I'm thinking of taking my Sharan on French motor rail (Callais to Narbonne) in August 2004. Does anyone have any experience of this service such as costs, reliability etc?
Keep upright
Chris
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It's expensive and it sells itself on the idea that you wake up at your destination. You don't on that route, which gets in at about 10am If you like long train journeys with faffing about and a long wait in unattractive marshalling yards then it's ideal.
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I'm pretty sure you won't be able to take your Sharan on the motor rail due to a low height limit of of about 1.6 m ( could be wrong, but I couldn't take my E'space a couple of years ago).Any way, I wouldn't think it would take much longer to drive down.
Doyle
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Yes we could take our Espace on a few years ago. Although its been sometime since I remember it being expensive, not very comfortable, and the train seemed awful slow! (It took over 20 hours Calais - Rome, which is about 1000 miles!)
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Sorry, COULD NOT take espace on.
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Travelling from Calais is fairly restrictive in terms of dates, and also expensive. An alternative that we tried last year is to drive to Paris and take Motorail from there - more services (although I don't know about Narbonne) and generally cheaper.
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Jeez! I've just seen the cost of this - iro £750 return with a sleeper. Apart from the 1.63m height limit and very limited availability, it MUST be cheaper to drive (even with Autoroute tolls) and if necessary stop over at one of the excellent budget hotels over there.
Also, I didn't like the disclaimer of responsibility for "the limited number of thefts that have been experienced recently from cars on Motorail". If they feel it necessary to mention it, it ain't a limited number!
Terry
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Its 671 miles, in just over nine hours with a toll cost of £31 each way. Add this to cost of hotel, petrol etc.. and I would think it would still be less than half!
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Pre children we also went from Paris. You leave Paris early (or at least your car does) and there's then time for a morning at leisure, lunch, then catch the TGV to pick up your car.(this was to Avignon) They don't advertise that service over here, but it's the accomodation on the train that costs. Seemed like a good compromise to us, but, as I said, pre-kids!
Since then, have driven, many times. New motorway thru' Clermont Ferrand is good (and that one is free) when they've finished the viaduct at Millau it will be great!
Tim{P}
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