European Railroad Discussion > OBB Railjets and the rest of central europe.

Probably the nicest trains in Europe overall. 230 K speed behind electric locomotives.
There was a time when the DB had the nicest cars and best comfort and things are still wonderful there,
but the OBB and their Rail Jets have ever so slightly edged ahead.
Now I'm talking about loco hauled trains. And the swiss are right up there too.
As for high speed trainsets, I'll leave that to another reader. They are awful close in speed and comfort.
When it gets down to regional comfortable trainsets and frequency and speed, the swiss take the cake.
If you like to bounce around in MU's, some of the Belgium stuff is fun. Luxemburg has nice regional stuff
too. If you still want to pull your window down, run at a max of 120K and ride in some really older stuff
the eastern countries offer that type of experience. Some have excellent dining cars and inexpensive.
I've left out Scandinavia but probably the cleanest equipment you will come across. 2nd class in Norway
is better that 1st compared to some countries. At one time, Sweden had 1st class coaches with
living room furniture; sofa's, recliners etc, drinking water at both ends and ocassionally pulled by
jack-shaft electrics. One of the best values in europe during the 70's and early 80's.
We'll get to France later, but they have acquired an anti-eurailpass attitude and heavily penalized you
for using the pass. Bear attention to the fact that the southern portion of France has only one class of
regional trains and they are all second class and nothing to write home about. These are the only trains
you can ride unrestricted. I think the northern areas of France still offer two classes of service on the regionals.
There are a few trains called intercities which are leftovers from France's network of express trains.
Some require no seat reservation but you will be lucky to find one! I think there might be one running out of
Gare Austerlitz (sp) towards the south and a few arounf the French/Belgium border. These are good fast
trains.

My son and I rode the Railjet from Salzburg to Munich about 5 years ago. It was very nice.

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