Reflections on Travel in 2018

A water taxi at Hamburg’s Fischmarkt

I wrapped up 2017 reflecting on my travel for the year, noting that I had little idea of what was on the cards apart from a couple of visits to London and likely trips to Sweden. Indeed, after a busy 2017, the beginning of 2018 saw little travel at all. It wasn’t until the end of February that I attempted to take my first trip of the year, only to find that the beast from the east stepped in to destroy my plans. A hasty replacement – a flying (and unexpected) visit to Bath took place in early March instead. As I noted at the time, I was surprised at the availability of keenly priced fares with just a few days’ notice and really pleased to find that this was a route that could operate smoothly, making door-to-door travel from Edinburgh to Somerset really quite speedy. This remained the case during the rest of the year: my best value travel purchase this year has to be the £45 paid for a one way ticket just 3 hours before departure. However, the route has the potential to go wrong too – and when it does it does so with gusto. I have received EU261 compensation on two different occasions this year on the Edinburgh-Bristol route, with substantial delays incurred.

Flying home to Edinburgh on a dark evening at Bristol Airport

In fact, this year was on where I enjoyed a range of luck in terms of punctuality. On a number of occasions when an on-time arrival really was essential, but the itinerary felt dicey, I was fortunate to have plans stick. However, I was a recipient of involuntary denied boarding compensation for a trip in July which had the rather odd result of SAS effectively covering all my travel costs. Storm Ali in mid-September also put paid to a day trip to London – regrettably only once I was in the capital. I was relieved that my travel insurer covered the costs of unexpected overnight accommodation and replacement travel on this occasion, as trees on the line saw my plans fall apart.

LNER service waiting to depart Edinburgh Waverley for King’s Cross at dawn.

In a reversal of the trends in 2017 when I travelled extensively on the ECML but didn’t make it to London, whilst making fair use of the WCML, in 2018 I didn’t make it to my old stomping ground of Greater Manchester even once, while I did several trips to London by daytime rail. These were all southbound (my only scheduled northbound trip got scrubbed by Ali). I enjoyed the more relaxing rail setting, and it provided an opportunity to work that travelling by air does not offer. However, the ride quality is not great at times – especially when trying to concentrate on work – and the journey times are extensive. The slower journeys almost feel intolerable – one Sunday night service I travelled on took more than 5 hours! That being said, the catering is appreciated. While others are excited about the impending arrival of LNER’s new rolling stock – the Azuma (currently delayed) – I’m not holding my breath. I had the chance to try the corresponding stock being used by Great Western during the summer and it was nothing to write home about – I sincerely hope we’re not stuck with them in four decades’ time!

A dreich morning boarding a Ryanair flight to London Stansted at Edinburgh Airport

I flew to London using Ryanair once following their infamous cancellation of an entire winter schedule between Edinburgh and Stansted during the preceding winter, without issue and for the bargain price of £12. I also flew to and from London City on multiple occasions using Avios redemptions. Several of these were in Club Europe due to availability issues, but truth be told there was little point given that the Embraers used by British Airways to LCY are wonderfully spacious and service remains strong in Economy. In contrast, I flew back from London on one occasion with BA in Club from Gatwick and was highly impressed at the lounge offering in the terminal and on board – especially for a cheap Avios redemption.

The (old) Caledonian Sleeper at the platform at Euston on the night the new rolling stock should have launched fare-paying service.

The Caledonian Sleeper saw me five times in 2018 – all going north from Euston. Originally, the final two bookings were to have been on new rolling stock – including an outing in the club room with a shower. Due to delays with the manufacturer, the launch has been postponed until the middle of 2019. Ostensibly, service remained the same – other than a few tweaks – and I remained happy. Indeed, since the change allowing passengers to board the sleeper from 10pm at Euston, I find the experience of travelling has improved significantly. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to the new product arriving. (The less said at this point about the heavily delayed Crossrail, the better – its launch date had been in the calendar too!)

