RAILROAD MYSTERIES FROM MITTELEUROPA. A member of the Live from the Third Rail team has been riding the rails behind the old Iron Curtain, where he has some questions about the numbering of seats in Polish compartments (is this a variation on Reverse Polish Notation?) I have my own mystery, which is, what was a train off Budapest Keleti doing running to Wien Sud by way of Wiener Neustadt? That train figured in my travels, as it picked up the passengers off the Semmeringbahn service that was timetabled to run through to the Sudbahnhof but it terminated in Wiener Neustadt to flip back to Murzzuschlag. Now imagine a full train of day-hikers, many with their Alpenstocks, crowding onto a full through train, with many of the old-style second class compartment coaches (three facing three.) Fortunately, there are jump seats in the corridor, but wouldn't 2+2 open saloons make more sense?

I have a few other tales about stopping-train Europe, but they'll come later.