I was looking at trains leaving Paris Montparnasse to Bordeaux St Jean and notice that one leaves around 2:00 pm and the other leaves around 3:00pm. Why does the 2:00pm take 3 hours and 33 minutes while the 3:00pm one takes 2 hours and 10 minutes if they are both direct?
1 answer
I'm guessing the time difference is the various stops (or lack thereof) the train will make along the route to pick up / drop off passengers. Both trains will still be "direct" in that you don't make any transfers onto a different train, but the trains will make various stops along the way, usually only for minutes at a time, although the slow down when approaching/departing stations add up to non-trivial time differences. That's my guess at the time difference between two direct Paris - Bordeaux trains.