country such as Germany or Italy.

Not really, I recently found it completely impossible to book trains through France and Germany (Trainline kept accepting the payment and failing to book a reservation and refunding the amount). Rail Europe was worse. Comparatively, trains through Switzerland and Italy were much easier.

Omio and NS International do the same.

Used it in Italy this summer. Worked fine.

I've tried to use Trainline to plan cross-Europe trips, it just tells me "no trains available" every time