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Welcome to today's thread - 2025 #CrossBorderRail Finale Day 4 - 11 June - Gdańsk – Lublin - Chełm - Dorohusk – Hrubieszów

Today's new borders:
Dorohusk 🇵🇱 - Yahodyn 🇺🇦
Hrubieszów 🇵🇱 - Izov 🇺🇦

Borders map, inc. borders re-crossed:
umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/c…

Today's trains on the routes map:
umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/c…

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Back south from Gdańsk, towards the Ukraine-Poland border, and Dorohusk where I was thrown off a train by a nasty guard in 2000 on an Interrail trip! Two PL-Ukraine border lines to examine, but from the Polish side.

Here's today's intro video: peertube.netzbegruenung.de/w/m…

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Bit of a gangster for today's #CrossBorderRail music track

Warszawa Centralna
Kaz Bałagane

I am not changing in Centralna, but this is close enough! And musically this one is a little strange.

youtube.com/watch?v=n7HLreRp2j…

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Not #CrossBorderRail directly, but I've written an opinion piece for The Guardian about the stalling development of night trains in Europe, and why Nox - a new Berlin startup - has some interesting ideas how to solve some of the issues

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

teilten dies erneut

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

#CrossBorderRail Finale Train 23 of 149
EIP 5302
06:44 Gdańsk Wrzeszcz - Warszawa Wschodnia 09:22
PKP IC

Train type: Alstom ED250 EMU, 7 carriages
⚡️ (3kV dc)
🚲: ✅
🦽: ✅ (not step free - lift on board)
🛜: ✅ (bit annoying - either needs a login, or refresh every 15 min)
🍽️: ✅
🧳: 🙂 (racks well placed by the doors)
🧽: 🙂 (spotless - PKP IC really looks after its trains)

🎫 Interrail: 😐 (needs compulsory reservation, costs €10,80 - from PKP IC website)

Dieser Beitrag wurde bearbeitet. (6 Tage her)
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

EIP 5302
06:44 Gdańsk Wrzeszcz - Warszawa Wschodnia 09:22

Distance: 326.5km
Average speed: 124km/h

2 stops:
Gdańsk Główny
Warszawa Wschodnia

This train, mapped: umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/c…

Dieser Beitrag wurde bearbeitet. (6 Tage her)
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

A couple of points from #velocity2025 in Gdańsk yesterday

I was a speaker on the panel about bikes on trains, and now ECF's report on this is online - PDF here: ecf.com/media/ecf%20at%20velo-…

SBB 🇨🇭, SNCB 🇧🇪, MÁV 🇭🇺 get the top scores, which is fair enough

Also how badly high speed rail scores is shocking, but I suppose not a surprise

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

And as I head away from #velocity2025, a big thanks to three followers of mine here in the Fediverse who I learned a lot from this week: @btel @HaTetsu @LachAnonym Do follow them for public transport and cycling posts and analysis!
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

And it’s still ☔️ ☔️ ☔️

I’ve generally had excellent luck with the weather on my #CrossBorderRail trips but this week my luck ran out

Fingers crossed it’s dry by the time I get to Chełm at lunchtime

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

A few observations about this PKP EIP/EIC train. It’s PKP IC‘s premium service, first time I’m on one

1) It’s generally excellent, and staff also excellent

2) PKP maintains its trains very well - other trains with this design have things falling apart in the interiors. Not here - good work!

3) The route is a bit slow in places - feels like some parts needed a bigger upgrade! And these trains have no air suspension so a little bumpy

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

I love the PKP EIP trains 🥰 ! Looking forwards to take them next month on my way back from Ukraine to the baltic sea together with my daughter !
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

😱

I assume this isn’t geo-fenced to brick at some point 🤔

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Lublin is a fantastic city. Don't forget to see the medieval citycenter. At the Rinek you'll find Mandragora for a nice dinner.
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

If you don’t know what I’m on about, here’s the background on the Newag trains bricking story jonworth.eu/newags-digital-sab…

teilten dies erneut

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

#CrossBorderRail Finale Train 25 of 149
R 22309
12:15 Lublin Główny - Chełm 13:22
Polregio

Train type: Newag EN98A EMU, 2 short carriages
⚡️ (3kV dc)
🚲: ✅
🦽: ✅ (step free if platform allows)
🛜: ✅
🍽️: ⛔️
🧳: 😐 (not very clever - multi use space is only at one end)
🧽: 🙂

