Observations in England and Ireland

[oltmannd]

Rode a couple trains over the past couple weeks and visited a few trains stations.  Some observations follow.  

Rode the Virgin Rail Super Voyager from London to Holyhead (then took Stena ferry to Dublin).  

The train.  The train was a double set of Bombarier  diesel-electric DMUs.  Tilt.  Top speed 125 mph.

The good: Smooth, quiet and fast!  There was some growling and rumble accelerating from a stop, but other than that, you'd never know there was a underframe mounted diesel engine.  You could really tell the tilt was used to good advantage, keeping the speed high through curves.  Track was glass-smooth the whole way.

The bad:  Train was only 9 feet wide with a low ceiling.  That's only 6" wider than US bus.  Seat pitch was about the same as US bus or airliner.  Seats were comfortable but did not recline. The interior felt a bit small, but not cramped.  The overhead luggage rack could not take carry-on sized suitcases, so luggage was piled up in small areas provided at the ends of the coaches.

Takeaway: Tilt works!  It could apply lots of places in the US where there are curves to justify it.  DMU and high speeds are not mutually exclusive.  Since this equipment is "son of Acela" could this stuff work here without much re-engineering?  California anyone?

Euston and Victoria Stations: 

The good:  They are functional and well integrated into the surroundings.  There is standard signage.

The bad:  Victoria's facade is being cleaned, so I can't comment on the architecture, but inside, it is nothing to write home about.  The concourse is nice with some shops and there is a nice new arcade connecting it to the bus station behind.  Euston has all the charm of the current Penn Station.  'nuff said.

Irish "Enterprise" service.  Did a round trip from Dublin to Belfast as part of a rail/bus tour.  Train sets were EMD locomotives with French coaches.  Top speed, 90 mph.  Some of that in the south.  Lots of 60 mph or so in the north.

The good:  Coaches were 10 feet wide.  Seat pitch ala Amfleet "corridor" cars.  Seats did not recline.  Most of the seating was pairs of seats facing tables.  This is really nice for groups, but not as much for individual travelers.  Seats were comfortable and lighting in the coaches was nice, but no reading lamps.  Trip time was comparable with driving. Scenery was pretty good.  Some seaside, some rural.  Nice viaduct over the Boyne River.

The bad:  The route was upgraded about 10 years ago, but the ride was marginal to poor.  Not "Penn Central" poor.  More like CSX through the Carolinas at 79 mph poor.  

Connolly and Central Stations:  Glorified bus stations with nice facades.  Neither well integrated into the city.  (Heuston station in Dublin seemed a notch better than Connolly, though).  Also took a look at the train station in Galway - although we traveled there by rental car.  It looked like something out of Thomas the Tank Engine.  It served the line to Dublin as well as the newly reopened line to the south toward Limerick.  It also hosted Irelands extensive national intercity bus network.

Takeaway:  Train travel in Ireland is useful and fairly extensive considering the whole country has >5M people.  The bus network is also state supported, cheaper, and goes more places.  I wonder how the rail network will survive given the network of 75 mph motorways Ireland built during the last boom?

[Stourbridge Lion]

Got any Photos / Video you can share from these?

[oltmannd]

A few photos... I'll put them up in the next few days...

[conrailman]

Did you ride any Sleeping car trains?

[beaulieu]

conrailman

Did you ride any Sleeping car trains?

There are no sleeping car trains in Ireland, and only two in Great Britain.

[oltmannd]

The distances are so short in Ireland, you'd hardly have time to get in a good nap!  I did see an overnight train sitting in Euston station.  Don't know much about it, though.

Here are some pictures from the trip:

http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/transportation-england-and-ireland.html

 

[Anonymous]

I have been thinking about a trip similar to the one that you have described so well. Thanks for an informative report.  Did you organize your rail travel on-line or through a travel agent?  Did you have your reservations before you left the United States or did you make them when you got to the UK or elsewhere in Europe?

I rode the Tilt Train from Brisbane to the Whit Sundays several times whilst I lived in Australia.  I am not an engineer, but it seemed to me to be a good technology for increasing speeds without have to perform a massive track rework or build a new line.

[oltmannd]

I did most everything on-line before we left.  Even bought Oyster cards for the London Underground and had them sent to my home to take with us.  (the Underground is expensive by US standards.  It is very expensive if you buy your fares ala carte.  Better if you have an Oyster card - even if it costs 5 pounds to get one)

Both Irish Ferries and Stena Lines have "rail-sail" deals that are cheap (the three of us went from London to Dublin for less than $200), but you have to phone them to make the reservation.  Stena needed a UK address to send the tickets to and I arranged to have the London hotel receive them and hold them for me.

The trip from Dublin to Belfast was part of a Railtours Ireland one-day rail/bus tour of the Northern Ireland coast.  I booked this on line, too. They do a nice job.

