After yesterday’s news that Basel-Malmö will not happen, today there’s news that a new night train route will open up – European Sleeper is proposing to run from Bruxelles and Amsterdam to Switzerland and Milano from June 2026. Their press release about it is here (PDF). A few of relevant […]
Switzerland
A little short term subsidy for this or that route is no way to support night trains – lessons from the end of Basel-Malmö before it even 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 […]
ORR grants Virgin Trains access to Temple Mills: the low risk option
The UK’s Office of Rail and Road has today decided that Virgin Trains should have access to the Temple Mills depot in east London to maintain its future Channel Tunnel fleet, and has rejected applications from Trenitalia, Gemini and Evolyn to use the facility. It has also, importantly, rejected Eurostar’s […]
Preliminary conclusions from my #CrossChannelRail project
OK, I have to face it: I bit off more than I could chew. When I conducted the research for my #CrossChannelRail Project in March and April this year I thought I would be done with the report from the project by the end of May. And it is the […]
Podcasts and webinars galore about the future of the Channel Tunnel (thanks to #CrossChannelRail)
As I am still finalising the report from my #CrossChannelRail project in March and April, it has not stopped me getting the message out about the future of long distance through services through the Channel Tunnel, and examining the sort of lingering feeling of the tunnel somehow being an amazing […]
Solar panels between the tracks on an active railway line: a dreadful idea
In Switzerland, as a test, 48 solar panels have been laid between the tracks on an active railway line between Neuchâtel and Buttes. News about it here, and cue all the feel-good-but-don’t-think-twice influencers crowing about it. But let’s think twice about this. First, should you install solar panels in a […]
