Further to my previous blog post about the idea, I am now happy to confirm that the #ZugGegenFlug experiment is on! I’ve partnered with multi-modal travel booking platform Omio who, as well as supporting with ideation and planning (thanks Emily, Boris and team), will be providing the tickets for participants […]
Just under 2 years ago I acquired a 2001 Birdy folding bicycle, and explained here how I upgraded it to more modern standards. Since then the Birdy has accompanied me on many business trips, especially to smaller cities with good bike infrastructure where bike hire is either expensive or non-existent […]
Mark Smith and Simon Calder are having a race today. Mark is taking the new Lumo train from London to Edinburgh, and Simon is racing him – on a flight. It’s a bit of fun, but with a serious purpose – as passengers often underestimate the time it takes them […]
When you travel by rail Europe-wide as much as I do (and also spend as much time debating rail policy in Europe as I do when I am not travelling), you end up with an overwhelming impression: cross border rail does not work as well as train travel within one […]
*** WARNING: I have never done this personally! Attempt this at your own risk! *** Anders Peterson, Associate Professor in traffic systems at Linköping University in Sweden, posed an interesting question on Twitter: An attractive train route from Sweden to continental Europe is train 3 (night train Stockholm-Malmö), Ø-train (shuttle […]
On Thursday 7th October the EU Year of Rail “Connecting Europe Express” reaches its final stop in Paris after a month criss-crossing Europe. If ever a tweet summed up the emptiness, the hollowness, of this train, it was this by Community of European Railways’ Yann Seimandi: Amazing experience and discussions […]
On Friday I was asked for the first time to present my Trains for Europe campaign at an old style offline conference in Brussels – at Friends of Europe’s European Young Leaders event. I am an alumnus of that programme, but back when I was in the scheme it was in my […]
Friends know I work on railway policy in Europe, and from time to time they tweet me about the personal difficulties they are having with railway booking. My old friend from Brussels, Anna Drozd, tweeted me today about some headaches she was having trying to find trains between Split in […]
One of my lockdown pastimes has been to explore Brandenburg, the Land that surrounds Berlin. One such trip took me to the village of Wendisch Rietz (population: 1620), south east of Berlin, and at the southern end of the lake Scharmützelsee – to walk along the edge of the lake was […]
So goodbye Thello. A strange open access rail operator, providing night trains on the Paris – Milano – Venezia route, and daytime trains on the Marseille – Nice – Genova – Milano route, suspended thanks to COVID, and, now we know, never to return. Cue activists writing disgruntled letters, and […]
On 30th June 2021 I was a speaker at the Transport Community and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Rail Summer School in Belgrade. There’s just one caveat, I told Matej Zakonjšek the Director of Transport Community who invited me: I am going to make the trip to Belgrade from Berlin by train. […]
I’m just back from speaking at a Transport Community event in Belgrade. The trip to and from Serbia, and some of the discussions at the event I was attending, were quite an eye opener (I documented much of it on Twitter here). But seeing the problems with Serbian rail with […]