On 27th September, a removal truck will pull up outside the building in Berlin Neukölln I currently call home, and into it will go my belongings. My time in Berlin will be over. I’ll race ahead of the truck in a train, and from that evening Ravières (population: 719) in […]
European Union
30 trains costing €376 million for France-Germany services – parked up without any prospect of operations until 2027
Regional rail services between France and Germany are poor, but change is supposed to be around the corner. A fleet of new Régiolis trains for the these services has been ordered and built (and I set out to find them) but when the operations of these trains will start, and […]
Note to the new EU Transport Commissioner: fixing cross border rail ticketing will help millions of Europeans, and can secure your legacy
Dear 2024 nominee for European Commissioner for Transport, Congratulations on your nomination. Being Transport Commissioner is a massive challenge, and an enormous privilege. As pretty much all of us living in the EU use some sort of transport every day, what you do is going to have an impact on […]
North Macedonia’s phantom rail line, and why I am worried they’re repeating the error at the other end of the country
The railway line from Thessaloniki (Greece) to Bitola (North Macedonia) via Florina has a long history. It was completed in 1894, before the Balkan Wars in 1913 resulted in the final 17km ending up in Yugoslavia. Trains continued to run on the cross border section until 1987, and then ceased, […]
Rail Baltica: better informed but none the wiser
There is was. The sign in the middle of nowhere: Kaisma. The village of 119 inhabitants that is to get a Rail Baltica station. The village – if you can call it that – was a little further on. A cluster of houses and a bus stop. And then even […]
Schlimmer geht immer – rumours about the transport portfolio in the next European Commission
Edit: it looks like this danger has been averted. Phew! See Manual Müller’s updated list of Commission nominees here. “Schlimmer geht immer” the Germans say. “It can always get worse” As regular readers of this blog know, I am not the biggest fan of current European Commissioner for Transport, Adina-Ioana […]
