Next up: Some sleepy Italian branch lines. To be continued soon... ish.
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Later, it's another classic Regionale Veloce push-pull-set towards Torino. These trains are a good compromise for Interrail - no mandatory reservation, but still somewhat fast. Often quite packed, though.
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Sheltering from a thunderstorm in the big hall of Genova Piazza Principe station. Of course with a caffè!
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Anyway, welcome to Italy, the next country on this trip! 🇮🇹
Finally a bit of Trenitalia!

What?! 🤨
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I however noticed how insanely full all trains were, especially between Cannes and Monaco. 🤯
And how annoying it was to change from the fast TER to a slow one across the border. This line badly needs more trains!
I'd propose a half hourly fast path Marseille to Nice and extended to Ventimiglia for an hourly TER, while the second path could be shered by either TGV or TER. Still plenty of capacity left for freight and a TER every 15 mins around Nice. Do it, réegion Sud!
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Without a single railway photo and still with hurting feet, I had to leave towards Italy a few days later. As you can imagine, I was slightly pissed and therefore had not taken many photos on my way to Genova - sorry! 😬
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Erm, what?!
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The plan was hiking in the nearby Esterel massif to look for photo spots for loco-hauled Corail sets on the fast Marseille-Nice TER services. But as my Achilles tendons would not allow it, I had to rest for a few days in the luckily rather lovely city of Saint-Raphaël.
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I won't rant about how I nearly missed my connection in Marseille due to delay and the impossibility to pass the ticket gates with a valid Interrail ticket. 🤬
We clocked up another hour of delay until St-Raphael, as some idiots were pulling emergency brakes multiple times. But at least, it was another Corail consist! 😊
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Along the coast towards Montpellier and Marseille in a Corail. 🥰
I love this part of France, as it's full of good memories from holidays as a child and as a young adult.
And Orangina does taste different in France, doesn't it? 🍊🇫🇷
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A béton néz cassé was hauling the Intercités in the opposite direction while my train towards Marseille pulled in with a BB 26000 "Sybic". The train of course was sold out and despite the TER strike, they didn't let passengers with TER tickes board...
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Oh, there's at least one TER running! A Régio2N arrived from Toulouse. Occitanie's first and much needed double decker trains operate only from Toulouse, but that's gonna change. Narbonne will become another hub for them, which'll finally allow to run them up the coast to Avignon.
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... for which I wisely reserved a seat as soon as I heard about the strike a few days ago. I was two hours early, but the Port-la-Nouvelle bike action worsened my Achilles tendon problems, so I chose not to walk around any further and having a trainspotting picnic instead.
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With no TER trains running, the only way to reach Narbonne, the nearest city, is taking a very slow bus. Or - in my case - having an AirBnB host kind enough to drive you the 30 km to the station. No TER running also means I had to take an Intercités...
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But again, I was of course here for the néz-cassé-hauled Intercités de nuit to Cerbère, which unfortunately passes Port-la-Nouvelle rather late in the morning, long after the soft morning light faded away.
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The next day was a travel day, which didn't kept me from another short ride out to the étangs. Unfortunately, it also was a strike day with no regional services running all day long. I was lucky enough to catch a freight and having absolutely windstill weather.
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After sunset, a very peaceful bike ride through the étangs took me back to Port-la-Nouvelle.
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No trains due anymore until sunset as - believe it or not - the last train connecting the Pyrénées-Orientales's 500'000 inhabitants to the rest of France leaves Perpignan already at 20:10! 🤯
So my photographic interest shifted towards the étangs and the concrete canals connecting them.
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As a little goodie, I waited for the following TER worked by three AGC EMU, two of which still in the fine livery of the former Languedoc-Roussillon region.
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The purpose of this whole exercise was of course the #nighttrain @Intercites de Nuit Cerbère–Paris Austerlitz, hauled by one of my beloved néz cassé locomotives - in this case the DC version BB 7200.
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