Jon Worth

European, originally a Brit, became German, moved to France. Runs #CrossBorderRail project, writes a newsletter about railways. Green, lives happily without a car Normally stuck on a train, stuck in a village, or escaping either on a folding bicycle

Analysis

Fixing France's railways - what would I do?

This morning I gave a presentation about solving the problems of Europe's railways at an event organised by BEUC and hosted by UFC Que Choisir in Paris. Plenty of the debate centred on the problems of rail in France (and Spain) I documented during my #CrossBorderRail project. "

European Union

A diagram to explain EU cross border rail passengers rights - and to push for political change

I managed to make a bit of a name for myself throughout the Brexit process by turning the complexities of the it into complex flow diagrams. I've used similar techniques to explain party leadership processes in UK and Germany, how to choose a Bundesliga team to support, and

Analysis

If COVID is now endemic, it's time to discuss permanent changes to the way we behave - like wear-a-mask zones on long distance trains

Christian Drosten has today stated that the COVID pandemic is over, and the virus is now endemic. That has led, rather predictably, to the demand that all Corona protection measures be lifted in Germany - FDP Justice Minister Buschmann was the swiftest to make this demand today. But that COVID is

Analysis

The 49 Euro Ticket / Deutschlandticket - the ticket that no one really wants?

Back in the summer of 2022 it was party time - almost literally - for passengers on German public transport. For the months of June, July and August it cost just 9 Euro a month, flat rate, to use regional and local public transport anywhere in Germany (basically pretty much anything except

Analysis

Deutschlandticket - 49 Euro Ticket - FAQ

Meine Mastodon Feeds sind voll mit Fragen, wie das neue 49 Euro Ticket (auch als Deutschlandticket bekannt) für den öffentlichen Nahverkehr in Deutschland funktioniert. Deshalb werde ich in diesem Beitrag versuchen, alle häufig gestellten Fragen zum Ticket zu beantworten. Alle Angaben entsprechen dem Stand vom 26. Dezember 2022 - sobald wir

European Union

Mapping all of Europe's #CrossBorderRail lines

In the summer of 2022 I crossed all of the internal borders of the European Union (and Switzerland, Norway and Liechtenstein) you can cross by train. That ended up with 95 borders crossed (you can find all the routes I took here). But that is long way away from crossing

Analysis

European railways and the implementation gap

I was recording an episode of the Human Risk podcast with Christian Hunt this week - basically about humans and railways - and the conversation came back to what I think I ought to call the implementation gap in railway policy. "When I moved to München", Christian was telling me,

Czechia

Autumn press coverage of the #CrossBorderRail project

Guest on #RailNatter with Gareth Dennis - 4 Jan 2023 Han har krydset alle EU’s grænser i tog i 2022. Nu er han mest af alt bare sur Information - 3 Jan 2023 - Mathias Sonne Aktivisten Jon Worth har i 2022 kørt Europa tyndt og krydset alle europæiske grænser – med tog.

Belgium

You are invited to the funeral for the Mons 🇧🇪 - Aulnoye-Aymeries 🇫🇷 train

One of the strangest experiences in my #CrossBorderRail trip this summer was as the only passenger on the Mons to Aulnoye-Aymeries train - it even features in my summary video. Given that the one I took departs Mons at 06:04 then I suppose that was no surprise. And then,

Analysis

Why Interrail is structurally incapable of fixing the seat reservation problems with its passes

During my #CrossBorderRail project in the summer of 2022 I needed to take regional trains Badajoz-Merida and Merida-Madrid in Spain, and these trains require compulsory seat reservations. Buying a combined ticket and reservation online for these trains is no problem, but Interrail pass holders need just a seat

Analysis

Why are Europe's railways a mess? Our public diagnosis of the problem falls short

Another day, another earnest column in a broadsheet newspaper listing the problems with Europe's railways - this time it's Die Zeit. We should fly less, we need more high speed trains, we need more night trains, plans for more have come to nothing, why is infra investment

Analysis

Bruxelles - Köln, and decision makers' disconnection from reality

There is no international railway line I have travelled more often than Bruxelles - Köln. A good part of my life since my teenage years on language exchanges in the mid-1990s in Verviers and Lahnstein, through to professional life today in my early forties as a self employed person living

Belgium

Mons-Aulnoye - Belgium and France close a cross border passenger railway line

It was one of the most surreal experiences of the #CrossBorderRail project: to be the only passenger on an international train for its entire trip. It even made it into my summary video. It happened on Day 1, at the Belgium-France border, between Mons and Aulnoye-Aymeries - and you

Analysis

I ought to work more on European railway topics - but how?