🎫 Interrail: 🙂 (accepted, but guard was confused, couldn’t scan the QR)

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

R 22309
12:15 Lublin Główny - Chełm 13:22

Distance: 73.3km
Average speed: 66km/h

16 stops:
Lublin Północny
Świdnik Miasto
Świdnik Wschód
Minkowice
Podzamcze
Dominów
Jaszczów
Biskupice
Trawniki
Wólka Kańska
Kanie
Zalesie Krasieńskie
Rejowiec
Zawadówka
Chełm Miasto
Chełm

This train, mapped: umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/c…

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Poland is building these standardised small stations all over the place. This is how you get renovations done well and cheaply!

Andi Barth hat dies geteilt.

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

and they offer waiting rooms! While in most other countries, you can be grateful for not having to stand in the rain.
Als Antwort auf Pascal

@trimethylpentan Yes, indeed, Germans across the border don't like to wait indoors! We rather get soaked outside! Better for your health, fresh air and all that ;-)
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

#CrossBorderRail Finale Bike 6 of 39
Chełm - Dorohusk - Chełm

Distance: 60.1km
Est. duration: 5:00

This bike route, mapped: umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/c…

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

And there we have it! Border 3️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ #CrossBorderRail 🎉

Dorohusk 🇵🇱 - Yahodyn 🇺🇦

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Congratulations! Have a nice party :-)

Very impressive indeed!

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Not much going on at Dorohusk. A couple of freight trains being shunted. The station has only 1 train a day (the Warszawa-Kyiv night train) #CrossBorderRail
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

War memorial Dorohusk. Can we please have more bikes and fewer weapons? I can hope… #CrossBorderRail

J I hat dies geteilt.

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

At a very inauspicious bus stop in Chełm awaiting a bus to Hrubieszów

I have a ticket. Will it come? 🤔

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

when I was in Zakopane, information by bus companies and bus stations were terrible, however GoogleMaps knew exactly where the (delayed) bus was and when it would eventually arrive.
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Yes!

A bus!

#CrossBorderRail Finale Bus 4 of 23

19:03 Chełm - Hrubieszów 20:03
Kazan Bus

Bus type: Mercedes Sprinter Minibus
⛽️
🚲: ⛔️
🦽: ⛔️
🛜: ⛔️
🍽️: ⛔️
🧳: 😐 (if it were full it’d be cramped)
🧽: 🙂

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Reminding myself why I never like buses on #CrossBorderRail 🤨

The engine in this Mercedes is too strong. It goes too effing fast!

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Private minibuses do tend to be driven quite aggressively, yeah. (and, actually, I've recently read a piece on average urban bus speeds that makes Tricity buses feel pretty zippy, too - though probably not to that extent!)
Dieser Beitrag wurde bearbeitet. (6 Tage her)
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

the road maintenance just didn't have time to change the winter signs to summer signs 😂
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Hrubieszów 🇵🇱 - Izov 🇺🇦 is going to have to wait for tomorrow morning. There’s a massive ☁️ overhead and I don’t want to get drenched again!
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

I've taken that train, must've passed through there. I remember lots of clanking in the middle of the night as they adjusted the wheels.
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Jeez, Wólka Okopska looks like a fun location, doesn't it? Party central!
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

the name Newag will always be linked to that story. It's one of the most popular ones in the hacking community (the good guys, not the bad ones). This year they had another talk about the legal consequences of their research
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

That aside, it's wild how messy things are getting on the type naming front with some EMUs still getting EN designations, while others only have the newer WE ones, with no rhyme or reason I've been able to discern (or maybe it's there on some rail nerd forum thread I haven't found, or worse - a Facebook group xd)
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Nice. A popular design aesthetic for bus stations..? Similar one in Utrecht, screenshot from maps.app.goo.gl/mtovekNqwYTZ4h…
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

that looked dry enough for a quick spin down to the park. Hopefully the weather holds for later.
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

That is good to see, I remember the old Lublin bus station was one of the grimmest in Poland – and that was a pretty competitive field.
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

this is the EIP service - P stands for Pendolino/Premium. It has some specific rules regarding boarding and it's the only type of service that guarantees the passenger that no-one will be standing over you in the corridors (reservation is compulsory, no "standing reservations", fine for boarding without ticket is 750PLN(!))
EIC has similar speeds, but is run with regular (but very comfortable) coaches. Price is similar and very high.
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

