Chris Ogilvie

Chris Ogilvie

@ogilvie.org.uk

One time rail- & Yorkshireman. Economic migrant 🇮🇹. Italian heritage rail traveller 🚂 🚢 Discovering cargo ships are the ultimate travel experience. YT: https://www.youtube.com/@ChrisOgilvie

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Pietrelcina - such a regular I’m invited to the staff pics, and the 3hr pranzo at a restaurant. But seems to be a roster error, 2 train drivers want a lift back to the depot with me! 🚗

🚋🚋🚋🚋 Arezzo, Tuscany. Today the final journey of Italy's 1970s ALe/EMU 801. State rail's express electric train ended it's life on this branch line. A carriage been cleaned up of graffiti, were on a 5hr return trip to Stia! 🧵👇

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And finally... I don't often get a group photo of the passengers on the train, but Arezzo was different! Thanks Transporte Ferviário Toscano!!

🚰 Using a public toilet in Italy is normally a risky endeavour. But top marks to this bar in Arezzo, Tuscany. A snazzy repurposed beer tap is all you need!

🚋🚋🚋🚋 Arezzo, Tuscany. Today the final journey of Italy's 1970s ALe/EMU 801. State rail's express electric train ended it's life on this branch line. A carriage been cleaned up of graffiti, were on a 5hr return trip to Stia! 🧵👇

🟧 Their original 1970s orange livery gave them the nickname “Fanta”. And everyone has brought a can of not more! The 1990s XMPR green livery also follows the trend - “Sprite”….

Bibbiena - for a Brit this is the most amazing part of the trip. 🇬🇧 We're stopped by Britain’s oldest successful diesel loco, 1939 built LMS Gronk. A surreal sight to see these two historic rail vehicles together.

Oddly this is the same line from Arezzo where Britain’s first 1939 ‘Gronk’ has ended up - at Bibbiena. I’ve just seen it quietly stabled in a siding awaiting restoration…. Hopefully tomorrow we get pictures side by side.

🚃🚃 Novel catering trolley on the 1015 Intercity Rome to Arezzo. Bit of inspiration from Indian Railways perhaps but does the job. 🍫🥤☕️

🚅 🇮🇹 Compared to what I'm used to the speed is quite staggering... Not the train, the WiFi. 160Mbs on a 300kmh Italo train. The only trains with Starlink internet. 📡 🛰️

Chris Ogilvie reposted

What do you need to (re-)open a UK station for #CrossChannelRail trains? 1️⃣ A terminal (£) 2️⃣ Staff for it (more £) 3️⃣ Enough passengers 4️⃣ An operator who’ll stop there 5️⃣ Relieve pressure on St Pancras That means 1 station, not 2 or 3. And that means Ashford Explained 👇 jonworth.eu/how-to-re-open…

⛽️ 🚌 Naples City Transport EAV has run out of diesel. Bus services suspended. Truckers blocked Campania autostrada to protest about diesel prices leaving EAV without fuel and shops without food. Most trains are electric and unaffected, but Caserta-Piedimonte may close.

🇮🇹🚋🚋🇦🇹 2 classic Italian 776 ALn/DMUs sold to Austria's Kaltenleutgebner Bahn, which connects Vienna Liesing station with Kaltenleutgeben. The line, no longer used by ÖBB has been kept in good condition and now historic trains will return. @tobiaswatzl.bsky.social - good luck!!

🚄🇮🇹 Italy's N-S high speed/capacity railway runs 1,000km Turin-Salerno, Naples. 🚇🏗️🚧 Work underway on another 450km €22Bn line south to Reggio Calabria to connect to the road/rail bridge across Messina Strait & Sicily's high speed line to Catania & Palermo....

Chris Ogilvie reposted

That a metro system would be built in a northern UK city involving underground tunnels and stations is supposedly an impossible, unrealistic idea from an unserious mind. Meanwhile, Newcastle with 13km of bored tunnels and 9 underground stations built 13 years after first plans:

Chris Ogilvie reposted

Travelling 350 miles north from Sept-Iles, Québec, to the middle of nowhere - or to be precise: Schefferville, a mining town with a population of 250 - along one of the most remote railway lines in the world, today.

🇪🇸🚅 A forensic examination of the site, dismantle OHL, cranes to remove the loco intact, people in white coats, 2 week line closure…. ….not in Spain! The power car of the AVE on fire on Monday has been cut up on site today! Line speed tomorrow?!

