When it was announced that Virgin Trains was successful in being allocated maintenance depot capacity at Temple Mills in east London, there was a sort of reaction “we’ll that will mean that Virgin will be the competitor to Eurostar then.” But no sooner had the decision been made that I started […]
So there will not be a Basel – Malmö night train from the spring of 2026. Switzerland’s parliament did not approve the subsidy to allow it to run. Without the 10 million CHF the parliament refused to grant to get this going (from a wider fund of 47 million CHF […]
Dear Alberto, It is a little odd for me, a blogger and campaigner, to be writing an open letter to you as Executive Director of Community of European Railways (CER). But the combination of circumstances I have faced today on a cross border journey involving trains operated by two of […]
*** This post is an adapted version of one part of my #CrossChannelRail Project Final Report *** Let’s get one thing out of the way first: the problems here are nothing to do with the Avelia Horizon trains being double deck. The loading gauge in the Channel Tunnel and HS1 […]
After three weeks of research on the ground in spring 2025, dozens of follow conversations, and plenty of desk research, today I finally published the conclusions report from my #CrossChannelRail project – you can download the PDF of the report here. The stations map is also available in a zoomable […]
The latest setback in the entry into service of the new Régiolis fleet for France-Germany cross border services: now there is a problem with the emergency brakes, Le Republicain Lorrain reported yesterday. While the trains are OK to operate in France, but they do not respect the standards on the […]