I just saw this article about the relatively new Baltic Express, which sounds like such a cool idea! The author started off in Prague, and the train allows them to hop off at various cities and towns throughout the Czech Republic and going into Poland.
I would love to do something like this! I love trains anyway and this would be a great way to explore places that you might not get a chance to see otherwise. And the train itself looks pretty cool, too.
It is a great idea, but limited places to stop. Not sure how long you could stay for a visit at each place?
Tip: with the German Rail Pass you can use Germany's whole rail network as hop on - hop off train.
This is typical for the way journalist write about trains these days. They just copy of a press release, and write a fluff piece without substance.
What has reallly happened is that there is now a direct EC service from Praha to Gdynia. This is a bog standard international train, operated by the CD and PKP, and available both to anybody with a valid ticket or pass. And like about any train in central Europe you can also use it to travel to any of the places en route, and with the right ticket can interrupt your journey at will.
So there is really nothing special about this.
What is new and innovative about this is it being a through train, and there is a very useful night service on the route in addition to the every 4 hours daytime service. It is also great to have a restaurant car on such a train- and a quality restaurant car as well.
But otherwise perfectly normal standard train cars for both Polish and Czech Railways, and in quite a short formation as well. It is not a long train with huge capacity.
But the entire route has always had passenger service on it, in countries where hop on hop off trains are the norm, if you ticket it in the right manner. So apart from the throughout journey opportunity there is nothing unusual, new or unique about it.
Much of the route also has additional more frequent trains, besides the through services.
