Back from europe -- TGV railfanning (pt II)

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Wow! What a great trip. I had a lot of fun.

Thanks for all the great train watching spots. I got a chance to visit:

Harrow and Weldslone, Vauxhall, Clapham junction, brussles south, brussles central, paris nord, paris gare du lyon, and TGV Haute-Picardie.

I will be putting videos up on youtube asap. (a few should be up in about 15-30min…)

Here is a link to my page – http://youtube.com/profile?user=trainfreak101

I am uploading them to my comuter as I type, so they should be up very soon

2

Ok, I have 3 videos up so far ( of the tgv ). I will post a few more tonight, then continue posting over the next few days.

london/brussles will be in the next few days – i am going off the memory card used in paris at the moment.

3

Have you been watching the TGV go by at full throttle? Makes your legs shake, eh? I had one of those moments about 7 years ago, when I was in France. I was answering a call of nature (thinking no train would suprise me) when out of the blue a TGV shot by (I mean really SHOT by) at 300 KM/h. One of the more impressive things I’ve experienced in my life so far and I wasn’t even within 50 feet of the right-of-way…[8D]

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I will be putting some more videos up today.

6

Any more general thoughts you can share with us?

TGVs are obviously quick - but what about frequency, usage and all those other “peripherals” that make a railway tick?

7

Well, on the tgv nord line, there was a tgv about every 5 minutes. I took 4 trips on the eurostar, thalys, tgv’s and they were packed. very quiet, and smooth.

On-time is a huge thing. The trains are never late, and that really helps in keeping things going.

I hope I answered your question.

-Nataraj

8

Glad you enjoyed yourself. Train every 5 minutes is just a little different to the American passenger experience. And also glad the timekeeping was excellent, as you say it does make things that much better when the timetable can be trusted. The first part of the High Speed Link in the UK really helped timekeeping here, and may just serve to persuade the powers that be that new build is the way forward.

9

try telling that to our lawmakers!! They think trains are a waste of money. Thats why the california high speed rail is taking so long!