Who are RegioJet?
RegioJet is a name perhaps unknown to those of us in the UK or even some parts of Western Europe, yet they’re big business in the budget coaching world. They even run a (somewhat absurd) twice-weekly route from London Victoria to Plzeň and Prague for those of us who really want to get to/from the Czech Republic on an extreme budget.
Closer to Central Europe, they’re all over the map. They’ve also got quite a few fingers in the pie that is the Croatian coach network, especially in the absence of a viable rail service for many towns and cities, particularly in Dalmatia. While not quite at the levels of Flixbus, RegioJet at least operates all of its own services, rather than being a brand slapped on hundreds of smaller operators.
Their rail operation too has been steadily growing in recent years. They’ve gone from running a handful of trains on the main Prague – Pardubice – Olomouc – Ostrava – Havirov corridor to winning state contracts to operate both local and interregional services. In recent years, they’ve also introduced two sleeper train services: A Prague-Košice train and a summer-only Prague-Rijeka & Split one.
RegioJet & InterRail
I’d be lying if I said that I was a particular fan of RegioJet’s idea of ‘service’, considering my previous encounter with their staff in January 2020. The whole thing smacked of amateurs playing trains in gaudy pink t-shirts when they gleefully threw me in the lowest class possible with my first class InterRail pass (having initially denied that they even accepted the pass at all).
Alas, two years on, such an issue has now been ‘resolved’ as you need to book a reservation in advance for ‘RJ’ category trains (which is all of their ‘commercial’ ones). Thankfully, this can be done online with little fuss, rather than the previous need to visit a sales point.
Notably, InterRail passes are NOT valid on their ‘Os‘ (Osobni Vlak/Local train) category services, not that a tourist would have any reason to use these, with there usually being an alternative ‘R‘ (Rychlik/Fast) category service available to use. They’re also not accepted on the seasonal sleeper train down to Rijeka and Split, though there are various alternatives if you want to make this journey.
Most peculiarly, if you have a first-class pass, it’s NOT valid in first class on their R8 and R23 routes, which run between Brno-Ostrava-Bohumin and Usti nad Labem-Lysa-Kolin respectively. I’m not sure what the reasoning is for this, but I appreciate that the people that this will genuinely effect will be slim to none. These ‘R’ category routes are operated under contract to the government, rather than being operated commercially.
To their credit, RegioJet did address my complaint quite well (maybe a little too well, as I’ve never had a company so viciously slag off its staff and say they were obviously just too stupid to understand my ticket in customer communications) and it’s clear that the company is working on branding itself as more than just some budget coach operator. The question was, how would they fare this time around?
The Booking Process
On the evening of May 10th, I’d be taking train RJ1021, which departs Praha hl.n at 21:37 and is scheduled to arrive in Košice, in the far east of Slovakia, at 06:07 the following morning. I’d paid for a private sleeper compartment for 67,80EUR (around £57) meaning that I would have the sole occupation of a compartment and wouldn’t need to share with anybody. If you’re happy with a seat or sharing, prices will be much lower. Here’s a sample of what’s available for a service in a fortnight’s time. As you can see, a private compartment is even more expensive on the date in question:
18EUR is undeniably fantastic value for such a long journey, especially as the ‘low cost’ carriages are now Deutsche Bahn first-class cast-offs which have retained their configuration, but whether you’d want to put yourself through that is another question. Business Class wouldn’t be an awful shout, but you could pay less and get a bed to lie flat on if sleep was what you were most intent on.
That said, the booking process was quick and easy, and I was given a PDF with a QR code and ticket number by email. Apparently, either would suffice to get me on board, with there being no need to even have the email to hand if I could make a note of the latter. Can’t argue with that!
The Journey
Having had a leisurely day exploring the western regions of the country, I took myself to the large Tesco in the Novy Smichov shopping centre for some supplies for both the evening and the following day. It’s some weird rite of passage for me every time I’m in Prague, with that Tesco providing a warm sense of homeliness while indulging me in (somewhat) cheaper prices compared to the UK. Certainly, you wouldn’t be getting a can of Pilsner Urquell for 60 pence!
