Analysis Archives - Page 3 of 20

The postcard marathon

It was a nice idea. Get myself out of the digital-only communication means on my blog and on Twitter, and go back to old and friendly forms of travel writing – postcards! But not any old postcards… Self-printed postcards, 2 for each day of the #CrossBorderRail project, home made and[Read More…]

15.08.2022 0 comments

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 going to be too[Read More…]

30.05.2022 2 comments

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: Transport: Save money, protect the climate ?‍♀️?‍♂️????@IPCC_CH pic.twitter.com/M04fFglFmN — ?‍♀️?‍♂️??⚡ (@TUMInitiative) April 5, 2022 And this New York Times story entitled In Europe, It’s Planes vs. Trains. For Many Travelers, Rail[Read More…]

06.04.2022 2 comments

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 way we want[Read More…]

01.04.2022 3 comments

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 discussion[Read More…]

24.02.2022 1 comment

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 on our[Read More…]

23.02.2022 3 comments

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[Read More…]

17.02.2022 0 comments

Analysis

Reflections on rail advocacy in EU politics

That the European Union needs to get more passengers and freight onto its railways is a no-brainer. Europe has a dense network of railways, with a lot of them in reasonable condition, a decent percentage electrified, and plenty of lines allowing trains to run at a good speed. With roads[Read More…]

17.02.2022 3 comments

What Germany needs to do about night trains

The governments of France, Italy and Sweden are actively thinking about how they can renew night train networks in those countries. Austrian Railways ÖBB, notably in partnership with Swiss Railways SBB, is investing heavily in new night train carriages and proposing to open new routes – and is backed by[Read More…]

09.02.2022 2 comments

Where we stand with the need to order new night trains: the EU, every government, every operator assessed

When I started Trains for Europe in mid-2021, the demand was that the European Union organises the procurement of a fleet of new night trains. Now – 8 months on – it is time to take stock of what has(n’t) happened in the interim. We started with the assumption that[Read More…]

26.01.2022 0 comments