Interrailing at EIGHTY

[leslie10646]

Well, we've made it to Switzerland! Even using the Interrail App on my phone, I haven't been thrown off a train yet - but I still prefer paper tickets which you fill in in a moment, the App takes five minutes hard work per trip - not designed for the likes of me who jumps from one train to another, just because I see that the other is hauled by a loco I haven't travelled behind before!

The task for this trip is to travel behind as many Swiss Class 460 locos as possible - I've checked off half the Class as things stand., as well as a few new German Class 146/ 147 locos in the Black Forest area.

I saw my first class 146 at Frankfurt am Main Hauptbahnhof yesterday - I'd just arrived from Brussels on the 0623 from that city!

The 146s work local trains with double decker coach sets, as you can see.

Pretty impressive Train shed? - it has about six of these arches covering about 4 platforms each.

After enjoying the view, I was less happy to find that my onward ICE train was running 40 minutes late from Berlin - so an hour's wait became two hours plus. Happily we found a sanctuary in the "Markthalle" where there were various outlets and plenty of tables and chairs.

The fourteen coach ICE4 (set 9018) eventually arrived, lost more time as it ran south via Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Offenbach and Freiburg. Free travel if you wanted to chance it - no ticket check!

Good announcements in German and excellent English - especially the one which told us that the train would terminate at Basel - rather than carry us direct to Spiez. No fun when we each had three bags festooned around us!

So we ended up on a Swiss InterCity train which, needless to say, kept perfect time with 460.087, which was "new". so that was all right.

Spiez is an important junction, but taxis it has none! So we took the bus up to our holiday place, arriving nearly two hours late.

The view, happily, is still as good!

The snow-covered peak is the Blumisalp.

Very wet today (Thursday) - almost Hong Kong level typhoon level rain at one point. 

Shopping took up the morning, but we squeezed a run to Bern and back with 460s in the afternoon - 460.113 was new, but 460.082 coming back was an old friend first travelled behind 3 years ago.

Dinner in Migros, I had to wait for them to open for their evening food service! I thought that I was too late! Then bargain booze in Denner's next door, just  CHF19 for SIX bottles of Rose! I'll let you know if it is drinkable, says he G&T in hand .......

The evening DID produce a couple of lovely sights - first a rainbow.

and then "Liam's Mountain" - in other words NIESSEN, Switzerland's Pyramid which is almost in the back garden, as you can see. here pretending to be a Volcano thanks to the clouds and the setting sun.

Time for bed. 

Now, where to tomorrow - depends on what time I crawl out of bed - still getting over that 5am start yesterday.

 

Edited 1 hour ago by leslie10646

[jhb171achill]

54 minutes ago, leslie10646 said:

Well, we've made it to Switzerland! Even using the Interrail App on my phone, I haven't been thrown off a train yet - but I still prefer paper tickets which you fill in in a moment, the App takes five minutes hard work per trip - not designed for the likes of me who jumps from one train to another, just because I see that the other is hauled by a loco I haven't travelled behind before!

The task for this trip is to travel behind as many Swiss Class 460 locos as possible - I've checked off half the Class as things stand., as well as a few new German Class 146/ 147 locos in the Black Forest area.

I saw my first class 146 at Frankfurt am Main Hauptbahnhof yesterday - I'd just arrived from Brussels on the 0623 from that city!

The 146s work local trains with double decker coach sets, as you can see.

Pretty impressive Train shed? - it has about six of these arches covering about 4 platforms each.

After enjoying the view, I was less happy to find that my onward ICE train was running 40 minutes late from Berlin - so an hour's wait became two hours plus. Happily we found a sanctuary in the "Markthalle" where there were various outlets and plenty of tables and chairs.

The fourteen coach ICE4 (set 9018) eventually arrived, lost more time as it ran south via Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Offenbach and Freiburg. Free travel if you wanted to chance it - no ticket check!

Good announcements in German and excellent English - especially the one which told us that the train would terminate at Basel - rather than carry us direct to Spiez. No fun when we each had three bags festooned around us!

So we ended up on a Swiss InterCity train which, needless to say, kept perfect time with 460.087, which was "new". so that was all right.

Spiez is an important junction, but taxis it has none! So we took the bus up to our holiday place, arriving nearly two hours late.

The view, happily, is still as good!

The snow-covered peak is the Blumisalp.

Very wet today (Thursday) - almost Hong Kong level typhoon level rain at one point. 

Shopping took up the morning, but we squeezed a run to Bern and back with 460s in the afternoon - 460.113 was new, but 460.082 coming back was an old friend first travelled behind 3 years ago.

Dinner in Migros, I had to wait for them to open for their evening food service! I thought that I was too late! Then bargain booze in Denner's next door, just  CHF19 for SIX bottles of Rose! I'll let you know if it is drinkable, says he G&T in hand .......

The evening DID produce a couple of lovely sights - first a rainbow.

and then "Liam's Mountain" - in other words NIESSEN, Switzerland's Pyramid which is almost in the back garden, as you can see. here pretending to be a Volcano thanks to the clouds and the setting sun.

Time for bed. 

Now, where to tomorrow - depends on what time I crawl out of bed - still getting over that 5am start yesterday.

 

Enjoy your well-deserved travels, Leslie! Beware of cuckoo clocks......