🚇 Calais, Channel Tunnel - 19 injured, including 5 in absolute emergency condition, after a collision between a bus and a freight train at the loading platform of the Channel Tunnel in Calais (Prefecture / La Voix du Nord).

🚧👷🦺🚜 Another mega structure for Italy announced. 8.4km of twin bore undersea road tunnel in Genoa. Just £670m equiv. Wouldn’t get the public enquiry for that in UK.

🇪🇸 Renfe plans to dismantle the cab of the burned AVE train then drag the chassis and clear the track in Ricla. The works will be carried out at dawn & involve cutting the body at the point where it stopped. Then removing the remaining part of the convoy to a nearby farm.

Chris Ogilvie reposted

#OnThisDay 174 years ago King's Cross station was opened by the Great Northern Railway. The facade of Lewis Cubitt's magnificent pair of trainsheds was gradually hidden over the years before being unmasked in 2012. In 2019 an IC125 and Class 91 DVT flank an arriving Azuma.

🇪🇸🚅 "High-speed trains between Barcelona and Madrid have been interrupted since early afternoon due to a fire on an AVE train. The fire occurred on the train that had left Atocha at 2:27 p.m. The train was stopped between Calatayud and Zaragoza."

Pre-covid passenger numbers but higher cost - what changed?? Sunday Times: "Rail fares must rise to avoid taxpayers spending billions more. With a £4bn-a-year gap between train operators' costs and revenues, there can't be another freeze in fares." 🆓🔽 www.thetimes.com/article/78f0...

Italy's only 'every weekend' heritage railway suffers serious incident today. The heritage train on the 50km Sulmona-Roccarasso line collided with a cradle of a road crane working on a bridge. Injuries to bridge workers. 400 passengers trapped for many hours.

🚅 🇮🇹 Another 50km of high speed, high capacity railway joins Europe’s rail network. Last night the first test train ran on the new Verona-Vicenza line, part of the 400km Turin/Milan-Venice high speed railway.

Telegraph: 🌍 The world’s weirdest trains… 🇦🇷Tren Solar de la Quebrada 🇨🇱Gondola Carril Ferrobus 🇯🇵DMV Road-Rail hybrid POKÉMON with YOU Train 🇩🇪Wuppertaler 🇨🇳Optics Valley Photon (Skyrail) 🇨🇭Schwyz-Stoos funicular 🇬🇶Devil’s Nose 🇰🇭Bamboo Train 🇦🇺The Gulflander www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/2abf340...

telegraph.co.ukThe world’s weirdest trainsFrom Germany’s ‘flying train’ to Japan’s hybrid bus-train, no self-respecting rail lover should miss ticking off these quirky marvels

Trenitalia’s 1993 Pendlino ETR460 have finally retired. Their place on the Rome-Florence-Genoa route today taken by ETR700, once Dutch Fyra train. Their first visit to the capital. The 250kmh trains will be suited with run on the 250kmh max ‘Direttissima’ line Rome-Florence.

🇳🇱 🚉 🇩🇪 Reopened cross border railway… “After 11 years travel by train from Groningen, Netherlands to Leer, Germany, is possible. A cargo ship crashed into the Friesenbrücke in 2015 the rail bridge over the Ems on the German side of the border.” @jonworth.eu www.dutchnews.nl/2026/10/inte...

dutchnews.nlInternational train connection from Groningen to Leer returns - DutchNews.nlAfter almost 11 years, people can again travel by train from Groningen to the German city of Leer. Services were suspended in 2015 after a cargo ship crashed into the Friesenbrücke, the rail bridge ov...

🚂🚃🚃🚃 “3 Oct 1839 begins the most revolutionary invention of the modern era - THE TRAIN” Today Naples remembers the first train on the peninsula. 7km Naples-Portici, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Built by King Ferdinand II of Bourbon & French engineer Bayard. Loco ‘Vesuvius’ from Newcastle, UK.

Italy’s first locomotive from Newcastle brought much British railway practice to the country. From left track running to signals that would be familiar England! The National Railway Museum is on the line of this first railway, in the former Bourbon loco works. Well worth a visit.

🚅 First booking on Italy’s open access high speed train Italo for a while. 💺 They’ve gone full Ryanair with variable price seat reservations. Single seats are more than sharing. A table for 4 will cost your group €16!

Open day at Messina Marittima, Sicily on 10 & 11 Oct. See the remarkable mosaic "Sicily Raised to the Centre of the Empire". Created the Fascist era 1937-39 with Mussolini as a centre figure.