By the time I’d done what I needed to do, my 90-minute ticket for Prague’s transport was running out of validity, so I ended up jumping on a tram to Smichov station to take whatever came first for the short hop over the river to Hlavni Nadraži. While fairly impressive at the platform level (particularly in the ‘historic’ area of the station), it’s an undeniable 80s-styled hellhole on the concourse. Having been approached by scammers multiple times on previous visits (and almost headbutted by someone on another occasion), I wasn’t exactly keen to spend too much time around here.
A crowd had formed on the concourse, with there being two sleeper trains to Košice in fairly quick succession. We were scheduled to leave first, followed by the ‘classic’ state-run affair, EuroNight 443 Slovakia, which would be going even further than Košice, to the town of Humenne. This train would also run via Bohumin and exchange various carriages with other services heading for the likes of Krakow and Warszawa. Meanwhile, our train would essentially ‘cut the corner off’, heading directly for the border via Havirov. See below for a map of the journey:
I had also noticed the apparent chattering of various Ukrainians around me, as it seemed that quite a few would be availing of this service to return to their homeland, with the border not being far away from Košice. Whether for good or just to visit, the situation affecting Ukraine continues to be both a disgrace and a humanitarian tragedy.
I started to get rather nervous as the crowds continued to form around the departure board yet no platform number appeared for RJ1021. It wasn’t like there was a delay of an inbound train either, as this train would come straight from the depot next to Smichov station. I let out a rather muted groan as ’10min’ appeared under the ‘delay’ section of the screen. While this was a fairly minor delay, I knew that it could just as easily be the start of something significantly more dramatic.
10 minutes before the scheduled departure time, we all made our way to Platform 1. Lots of us, too. In fact, I was somewhat baffled as to how the hell so many people were going to make it on board. This wasn’t helped either by another train randomly occupying the platform as it waited to head to the depot.
At the scheduled departure time, our train arrived from the depot, and the crowd dispersed up and down the platform. I locked eyes on my booked carriage and fought my way down to the front without too much trouble. This wasn’t exactly the NightJet experience, for sure. There was a host greeting us but he wasn’t doing much else, so no ticket checks or anything of the sort.
My cabin was…provincial, shall we say.
This wasn’t a sleeper cabin at all. It was a couchette with a couple of the beds put away! I couldn’t easily get either of the other beds away so ended up making up the seat I was sitting on in the picture instead, just so I wouldn’t wake up and smack my head on the bed above. The window blind was somewhat damaged (as you can see in the picture, someone’s almost ‘made’ a handle by bending and pulling away the metal on it) and the power sockets under the table didn’t work. First impressions were rather limp. It was also very obvious that the train had spent all day in the sunshine as it was painfully hot. My first thing to do was shove the AC on full blast.
I located a chain that could lock the door and decided I might as well settle myself in. I remade the beds by piling all of the sheets from the other beds on top of each other first, seeing as the bed itself was essentially a seat and was rock hard. With that done, I stretched out and we were away from Prague around 15 minutes behind schedule.
A friendly host came around shortly after departure just to check if I wanted anything to eat and if I wanted coffee in the morning. I took him up on the latter (it’s free!) but had ample beers and snacks for the evening. Bizarrely, no tickets or travel documents were ever checked. I don’t particularly care, but perhaps an educated guess is made on sleeper compartments, and so long as the right number of people are in one, then we’re good to go?
If you’re interested to see what you can purchase on-board if you want something to eat, click here. From the sample below, you can see that by western standards, it’s VERY good value. Beer is 0,80EUR for half a litre (!)
With that, I flicked off the compartment light and locked the door, with the lights of suburbia lighting up the room with a kaleidoscope of streetlamps, headlights and various other delights. I was starting to notice the main issue with this carriage, though, which was the abysmal ride quality. We lurched and bounced our way down what is one of the main rail routes in the country, and I was feeling every little bump and jerk. Still, it was best not to think about it too much and just sip another can of beer. (Having studied the RegioJet website this is apparently not allowed, but the host certainly wasn’t arsed as I sat and talked to him while I had a drink. I suspect it’s more designed to stop the couchettes and seating cars turning into party carriages)
After we departed Kolin, I decided to turn in for the night. Each end of the carriage has a toilet and a washroom, so I utilised the former followed by the latter. Both were clean and well-appointed, so absolutely no complaints can be had on that front. All that was left to do was try and get comfortable in bed.
It was one hell of a task. The noise from other passengers and crew was minimal, but the train itself was loud. I eventually found myself on top of two of the sets of sheets and half spooning the other (it was slowly cooling down but not enough to bury myself under a duvet) and dozing off as we departed Pardubice.
