YVR Cockroach

The Rome-Munich train is advertised as a City Night Line. Train CNL 484 n/b. Is it Italian or German rolling stock?

With the multi-minute stops and all, as well as getting up to speed and slowing down, I would have though an average speed of 100 Km/h was rather fast (unless night trains are on much faster stock these days). The 1,000 Km trip and 11:25 hour total time would produce an average trip speed of 90 Km/h.

Thought the only really fast rail lines in Europe are limited to TGV (exclusively TGV) in France, ICE in Germany, bits of Belgium (Thalys) and the Eurostar line in the U.K. (exclusively high speed?) and the rest go up to 90 mph at best. I thought the Italian Eurostar isn't a really fast train but more like original British High Speed Train / IC 125 that cruised up to 200 Km/h on regular track.

I count 10 stops with some 85 minutes of stopping time with a total travel time of 11:25. I see there's a 41 minute stop in Verona to attach the train from Venice.

So the opinion of this board is that we should take the train on D-2 and arrive D-1 to catch a flight on D+0 at 1040?

Track

City Night Line is essentially a German company registered in Switzerland. The rolling stock is all German or formerly Swiss/German and taken over by the German operators of CNL. There may also be some Czech cars in the mix, if I'm not mistaken. There is no Italian rolling stock.

SF_trotter

Spain also has several high speed rail routes and is building more at a furious rate. Italy just recently completed the last segments on the Milan - Rome route; trains make the trip in less than 3 hours.

I don't know what your definition of "fast" is, but there are also trains that operate at >200 kph in UK, Sweden and Portugal.

mosburger

Not to forget the new HS link from Amsterdam to Brussels via Rotterdam and Antwerp. And also Russia is building highspeed links on the Moscow - St.Petersburg and St.Petersburg - Helsinki routes.

aaron1262

you can read my little trip report from my train trip last summer here about my night train that became a day train. Unfortunate circumstances..but tells you a little bit about the service you might encounter if your train is delayed. This train was Munich-Rome.

Jack Napier

An option might be checking the fares when flying into STR or FMM and taking the train to MUC from there.

WillTravel

I think the decision is up to you, after you balance the risks as best you can. How much will you have to pay if you aren't able to catch your flight at 10:40? Will you be stressed out and worrying about your train connection throughout your trip? Etc.

If, for example, you're sure that the worst thing that can happen is a $200 fare change fee, and being late home doesn't bother you, then probably taking the train like you describe is a great idea.

If you might have to pay $5K if you miss the flight, then your decision might well be different.

Will Fly Småland

Wikipedia has a pretty accurate map of the network:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hi...urope_2009.gif

Flying Lawyer

In general, these trains are pretty much on time.

As you have already seen, they take a very long time for this journey from Florence to Munich. Same journey can be done in seven hours. These night trains might have longer stops at certain stations. The idea is that you leave the last station in your country/region of departure at a reasonable time and reach the first station in your country/region of destination at a reasonable time too. I haven't checked but I would expect this train to leave Verona at about 1230 or 100 and arrive on German soil before 600 and I assume it will take this train ages to reach the Brenner.....

In a nutshell: You should be on the safe side.

What you might wish to check are flights ex Pisa. I could buy a 88 Euro LH return ticket for several dates on Expedia and this brings you into MUC at 8.35

railways

I don't know how true that is - are there statistics available which show punctuality?

A couple of days ago, I took the night train from Munich to Rome. The train was due to depart at 21:03 - but it was only shunted into the platform at 21:05. No announcements at all were made that there would be a delay. Eventually the train left 25 minutes late, with the on-board explanation given as "problems with the preparation of the train".

By Orvieto, the last stop (about an hour) before Rome, the train was just over an hour late. Italian railways then contrived to turn a one-hour delay into two hours by sending the train down the old line instead of the high-speed line. Arrival at Roma Termini was 11:07 - 2 hours 2 minutes late.

shaggy_mutt

Just as one more data point, my Köln-Copenhagen night train back in mid-2008 was delayed about 10 minutes coming out of Köln but pulled into Copenhagen about 2 hours late. The good part about it being a night train: I haven't any idea where were delayed, as I slept through it ^

It was a great ride, and I'd do it again, but not with a tight connection right at the end.

YVR Cockroach

So we decided to travel ahead of time and have 28 or so hours in Munich. Bought tickets in the deluxe cabin (private toilet and shower) for €129 each. Maybe a good thing as our flight got pushed forward some 1/2 hr which would have cut into the margin.

Just travelled Thalys on this route in June and found the speed to be rather pedestrian (commuter train speed) between Brussels and Antwerp. Speed was really fast between Antwerp and Rotterdam but it never got going so fast again between there and Schiphol/Amsterdam CS. It's about 98 miles between BRU and AMS (so say, 112-130 miles by train). Train took its scheduled time of 2 hours though was a bit delayed coming in from Paris. That's only an average of 100 Km in an hour tops.

Palal

Are we confusing units here?

The wiki HS map that was provided is quite accurate. Currently, France, Spain, Eurostar, parts of the UK, Italy and parts of Germany have speeds over 200 km/h. In Benelux, the switch to the HS line has been slow and I'm not too sure if Thalys uses it or not.

CALlegacy

A couple of years ago our night train Munich-Copenhagen was a couple hours late for no reason in particular that we knew of. We did miss a connection and had to reconfigure the schedule for further travel.

Night trains are not necessarily scheduled for the fastest running as convenient time of departure and time of arrival from/to major endpoints seems to be a sensible priority.

I have no useful statistics.

YVR Cockroach

Since we had built in a day in Munich, we hoped the train would arrive late but of course it arrived into the Hbf 2 minutes early despite getting into Florence some 5 minutes late and leaving even tardier. Did take some 6 hours from there to get over the Brenner pass (stopped, unscheduled, in Steinach in Tirol around 4a). OeBB locomotive pulled the train into Munich.

Train carriage also wasn't the one CNL advertises. Single decker. The toilet, sink and shower were there (bought the Deluxe) and was one fairly tight cubicle. Showerhead was the faucet! A complimentary and substantive inroom breakfast was served. Some cabins may have been sold as economy with the bathroom locked and no breakfast served.