Originally Posted by
Palal
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Intercidades: one step down from Alfa. Standard intercity train cars which go up to 150-170 km/h.
Small correction: the maximum speed of the
5600 Class electric locomotives built by Siemens/Sorefame is 220 km/h. All
Intercidades (IC) connecting Lisbon to the north of the country (the so-called
Linha do Norte) are powered by these locomotives, which top 200 km/h in the
modernized sections of this railway.
For the sake of comparison, it currently takes 2h35 by AP and 3h00 by IC to travel from Porto (Campanhã) to Lisbon (Oriente).
Originally Posted by
Palal
Zapping purchased from one operator can be refilled and used on other operators.
This used to be easier said than done.
It's been a while since I last tried but in the past you could not, for example, credit the Zapping / Lisboa Viva card with 5 EUR* and then spend 1 EUR* on the subway and 2 EUR* to cross the river by boat to Almada. Basically, you'd need to spend all the credit in the first operator (in this example, the subway) and afterwards you could recharge the card and use it on a different operator of your choice.
I expect this to have been improved but maybe our local experts can confirm?
* Arbitrary values, I do not remember the prices for those trips.