It's fast as far as our current standards go! They rebuilt it some 15 years ago during PKP's most painful period (the long reconstruction contributed to it being PKP's most painful period, but we know the main causes were elsewhere, ofc), then it took, like, 6 years for them to get ETCS L2 going so we could run 200 km/h on the sections that allow it - honestly I'm just glad they're done with it (not that I actually use it much, admittedly).
The next stage is to build a dedicated LGV via Płock and Grudziądz (or at least closely passing those) sometime in the next 20 years, I want to see that :)
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Lublin is a lovely city. Visited 3 times (surprising the border guards each time!). I wonder if the new bus station beside the main train station is fully up and running.

If you have a bit of time in Lublin, but not enough to get to the city centre, I recommend a quick trip to Park Ludowy. It's a lovely park a bit over 500m from the entrance of the main train station.

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

it does have a lot of trees as shelter (and good water fountains), but if the weather is bad, you could get soaked even 2 mins on a bike - which isn't ideal when you have an onward journey.
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

@HaTetsu @LachAnonym

Thanks Jon ! It was great to meet you in person and fun to talk to you. Good luck with exploring the Ukraine train crossings.

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Is it because HS trains want to be planes flying really low, and everyone else wants them to be trains that happen to go fast?
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

funnily enough, in MERITS it's a EIC train, but in fact it's category is EIP (same as previous, but premium, because Pendolino)
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

especially ÖBB has gone crazy last time and most Mazovian trains are shown as Fernzüge, including the SKM!
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

I think train 5302 is an EIP, not EIC. Hence the 43 zloty reservation fee. EIC/IC usually 3 zlt to reserve.
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Good piece. Someone btl complaining not enough statistics! Fair point many saying rail just too pricey cf air.
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

@burger_jaap Oh! Didn’t notice you were the author. Literally just wrote this about it: fosstodon.org/@Brendanjones/11…

If I ever try taking a night train again I’m making sure the carriages are from this millennium … or decade even. Utterly miserable experience.

Als Antwort auf Brendan Jones

@burger_jaap Do you know much about the Single European Railway Directive? I literally learnt about it this week and the whole ‘liberalisation’ and ‘market competition’ aspect of it seems … fraught. Forcing privatisation and competition onto a natural monopoly seems like the opposite of what’s needed.

For those not aware: transport.ec.europa.eu/transpo… or en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single…
#rail #trains #eu

Als Antwort auf Brendan Jones

@Brendanjones @burger_jaap No. It’s not that simple. Some private operators have filled obvious gaps some state owned ones never cared about. And competition can (but does not always!) drive down costs and drive up service. It’s not so clear cut.
Als Antwort auf Brendan Jones

@Brendanjones @burger_jaap I believe the current French night trains are all from the last millennium, aren't they? And they are well restored IMHO, I'd recommend anyone to use them. And, contrary to ÖBB, you can actually afford the ticket.
Als Antwort auf Wolfgang Cramer

@wolfgangcramer @Brendanjones @burger_jaap SNCF carriages date from 1975-1985. Most but not yet all renovated recently. If you’re ok to share a cabin with strangers they’re fine.
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

@wolfgangcramer @Brendanjones I have also had positive experiences travelling with my family on the Intercité de Nuit in a four-berth couchette (1st class). Pricing and ticket conditions in combination with Interrail are reasonable (not what you'd expect from SNCF!). Unlike with ÖBB, where trains are fully booked weeks in advance, we could easily reschedule to the next day.

Brendan, I agree with you about not taking any 'old' night train, but unfortunately European Sleeper only has those.

Als Antwort auf Jaap Burger

@burger_jaap @wolfgangcramer @Brendanjones
I've found the SNCF and older OBB night trains just fine, both single in shared 4 person couchette and as a couple with exclusive compartment (Nightjet) or private booking (SNCF). Older stock is fine if clean and well maintained.
Als Antwort auf Mark Burton

@markhburton @burger_jaap @wolfgangcramer @Brendanjones Depends. Some of the older windows have poor noise insulation. Badly designed compartments too. But anyway it’s not central - there aren’t enough old carriages anyway.
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

@burger_jaap @wolfgangcramer @Brendanjones
I suppose (having youth-hostelled, well before they got gentrified) I find that those inconveniences aren't a deal breaker - waking up near the Spanish border or in Vienna, say, is itself a luxury. But sure, capacity is key.
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

@markhburton @burger_jaap @wolfgangcramer @Brendanjones The refurbished finish on French night trains was really nice, but I could clearly hear the wheel noise when in the first compartment of the carriage (just above the wheels), as well as the bathroom next door.

