Trains... A closer look.

I’ve been constantly making notes and taking pictures about the trains. They are fascinating in their ease of use and efficiency.

Some great examples which I have personally noticed while I’ve been traveling through the countryside to small towns in Northern Zealand is that you never have to wait long for a train. The longest I have needed to wait for ‘my ride’ is about 15 minutes. Maybe I’ve been lucky, and I have noticed the service decreases appreciably on weekends and holidays but that factor has made them very easy to use. I do want to note that on Saturday, many stores in the rural parts of Denmark close VERY early. I tried to go to a pharmacy in a small town called Køge (Store Photo, Right) at 3pm on a Saturday to get an elastic bandage for my ankle and found that it (and every store in the entire town) had closed at 2pm. I guess when nothing is open there is no reason for frequent service. Copenhagen has been different, with trains on the Metro running late into the night, but the rest of the service stops by 1AM.

Another thing, … dogs on trains. That’s right folks, the Danes walk their well-behaved dogs right onto the train. When I saw this, I had to do a double-take. Now I’ve been in on at least 3 trains where the locals have transported their dogs alongside them. That makes traveling (and owning a dog) easy when you can just bring your canine-friend along for the ride!

Traveling wouldn’t be this easy without the kiosks. At the train stations in most of the places I visited, there have been kiosks where you can grab the essentials. You can just grab a snack, sandwiches, sodas or beers, and enjoy them while you wait for your train. In the larger towns, there is also a nearby ice cream stand or a small café as well. The only fast food I have seen in all of Denmark thus far was in Copenhagen. Many of the stations are actually located near bustling town squares that serve as gathering areas and places where local flower and farm markets are operated.

Train stations are integrated with nearby transfer stations to local buses, regional buses, water taxis, and ferry terminals. In Helsingør, these elements were located at or very close to the central station (Photo, Right). In Hillerød, the train station was next to the bus transfer station but the center of town a bit of a hike in comparison with Copenhagen or Helsingør. In Copenhagen, however, numerous buses run to the central station but much transferring occurs underground with the Metro (the local underground rail system) or onto other regional trains. Køge had both the town center and bus transfer area immediately adjacent to the train station. At all of the stations there were locations for convenient passenger drop off/pick up and often areas for taxis to wait for passengers, as well.

I will write an entire post on modal integration later on in my trip. I think this is one of the main reasons that this entire network is so successful. This guy on the train between Køge and Copenhagen probably thought I was relatively silly for taking this photo of bicycles on the train (Photo, Right).

And just when you thought you had it all, and your dog too, it turns out there is free wi-fi on many of the city trains! Although I didn’t actually use it (I intend to try it out), there were signs on numerous Copenhagen trains that advertised this amenity. If I do try it, I’ll look to see if they offer outlets as well. I do know that Amtrak trains that operate between Milwaukee and Chicago have laptop outlets but I’m not sure if they have wi-fi.