TrainBlog by Marcel Marchon

DFB Lok Nr. 1 “Furkahorn” in Gletsch

Marcel Marchon — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 22:33:00 +0000

Glacier Express in Münster (VS)

Marcel Marchon — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 05:42:48 +0000

ATSF 5021 outside CSRM

Marcel Marchon — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 06:48:11 +0000

Santa Fe 2-10-4 #5021 is sitting outside the California State Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento - she still looks pretty much as on the latest pictures shown here. Apparently there are some rumors floating around that she might be rebuilt?

CSRM promoting High-Speed Rail?

Marcel Marchon — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 06:21:35 +0000

The quote on the banner is “Railroads built California in the last century, and will build it again in the next”.

FrontRunner starts with half-hourly service on weekdays - Grand Opening on April 26

Marcel Marchon — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:35:40 +0000

Today I happened to look at UTA’s website because I was wondering what was going on with their new commuter service over in Salt Lake City and oh, what did I see, they had actually published their schedules just yesterday. The Grand Opening will be on Saturday, April 26, followed by free rides through April 30. Regular service starts May 1. Check out the schedules here. I didn’t expect too much when I first looked at them - maybe a couple morning and evening commute hour trips like it seems to be customary for a new rail startup, but I was wrong… Their weekday schedule actually includes round-trips every half hour (every hour in the evenings) from ~5am through midnight. Saturday service frequency is hourly, no service on Sundays (which is a pity). That’s not too shabby …

links for 2008-03-15

Marcel Marchon — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 10:18:40 +0000

California High Speed Rail Blog

A new blog about CAHSR

(tags: california highspeedrail)

Sprinter train at Cal State San Marcos

Marcel Marchon — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 08:06:30 +0000

Just wanted to quickly post this photo of a Sprinter train (Siemens Desiro EMU) at the new Cal State San Marcos station, taken today during the joint TRAC/SDERA excursion. I’ll post more pictures later …

links for 2007-10-24

Marcel Marchon — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 10:22:47 +0000

Eurostar - for tomorrow

On November 14 we move our London home from Waterloo to St Pancras International. Here you can find the latest news, read interesting stories and learn more about how travelling to and from Europe with us will become faster, greener and more enjoyable.

(tags: blogs eurostar)

Gotthard Cab Ride

Marcel Marchon — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 05:35:39 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Switzerland for a family event and since I was already flying all the way to Switzerland, I figured I might as well stay a day longer and take advantage of an offer by the Swiss Federal Railways: since they celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Gotthard rail line this year, they had some special events going on this year. One of them was that they offered tickets for cab rides on trains over the Gotthard line from Locarno to Arth-Goldau and vice versa. Well, it wasn’t cheap, but I decided that the opportunity doesn’t come along so often, so I went ahead and booked the trip. It actually seems like a lot of people decided to do the same thing, since I was told that they’re pretty much sold out through the end of the year.

(Click for more photos)

My trip started in Locarno - we were two people who booked the trip that day. At the Locarno station, a retired SBB engineer was waiting for us - he would be accompanying us and provide explanations, etc. during the trip (since obviously the real engineer who was driving the train was supposed to be doing just that - drive the train …). So we ended up being four people in the cab of the class Re 460 engine, which was rather cramped, but still ok.

Our train - #2280 from Locarno to Zurich - had only 7 coaches and was rather light, at just 309 metric tons. Should be no big deal for our 6100 kW / 8000 hp strong class Re 460 engine. We left a couple of minutes late, due to the fact that the train had arrived just shortly before and they needed to switch out some coaches before being ready to depart again. We made up the time on the way over the Gotthard though and arrived in Arth-Goldau ontime.

(View these video clips on YouTube)

Unfortunately, the trip was already over after only 2 1/2 hours - but it was definitely worth it!

links for 2007-10-02

Marcel Marchon — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 10:22:59 +0000

Monday manifesto: Guillaume Pepy - Times Online

The chief of France’s rail giant believes that the high-speed link between Paris and St Pancras will transform travel

(tags: highspeedrail france unitedkingdom tgv eurostar highspeedone hs-1 stpancras)