My next memory is waking up to shouting from on-board, followed by the slamming of the carriage door, us moving off, and the shouting becoming ever more distant. I glanced at my phone to see that it was just past 2am and we were leaving Ostrava hl.n. Clearly someone undesirable had been ejected! I was then sound asleep again until around 5:20am, with my expectation being that we’d now be out of Poprad-Tatry and would have around an hour to go, considering our delay. I also knew that we were scheduled to have a 15-20 minute hold-up around Havirov, so that could be extended a little.
I checked Google Maps to see that we’d just left Liptovský Mikuláš, a station we’d been scheduled to depart from at 4:02am. We were around eighty minutes late! Thankfully I’d allowed for a two-hour delay before my connection to Miskolc, meaning that so long as we didn’t have any further hiccups, everything was in order. Additionally, the views over the Tatras, which I’d have otherwise passed in the dark or while asleep, were absolutely gorgeous:
Sure, we were quite late, but I was sat propped up in a bed under a duvet watching mountains toddle past my window. What’s not to like? The views kept coming for the next hour or so, as I slowly acclimatised myself to being awake, having had roughly four hours or so of slightly interrupted sleep. I wasn’t even particularly tired to be honest. In fact, that felt like pretty good going considering the bumps in the night.
I decided to take a look at the provided breakfast offering. It was a bit strange-looking at first but was actually a pretty fair offering to start the day with:
It was essentially a box of small pastries with various fillings. ‘Various’ in this instance was cheese, apricot jam and chocolate. The latter was a bit much (very little pastry, LOTS of chocolate) and the cheese was somewhat meh, but I loved the apricot ones. You also received a small bottle of orange juice and water to go with these. Notably, these are left on the seat as you board, so you can have them as and when you wish. There are no awards to be won for catering, but the offering was thoughtful and better than the nothing that you’ll get with other operators on sleeper trains.
My snacking was briefly interrupted by catching an older woman lugging two cases behind her as she headed for the doors in Margecany. Knowing that the chasm between the train and platform would be huge, I followed behind and plopped her cases down to her.
My coffee order soon followed as we closed in on Košice, delivered with a good morning and a smile. It wasn’t the biggest cup in the world, but it was a welcome dose of caffeine after a bumpy night. Then, it was just a case of getting my things together and getting ready to leave. We arrived at 07:27, a total delay of 80 minutes.
The Verdict
Well, RegioJet isn’t going to win any awards for luxury with their sleeper product. There’s no en-suite, not even a sink, and it’s clearly a lottery as to whether things such as power sockets will actually work (thank the lord for power banks). At the end of the day, it’s a couchette carriage, not a sleeper carriage. That said, you’re paying a hell of a lot less for it if you get the right price. 67EUR for a private compartment on an international journey isn’t to be sniffed at, after all.
It’s a budget price with a budget product. Would I do it again? Probably, if the price was right. The experience and the staff more than made up for it. At the end of the day, I was able to sit and have a complimentary breakfast at the foot of the Tatras. I had plenty of space to myself and clean, working bathroom facilities nearby.
As for the punctuality side of things, it was certainly unfortunate that I was delayed but to be honest, it worked out quite well in that I had more time to enjoy the scenery and still had ample time to make my connection. I was a little irritated that it wasn’t mentioned once by the crew, but I did do some more reading into this.
RegioJet operates with an ‘On Time Arrival Guarantee‘. Little did I know that this meant I was actually entitled to 25% of my fare back in credit for another journey. How does it work? The credit is automatically given to the account that you booked with. As I booked as a guest, I was able to access the 17EUR credit I received simply by logging in with my ticket number and selecting another journey. The efficiency of this, compared to even UK operators, is actually quite astounding and is a massive positive. I commend them highly for this.
Following this experience, while I can say that RegioJet might offer a slightly ‘quirkier’ product to the national operators, it’s certainly worth a try. As for punctuality, well I don’t doubt that the EuroNight service behind us was probably snarled up in delays too. It certainly wasn’t specific to RegioJet.
At a minimum, I can certainly recommend you give RegioJet a try on one of their daytime services. From Prague, other than to destinations previously mentioned, you can also travel to Brno, Wien, Budapest and various points in-between.
The Lone Bon Voyager 