Flying domestically with Air Canada.

Further afield, I spent just over a week in Canada in late May and early June, visiting Toronto and Regina. I reflected on my experience of travelling to Saskatchewan here, as well as how to catch the bus in the Queen City. For reasons of logistics, I needed to be in Helsinki (I wrote up my reflections on Helsinki local transit here) two days after my final day in Toronto which meant that I ended up travelling with American Airlines and Finnair via New York. While I haven’t yet had time to write it up here, I was all too happy to pay a very reasonable upgrade fee from JFK to HEL to try out Finnair’s long haul business class product. On the whole, I was impressed by my experience with Finnair – I also found their short haul product from Helsinki back to Edinburgh was up to scratch. I can only assume that the outbound economy flight with BA to Toronto from Heathrow was fine – although I remember nothing about it!

Finnair aircraft pulling up to the gate at New York’s JFK Airport.

Travel to Sweden over 2018 was smooth and unremarkable, making use of a combination of Ryanair, EasyJet and Norwegian. I didn’t run into difficulties, and with the exception of one extortionate ticket bought with SAS (flown with Lufthansa, as explained above), prices remained reasonable. I had a lot of fun returning from Gothenburg to the UK using a combination of Brussels Airlines and bmi Regional back in May, not least for the nostalgia kick of flying on one of bmi’s Embraer 145s.

The Copenhagen-Hamburg train aboard the ferry.

My travel highlight of 2018 was undoubtedly in October when I visited Copenhagen before travelling home by rail. I outlined the journey in three parts: Copenhagen to Hamburg, Hamburg to London part 1 and part 2. The whole return journey covered multiple items on my travel bucket list. I was thrilled to finally make it onto the Copenhagen to Hamburg direct train using the Rødby-Puttgarden ferry. The new Eurostar rolling stock from Brussels to London was also a delight. (And I haven’t even mentioned Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg!). It might not have been as cheap as flying direct with easyJet, but it represented excellent value for many, comfortable hours’ train travel – I’m very grateful to my enthusiastic travel companion who did most of the intricate legwork and planning to ensure we travelled in comfort and style.

My travel-planning companion admires the new Eurostar rolling stock in Brussels.

Closer to home, much of the first half of 2018 was spent preparing to move home and settling into a new area. The result of this has been lots of exploring of new travel options in a new part of the city. One exciting day in June I got to visit the Port of Leith for a guided tour. I wrote about the launch of MyTaxi, a new app, back in May – things didn’t quite work as I had hoped. It remains the case that finding a taxi in Leith can be quite a challenge, and I continue to seek out the best solution without success.

My room at London’s Malmaison.

Most travel takes place on the basis of convenience and cost. I was very pleased to secure various hotel rooms in London for well under £50/night during 2018. I made use of the hotel booking app HotelTonight several times during 2018 and was generally pleased with the results: under £50 for a good B&B room in Bath booked on the day of arrival and under £100 for a night in the London Malmaison booked at 8pm rank as highlights.

The view from the Doubletree in Greenwich looking towards the central London skyline.

However, points and status did play a role at various times. My personal highlights included the Radisson Suite Hotel at Toronto Airport, which was a very cheap points redemption where I received a full 4-room apartment. I was similarly chuffed with the bargain redemption offered by the Hampton by Hilton at Bristol Airport. I was very pleased with perks offered at the Four Points by Sheraton in Regina, where my status secured me a good room and generous breakfast credit. The absolute winner for status-related perk has to go to the Doubletree by Hilton in Greenwich, which provided an upgrade to the top floor with floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the city of London to the west, along with 2 glasses of wine per guest and the requisite hot cookie on check in. While the location is a little left field, I really like Deptford and will try to stay there again. In terms of travel redemptions, I was most pleased with a late redemption in 2018 for LNER credit via Nectar, which represented excellent value – in addition to a great value redemption of my SJ Prio points 10 minutes before departure for a train from Lund to Halmstad.

