Pages tagged: Russian Railways

We take a look at some changes on the Moscow to Paris and Nice services run by Russian Railways that come into effect in mid-December 2017.

New rail timetables debut across Europe on 11 December 2016. Dozens of commentators have remarked on how the new schedules affect train services in western and central Europe. But hardly anything has appeared in English on what the new timetables herald for Russia.

Issue 47 of hidden europe magazine which is published today has its fair share of rail journeys. We look at train number 562 which runs once each day from Simferopol to Moscow and see what's changing at Vienna Westbahnhof. And there is much more besides.

We look at the revised timings of Russian Railways' Paris-Berlin-Moscow service which will from mid-June 2015 depart Paris Gare d'Est station at 20.05, creating a new overnight option between Paris and Berlin.

Russia today announced the suspension of all direct rail services via Ukraine to the Balkan region. This affects direct trains from Moscow to Budapest, Bucharest and Sofia.

Yesterday’s ‘Letter from Europe’ reports on the decision to axe the night train from Switzerland to Denmark. It is, sadly, part of a wider trend. A raft of European night trains looks set to be cut. Deutsche Bahn’s City Night Line (CNL) network is being severely pruned.

Here in Berlin there is a real sense of spring in the air, and we are well aware that travellers’ thoughts are turning to summer journeys. It’ll be no surprise that we tend to favour the train for most of our trips across Europe. So, for those of our readers who have not spent the long winter nights tracking changes in train timetables, here’s a run-down on headline changes over recent months.

The taxis in Warsaw have been doing a roaring trade this week, transferring frazzled passengers from Centralna station up to Gdanska station in the north of the city. A festival of engineering work on the main east-west rail route through the heart of Warsaw means big changes for a few weeks in rail services to, from and through the Polish capital.

The direct rail service from Paris to Moscow is run by Russian Railways (RZD) using their sleek modern sleeping cars. It is, we think, one of Europe’s most interesting trains — and, for those who want to splash out on the top-of-the-range luxury sleepers, one of the most comfortable train journeys in Europe.

This weekend sees the restoration of the direct train service from the French Riviera to the Russian capital. The direct Russian train to Nice had to be suspended in January, following a catastrophic landslide which closed part of the coastal rail route that runs west from Genoa to the French border.

A new rail connection between Russia and the Adriatic coast will start in 2014. There will be a seasonal direct service from Moscow to Koper (on the coast of Slovenia).

European Rail News reported last month on the revised train timetables in operation following the Elbe flooding in early June. Europe’s main east-west rail route was severed by those floods, necessitating the diversion of all trains running west from Berlin towards Hanover and beyond. The current interim timetable will be extended until next Sunday, then from Monday 29 July a new schedule will be introduced, the gist of which we present here.