Jon Worth

EU politics and sustainable transport, especially railways Brit who became German & lives in a village in France. When he's not escaping it on a train or a folding bicycle Teaches at College of Europe, still writes a blog, photographs with a drone

Austria

#BerlinBledBerlin trip report

I am writing this blog post at the end of a 5 day trip from Berlin to Bled in Slovenia by train and back, through the 4th wave of the COVID pandemic and crossing Austria in lockdown. I've been tweeting about the trip as I went along on

Analysis

#ZugGegenFlug - it's on, but not quite yet...

Further to my previous blog post about the idea, I am now happy to confirm that the #ZugGegenFlug experiment is on! I've partnered with multi-modal travel booking platform Omio who, as well as supporting with ideation and planning (thanks Emily, Boris and team), will be providing the tickets

Guides

Modernising a Dahon - MINI folding bicycle

Just under 2 years ago I acquired a 2001 Birdy folding bicycle, and explained here how I upgraded it to more modern standards. Since then the Birdy has accompanied me on many business trips, especially to smaller cities with good bike infrastructure where bike hire is either expensive or non-existent

Belgium

Subsidise night train services? Or sort out the market conditions to enable night trains to run?

Back in September 2020, Swedish transport authority Trafikverket sought to award contracts to run two international night trains from summer 2022 - Stockholm-Hamburg and Malmö-Bruxelles. Sweden's state owned railway firm SJ won the contract to run Stockholm-Hamburg (with rolling stock provided by RDC), but no bids were received

Analysis

#ZugGegenFlug - an idea

Mark Smith and Simon Calder are having a race today. Mark is taking the new Lumo train from London to Edinburgh, and Simon is racing him - on a flight. It's a bit of fun, but with a serious purpose - as passengers often underestimate the time it

Analysis

What the European Commission ought to do: an annual index of cross border rail in Europe

When you travel by rail Europe-wide as much as I do (and also spend as much time debating rail policy in Europe as I do when I am not travelling), you end up with an overwhelming impression: cross border rail does not work as well as train travel within one

Austria

The next problem for night trains in Netherlands: the locomotives are too heavy (or the track too unstable)

We've previously examined the headaches finding rolling stock (i.e. carriages) for the new Zürich - Amsterdam NightJet that will run from December this year, but now another problem has come to light - the locomotives, and specifically that they are too heavy. We've been pointed

Germany

How to book a Stockholm-Hamburg train ticket, using the Stockholm-Malmö night train

*** WARNING: I have never done this personally! Attempt this at your own risk! *** Anders Peterson, Associate Professor in traffic systems at Linköping University in Sweden, posed an interesting question on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andpe41/status/1448343509740789767 Anders even pointed out that Swedish rail company SJ has been talking about

Analysis

Europe's empty publicity train - the Connecting Europe Express - reaches the end of the line

On Thursday 7th October the EU Year of Rail "Connecting Europe Express" reaches its final stop in Paris after a month criss-crossing Europe. If ever a tweet summed up the emptiness, the hollowness, of this train, it was this by Community of European Railways' Yann Seimandi: https:

Germany

A swift assessment of the German Grüne's night train plans

The German Bundestag election is taking place 26th September, and yesterday a group of Members of the Bundestag (MdBs) and Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from the Grüne (Green Party) released a new map and paper about their plans for night trains in Europe post-election. The plans are available

Analysis

When the personal is political (and why I am now building a campaign about railways)

On Friday I was asked for the first time to present my Trains for Europe campaign at an old style offline conference in Brussels - at Friends of Europe's European Young Leaders event. I am an alumnus of that programme, but back when I was in the scheme

Austria

I'll be on the #ConnectingEurope Express - Kraków to Ljubljana

2021 is the EU Year of Rail, and so the European Commission DG MOVE and Community of European Railways are running the "Connecting Europe Express" in September and October to try to show what rail can do for Europe and for the green transition. The train departed from

Analysis

From Split to Kraków by train. Or maybe not?