SJ 3000 waiting at the platform in Halmstad.

So, what does 2019 hold in store? There is slightly more in the diary than last time. At least a couple of impending trips to London along with the likely outings to Sweden are lined up. In early June I will be visiting Vancouver – I’m looking forward to my first visit to the Pacific northwest and trying out BA’s A380 economy product for the first time in 4 years. A trip to Italy is also likely – and perhaps a few surprises. And who knows – if Brexit leads to a travel shutdown, I might get around to writing up my outstanding blog ideas from late 2017 and 2018.

The beautiful dawn view at the Fischmarkt in Hamburg.

Hamburg-London by Rail [Part 2]

Now: where were we? Ah, yes. Returning from Copenhagen to the UK by rail. Firstly by train and ferry from Copenhagen to Hamburg. Then on from Hamburg to London – in part 1 we had reached Brussels…

Our train, the 18:52 to London, stands by the platform in Brussels.

The unfortunate impact of our unexpected schedule amendment at Cologne was more time in Brussels than anticipated. The station is in a dead-end neighbourhood of Brussels. You would expect that after more than two decades of international high-speed rail services terminating there, things would have improved (I certainly believe that if you opened a major, international railway station in an obscure corner of London, it would gentrify overnight). This is not the case – having popped outside to look at the trams and stroll around some of the neighbouring streets (while noting we were definitely too far from anything to venture further afield during our connection), we returned to the station building and wandered the shops and eateries, feeling generally dis

Only a train and a travel companion to be seen.

appointed. Resigned to waiting, we headed to join the back of the queue for our departure long before was necessary. As we were travelling on DB tickets, which until then had worked well – barcodes being scanned by efficient personnel – we were directed to the desk for special people once we reached the front of the queue by the self-serve barcode scanning gates. We were issued with new boarding passes for Eurostar and invited to use the Business Premier security channel (a small win). Eventually, we were through to the rather bleak, windowless holding area at Bruxelles-Midi. Had I been travelling alone, I would have tried out the Eurostar lounge (courtesy of my credit card), but unfortunately no guests are permitted under this scheme and leaving my travelling companion behind seemed a little unfair. We slummed it on the normal, awkward benches instead. It wasn’t long before boarding was opened (for those of us who had already ‘boarded’) and being eager beavers, we streamed up the travellator to try and get good photos before the crowds descended. We weren’t disappointed: the platform was practically deserted.

 

 

Standard Premier seating at a table for 4.

We got into our Standard Premier coach and located our seats. While we had one of the few sets of airline style seats in the standard premier coach, the conclusion was that travelling as a pair this was preferable as it provided a degree of privacy in what is quite an open carriage. Leg space was excellent and seat comfort was good. The window view was so-so, but as it was dark it hardly mattered. More importantly, this was my first time travelling on the new Siemens Velaro e320 Eurostar rolling stock. My infrequent previous journeys on Eurostar have all been on TGV TMST, which was somewhat underwhelming. (My first trip on Eurostar was long enough ago to be from Waterloo!). This, in contrast, was really good.

Mandatory meal shot.

Eurostar features three classes of travel. Standard class, which is 2×2 seating and perfectly reasonable compared to air travel. Standard premier, which is 2×1 seating with a light meal and bar service at seat. And Business Premier which is the same hard product as standard premier, with a full, hot, three course hot meal served at seat. A DB London special ticket in first class books into standard premier on Eurostar as a matter of course. The at-seat service was polite, but it only passed by once for each element. We had gone to some trouble in requesting vegetarian meals via DB customer service (Eurostar customer service can’t touch DB bookings on their own services) – but it transpired that there was a straight choice between either a meat or veggie option onboard. For a ‘light’ meal, the spread was very good – and there was free choice from the bar. This was followed up later with a hot drink service. The crew then seemed to disappear – with no drinks tops ups – and trays being cleared towards arrival. That being said, it was some time from departure from Brussels before meals were served – which is surprising given that were very close to the galley and it is only a 2-hour service. On a comparable service, like London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly in first, I would fully expect to be eating my dinner by Milton Keynes. But this was not the case here. Nevertheless, the bar choice was good, and the meal was both well-proportioned and tasty.