Pro tip: SNCF doesn't let you pick spots but lets you know the selection before you pay, so you can retry in parallel until you get a compartment in the middle of the carriage (away from spot numbers 10 and 100).

Als Antwort auf Cycling on Rails

@cycling_on_rails

That looks way nicer than the European Sleeper train! So much was scuffed and broken in our carriage. We had such thin mattresses, and the one on the top bunk (which we didn't have to use, thankfully) was over a partition that made one third of the mattress 3cm higher than the rest. Imagine trying to sleep on that!

@jon @markhburton @burger_jaap @wolfgangcramer

Als Antwort auf Jaap Burger

@burger_jaap @wolfgangcramer @Brendanjones well because if it were SNCF those trains wouldn‘t exist. It was the government that forced it, and bunged some money to a workshop to renovate the carriages.
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

What’s interesting about Nox from my perspective is that they both have very ambitious plans (building a big standardised fleet is fine, but with what money? what workshops will build this fleet? the timeline?!?); and very poor ambitions on operations (11:08 for Stockholm - Cph, that’s almost twice as long as it should be).

I wish them success though, their vision is appealing!

Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

If the problem is political then the solution is political. Are any organizations engaged in mobilization and lobbying at the European level? My local “promoció del transport public” are focused on local issues and the “European Passenger Federation”—despite its name!—is composed of organizations not passengers. I know many people (yourself top of the list) are doing great policy work but it sounds like that needs to be translated into political power in Brussels.
Als Antwort auf J—dV

@redjives you identify the right problem. EPF is small and weak, also because many of its member organisations are. Some better organisational capacity would be useful, but how?
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Building capacity and power take time but it can be done. My thought would be to found the European Rail Passenger Union (or name it whatever) with the explicit goal of lobbying the EU on #CrossBorderRail. Be a Europe wide direct membership organization. Mobilize and engage those members (petitions/letters/trips to Brussels) to put oomph behind existing policy experts & proposals. I don't have the rail policy chops that you and many others have, but I do have some organizing and politics background. I think you see from the engagement you get on here that there are many folks who want this and are excited but don't know how to help. We need some organizations and political savvy and will to translate all the likes and boosts into power and pressure, someone to bridge the policy knowledge and the political action. I agree that it wouldn't be easy or fast, but there are existing models to make this work. (And yes, I'm volunteering to be part of such an effort.)
Als Antwort auf J—dV

@redjives let’s seriously consider how to do this once I’m back at my desk! (10 days from now)
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

I did a bit of a double take when I saw you on the Guardian front page just now.
Als Antwort auf Philipp

@pb oh that’s cool. I didn’t know it was on the homepage 😀
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

In this piece you wrote: "For comparison, Deutsche Bahn owns almost 300 high-speed daytime trains."

However in their own press releases, DB states to have little over 400 ICE trains that are currently in use.

Where does the difference come from?

Als Antwort auf Moritz

@preya I put “over” and Guardian edited it to “under”. Hell knows why.
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

I used my first two night trains in a decade just a couple of weeks back (nightjet in the D-A-CH area). I definitifely prefer it over flying, but I agree that newer rolling stock would be nice.
My main issue was the lack of space for luggage. It's an impossible task to store a suitcase with a week of belongings for every person in the compartment (which can happen, if you go on a holiday by train 😉). So people put them in the corridor, which makes it difficult to move arround the carriage.
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Harrumph. I would have read the article, but have to agree to sharing data with the Guardian's 132 'partners' to do so. :-(
Als Antwort auf Jon Worth

Do you know the kebab meat story of Warszawa Centralna?

When they were renovating the building in 2010 they found an illegal kebab meat storage and processing in the basement of that building.

At that time, the story rose to an urban legend claiming mountains of kebab meat with rats running everywhere and the place supplying a third of Warsaw restaurants with infected meat.