My OperaRails in Europe
Tuesday, August 17, 2010 9:51:14 PM
Details about these trains and about the rail Europe maps, information about the group tickets, the latest offers etc can be found easily online. However, just a glimpse here, the Thalys works in Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands and in France as well. The Eurostar trains work in France, Belgium and the Great Britian. The Enterprise works in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland. The EuroCity are conventional trains which are operated by almost every Central and Western European operator. The only two exceptions however are Ireland and the United Kingdom. The TGV works in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France and Belgium.
The InterCity Express has quite a few countries in its route which include Denmark, France, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, Austria as well as Switzerland. And last but not least, the Oresundtrain operates only in Sweden and Denmark.
The high speed rails (HSR) in Europe have started to emerge as an efficient and popular means of transportation. The first ever high speed rail (HSR) in Europe was built somewhere in the 1980’s and ever since many rails have emerged which are better and more developed than the previous ones. During this time, it was British Rail previously known as British Railways which operated most of the trains in Great Britain. The British Rail was the result of the nationalization of the company, The Big Four British Railway Companies. It was due to this nationalization process that there were major changes made in the railway networks which brought about improvements in the train transportation greatly. One such improvement was that diesel began to be used instead of steam. Electric power also very much began to be preferred.
The SNCF is the French national railway where as the SNCB is the Belgian national railway. The Italian Railways are Italy’s railways which have existed since around the 19th century. The Italian Railway is considered to one of the most important piece of infrastructure in Italy. If you are travelling within Italy, you could also make use of the Italy Rail Pass. Just like the Eurorail the Italy rail pass too is a great bargain. Due to Italy having many high speed rails, the ticket prices are most likely to go up. Having an Italy rail pass could definitely bring benefits for travelling in Italy and you would get a chance to explore the country on a cheaper fare. However, when it comes to owning a pass for the rails in Europe, Eurorail is considered the best option.
