Record attempt 7-11 september. uninterrupted rail journey from Kemijärvi in Finnish Lapland to Lagos in Portugal, the two places furthest apart in the EU that can be connected by train.
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Hope they have a route planned around germany, our train system is literally always delayed or cancelled because we are currently trying to fix 20 years of neglect.
Here is his explanation about that point:
But you are going to get stuck in Germany!
No.
“But its trains are unreliable!”
Yes. But still no.
It goes like this. This trip takes me through parts of Europe where timetables are thin. Very thin. If anything goes wrong there – a tree on the line, a broken down train – I am screwed. Stuck. For hours. Between Kemijärvi and Kemi there is 1 train a day. Kemi – Haparanda, 2. Boden – Umeå, 4. Lyon – Barcelona, 1. Madrid – Badajoz, 2 useable ones. Badajoz – Entroncamento, 2. And in Boden and Entroncamento I have really tight connections.
And then, bizarrely, the thinness of those timetables in France, Spain and Portugal, and the absence of night trains in those countries, leaves me without any serious worry crossing Germany – because I cannot do more than Strasbourg – Madrid in a day, and Madrid – Lagos the following day, even if I wanted to.
If the NightJet 471 I need across Germany is cancelled, I have (albeit uncomfortable) trains I can take instead. If the NightJet is delayed, I can get off earlier than Offenburg (probably Frankfurt) and have other options there. Trains might be unreliable, but the timetable is dense, and there are loads of diversionary routes. And last but not least, pretty much no trains in Germany are compulsory reservation, meaning I can just go take any train. Were I to need something else in France or Spain, where everything is compulsory reservation, I could likewise be unlucky that the train I need after a disruption is full and I cannot board.
In other words, Germany might cause plenty of disruption, but it also copes better with disruption than pretty much any other country.
Literally right through Germany 😂😂 RIP
Longest train journey gets even longer. That’s a win.
For a moment I hoped this is a direct train service from Finland to Portugal
Hope they are not trying to go through Germany. Good luck passing that without a stop
Lol, he’s not going for a speed record just a completion record.
Seems fun. I’m more of a YouTube watcher of this type of thing but I’ll try to remember to check this out in a few weeks
There’s a Przemyśl Główny (eastern border of Poland) − Frankfurt Flughafen Fernbahnhof (mid-western Germany) direct train journey available. My sister and mom recently took most of it. I think the seasonal Moskva Belorusskaya − Split used to exist too.
Do a round trip next?