An assortment of Eurostars – old and new – at London St Pancras.

Travelling in the dark – after a good nine hours of travel already – time began to pass fairly rapidly, as the view through the windows was pitch black. The difference between being above ground and in the tunnel was negligible other than a pressure change, all set against the backdrop of occasional, subdued announcements in French, English and Flemish – switching to English, French and Flemish once we had crossed the Channel. When we stopped in Ebbsfleet it was apparent we had lost some minutes as we were running late. But we made good time and we were only a few minutes behind schedule by the time we silently barrelled into London St Pancras. Disembarking, we were at the Brussels end of the train – but this just meant that for the second time that day we had the pleasure of walking the length of our wonderful high-speed train. We had made decent time: 11.5 hours from Hamburg to London, with time for onward connections. As we followed the trail through St Pancras arrivals, we had the peculiar experience of crossing an invisible border in a UK customs hall (officially, you clear immigration and customs for the UK at Brussels, but in this antsy pre-Brexit era, there was conspicuously two layers for this!) before emerging into the station proper.

A bit of a come down after the delights of Eurostar

Our journey was at an end. Only it wasn’t. A hasty descent into the subterranean to travel on the tube to Paddington followed, my travel companion eager to catch an onward connection to the west country (caught with 15 minutes to spare). I slowly retraced my own steps back to Euston to await the Caledonian Sleeper north. This was the source of some sadness. Originally, I was booked to travel on the first night of revenue earning service of Caledonian’s new rolling stock – but with just 3 weeks’ notice this has been postponed, replaced by standard, old stock. No ensuite for me! The Man in Seat in 61 was supposed to be travelling (and confirmed he was), but I didn’t see him either. Having spent some time slumped in the 1^st class lounge at Euston, I boarded the sleeper just after 22:00 (thank goodness for the new, earlier boarding times) and I was asleep before departure. It was a smooth journey and I was woken up by my porridge being delivered just before 07:00 on what a very cold and frosty morning. We pulled into Waverley on time at 07:19 – a mere 22.5 hours after I left Hamburg.

My northbound Caledonian sleeper – very much not the new rolling stock

Reflections: I was thrilled to try travelling all the way home by rail from afar – the last time I did so was in 2013, when I returned from Stuttgart by rail. It worked well, it was good value. It was fun. The compartment on a standard DB intercity train made for one of the more pleasant travel experiences, but there’s no beating the experience of DB at high speed on an ICE. The new Eurostar rolling stock is also a major improvement on what went before. 1^st class service on DB is nothing to write home about, but it ensured we were taken seriously as ticketed passengers. Standard premier on Eurostar is very good, especially if snaffled in a sale or as part of a DB package – although it would be even better if there were top ups. Conclusion: we do quite well in first in the UK on routes like the East and West Coast Mainlines, although they don’t go as fast. Ritter Sport improves everything. Would I travel from Copenhagen to the UK by rail again – absolutely!

Hamburg-London by Rail [Part 1]

Hamburg at dawn

As the Denmark-UK guide on the Man in Seat 61 outlines, it is not possible to do Copenhagen to London in a day – an overnight stop has to be built in somewhere. Having travelled from Copenhagen to Hamburg by train and ferry, an overnight stop in Hamburg therefore ensued (including a very fun visit to Miniatur Wunderland and a dawn visit to the Fischmarkt). Having made a bright and early start, we had no trouble getting to Hamburg Hbf to start out long day of travel.

With double decker trains and Ritter Sport banner ads, Hamburg Hbf offers something for everyone!

