Rail Europe: Way To Go

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

  

The easiest way for Americans to move around Europe is not only the simplest; it is also in itself a great adventure because Americans don’t have a mass transit rail system in their own country and traveling by train in Europe is exciting and so, er, foreign.

It’s also efficient partly because trains are punctual and the systems are so long established they’ve really got it right by now.

We are skimming along through the flat plain called the Netherlands, past brick houses with high-pitched roofs, past endless graffiti on garden walls past large trees and small cars that are quickly left behind. We are moving! Yet we are in a Hi Speed train running at a modest 140/km per hour, about 87 mph. The conductor standing before us stamping our Rail Europe pass is almost apologetic about the speed. “With improvements, we’ll soon be doing 180 km/hour,” he says. “Still not the 300 km/hr of the TGV trains but faster than cars. And easier than driving.”

He is a typical Dutchman: tall, amiable, and fluent in English. “Why not?” he says, “Who’s going to learn a language like Dutch?”

His wish for speed may not be a Dutch characteristic. An English friend says if you take your car over to France from the UK and want to drive down to the French Riviera, and get behind a car with Dutch plates your journey will take forever because Dutch drivers follow the law and won’t speed but they make it difficult for other drivers to pass them. Who knows? We’re not driving in France; we’re sitting back relaxed and letting our train driver do the hard work.

When we ask our conductor what Americans need to know about European train travel, he can’t help himself. He slides his eyes over to our luggage and smiles.

“Well, first,” he says, “they need to learn to travel light. And that” he continues pointing at our five bags, “is not light!”

He has a point but we’ve been traveling for three weeks. Nevertheless that may be the most important issue for train travelers to understand. Not all railway stations are like Amsterdam Centraal which has elevators to the platform levels and, even when they do, passengers are still left to manhandle bags themselves on and off the train. You don’t readily find porters in European railway stations. We were looking for one a few years ago in France but another tourist told us we’d not find one because the French were too left wing even Communist to feel they would serve others. Traveling light has to be absolutely the most important message any American could take from a Rail Europe experience.

The second point our conductor made was to believe the timetables and understand how little time was allowed to get on and off the trains. We knew that because once we went one hour beyond our station because we were slow to collect our luggage and get to the door. When we finally got off we had to wait two hours to return to our destination and this happened in spooky Transylvania. It turned out not to be so spooky after all. “The trains do run on time,” says our conductor. “They have to be on time at least 80 percent of the time by government mandate. We manage 86 to 90 percent so we’re in good shape.”

Asked how he’d become a conductor, he smiles and says, “I applied for what I thought would be an easy job but they told me I’d have to take seven month’s training. ‘Seven months,’ I said, ‘for learning how to blow a whistle!’ But of course there’s a lot more than that. What else would I tell Americans? Well, the system is not perfect. Delays happen. There are lots of trains so standard advice might be: Take the train before the one you want. And if you need help use the Redcaps you see at the stations; they are there to help”

Good advice. We have some observations of our own. We recently went by rail on a five-day pass from Amsterdam to Brussels, Brussels to Bruges and return, then Brussels to Amsterdam then Amsterdam to Leiden and return, then Amsterdam Centraal to Schiphol airport.

The concierge at many hotels can easily bring up, on the hotel computer, the essential information you need for your journey the next day such as the platform, the times and whether you have to change trains. If you are staying at a hotel near the station as you should if you are a train enthusiast it may be worthwhile to walk the route to and within the station for your trip the next day especially if you will have heavy luggage with you the next day. In other words make a dry run. The British Army always said: “Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.”

It’s worthwhile to ask locals who are in your compartment if this is the right train for your destination even if you know it is. People on trains can be very obliging and if they know where the foreigner is going they might be helpful if you miss the announcement that your stop is the next one

Remember too the rail systems are mostly for the Europeans not tourists. It is not a country’s responsibility to cater for every American who comes along so do your homework. Read the information that comes with your rail pass especially how you have to have your pass stamped before the conductor shows up and the date written in by you the day you travel.

All that said, the system works well and is intuitive once you’ve used it. And remember you have to buy your rail pass before you leave USA; you can’t buy it with all its benefits once you are in Europe.

Money Matters

Rail Europe has been in business for more than 75 years. Study its website. The rules are not complicated but need to be understood. Some areas seem like bargains. For example, the three countries Belgium, the Netherlands (Holland) and Luxembourg comprise the Benelux and are considered one country by Rail Europe even though they are three, so if you have a three country pass you can use it also on adjacent France and Germany. Cool! Getting five countries for the cost of three.