| "Off on my travels again" Posted by grahame at 11:10, 2nd July 2025 |     |
| Re: "Off on my travels again" Posted by stuving at 12:03, 2nd July 2025 | |
Well, fancy that! St Malo! With the fortified old town (intra muros) in the background.
| Re: "Off on my travels again" Posted by grahame at 15:52, 2nd July 2025 | |
Well, fancy that! St Malo! With the fortified old town (intra muros) in the background.
Now in Angers ...
And standing on the balcony of our hotel room, look back in angers
| Re: "Off on my travels again" Posted by chuffed at 16:31, 2nd July 2025 | |
Looks as if John Osborne has just left it.....
| Re: "Off on my travels again" Posted by stuving at 17:25, 2nd July 2025 | |
And standing on the balcony of our hotel room, look back in angers
Angers - I didn't recognise that as somewhere I've ever been. However, it turns out that I did stop for lunch in Angers in 1992. At the gare d'Angers St Laud, as it happens - though I think not the present structure, seen in your picture. I don't have a photo, nor any memory of the event after 30 years. But then I don't remember what I had for lunch last week (not a "senior" issue; I never could).
| Re: "Off on my travels again" Posted by grahame at 16:39, 3rd July 2025 | |
With full expectation that one member in particular will know exactly where I was when I took these pictures - the first arriving (late) to form our service and the second at the end of the line ... it had turned around and left back quickly by the time I took the photo.
A typical "triangle" loading service as I call them - starts rammed / nearly every seat taken, many more get off than on along the way, and there's just a handful or two by the end terminus
| Re: "Off on my travels again" Posted by Chris from Nailsea at 17:34, 3rd July 2025 | |
With full expectation that one member in particular will know exactly where I was when I took these pictures ...
Not me - although I do have inside information.
| Re: "Off on my travels again" Posted by stuving at 17:58, 3rd July 2025 | |
With full expectation that one member in particular will know exactly where I was when I took these pictures - the first arriving (late) to form our service and the second at the end of the line ... it had turned around and left back quickly by the time I took the photo.
Another station I've not visited since it was done up, though more recent. While being built, it looked distinctly Readingesque - does it strike you that way? Or perhaps like Reading would be with an indoor upstairs forest. | Re: "Off on my travels again" Posted by Western Pathfinder at 18:35, 3rd July 2025 | |
Well it's definitely not Taunton .
| Re: "Off on my travels again" Posted by grahame at 20:32, 3rd July 2025 | |
With full expectation that one member in particular will know exactly where I was when I took these pictures - the first arriving (late) to form our service and the second at the end of the line ... it had turned around and left back quickly by the time I took the photo.
Another station I've not visited since it was done up, though more recent. While being built, it looked distinctly Readingesque - does it strike you that way? Or perhaps like Reading would be with an indoor upstairs forest. There's a subway too ... and I didn't go up onto the transfer deck. On my return I had around 20 minutes which was long enough (just) to queue for reservations (which feel like a surcharge - I am now 40 euros poorer) for one of our train tomorrow.
| Re: "Off on my travels again" Posted by grahame at 06:37, 4th July 2025 | |
For those of you wondering ... upper picture is Nantes and lower picture is Le Croisic.
From my more specialised Interrail group post ...
"Should I spend 5, 60 or 180 minutes here?" when I arrived ... I have ended up spending the full three hours in a gem on the Bay of Biscay.
It was 08:52, in our hotel room, that I was looking into a trip out by train today ... and up popped the 09:04 option. Scramble! I am used to quickly throwing my things together but that was even quicker than usual, and being in a hotel just across the road from the station in Angers helped. Made it!
Change at Nantes ... huge crowds, signal failure flagged up, queues of people at enquiries / reservations - and my 20 minute change for Le Croisic was showing up as "delayed 20 minutes". The incoming train was late from Le Croisic, lots of people piled out and it refilled (yes, filled, at least 4 carriages) before we headed off.
The line is like so many ones that are local or regional to a big city - full at Nantes but then more people got off that on - many more off at some stations - and there were about 20 of us - plus a school party that must have been about 30 more - when we reached the terminus.
Le Croisic is the end of the line - I couldn't go further - with the harbour and a headland (and town) ahead, and across to the left are the beaches and cliffs of the Bay of Biscay. As ever, far too many thngs to photograph and I will add just five images.
It was 08:52, in our hotel room, that I was looking into a trip out by train today ... and up popped the 09:04 option. Scramble! I am used to quickly throwing my things together but that was even quicker than usual, and being in a hotel just across the road from the station in Angers helped. Made it!
Change at Nantes ... huge crowds, signal failure flagged up, queues of people at enquiries / reservations - and my 20 minute change for Le Croisic was showing up as "delayed 20 minutes". The incoming train was late from Le Croisic, lots of people piled out and it refilled (yes, filled, at least 4 carriages) before we headed off.
The line is like so many ones that are local or regional to a big city - full at Nantes but then more people got off that on - many more off at some stations - and there were about 20 of us - plus a school party that must have been about 30 more - when we reached the terminus.
Le Croisic is the end of the line - I couldn't go further - with the harbour and a headland (and town) ahead, and across to the left are the beaches and cliffs of the Bay of Biscay. As ever, far too many thngs to photograph and I will add just five images.
A couple of extra pictures .... even at a remote outpost like this, daily express to Paris (Newquay to London anyone) and ... and a bus stop - well, I think it was a bus stop, with no signage what so ever - no clue as to if and when a bus might come, or where it would go. I did see a bus at the station when I arrived ... and I like the metal thing which is a stand to which people can lock their cycles when headed out on the bus.
| Re: "Off on my travels again" Posted by Mark A at 13:21, 4th July 2025 | |
A good example of the French practice of putting in OHLE for the entire layout of a particular station, that.
Mark
| Re: "Off on my travels again" Posted by Mark A at 13:36, 4th July 2025 | |
Google maps indicates around 4 direct well spaced out TGV services to Paris per day taking around 3 and a half hours, the first before eight, the last one at 6:55pm arriving Montparnasse at around 10:20pm.
Mark
| Re: "Off on my travels again" Posted by grahame at 15:20, 4th July 2025 | |
Google maps indicates around 4 direct well spaced out TGV services to Paris per day taking around 3 and a half hours, the first before eight, the last one at 6:55pm arriving Montparnasse at around 10:20pm.
Mark
Mark
07:54 and every 3 hours to 16:53 then 18:55. Out from Paris, trains have around 45 minutes to turn around, first train of the day originates from Le Croiset - in the yard overnight? Last one end there and presumably forms the first service in the morning. Local trains to Nantes run most hours, with some gaps in the hours there's a Paris express.
For a journey of just under 4 hours, a train every 4 hours would be my "rule of thumb" sensible minimum for the all-the-way traffic, so it's about right in frequency. I suspect the loading does not require more - that's the other factor in putting on more trains. Extra trains run from Nantes to Paris, combed in with the through trains from Le Croisic, to make what is pretty close to a train every hour.
It all appears to make sense.
| Re: "Off on my travels again" Posted by grahame at 06:29, 5th July 2025 | |
This morning ... bright and early, a coffee and a croissant. And a day to come that perhaps should not be in "the lighter side". I am taking a ride out to Felletin ... just two trains a day and scheduled to close at the end of next month due to the condition of the infrastructure and very low passenger numbers.
