"John B" wrote in message
oups.com...

2) BA to Schiphol. An hour late arriving. Surly service, no apology for
delays. I wish through tickets on the E* and Thalys didn't cost
£300...

BA European short haul. Variable, very very variable. I used to use EasyJet
from Liverpool, newer planes and the staff were happy too.

3) Nedrail to Centraal. Ticket machines still rubbish; we tried six
different cards on the machine at the airport that claimed to take
international credit cards before finding one that it would deign to
accept. Train fast, double-deck, clean.

Things have changed since I was out there - it costs more to queue and buy a
ticket now. Don't think the trains go that fast though. Mind you if it was a
busy time, you'd not have difficulty going faster than the traffic on the
motorway out of Schiphol.

4) Trams are good. Having ticket machines onboard is a brilliant idea
and I wish TfL would add them to the bendybuses. Overall (and
uncontroversially), Amsterdam's public transport system is one of the
best I've ever used. Haven't tried the underground, though.

The tram fleet has benefitted from the recent delivery of 155 Siemens
Combinos, which has enabled all the trad Amsterdam tri-artics to be
replaced. There are AFAIK only 37 all high floor cars in the entire fleet
now (plus 45 low middle ones).

Apparently the older Metro cars have been recently refurbished. Probably as
well, I remember the original grey LHB sets as being particularly grim.

When you have a monthly ticket for the street PT, you don't miss not having
a car (and parking in Amsterdam is expensive, and you have to feed the meter
all week long, except I think Saturday night and Sunday morning).

--
Tim

Selective killfiling - because life's too short