Innotrans 2024 - From Porto to Berlin, by train

[Giugiaro]

And thus, the final travel day is upon us:

 

Day 9 – 30/09

Badajoz

Badajoz station has recently been modernized to receive Alvia long-haul trains. Much like Vigo-Urzáiz, Madrid-Puerta de Atocha, and Barcelona-Sants, along with many other improvements, one of the main changes introduced is the control of access to the platform.

The boarding platforms are inaccessible up to 20 minutes before the train departure if the passenger has a valid ticket for it.

The exception seems to be CP – Comboios de Portugal’s regional train, for which the platform doors are opened without any access control or staff.

The station is, however, mainly a traditional railway building, with just a coffee shop attached, unlike the big malls that form the whole or part of the infrastructure, and still retains much of the architectural design of the original station, including its age of discovery’s mural in the main hall.

 

Regional 482

The trip between Badajoz and Entroncamento was made onboard the train Regional 482, consisting of a CP Class 0350 diesel railcar. Oh dear…

It is a single passenger room with a bathroom. It has extremely simple seats that are devoid of any additional equipment, on a front-to-front 2-by-3 layout. Inside there are a pair of waste containers and the luggage racks exist only over the windows. Only the corridor seat has arms rests.

There are no curtains or blinds, no Wi-Fi installed, no electrical outlets of any kind or reading lights. The passenger information system exists, but it does not work. It had air conditioning, and, at the very least, it was working well!

The trip since crossing the Portuguese border has been the most uncomfortable until now. Practically impossible to write on board, such is the dimension of the vehicle's shaking all the way through.

The train departed from Badajoz with a 10-minute delay, although the crew and passengers were all on the train at the time of departure. We reached Entroncamento with practically the same delay with which we started.

 

Entroncamento

The Entroncamento station is a mix of basics from a traditional station and the minimums of a modern station.

The lack of any type of information panels on the platforms is a shock for foreign passengers, who are used to stations that are extremely rich in the quantity and quality of information and guidance provided.

The ticket inspector of the Regional 482 has no other option than to inform each passenger, one by one, of the platform they need to go or where the ticket office is, as well as the path needed to get there.

The waiting room is in the central building, accessible via an overpass equipped with stairs and elevators. The entire overpass is uncovered, not protecting passengers from the sun and rain.

The waiting room is equipped with air conditioning, a departure board, benches, waste containers, CEE 7/3 sockets, and panels with printed timetables. The announcements are automatic, in Portuguese and English.

Unlike France and Spain, the platform is access free and open at any time, even for people without a valid ticket who only come to the station for leisure or tourism, with no intention of taking the train.

The train Intercidades 523 was already 10 minutes late. The failure to appear within the timetabled time started causing anxiety among passengers who only had the audible announcements to get an idea of what was happening while they waited for the train on the platform it was expected to call at.

 

Intercidades 523

The train Intercidades 523 was composed of a traditional locomotive and coach, namely 1st and 2nd class coaches of the stainless steel Corail type, the only ones made of this material along the entire route, alongside the CP class 3400 EMUs.

The bar maintains the appearance and functionality with which it was designed in the 1980s on the passenger side while being weak on the service side. Operated by a company visibly different from CP and offering little more than pre-cooked and plastic-wrapped food, the only product made on board is coffee and its derivatives (with milk, for example).

The constant shaking inside the train advised me not to order anything risky that would leak, so the afternoon snack was limited to just a Delta Cafés’ Go Chill and a cold pastel de nata.

The 1st Class lounge has a large luggage rack in the interior of the passenger room. The luggage racks over the windows can easily accommodate even my largest suitcase, something not always possible on previous trains.

The seats are comfortable but absurdly simple. They do not have recline or footrests. Along with SBB's 2nd class EW4 type long-haul coaches, the Corail 1st class coaches are the only long-haul carriages whose armrests are not foldable.