As was the case with the tickets from Denmark to Hamburg, a little careful planning had ensured that the booking from Hamburg to London was made when DB released their London spezial fares, which meant that €129 per person bought a first class ticket from Hamburg all the way to London St Pancras (including protected connections). In practice, this meant we had first class seats on a standard DB Inter City service from Hamburg to Cologne, followed by first class seats on a DB ICE service to Brussels, and finally seats in Standard Premier on Eurostar. Departure from Hamburg was at 09:46, with the final arrival into London at 20:03. All on a Sunday, and with a couple of hours built in for a quick wonder around Cologne during our connection.

Our train arrived on schedule – a very pleasant loco-hauled Inter City train, from before the era of high speed. Between Hamburg and Cologne, the time saving for using high speed was negligible, so it seemed a good opportunity to try the older stock. Some careful planning using the Man in Seat 61 and various DB seating plans meant we had been well-informed when it came to selecting reserved seats. We were booked in a first class compartment – distinguishing itself from standard by having just 4 seats in a space usually used for 6. We had the compartment to ourselves as far as Bremen, which leant it the air of high class seclusion from the masses that would ordinarily only be found by connecting your own private car to a train in the USA. Once we were joined by two strangers, the vibe changed a little. While it wasn’t uncomfortable, it obviously feels different to chat in front of others who in a confined space with you. We felt empowered by the fact that we had been there first, which meant we had already set the tone of the compartment for the journey. The lighting levels were good – there was a full window from the compartment, and the corridor was walled off using glass, ensuring plenty of light and views in the opposite direction too. On board service was limited – we could pop along to the buffet car for DB’s snacks – or wait and see what happened. A very nice attendant popped along with a tray of fresh coffees, which we were able to buy for the princely sum of €3 each and consume along with our own chocolate goodies. The quality of the ride was very good – comfortable and quiet. Service friendly and polite, albeit with no freebies as one might expect in 1st in the UK.

We had wisely stocked up on snacks before boarding at Hamburg Hbf and consumed many of these over the course of our rather lengthy journey to Cologne. It was clear over the course of the journey that the train was filling up (we had been warned that the train was ‘full’ between Bremen and Osnabrück) and all seats in our own compartment were filled from Bremen as far as Cologne, where all occupants alighted.

A combination of Germany’s finest self-catering and onboard catering.

Crowds getting off our inbound train at Cologne Hbf

In Cologne, we had to deal with an unexpected change to our plans that we had received a little advance notice of. A week before our travels, we had been emailed by DB with the news that our departure from Cologne at 15:43 had been cancelled and that we should travel on any suitable, alternative service. As we had a connection in Brussels to maintain, it was clear that we should eat into the two-hour window we had built into our itinerary in Cologne and depart an hour earlier on the 14:43. The email had told us we were on our own when it came to seating reservations – a little unfair given we had gone to some trouble to select seats we liked! We hot-footed it round to the DB travel centre, and after carefully explaining our predicament to the travel centre dragon (entry to the centre proper was not permitted until you had justified your presence there), we were provided with a ticket for the erste klasse queue. Hurrah! We entered, and waited about 2 minutes before being served in English by a rather officious member of staff. Having explained that we would like a reservation on the train an hour earlier, having been unceremoniously bumped off our train, we received some good news! Our train wasn’t cancelled – it was just leaving an hour earlier. Indeed, it was the train an hour earlier we were aiming for. Our reservations were still intact – all we need do was get on board and sit in them.

Train spotting at Cologne Hbf

We popped outside, with little time to idle, to take in the cathedral and take up a prime vantage spot for watching trains departing the station via the bridge. Yet, before we knew it, we needed to retreat back inside the station building to seek out our train – not cancelled, just leaving one hour earlier – and our special seats. Foreseeing hunger, we procured a couple of somewhat questionable sandwiches from a German railway station bakery before heading up to the platforms to find our carriage. It was across the platform from a matching DB ICE service bound for Amsterdam – but our Brussels-bound service looked the best. So sleek. So beautiful. They do not build trains like this just anywhere. As luck would have it, we had emerged at the wrong end of the platform and had to walk the length to find our reservation – dull for most, but quite exciting for train lovers. Having turfed the chap who had settled down in our prized seats out of them, we took up position.

