Reviews

If you have been on the SBB Girunos, you already know this train, it is the exact same thing. 2+ class on this train is a huge hack though, you basically get a 1st class hard product for cheap, I would recommend it over anything else. The large windows are also a huge advantage if you want to just marvel at the Semmeringbahn.

Seats are really quite firm, was not a huge fan. The recline lever is up in Narnia (pretty far under you), but it is there, and you can recline an alright ammount by sliding the seatbase forwards. Legroom is unimpressive at seats facing each other. Power sockets can be found between the seats themselves, one socket per seat. One of these is a Swiss, and the other is an EU standard Schuko plug. The Swiss one will be compatible with all if not ungrounded EU devices, such as phone chargers and stuff.

Large overhead racks, no issues there. Windows are pretty tall on the seats situated in the low floor parts of the train. However, the ones over the bogies will be fairly small. This train has level boarding for 760 mm platforms and for 550 mm in some coaches. This makes boarding with large bags fairly painless, thumbs up to Stadler for that. This does mean ramps throughout, however I found them unproblematic to traverse. A lot less problematic than stairs, at the very least.

Did not have any issues with air conditioning, and Wi-Fi was great all the way though, even through the tunnels of the Koralmbahn.

Lavatory doors have these cool capacitive door handles that only allow the door to move when you touch them, that is pretty neat, I wish everything had that. Sensor placements are also great, and so is water pressure. What isn't neat is the way they decided to gender separate the bathrooms. Since then, they have reversed this, but there still is a urinal booth sorth of thing that only male passengers can use. (Biology, go figure.) Not cool, SBB/Westbahn.

Noise and ride quality at 250 km/h are what I would consider as "fun" and "sporty" if I wanted to be nice. Don't get me wrong, the ride isn't bad, but it is just a touch worse than anything else around here. And noise is just... At 250 in the Koralmtunnel it is compareable to cruising at altitude in an Airbus A321neo. Unimpressive at best. When you are not in a tunnel, however, it is great. One note, is that if you are seated near a motor bogie (which I did on purpouse), you WILL hear the traction equipment. Now if you are a railfan, that is great, I enjoyed the hell out of it. To some it might get slightly annoying, however. All that said, it is still not loud, but it is an extra noise regardles, and it is louder than traction equipment on other trains. The closes thing is maybe the ICE T in traction noise levels (in terms of high-speed trains). I did also observe pressure keeping to be exceptionally good though.