hello guys from porto in portugal and today i am taking a very smart train the alfa pendula
all the way down to lisbon and i'm traveling in first class too
now i'm actually starting my journey from sao bento railway station
right okay well um i went into sao bento railway station and uh no trains are running um i don't
know why there might be something to do with all this stuff going on it's like um some kind of
i don't know some sort of strike action anyway um plan b get a taxi i'm actually at campagna
railway station now hopefully the trains are going from here if they're not um i'm stuck
really aren't i and so um let's go inside and see what's going on and i'll catch you in a bit
er right there's the apolonia 1132 platform six um all right that looks fine doesn't it
let's let's head over there and uh
it says platform six there's not actually any train(s) on the station at all
apart from the random two-car unit which I hope is not the one that they they've
replaced the alfa pendula with all right let's head down there and see what's going on
right
i don't know what's happening really i managed to speak to somebody uh about the trains
and he reckoned that um nothing really is gonna happen until at least two o'clock and it's
just gone 12 o'clock now but i did notice that um there's a train timetabled for 12:37
on this platform here which is it's not the alfa pendula
it's the um it's the inter-city one which i don't think is as good a standard but at the end of the
day if it gets me down to lisbon then i'm not too worried about that so i might have to change
change my plans and change the review who knows what's going to happen but stay tuned because uh
yeah anything could happen uh at the moment um so yeah um hopefully i'll speak to you again in
a short while um when i'm actually on a train um whichever train that may be i'll catch you later
good morning guys from a very foggy campahna railway station in
porto now yesterday i was supposed to be bringing you a video on the alfa pendular
train down to lisbon um unfortunately when i turned up here um the train crews
were on strike so nothing really happened at all yesterday i had to rebook into the hotel
anyway i've just managed to to get my ticket changed and they've changed it onto an intercity
train uh in first class again which is fine um otherwise i'm gonna have to wait here for
another three hours i did that yesterday so uh this review is going to be about the
intercity train down to lisbon i hope you enjoy it and i'll catch you on the train
oh yeah so finally here was my train a class 5600 electric
loco-hauled intercidades train now the front of it uh the one and a
half carriages make up first class and i was allocated seat 56 in carriage 81
um i boarded the train and as you can see here the seats in first class are laid out
in a 2-1 configuration it was fairly busy on this service today i thought maybe there
were a lot of travelers like myself who'd had their journeys cancelled from the previous day
we left campanha uh quite slowly actually and in really dull weather which was a shame because i
reckon the views from the ponte de sao joao bridge would have been spectacular otherwise
anyway i sat here for a while before realizing i was actually in the right seat but in the wrong
carriage carriage number 11. i'm not sure how the numbering works on these trains to be honest but
you do need to check you're in the right one and the numbers are in
blue just inside the door when you get on board
so i ended up in the other half of first class the second carriage back
which also contains the cafe bar we'll have a look at that in a short while
the seat i was in was right next to the door to the cafe area and because of this it was
just a single seat rather than the normal two on this side i found it to be both wide
and comfortable there's decently enough legroom here and note the floor was also clean and tidy
there's a seat back net type thing to store some belongings in i never know what to call
these by the way has anybody got any idea of a definitive name anyway to the side is your own
personal litter bin though i think these must be really time consuming to clean all the while
they probably end up full of apple cores and chewing gum and stuff if you know what i mean
there are anti-macassars on the headrests and a drop down table
with integrated bottle holder which was quite neat i thought
the table was a good size and again was clean and tidy
above the window we have a personal reading light
seat numbering lime green coloured curtains and double coats
and air conditioning is provided through these vents beneath the window
so yeah quite old-school really the seats i thought but there's nothing wrong with that
is there decent padding and nice big armrests however i did find the space to be lacking
in a couple of areas here at first class um namely there's no power points and no recline
not for every seat anyway i did notice some plug sockets dotted about underneath
some of the seats so maybe you can select one of these if you need to when you're booking online
however these days i don't see why they can't be retrofitted
um with usb sockets at least there was decent rack storage running the length of the carriage
and to conclude the seat to it yeah it was okay overall not the best first class i've been in by a
long way but reasonable enough for this length of journey not sure about the purple and lime green
colour scheme either to be honest but i do let me know what you think of that in the comments below
we've reached coimbra-b by now and thankfully the weather was starting to brighten up a bit
okay so i had a bit of a wander up to the front of the train
where there was a toilet handily located in order for me to do a loo review
there was more lime green on the inside of the door here which was locked with this latch
um to the right of that is a decent sized mirror above a smallish sink
note there's also a shaving point here if you need it
i eventually discovered that the cold water only tap was operated by a foot pump
there we go i'm not sure what this is uh soap dispenser possibly
there was another one of those horrible bars of soap that i'd
previously encountered on my trip up the douro valley
a frosted window paper towels and a toilet with yes you've guessed it a lime green seat and lid
the flush is operated by another foot pedal there was plenty of toilet roll in supply and back to
the hand drier above the sink unfortunately that didn't seem to work on this occasion
lastly there was a quite chunky coat hook on the door and in summary it was a bit rough in
parts and some of the fittings needed attention but it was reasonably clean so no real issues
and now back outside and i decided to check out the cafe bar which was spacious and clean
i love this large cream seating with the big oval table opposite to which and in complete contrast
were a few uncomfortable looking stools and a thin table which ran along the length of the windows
uh from the counter service there was a limited supply of food and drink on offer
well it was basically crisps and chocolate for the food but i was pleased to find it open
and enjoyed a pleasant half an hour in there drinking coffee and as you can see it was pretty
much empty apart from a couple of other passengers that were in the seating booth next to me
so let's have a quick walk through the second class portion of the train
and you will see here that it's in an expected 2-2 configuration the seats are a little thinner
in terms of width and padding and note also it's got the standard plastic type of armrest
there is space for large luggage at the end of this carriage and a small area for bicycles in
the vestibule on the other side of the door well i thought standard class was perfectly acceptable
not much different to first really the difference in price is seven euros for this service which is
denoted by the letters ic the promo tickets are the ones you want if they're available
well eventually i got to the end of the train my favourite spot really
we really started to increase our speed at this point as we headed further south
okay guys so um yeah i'm on the train it's um
two and a half hours into the journey i've got another
hour to go at the most really so i've just come back on the back of the train
and it's nice it's comfortable er we're hitting top speed now which I think is around 160 km/h um which is great
the cafe bar's open limited supplies but enough to keep me going and i'm just going to head back to the first class
carriage now and just relax and enjoy the rest of the journey
getting into lisbon er round about two o'clock in the afternoon so i'll catch you in a bit
okay guys and that was porto to lisbon santa apolonia on the intercity intercidades service
it's about three hours and 25 minutes i'll tell you what though it was bang on time at 1400 hours
which is great isn't it and yeah it looks like a really nice little station this
um i'm going to go and find my hotel now
and chill out in lisbon for a bit hopefully catch some tram action which will be great won't it
so um thank you very much for watching this i hope you've enjoyed it i've had a great time
journeying down some fantastic sights on the way and i'll catch you on another video soon cheers for now