Notices by Jon Worth (jon@gruene.social)

Welcome to the #LongestTrainEU #CrossBorderRail record breaking thread!

This train journey starts in Kemijärvi 🇫🇮 and ends in Lagos 🇵🇹

18 trains, 100 hours 9 minutes, 4008km as the crow flies, 6281 route-km

The background to this project is here:
https://longestjourney.crossborderrail.eu/

And the live tracking throughout is here:
https://longestjourneylive.crossborderrail.eu/

@nafmo @cstross Ok, but you could quite quickly put different bogies on a couple of hundred wagons. Quicker and cheaper than building a few hundred km of standard gauge track in Finland!

Finland supposedly wants to build standard gauge tracks from Haparanda 🇸🇪 as far as Misi (half way between Rovaniemi and Kemijärvi) for military purposes https://yle.fi/a/74-20244260

I *still* don't get the point

*Surely* development of dual gauge freight wagons would be an easier way to do this? 🤔

#LongestTrainEU #CrossBorderRail

@cstross Errr that's what the linked story *says* 🙂

My question is not WHY, but HOW.

I do not get why an immensely expensive gauge change that will take 5 years to complete makes sense, when gauge changing wagons would be cheaper and much faster to do.

Welcome to today's thread - #CrossBorderRail route to/from #LongestTrainEU Day -06 - 30 Aug - Berlin - Warszawa - Mockava - Vilnius

New borders:
None

Borders already crossed:
Frankfurt (Oder) 🇩🇪 - Slubice 🇵🇱
Mockava 🇱🇹 - Trakiszki 🇵🇱

It is possible to make the trip from Berlin to Vilnius in a day, although this is going to be the first time I am trying to do it all in one go.

Beyond Białystok everything is rather slow, but it ought to at least all work.

Routes map:
https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crossborderrail-autumn-2026-inc-longest-train-jour_1443266#7/53.527248/19.330444

#CrossBorderRail to/from #LongestTrainEU Train 5 of 45
EC 43
07:44 Berlin Gesundbrunnen - Warszawa Zachodnia 12:54
PKP IC

🚆: Siemens Vectron locomotive, 7 carriages
⚡️ (15kV ac, 3kV dc)
🚲: ✅
🦽: ✅ (lift on platform)
🛜: ❓ (fitted, but can't get it working)
🍽️: ✅ (full dining car)
🧳: 😐 (narrow corridors)
🧽: 🙂 (spotless)
Interrail: 😐 (compulsory res, €4)

EC 43
07:44 Berlin Gesundbrunnen - Warszawa Zachodnia 12:54

Distance: 563.6km
Avg speed: 109km/h

8 stops:
Frankfurt(Oder)
Rzepin
Swiebodzin
Zbaszynek
Poznan Glowny
Konin
Kutno
Warszawa Zachodnia

🚆 mapped: https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crossborderrail-autumn-2026-inc-longest-train-jour_1443266#8/52.320342/17.177675

#CrossBorderRail #LongestTrainEU

To Gesundbrunnen this morning, and the interior of the PKP IC train

Świebodzin

I’ve still never gone to what the town is famous for! 🙄 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Christ_the_King_of_the_Universe?wprov=sfti1#

Damn @owiecc what have you started? 😆 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Mercy_monument,_Konotopie

Thankfully I’m not passing that one!

Damn this train is knackered. The internal doors don’t close so it’s noisy at speed. The air conditioning grille next to me isn’t screwed on so rattles. The windows are covered in grime. The seats are falling apart.

Ok, it’s an Alstom single deck TGV so it rides serenely. At least there’s that.

Besançon

Sod

I messed up

Because of the cancellation of my Frankfurt - Berlin ICE later, I actually have to take a different cross border ICE Strasbourg - Karlsruhe than I had planned, and I don’t have a reservation for that one…

It’s one stop. Maybe it works?

This is going to be… interesting in Strasbourg

“Why are you on this trains 20 mins earlier than you booked?”

“Because my connecting train German side is cancelled”

“But the later one would connect!”

“Not it won’t because of Dobrindt’s illegal border controls”

“And this train you are boarding is compulsory reservation!”

“Yes I know. And that rule is sort of because axle loads on high speed lines. We’re not on a high speed line with that restriction, so I can stay, right?”

🤔

The slightly more diplomatic approach of course is to go find the DB train manager (all France-Germany high speed trains have a joint DB-SNCF staff) and explain my predicament to them

That of course if there are no SNCF guarding access to the platform (towards Germany there normally are not)

I’ve got the perfect bag with me for Dobrindt’s illegal border controls

So I’m onto the train for which I don’t have a reservation 👍

German police on board ready to perform illegal non Schengen compliant controls 👎

Next stage of me pestering border control police. Conversation was in German, translated here.

Me: “Why do you control all passengers on all trains, and not all cars?”

Police: “The controls are random” (Stichprobenartig)

M: “No they’re not. You control every passenger on every train.”

…

P: “Every vehicle driver has to have ID”

M: I point at my bike “But you don’t control every vehicle. I cross by bike too and that’s not controlled”

P: “We can control every vehicle.”

M: “But you do not and you do control every train. Because every train is delayed. Look at DB Navigator!”

…