For the period spanning roughly 2015 to 2019, Brexit was my prime political preoccupation. Analysing what would happen next, and doing plenty of media work about the twists and turns of the sorry saga. When Boris Johnson won the December 2019 General Election it was time to step away from

Analysis

A different solution for night trains - a flexible leasing and operations company?

From the start of my Trains for Europe campaign I have argued that the absence of enough couchette cars and sleeping cars is the main constraint on the expansion of night train services. You cannot run more trains unless you literally have more carriages. I do not deny there are

Germany

Germany's 49 Euro Ticket Deutschlandticket - a FAQ

My Mastodon and Twitter feeds have been full of people asking about how Germany's new 49 Euro public transport ticket (also known as Deutschlandticket) is going to work. So here in this post I will try to give answers to all the frequently asked questions about the ticket!

Analysis

Illegal and systematic non-Schengen compliant border controls at Frankfurt (Oder), 31 August 2022 - every train controlled, every train Poland-Berlin delayed

One of the most unpleasant episodes during my #CrossBorderRail project - where I crossed every internal border of the EU you can cross by train - happened at Frankfurt (Oder) in Germany on 24th June, when arriving from Poland. Already four hours late due to a problem on the Polish network, the

Analysis

Autonomy, reliability, and public transport

In Daniel Pink's classic lecture about motivation and drive for the RSA, he talks about autonomy and the desire to be self directed. In recent weeks I have been wondering about this when it comes to public transport timetables. What constraints on a person's autonomy are

Analysis

Europe's railways: unable to play the role they should in the climate transition

Two interesting pieces of information about transport and the climate transition crossed my timeline yesterday. This tweet from TUMI: https://twitter.com/TUMInitiative/status/1511405279103045635 And this New York Times story entitled In Europe, It’s Planes vs. Trains. For Many Travelers, Rail Is the Way to Go. The problem

Italy

A previous trip to Gorizia - Nova Gorica

One of the joys of preparing the website for this project has been to look back over the pictures taken at previous trips to some of these borders within the EU. Gorizia (IT) - Nova Gorica (SI) is one of the most fascinating, not least because the border between the two

Analysis

Night trains, scale and standardisation

I listened in to the Back on Track Belgium conference last week, and the founder of a startup night train company said something interesting. "The reason we are against things like night train rolling stock pools," he stated, "is that means we cannot configure the trains the

Guides

How to use Deutsche Bahn's De Connect tickets for train trips between Germany and London

Background Deutsche Bahn used to sell tickets called London Spezial that offered incredible value train tickets from Germany to London, changing onto the Eurostar in Brussels. These tickets were discontinued in March 2020, officially due to a change of Eurostar's IT systems, but more likely because they were

Analysis

Decarbonise rail: diagrams, battery trains, and a visit to Stadler's plant in Pankow

Rail might correctly consider itself the greenest transport mode, but there is nevertheless plenty railways can do to decarbonise - not least by doing away with diesel as the primary fuel to power trains on non-electrified lines. The question then comes: how best to do that? Anyone who follows the

Analysis

A consortium to order night train carriages?

At the start Trains for Europe had two major questions: how could the European Union organise the procurement of a fleet of night train carriages, and how many carriages would you even need to run enough lines for which there is a market in Europe? We're still working

Analysis

Open Letter - Trains to Kaunas

Back in January a post on the TrainTracks.eu blog by Sebastian Wilken caught my eye - the post rated how easy it was to get to the three European Capitals of Culture this year (Esch ??, Novi Sad ?? and Kaunas ??) by train. I can confirm the trip to Novi Sad is