[schlimm]

Don: A comparison of your impressions of British and Irish rail travels with your travels on DB last year would be interesting. I'll be on DB and several of the various British operators in May.

 

[oltmannd]

I rode a bit more in Germany than in the the UK and Ireland, but here are my impressions.  

Travel in the UK and Ireland is a bit more disjointed than in Germany.  I don't know how much of that is because of history, post war rebuilding or gov't policy though.   A lot of it comes from London having so many terminal train stations.  No railroad was allowed to built past the city limits and England started building out railroads in big hurry, early on, so they wound up with a disjointed mess. Germany seemed to have one Central Station per city, as God intended it.  The London Underground ties them all together pretty well, but with the exception of the Airport trains, maneuvering luggage is tough.  (ADA requirements seem much weaker all over Europe than in the US, so in many places you have to do the stairs with your luggage.  Plus the underground trains are not spacious.)

The same seems to be true in Ireland.  In Dublin, you have to be aware of which station your train leaves from.  At least they have a nice new tram line that connects the two.

Both the London and Irish commuter trains use some sort of automatic fare collection system with turnstiles in many place, but not all.  The suburban trains pretty much use dedicated platforms.  In Germany, there is no such restriction - segregation of platforms is by practice only.

The British trains tend to be narrower and lower than in the Ireland.  The Irish trains are 10 ft wide, but are lower than US trains.  

On board the Virgin Rail train, things were very well organized, much like the DB.  You reserved a specific seat and it was displayed at the seat.  There were thorough announcements made at each stop.

Both the Virgin and Irish Enterprise check tickets at the terminals when you board.  The Germans walk through ala the US.

The Irish rail system has been expanding a bit in recent years.  They just restored the line from Galway to Limerick, for example, and most of their trains are fairly new.  The network and frequency are bare bones compared to the UK or Germany, but compared to the population, it's decent.

The excellent DB web site has all the UK schedules in it, but not the Irish.  You can use it for trip planning, but you have to go elsewhere to purchase tickets.  The national rail web site for the UK seemed pretty decent, but I didn't use if for much.

Unlike the US, there are very, very few motorways that are inside city limits or pass through the city centers entirely like there are in the US.  You can't drive right through any city I've been to in Europe, although there are ring road around most cities.

 

[schlimm]

Thanks, Don.  I'll have to see how the East Coast and Northern operators in the UK compares with those you used.  

[oltmannd]

Cool.  Let us know.

[Stourbridge Lion]

Nice set of photos!!!  

[iron mountain]

A couple of years ago my wife and I were returning to St. Louis from Chicago on the Texas Eagle. We ate supper in the dining car. Our "dinner partner" was a delightful older lady from England. As we chatted I inquired if she was over here to visit relatives and what did she think of Amtrak. She laughed and said that she was a St. Louis Cardinal fan and loved to visit St. Louis once a year and go to a ball game while visiting family. As to the Amtrak question she said rather emphatically that she preferred Amtrak to British trains. She thought that Amtrak was more comfortable. Needless to say, not being a world traveler myself, I assumed everything across the pond was superior to Amtrak. So I was surprised and pleased by her answer.  I was not aware of the interior dimension difference of the British trains. As far as I am concerned one of the pleasures of train travel is the spaciousness of the accommodations.

[Anonymous]

Stourbridge Lion

Nice set of photos!!!   

I second that!  The pictures and the accompanying descriptions are great.  I have been thinking about a trip to Ireland, given that I am half Irish, or should I say I can trace half of my lineage back to Ireland.  The pictures and Don's description of their trip have caused me to move up on my travel priority list a trip to Ireland.

[daveklepper]

I have one reaction to the complaint concerning comfort regarding British trains.   In the old days, say back 1960 - 1962, times when I visited Great Britain to experience the last of steam in the country where it started, may lines had Pullman trains, chocolate and cream.  These were not sleeping car trains but corresponded to parlor car service in North America.   High-backed seats faced each other with a table between, two across on one side of the aisle and singles on the other.  I found travel in these cars absolutely delightful, with an infinite supply of tea and two biskits per passenger.  One was an mu train elctric to Brighton, another steam hauled to Southhampton (went on to Bounrmouth), and there were others.  I think I read somewhere about the last Pullman train, by then a blue diesel mu, being retired.

[cogloadreturns]

One reason why you found the trains in the UK to be narrower is that the lading gauge is narrow in the Ukl due to the rather skimpy and cheap building which went on. Expanding the size can be very very expensive...

[54light15]

Isn't the loading gauge on the old Great Western Railway wider than most lines in Britain due to Brunel's idea of a 7-foot track gauge?

[Great Western]

 

The former GWR loading gauge is wider but with the franchising and standardizations of modern stock this has no significance any more.

One of the principal reasons of the narrower British loading gauge is that Britain pioneered railway building and built its infrastructure in existing towns whereas many larger countries built in virgin territory.