@richs09 posted:lessee - UK: London underground; Heathrow - London express; regional trains London - Bath, London - Salisbury; Eurostar* London - Paris
Continent: Thalys*: Paris - Antwerp; TGV*: Paris - Bordeaux; Deutsche Bahn: Luxembourg City - Koln; ICE*: Koln - Bremen - Berlin; Norwegian regional: Oslo - Flam; Italo*: Rome - Venice; Trenitalia*: Venice - Florence; Italo: Florence - Rome; DB (long ago) Salzburg - Copenhagen ("night train - back when the Germans insisted on smoking on the train - aargh")
Bucket List: ICE or TGV Paris to Berlin; Berlin to Milan (high speed rail - all DB?); TGV: Milan to Paris (inspired by the man in seat 61 -- website: seat61.com -- a great train travel website, especially for Europe); also something trans-Canada - Vancouver to Ottawa on VIA, or is it CN??
* high speed trains
This topic brings back great memories (I was on military leave from the NYC and thus officially a railroad man)
1962 - First trip to Europe, Icelandic AL to Luxembourg, on the way to spend a week in Paris with my future (and still now) wife, via Switzerland on a Swiss Holiday ticket. First night in Basel, then Zurich, Arth-Goldau and Lucerne. Lucerne to Interlaken on my first combination rack/adhesion railway. Side trip to Kleine-Scheidegg, but didn't ride the Jungfrau Bahn which would have been three hours of looking at fog.
Interlaken to Brigg on the Loetschberg line - a cab ride on one of the most spectacular rides down a mountain slope in Europe. Managed to talk my way into the cab as a fellow railroader using my awful high school German. The a round trip to Zermatt and view of the Matterhorn, another combination rack/adhesion RR.
Next a language /culture shock. To Lausanne, where I had booked a Wagon-Lits berth to Paris. I'd been traveling in German speaking Schweiz and arriving about noon, found myself in French speaking Suisse - totally disorienting, didn't know a word of French. So hooped on a train to Bern and had a pleasant four hours back in German speaking Schweiz. A beautiful city with two interurban lines to Worb Dorf leaving from terminals a few hundred yards apart, leaving berne in opposite directions. (i was also a traction fa as much as a railfan).
Then back to Lausanne and sleeper to Paris.
Most notable for a railfan in Paris in 1962 was steam powered suburban service. I made a side trip to Poissy behind a 2-8-2 tank locomotive.
Enough for now. I'll continue later with my next trip to Pris which included a ride on the original Talgo train from Madrid to Hendaye (French border).
