Afterthoughts of a European trip

November in Minnesota. Cold, snow's on the horizon, and my favorite hockey team is well on its' way to tanking for the No. 2 draft pick in the 2020 draft. (Something will happen and they won't get the No. 1 pick. It's a Minnesota thing.) Hopefully, that is.


Still thinking back to my European trip two months ago. What could have been done better? What should have not been attempted at all? What, had I known then what I know now, could I have done to change how the trip turned out?


Some trains we rode en route from Paris to Istanbul were great (Thello (Paris-Venice),  the Trieste-Ljubljana EMU, the Sofia-Istanbul Express); some trains were good (Venice-Trieste, Belgrade-Nis); and some were either so-so (Nis-Sofia 'Balkan') or just plain flat-out bad (Ljubljana-Belgrade 'Sweatbox' train #315, where the floor heat could not be shut off on a nine-hour overnight trip).


And, after we departed Istanbul by plane, the problems of dragging as much baggage as we did indeed multiplied as the remainder of the trip played itself out.  Not knowing the EU's standard for assistance of 48 hours' notice applied to railways as well as airlines, got me especially into trouble several times. Add the lack of opportunity for food and (especially) water east of Ljubljana, and you had a real recipe for potential disaster. (Being from North America, I am used to the '24-hour' rule and the request on demand rules that North American carriers operate under.)


I thought I could handle the amount of baggage (one suitcase and a duffle bag) for the 20 days I was away from home; alas, that much baggage just got me into trouble, especially on the last five days of the trip, when I based myself out of Paris to ride what turned out to be one day trip (with the other one cancelled at the last minute, and the third one I force re-routed off the original routing to a more direct train, missing another connection en route).


My 25 pounds (13 kilos) of baggage departing Minnesota wound up to 40 pounds (21 Kilos) upon my return; and that was with sending back folders (I made a folder for each train I was to ride), and some dirty clothing (needed more room for stuff) twice (with my nephew-in-law and my wife as they separately went back to the West).


What else is there? Language barriers get frustrating. You are so happy to ask for a Diet Coke...and get the real thing, not the sugar-free Coke that is sold across Europe. A cup of coffee is a real cup of coffee, not one the size of a side of salad dressing. You hear the instructions for travel, and you can actually UNDERSTAND them. You don't have to switch the language on your iPhone Google Translate every so often. Issues like that come up all too often as one traverses 'the Old Country', whatever one that is.


And then...there's Serbia. A country and rail system to be more pitied than criticized. Commuters for Belgrade riding trains so full of graffiti, they can't even see out the windows. Belgrade's apparatchik riding a train which was so bad even the engineer (Driver) couldn't see clearly. Turpentine and a squeegee would have been very helpful here. But with their entire system being rebuilt, either by the Russians or the Chinese, the money doesn't get down to the commuter level much. The Serbs, operate a General Motors G26 661-series diesel (which the Yugoslavs bought shortly after the death of Marshal Tito) to pull their thru passenger train from Nis to Dimitrovgrad over Serbia's eastern territory.


When the former Yugoslavian Railways was disbanded, the freight side of the railroad took virtually all the locomotives, leaving the passenger side with a few elderly locos and little else. Serbia's government purchased a number of Stadler 'Flirt' EMU trainsets for their electrified lines; a decision needs to be made regarding their diesel-hauled services. It's a system in disarray, at best; at worst, it's bordering on near-chaos, operating in spite of itself, in my opinion.


As opposed to Serbia, their neighbors to the east, Bulgaria, really have their act together in comparison. BDZ (Bulgarian State Railways) trains were clean, most of the stuff worked, and the trains ran basically on time. The fact that unlike the Serbs, Bulgaria has embraced the EU concept (as has most of their neighbors) and is even now benefitting from reduced interference and greater commerce. Serbia? Not an EU member. No plans to join. The bad apple in the European apple orchard, as it were. Their railways are in desperate need of rebuilding, and they are doing that, albeit really slowly.


Other parts of the former Yugoslavia (namely, Croatia and Slovenia) seem to have their acts together; granted, they weren't bombed by NATO, like Serbia was. Good lesson to the rest of the world: take heed when the combined nations of NATO are stepping in against you. Anyways...


Looking back at the trip almost 90 days later, I'm glad I did it now. Before politics of the world and time's inexorable march combine to make this trip even tougher than it was in the summer. Onto Winter...sadly...