Each seat has a side-mounted waste container, a folding table mounted on the front seat, and reading lights mounted on the overhead luggage rack.

In a few seats, there are CEE 7/3 sockets, and all the external windows have something unusual on all the other trains that have been used so far: curtains (and very thick ones!).

(Also, I should note that on a recent trip to Lisbon, the 1st Class Corail coach I took had absolutely no CEE 7/3 sockets, so the availability of these isn’t even a guarantee, no matter what the booking system on CP’s website tells you.)

There is no type of automatic passenger information system on board. The numbering of the carriages is done with printed numbers over sheets of metal and placed next to the external door inside and outside the vehicle. Announcements are made manually by the ticket inspector. But it has Wi-Fi installed and working… at least.

The shaking was a constant throughout the trip, reaching ridiculous levels after Ovar and before Espinho. It is impossible to write or draw by hand on this train.

The bathroom was also the only one on the entire journey to and from Berlin that wasn't pressurized, and the toilet revealed that its exhaust was going straight into the track beneath the train.

We arrived at Porto-Campanhã with a 15-minute delay, making it impossible to transfer to the train Urbano 15429. This would add another 30 minutes to the total on the journey back to Valongo.

 

Porto-Campanhã

Arriving during peak hours, Campanhã station was extremely busy, with passengers having issues navigating through the underpass that connects platforms 1 to 9 of the station.

The biggest constraint was on the access to platform 1, where the waiting line for the elevator, and another crowd of people for the escalator, made it difficult for passengers to move around.

 

Urbano 15545

The last trip was aboard the train Urbano 15545, which arrived at Porto-Campanhã and Valongo on time.

It went very full to Ermesinde, and the passenger information system was not working anywhere on the train for the duration of the trip.

 

Stats
Total time on the journey to Berlin: 47 hours and 13 minutes

Total time on the return to Valongo: 73 hours and 37 minutes

Total journey time: 120 hours and 50 minutes

Nights spent in fixed overnight stays: 3 nights

Nights spent onboard night trains: 1 night

Estimate of total distance covered: 7530 kilometres (4679 miles)

Total number of trains (buses): 18 (1)

Number of regional and commuter trains: 5

Number of long-haul trains: 3

Number of night trains: 3

Number of high-speed trains: 7

Total number of seat reservations: 14

Number of stations used: 17

Number of ticket offices visited: 10

Number of delayed trains: 6

Number of cancelled trains: 2

Number of trains lost due to unavailable seats (departures from the station): 3

Number of canceled train bookings due to failure of connection: 2

Number of missed trains due to a delay of a previous train (departures from the station): 3

Number of track incidents: 1

Number of train incidents: 0

Number of meals onboard: 4

Most expensive booking (Route): 109,00€ (Paris – Barcelona)

Type of most expensive booking: FIP reservation, Price difference between 2nd and 1st class

Most expensive onboard meal: 16,10 €

Content of the most expensive onboard meal: Renfe hot meal menu with Iberian jamón, tomato and olive oil sandwich, salted peanuts, water, and espresso included.

Edited October 17 by Giugiaro

[brill27mcb]

And how was Innotrans?  🙂

 

Rich K.

[cteno4]

Wow, this is like reading Ulysses! Amazing train trip and narrative, thanks. You traveled about 1.7x the US in 5 days of travel, that’s pretty incredible only being one overnight train and 18 trains!

 

jeff

[Giugiaro]

On 10/17/2024 at 8:04 PM, brill27mcb said:

And how was Innotrans?  🙂

 

May I say that it is getting too big for the number of days it's open. I could barely make it through my area of interest in three days, the last day was a rush to get some of my co-workers's stuff sorted out and check a few of the trains on the outside.

 

I needed two more days at least to be able to check out everything else I wanted at a leisurely pace. However, I did take the opportunity to visit J-Scale.com, Michas, and Turberg.

 

Meanwhile, I've added the photos I took from the journey on a forum album: