Quick takes

Germany, Quick takes

Bike parking at Berlin Hbf

15.02.2023 1 comment

Today I made a rather unusual trip to Berlin Hbf – I was not actually departing on a train anywhere! Instead the purpose of my trip was to a meeting for some media work – I will post more about that in due course. But the trip gave me the […]

Quick takes

A new departure: transport commentary has its own site

14.02.2023 1 comment

For a long time all my analysis of railway policy was bundled in with the rest of the things I have written over the years about other topics – Brexit, EU politics, UK politics and technology. But as I want to work more on railway issues, and develop campaigns and […]

European Union, Quick takes

ChatGPT vs. Adina Vălean – the machine does a solid job

08.02.2023 0 comments

One of my repeated frustrations when working on railway policy in the European Union is how imprecise and woolly the communication from policy makers in the area is. This is in particular the case when European Commissioner for Transport Adina-Ioana Vălean talks about railways. So as ChatGPT is now available […]

Belgium, France, Quick takes

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

07.12.2022 0 comments

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, as […]

Quick takes

Open source mapping tools

05.04.2022 0 comments

One of the headaches when planning the #CrossBorderRail trip was to be able to map railway routes adequately accurately. The number of railway routing tools available in public is considerably fewer than for road transport! But on this – as on so many other railway topics – it was a […]

European Union, Quick takes

Bloomberg publishes new interactive website about night trains in Europe

10.05.2021 0 comments

Entitled “Europe Asks Travelers to Ditch Planes for Night Trains“, Bloomberg has published a sort of interactive guide to night trains in Europe, and what the European Union is trying to do to solve the night train conundrum. It’s not all quite right in the technical detail, but it sure […]