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All Aboard » New high-speed Barcelona-Madrid

All Aboard, July 2009 issue
All Aboard » New high-speed Barcelona-Madrid
by Jay Brunhouse Minutes after leaving Barcelona Sants Station at 9:30 a.m., where platforms 1 to 6 have been converted from Spanish-gauge to European-gauge, you feel your Siemens Valero E AVE S-103 train begin a smooth transit from 92 mph to 186 mph, according to the speedometer inside the carriage. The shiny new rails of the eagerly ...

All Aboard » Railpass Q&A

All Aboard, December 2008 issue
All Aboard » Railpass Q&A
Q: Hi, Jay! We are planning a 30-day trip to Europe and plan to use a Eurail pass. We have a few questions. If we use the Global Pass, is the train service good enough that we could tour a lot of things every day like we did in the 1980s with the BritRail Pass or would ...

All Aboard » Railpass Q&A

All Aboard, December 2008 issue
Hi, Jay! We are planning a 30-day trip to Europe and plan to use a Eurail pass. We have a few questions. If we use the Global Pass, is the train service good enough that we could tour a lot of things every day like we did in the 1980s with the BritRail Pass or would we end up with a problem like we had in Paris, where it would be difficult to see only one attraction in a day and be able to return to the central location to spend the night? Which countries or regions would be good to see using the Global Pass? Which countries or regions would be best to avoid? ...

KL Hop-on Hop-off

All Aboard, November 2008 issue
KL Hop-on Hop-off
by Jay Brunhouse I hopped on at stop #22 Ampang Park in front of Malaysia’s Hotel Nikko Kuala Lumpur, where I stayed. I climbed the stairs to the upper desk of the brightly decorated, black, double-decked “KL Hop-on Hop-off” bus and we sped past the relatively modest Buddhist temple a short walk from my hotel. The prerecorded ...

All Aboard » New in Munich

All Aboard, September 2008 issue
All Aboard » New in Munich
by Jay Brunhouse When I learned German in Munich, Germany (München), in 1966-67, Munich was known as The World City with Heart and The Secret Capital of Germany. The most beautiful Christmas tree that I have seen nearly touched the ceiling in the center of the Munich main train station. This year when I heard news of ...

All Aboard » More new developments at year’s end

All Aboard, December 2007 issue
All Aboard » More new developments at year’s end
by Jay Brunhouse On Dec. 9, passenger trains will make their first 125-mph runs through Switzerland’s shorter, safer and more productive north-south Lötschberg Base Tunnel between Frutigen and Raron. The CHF30 billion, 8-year construction of the lowest crossing of the Alps, at 2,717 feet, had a grassroots beginning. In the ’70s, Swiss motorists began complaining that multiwheeled trailer ...

All Aboard! » New Premium Glacier Express

All Aboard, October 2007 issue
All Aboard! » New Premium Glacier Express
by Jay Brunhouse Your new Premium Glacier Express train smartly bends within inches of sheer rock faces that Swiss laborers carefully hewed to allow its safe passage. With the introduction in 2007 of new “Premium” panoramic carriages, Glacier Express, the most famous panoramic train in Europe and long an ITN readers’ favorite, increased the white-and-red train’s magnetism ...

All Aboard » TGV Est Premiére

All Aboard, September 2007 issue
All Aboard » TGV Est Premiére
by Jay Brunhouse It is through flat, green, French countryside surrounded by fields of grain that my TGV train really flexed its muscles. Powering ahead, I didn’t feel any curves, and when I encountered slightly rolling hills, raw embankments rose high above my window. The level ride over the new Est européene line was so smooth ...

All Aboard » Terminus Zaragoza

All Aboard, July 2007 issue
All Aboard » Terminus Zaragoza
by Jay Brunhouse When you first step off your Spanish high-speed Talgo 350 train and out of Zaragoza’s (Saragossa’s) 2003 Delicias Station, the first thing you see 2,000 feet across the River Ebro are the risings of pavilions, towers and exhibitions sponsored by more than 78 countries for Zaragoza’s 2008 World Expo, June 14 to Sept. ...

All Aboard! » New Spanish high-speed

All Aboard, May 2007 issue
All Aboard! » New Spanish high-speed
by Jay Brunhouse The sensation of riding on Spain’s high-speed train from Madrid to Zaragoza (Saragossa) is, more than anything, one of smoothness, without the bumps and jolts common on some of Spanish Railroads’ (RENFE’s) teeth-rattling old trains. The journey passes so comfortably, in fact, that it is easy for a rider to forget the blazing ...