That looks very civilized.

On the trans-siberian I lived on borsht and instant noodles for 5 days.

I find food in Bordrestaurants on german trains often mediocre - everything is pre-cooked and then microwaved, and in approximately half of my journeys service is somewhat reduced (ranging from being out of certain items to being fully closed). But hey, prices are not thaaat bad (especially with the 30% discount you get as "BahnBonus Platin" member), it's edible and they offer more and more veggie options.

I don't care for train food or luxury. I just want to be able to take a train from any major city in the EU to another at a reasonable price.

Ideally even without checking a schedule, because they come so regularly. But that goes more for regional trains.

My only experience with an ÖBB Railjet was abysmal. I would really love good train service, especially in that area, but it just seems to me, you can't depend on it.

My train was arriving late at a station which was 40 degrees hot and had practically no seating. They didn't update you on the actual delay so that they can skimp out on refunds I guess, but that meant that when I ran out for some water so that members of my family wouldn't start to collapse, I almost missed the train.

The train itself was full of empty beer bottles. Not one or two in some places, literally all the seat bags were full, and a lot of them were rolling around on the ground to the point you had to watch out while walking not to trip over them. This was on the whole length of the train. The air conditioning was not perfect either, we got from 40 degrees outside to 30 degrees in, but I think that might have been just that it was getting late and the weather cooled down on its own.

After departure, they did announce that they would have a restaurant car, so I went to check it out, mostly so that I could do something and divert my attention from the trip itself. I was third in line at the restaurant (there was no table service), the two people in front of me left without buying anything. I realized that the reason was that the restaurant would only take cash, and only in Euros. I couldn't buy anything either, despite the fact that I wouldn't have cared that everything in there was way overpriced, even for a restaurant.

All the while, I got glared at by the ticket guy for moving around, obviously trying to travel without a ticket, and not at all because I was trying to throw more money at them to make the trip less awful.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The table is set with a crisp white tablecloth, there’s a soft glow from a tablelamp and outside the window, snow-dusted trees are whizzing past at 120 kilometres per hour.

Seasoned train travellers hail it as one of Europe’s best restaurants on wheels, with regional food prepared fresh to order and craft beer bespoke-brewed for the company.

X account @_DiningCar is the social media font of knowledge on Europe’s train catering and it gives plenty of airtime to Ceske Drahy, the national rail operator in Czechia.

According to journalist Koen, who founded the travel website Paliparan, his meal started with goulash soup followed by svíčková, a traditional Czech dish of thinly cut sirloin steak with bread dumplings in a cream sauce.

Austria’s flagship ÖBB Railjet services link major cities including Vienna, Salzburg and Innsbruck as well as crossing the border into Hungary, Germany and Switzerland.

Many of Germany’s sleek ICE trains - which whisk passengers all around the country and to neighbouring Belgium, Austria and France - boast a Bordgastronomie dining car.

The original article contains 618 words, the summary contains 172 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

@misk spoiler: CFR is not on the list

Trains are the most dignified and sophisticated way of traveling.

You can't change my mind on this