Our service standing at the platform in Cologne

Our swanky seats

Proof it was heading for Brussels

Departure was quiet and smooth – like most of the journey on board the ICE. Whether it was running at high speed or slowly on suburban Belgian tracks, it was offered good ride quality. We were pleased to have chosen seating in the open carriage for this leg – the compartments on the ICE trains look a bit confined. It was lucky we had bought snacks too – the bistro was closed (so much for Germany efficiency). Indeed, announcements in four languages (German, French, Flemish and English) became progressively less apologetic about this fact – where Germans were undoubtedly promised heavenly reward for their endurance, we were informed in English that we were out of luck – no bistro. Never mind! We made rapid progress and it wasn’t long before we crossed the border into Belgium. The reason for the confused timetable and one-hour-early departure? A diversion that meant we did not call in Liège as might be expected, but in Angleur – deep in the Liège suburbs. I particularly enjoyed watching eastern Belgium fly by outside the window – I’ve previously enjoyed the transition to the red brick housing of Belgium from Germany’s more austere appearance, and I did so again. Conversation (and high speed travel) meant that the 2.5 hour journey was soon drawing to a close. Most of the passengers got off at Bruxelles-Nord, but we hung on to Bruxelles-Midi – given we were connecting onto Eurostar.

Come back for that soon.

 

 

 

 

Copenhagen-Hamburg by Rail, aka Ferry Train!

The view from Copenhagen’s Rundetaarn.

I was in Copenhagen for various events in late October, including the book fair. My original, intended date of departure lined up poorly with flight options – and with no pressing deadline to return home it seemed a good opportunity to consider alternative options. A conversation with a friend in the same boat including the half joking suggestion of returning by rail quickly snowballed into a genuine proposal. While returning from Copenhagen to the UK by rail in one day isn’t possible, a little research courtesy of the Man in Seat 61 and Deutsche Bahn showed that it was easily done in just over a day. The most exciting element of this was, to my mind, that I had finally found an opportunity to travel on a train using the Rødby-Puttgarden ferry. This has been on my train bucket list for some time, and has a limited shelf life given that the Danish and German governments are working on a tunnel across the Fehrmarn Belt due to open in 2028.

 

Rail replacement coach at Copenhagen central station.

A little careful planning meant that we were able to book our tickets for travel from Copenhagen to Hamburg on the day of release 3 months prior to departure, using DB’s excellent Sparpreis Europa fares. While the Man in Seat 61 argues that 1st class isn’t worth it, we felt that the benefits made the modest additional sum worth it. It wasn’t entirely smooth sailing though: it was not possible to reserve seats on the service, and the reason for this became clear in early September when DB’s ticket office got in touch to note that DSB had announced that they wouldn’t be running a train between Copenhagen and Rødby. Instead, we were to travel by rail replacement coach departing half an hour earlier. The good news was that they could reserve us seats on the train (we got good ones right at the very front!) and that we would board the train in Rødby before it went aboard the ferry. The purpose of the trip was not lost!

 

 

Self catering…

Fast forward to the allotted day and there was much excitement as we headed to Copenhagen central station to look for our rail replacement coach. We soon tracked it down and were relieved to see that it was at least to be a fairly comfortable journey (no guarantees of that in the UK!) – albeit that there were a lot of people waiting. After idling in the grey October drizzle for a while, we began boarding the coaches. Luggage was stowed in the hold by a cheery driver who double-checked not only that we had our tickets but that we had brought our passports. We took our seats on the upper deck of the coach, and settled down with some of our own tasty refreshments for the 2-hour drive from Copenhagen to Rødby. The coach, fully equipped with loo, wifi, charging points and so on, was perfectly comfortable – and the empty, flat motorway meant it was a smooth trip through the yellow leaves and grey skies of southern Denmark in autumn.

