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

Bullshit Meter

Re-gauge Finland's railways to standard gauge

These ones crop up once in a while, and are not completely separate from each other - while Finland has only one standard gauge railway line, re-gauging makes no sense. But building a further one - a tunnel to Tallinn - is ridiculously expensive, and then would only make sense

Bullshit Meter

Dubai to build a rail tunnel to India

If anyone believed this you better stop reading right now.

Bullshit Meter

Berlin-Warszawa with Flixtrain

Flixtrain has two paths a day each way between Berlin and Warszawa from December 2025 - outlined here. The problem is it needs carriages that can accept 3kV dc current head end power, and at the moment it does not have any of those in its fleet. Until it either

Bullshit Meter

Portugal-Spain night trains to return in 2025

Here's the story. This one is also eminently do-able, but we do not know who would do it and, importantly, how and when. There are either old Talgo trains, or some Arco couchettes that CP acquired from Renfe that could be used for the service, but how much

Bullshit Meter

Gorizia - Nova Gorica to have passenger trains

We have a bunch of news stories (like this one) with a concrete date - 8 February. It's 3km of track with no significant engineering headaches. Trains exist, an operator exists, Gorizia and Nova Gorica are European Capital of Culture. This one is going to happen.

Bullshit Meter

Virgin Trains to rival Eurostar by 2029

Here's the story. There is something afoot with regard to a company trying to rival Eurostar - Virgin Trains is apparently ready to sign a contract "this quarter". But until they do I do not believe this will happen.

Bullshit Meter

Milano-Paris an April Fool, or not?

A landslide has blocked the track France - Italy high speed services use, and what was meant to be a closure of a few months has dragged on beyond 18 months. It is of course impossible to be sure that everything is now OK, but finally Trenitalia has announced a

Bullshit Meter

European Sleeper Amsterdam-Barcelona

Sorry Elmer van Buuren and European Sleeper, but I do not believe this one. And the only real fault is having announced this idea before realising there are two problems with it 1. France and 2. Spain European Sleeper has even itself understood this route would be a pain, and

Analysis

"here’s what a joined-up 21st-century [train] network needs" - trying to give some answers

A story entitled "I love to travel Europe by train. But here’s what a joined-up 21st-century network needs" by María Ramírez was published by The Guardian yesterday. 'I don't disagree with the piece' was the gist of my answer when asked about it

Analysis

More passengers are a problem for the railways

When - from a passenger point of view - I make the case why the EU ought to pass a Regulation to fix cross border railway ticketing, the reaction from the railway industry (especially state owned railway firms) is essentially "why should we make booking easier, because our cross

Analysis

In this peculiar world of cross border railways, the new slow Bruxelles-Paris OUIGO train makes sense

Bruxelles-Paris by Eurostar (ex-Thalys) 300km/h high speed train takes just 1 hour 22 minutes, but as anyone who has taken it in recent years can testify, the prices can be horribly high, mostly because capacity is not adequate and no one has yet entered the market against the incumbent.

European Union

When will the new Subotica - Novi Sad rail line open? There's no dodging a decision now

In the summer of 2021, in between COVID lockdowns and needing all sorts of paperwork as a result, I made a trip from Berlin to Beograd, Serbia. I will only come to your event, I told the conference organisers, if I can make the trip by train and bus. I

Analysis

No Eurostar isn't the worst performing train company in Europe. But if you're T&E does it matter?

A message from a friend this morning: "Have you seen that piece in The Guardian saying Eurostar is the worst performing train service in Europe?" Oh what now, my heart sinking as I waited for her to send me the link. This is The Guardian's piece,

From Turmantas to Nova Gorica - #CrossBorderRail improvements due in 2025

All of the borders listed are places I have been, and are among my priority borders where problems need to be fixed. I cannot claim credit for having solved any of these, but I am quite sure me repeatedly talking about them - especially Turmantas! - has likely not been

Analysis

"We can't transport more passengers because our planes are already full" - said Michael O'Leary. Never. So why are rail companies saying essentially that?

It's a pretty obvious point if you think about it. If all of Ryanair's planes were all running full, all the time, what would Michael O'Leary (CEO of Ryanair) do? He'd order more planes. And yes, that'd mean more maintenance

Analysis

Only EU law is going to solve cross border rail ticketing problems

French state owned rail operator SNCF will not sell me tickets for Italian state owned rail operator Trenitalia's trains. Trenitalia will not sell me tickets for SNCF's trains. But in Brussels both Trenitalia and SNCF want to have you believe that a rail industry initiative called

Analysis

Tzitzikostas at his EP hearing 4th November: it's time to hear HOW he wants to fix EU-wide rail ticketing

When Ursula von der Leyen's released her political guidelines for her second term as President of the European Commission, there it was - a commitment to fix railway ticketing in the EU, including passenger rights: "Cross-border train travel is still too difficult for many citizens. People should

Austria

VDV on cross border re-activation of lines - nice idea, details more sketchy

The Verband Deutscher Verkehrsunternehmen (VDV) (Association of German Transport Companies) has a detailed new website about reactivation of railway lines, and a PDF report with more detail. And one aspect of their proposals are cross-border reactivations that they have been publicising with the little infographic that I reproduce here. So

European Union

A partial #CrossBorderRail success - Deutsche Bahn Sparpreis cheap tickets now work to Strasbourg and to some other destination in Eastern France

Credit to one of my students at TU Braunschweig, Roland Sivonen, for discovering this one - Deutsche Bahn's cheap Sparpreis train tickets now work correctly from Germany to Strasbourg, and some other new destinations in France as well. In this blog post I am going to explain how

Germany

Berlin's problem with dumped cars

It is a pernicious combination. Parking on the street is free in most of Berlin, and the city's administration deficient - there is even a lack of clarity as to who is supposed to clear such wrecks. So that means Berlin is extremely slow to deal with cars

Analysis

International rail ticketing that is customer unfriendly - that is the system working as intended. We need EU law to change the system.

Justin Scholz, a thoughtful friend of mine, sent me a link to this post by Anil Dash, entitled "Systems: The Purpose of a System is What It Does" - do read it in full. Let's have a go applying this to international railway ticketing, and use

Analysis

The Stadler RS Zero: the new solution to save the smallest branch lines

Harrachov, Czechia Adorf (Vogtland), Germany Černousy, Czechia Selb-Plößberg, Germany Holzhau, Germany Bayerisch Eisenstein, Germany On the smallest branch lines in Germany and Czechia (and even just into Poland on one line) you will find them - Stadler RS1 railbuses, with their characteristic trapezoid shaped windows. Built between 1996 and 2013

European Union

"Summer 2025" for the new Régiolis trains France-Germany - Leroy and Hermann are just picking dates at random

So the new Régiolis trains are going to be running on France-Germany routes in "Summer 2025" according to Transport Minister, Baden-Württemberg Winfried Hermann and President of Région Grand Est, Franck Leroy. They may as well be picking dates at random. It is all because of delayed approval of

Analysis

Deutsche Bahn has an amazing opportunity in ticket sales, but is too blinded by Flixtrain to seize it

While clearing old belongings here (pre-move to France) I stumbled across a 2003 Interrail diary of mine, and in it were timetables for trains in Italy and Romania printed out from the website of Deutsche Bahn. Today, 21 years on, I am still using Deutsche Bahn's website to

France

How to not fall foul of SNCF's luggage rules

SNCF - for all TGV inOui and TER trains - introduced new luggage rules in February 2024, with a transition period up until mid September 2024 for their introduction, although it seems that even at the time of writing (August 2024) some SNCF staff are getting a bit over zealous