MISC | International Night Trains
A thread to discuss long-distance overnight train services, especially those running internationally.
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Rīga - Moscow
From 25th of June to 10th of July Latvian Railways will begin testing on-the-go border checks for Rīga - Moscow night train. This will reduce the journey time by two hours.
Other recent technological improvements have already cut the journey time by 40 minutes. So now the 920 km journey will take just 13 hrs and 40 minutes instead of the 16 hrs and 21 minutes just a few years ago.
That's still a quite miserable average speed of less than 70 km/h though. And indeed for some reason the up to 20 coaches long train accelerates very slowly. We have regional DMUs with more stops than the Moscow sleeper but they're faster.
From 25th of June to 10th of July Latvian Railways will begin testing on-the-go border checks for Rīga - Moscow night train. This will reduce the journey time by two hours.
Other recent technological improvements have already cut the journey time by 40 minutes. So now the 920 km journey will take just 13 hrs and 40 minutes instead of the 16 hrs and 21 minutes just a few years ago.
That's still a quite miserable average speed of less than 70 km/h though. And indeed for some reason the up to 20 coaches long train accelerates very slowly. We have regional DMUs with more stops than the Moscow sleeper but they're faster.
Train 91 Vilnius (Lithuania) - Daugavpils (Latvia) - St. Petersburg (Russia) MIGHT be canceled on 25th of May 2015.
This closure would not only cut the only passenger train between Lithuania and Latvia but also raise the question of what would happen with the direct Daugavpils-Vilnius railway: this night train is the only train of any kind on 17 km (Grīva station to border with Lithuania) of the railway in the territory of Latvia. If LDz decides to close the line, any future trains will have to take a 200 km longer route.
This closure would not only cut the only passenger train between Lithuania and Latvia but also raise the question of what would happen with the direct Daugavpils-Vilnius railway: this night train is the only train of any kind on 17 km (Grīva station to border with Lithuania) of the railway in the territory of Latvia. If LDz decides to close the line, any future trains will have to take a 200 km longer route.
Night trains from Baltics to SPb
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The new L-Ekspresis sleeper cars on tests. Photo from here
Since the Vilnius—Saint Petersburg service was cancelled this Summer, the Rīga—Saint Petersburg service (with which it was combined) had become unprofitable.
So as of today the Rīga—SPb service is diverted through Novosokolniki and combined with Rīga—Moscow and Gomel—SPb trains, making the journey 1,5 hrs longer to a total of over 17 hours. This route change has also meant that Daugavpils (Lat) and even Pskov (Rus) no longer have a direct train service to SPb.
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The new route
With the cancellation of Vilnius—SPb service, there aren't any trains connecting Latvia and Lithuania.
The new L-Ekspresis sleeper cars on tests. Photo from here
Since the Vilnius—Saint Petersburg service was cancelled this Summer, the Rīga—Saint Petersburg service (with which it was combined) had become unprofitable.
So as of today the Rīga—SPb service is diverted through Novosokolniki and combined with Rīga—Moscow and Gomel—SPb trains, making the journey 1,5 hrs longer to a total of over 17 hours. This route change has also meant that Daugavpils (Lat) and even Pskov (Rus) no longer have a direct train service to SPb.
The new route
With the cancellation of Vilnius—SPb service, there aren't any trains connecting Latvia and Lithuania.
Isn't that the purpose of baggage cars?
^^
How long are the current beds?
How long are the current beds?
1m90 seems ok, anything shorter in the 21st century is unacceptable. I'm taller than average and would have 3 cm of wiggle room in the 1,90m bed.
What could be done to improve the length? You can't change the loading gauge so I guess you have to make weird skewed rooms with beds not at right angles to the outer wall. Or even beds parallel to the outer wall. But then there would be problems with entering and exiting the compartments.
What could be done to improve the length? You can't change the loading gauge so I guess you have to make weird skewed rooms with beds not at right angles to the outer wall. Or even beds parallel to the outer wall. But then there would be problems with entering and exiting the compartments.
Regarding my post about the possibility to make longer beds by putting them diagonally – it seems that some narrow gauge trains have had such arrangements:
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