 

Sunnier skies at Rødby Færge

On arrival in Rødby, things were a little less organised. After disembarkation, it became apparent that no one would help retrieve luggage, and passengers seemed helpless. Once I had reached the front, I began passing bags out and people soon got the idea. We were fairly early for our train, which meant we had ample time to take in the sites at Rødby Færge station – not the most exciting outpost on the Danish railways! Some people chose to wait inside the station building (joined to the ferry passenger terminal), but we headed out onto the platform to stand in the bitterly cold wind where the sun was slowly peeking out. In due course, our train turned up – a double set of DSB 2-car DMUs, looking very smart, but almost certainly some of the oldest rolling stock on the Danish network. Despite this, it was pretty smart looking and comfortable on board.

 

Rødby Færge station

1st class seating on board the DSB service to Hamburg

The train pulled out of the station and very slowly drove onto the waiting ferry. There was a noticeable clunk as the train left the ‘ground’ and joined tracks on the metal ramp onto the ferry, and seconds later we were creeping inside the bowels of Scandlines’ Schleswig Holstein. We slid past assorted lorries and coaches already parked up on the car deck, before coming to a halt at the far end of the ferry, the front of the train almost touching the roll-on-roll-off door (here’s our video). Having been previously told via an announcement in Danish and English that we would be on the boat and would have to get off, we were once again reminded of this. Like most other passengers, we left our luggage behind and got out onto the car deck, heading for stairs up to the rest of the ship. It was striking how tight a squeeze it was for the train on the car deck, with passengers having to follow a narrow gap to reach the stairs. It was clear that loading the train was one of the last things to have happened before departure, and by the time we were upstairs we were already out of port.

The ‘platform’ on the car deck.

The crossing – which lasts about 45 minutes – was passed with an exploration of the inside of the ship (boring, but snacks were procured for later), a visit to duty free (boring, but chocolate procured for later) and time spent on deck watching other shipping. Having been a miserable day in Copenhagen, it really was lovely by the time we were at sea. A few minutes before arrival in Puttgarden, there was a tannoy announcement instructing us to return to the car deck and we headed back down – naturally taking the opportunity to take plenty more photos. Safely ensconced in our seats, we discovered had a prime view of events as the front door opened on the ferry to let us roll off – last on, first off – into Puttgarden station just a few hundred metres from the quayside. There was a nominal border check at this point (despite this being an intra-Schengen service) as German police boarded to check papers. In the case of 1st class, they briefly glanced into the compartment before moving on – but they appear to have been more scrupulous with other passengers.

Live tracking on board the ferry.

The mouth of the ferry opening in Puttgarden.

Upon departure from Puttgarden, our on board crew were provided by DB, with announcements being offered in German, very-German-Danish, and very-German-English. But all clear enough. A full ticket check occurred and we got to work on our snacks. What was clear was that this corner of northern Germany was more picturesque than the rather grey island of Lolland we had left behind in Denmark. The run from Puttgarden to Hamburg only took around 90 minutes, and before we knew it, we had reached the end of the route.

It was striking how much time on the route from Copenhagen is spent on the ferry crossing – the completion of the tunnel will make a significant difference to journey time. We had already lost half an hour as a result of the rail replacement coach, although the way the journey was broken up meant that it was less noticeable. While there was no significant benefit to travelling in 1st (none whatsoever on the coach!), it provided substantially better views of the action on the ferry, and provided a modicum of peace and quiet on what was in fact a very busy train.

I would recommend the Copenhagen-Hamburg route to anyone with an interest in trains – there aren’t many scheduled rail services still using ferries like this, and numbers will surely only continue to decline. I’m very glad to have had the opportunity to go on the ferry train – hopefully I will get the chance to do so again at some point.