Friends know I work on railway policy in Europe, and from time to time they tweet me about the personal difficulties they are having with railway booking. My old friend from Brussels, Anna Drozd, tweeted me today about some headaches she was having trying to find trains between Split in

Analysis

A trip to Wendisch Rietz - an example of car-free mobility

One of my lockdown pastimes has been to explore Brandenburg, the Land that surrounds Berlin. One such trip took me to the village of Wendisch Rietz (population: 1620), south east of Berlin, and at the southern end of the lake Scharmützelsee - to walk along the edge of the lake

Analysis

An annual cross-border rail index - a means to assess what's going on with EU wide rail?

So goodbye Thello. A strange open access rail operator, providing night trains on the Paris - Milano - Venezia route, and daytime trains on the Marseille - Nice - Genova - Milano route, suspended thanks to COVID, and, now we know, never to return. Cue activists writing disgruntled letters, and

Analysis

How to repair Serbia's railways? A report

On 30th June 2021 I was a speaker at the Transport Community and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Rail Summer School in Belgrade. There's just one caveat, I told Matej Zakonjšek the Director of Transport Community who invited me: I am going to make the trip to Belgrade from Berlin

Analysis

Turning the Connecting Europe Express into a Conversation Europe Express

I'm just back from speaking at a Transport Community event in Belgrade. The trip to and from Serbia, and some of the discussions at the event I was attending, were quite an eye opener (I documented much of it on Twitter here). But seeing the problems with Serbian

European Union

Trains for Europe gets a mention on France24 television debate about night trains

France24 English's "Talking Europe" show discussed night trains in Europe this week, with Catherine Nicholson moderating a discussion with MEPs Jakop Dalunde (Greens-EFA, Sweden) and Marian-Jean Marinescu (EPP, Romania). Given that Jakop is one of the MEPs who already supports Trains for Europe, his comments are

Analysis

What's an appropriate level of ambition for a project about night trains in Europe?

My earlier post about new night train company Midnight Trains has drawn quite some critique - that having ambitious goals is all very well (people even cited Elon Musk), and that even including a Paris-Edinburgh train in the plans is hence fine. All that is needed is a bit of

Analysis

Midnight Trains - we wish them well, but where are the carriages needed going to come from?

A new night train company has launched today. Paris-based Midnight Trains has launched with a very slick website, and promises a deluxe night train experience - private compartments with showers. The renderings are all soft furnishings and are akin to a smart hotel. RTL news has a report about the

Austria

Rolling stock for a new night train: even SBB and ÖBB have plenty of difficulties

As we reported yesterday, Swiss railways SBB are keen to increase their night train offer. But they, like every other player in this market, have the same rolling stock problems to overcome as anyone else. In this post we are going to look at the new NightJet service due to

Austria

SBB boss Vincent Ducrot talks about the future of night trains to/from Switzerland

Tagesanzeiger Sonntagszeitung features a long interview with boss of Swiss Railways SBB Vincent Ducrot - you can read the whole interview here (free registration required). The headline strikes us as slightly off. "Nachtzüge werden nie profitabel sein" "Night trains will never be profitable" he says. Perhaps

Analysis

BaWü Transport Minister Hermann is right - "rail isn't always a viable alternative" - not yet anyway

How Germany makes the transition to a carbon neutral economy is becoming a major topic in the election campaign for September's Bundestag election. The extent to which banning or stopping certain behaviours is legitimate, or whether persuading people to change their behaviour is a better route, is a

Analysis

Von der Leyen promises €85bn for sustainable transport - night train rolling stock would be an ideal use for it!

Speaking in the European Parliament earlier this week, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen set out some details of European Union Member States' post-COVID national recovery and resilience plans, and gave some details of the scale of the budget for transport: Let me give you some

Analysis

More innovation in fast freight than in fast night trains in Italy, and new night trains with seats only in Germany

Back in 2018, Trenitalia began an experiment called "Mercitalia Fast" - using a converted ETR-500 300km/h high speed train to convey light freight at high speed. You can read more about the project here. Now Trenitalia has announced a new overnight service, likewise using a ETR-500, connecting