Yet Another Cycling Forum
Off Topic => The Pub => Topic started by: Martin on 07 August, 2019, 04:09:54 pm
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nothing to do with Brexit
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49263781
I used it a couple of times in the 80s, £130 for 3 weeks was bargain of the century especially as I spent most nights on overnight trains (usually on the floor or a luggage rack)
It did make Ryanair seem luxurious these days by comparison, especially in Italy Greece and Spain
In fact it won't affect UK visitors to the continent much A 3 week pass is currently €466 which includes one return journey to the ferry port or airport (not sure if it also includes a ferry or Eurostar)
The UK National Rail All Line Rover is a staggering £535 a week! by comparison
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It's a bit of a ball ache for those of us that use it for european rail journeys that don't live near Eurostar/ferry terminals.
The GB rail operators (NI is different) only recently started accepting interrail for the port journeys.
It seems it's to do with RDG AKA National Rail not liking that EURail are merging the EURail (which the UK isn't part of) and Interrail passes into a single product regardless of country of residence (those living in EURail member rail systems could use an Interrail pass while those who didn't were a EURail pass)
The UK has a "Britrail" pass for non-EURail residents that is very different from the all-line rover and would be a clash with the international pass...
However... the Swiss Travel System has for a long time had their own passes which cover tourist attractions, municipal transport etc as well as trains and is a considerably better deal than the Swiss one country pass which only covers trains; are they going off in the huff too???
They even promoted inter/eu rail passes alongside the swisspass which made it pretty easy for me to determine which one I wanted when I took a train trip to Switzerland....
TLDR: GB rail going in a needless huff by the sound of things
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I went Inter-railing in '82. Loved it! Many years on my wife and I were intending to repeat the trip although we'd have to fly to Esbjberg since the ferry no longer runs from Harwich.
I recall we didn't have any significant delays during the month away. Got to Dover and sat on the platform waiting for ages for the train to depart....
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I went in 1980, a proper non stop boat train to Dover. Ended up in Athens, on the way down through former Yugoslavia in the middle of nowhere the train hit a tractor (apparently killing 3 people) it stopped about 2km down the line while they did whatever they had to do. About 6 people climbed out of the door and went sunbathing in the field. After about 3 hours the driver hooted his horn and drove on.
About 3 people managed to jump back on board but the others were left behind. I wonder if they are still there?
IIRC it would have cost about double the train ticket cost to fly back from Athens in those days. I was very tempted. You also had to pay half fare on the ferries, this was long before they built the bridges / tunnels but if you stayed on the train and got shunted onto the ferry you could go from (West) Germany to Denmark and then on to Sweden for nothing :)
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Well, that didn't last long.
UK train companies will stay in the Interrail scheme, reversing Wednesday's decision, the operators' group says.
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Robert Nisbet, Director of Nations and Regions at the RDG said: "Following the strong reaction to news of our departure we and Eurail, the company which runs Interrail, renewed talks.
"We are pleased to be able to tell passengers that we have reached agreement and will be remaining part of both the Interrail and Eurail passes."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49281776
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Good! Apparently LNER had already announced that their routes would remain part of the passes even if the other UK TOCs didn't. Whether that prompted the RDG as a whole to see sense, I don't know.
nothing to do with Brexit
Indeed, contrary to initial impressions, it was only about foreign visitors travelling within UK. UKers would still have been (still are) eligible for Interrail passes to travel Europe.