Paris to Chartres on 17 April was our first trip on a regional SNCF train (ie not the Paris city centre metro or RER suburban trains). The trip was about 80km from Paris Montparnasse to Chartres, completed in just over an hour, and cost us 60 euro "aller et retour" (return) for 2 of us.
The train was modern and comfortable, double decker carriages, and very smooth to ride in. There were very few passengers and lots of smartly dressed staff with cool purple designer berets. In spite of the numbers of staff no one seemed interested in checking our tickets on the journey out.
Graffiti was all over the place but somehow, being french, it still seemed OK, even elegant. Everywhere there were massive yards and depots looking way under utilised and giving the impression that the cost pressures on rail in NZ weren't there in France.
Near Paris there were often 8 or more parallel tracks and flying junctions where routes diverged. The entrance to Montparnasse, which is a terminal station with 24 platforms, gave the impression of having track work that allowed access from anywhere to anywhere - possibly the most complex I have seen.
On the way back I was contemplating how we had been precisely on time at every station, when ... we stopped in the middle of no where. On the plus side there wes immediately an announcement on the PA. It was completely intelligible, apart from being in French. Nevertheless I got the bit about 'sorry for the delay and please be patient', and I'm fairly sure the rest blamed the engineers for the hold up (?) which turned out to be only a few minutes and did not delay our arrival back in Paris.
So all in all, a pretty good impression of SNCF regional rail.
No comments:
Post a Comment