Earlier this month European Sleeper announced its first route – Brussels-Amsterdam-Berlin-Prague – and the news was gushing. Euronews covered the story, saying how it was driven by flight shame, TimeOut talked of a “a ton of cool new sleeper trains“, and Travel+Leisure talked about a “major upgrade” of night services. […]
A friend alerted me to this tweet earlier today, knowing full well a combination of political nerdiness and geographic geekery would appeal to me. And since then I have been playing the New York Times “Can you guess how these neighbourhoods voted?” game and wondering about… the political geography of […]
In 2009 I asked my parents to buy me a bicycle trailer as a birthday present. It was a Croozer Cargo, original 2003-2013 model (no longer manufactured, but you can find the manual for it as a PDF here), and cost £160 back then (about €200). Looking back little could […]
🆕 17.2.2021 – Now 100 Towers mapped on Google Street View and loaded into Geoguessr! 🆕 It was one of those COVID-lockdown walks – go and explore every last street in my neighbourhood. At Bergholzstrasse 11 (edge of Tempelhof towards Neukölln) I stumbled across a replica Eiffel Tower made of […]
Trains are a good thing. Capable of shipping huge quantities of people and freight over long distances and doing so without most of the downsides of road or air transport. Politicians of pretty much any political colour will be happy to say they are pro-rail. 2021 is even European Year of […]
I have set foot in the Swiss town of Biel/Bienne more often than I care to remember, and for strictly 6 minutes each time. For that is where the Basel SBB-Lausanne InterCity train crosses the Zürich HB-Genève service, and as my trips are always Basel SBB – Genève, that’s where […]
It’s finally happening. Almost 8 years late, Berlin Brandenburg Airport is at last opening this coming Saturday (31 October), and that means Tegel Airport will finally close by 8 November. That has prompted another round of outpourings of emotion about the old Tegel. So einen Flughafen wie Berlin-Tegel wird es nie […]
From the doldrums of a few years ago – when Deutsche Bahn left the business of running night trains completely – this mode of transport is back. Or at least in terms of public attention it’s back. Snälltåget has bold plans for Sweden to Germany services in 2021, and the […]
This tweet and news story from The Netherlands caught my eye this morning – “Dutch Railways will make trains to Berlin and Brussels much faster: “We want to seduce air passengers”” the title says. Whether prioritising that route – to get people off planes – even makes sense is open […]
Hey journalists! I’m glad to see you’re writing about trains! ÖBB running its first NightJet to Brussels seems to have got you into a particular frenzy. It’s amazing what a bit of red carpet at Gare du Midi, and Martin Selmayr on board, can do to generate a bit of […]
A few weeks back a friend and I were offered a Riese und Müller Birdy that dates from 2001. The hope was that we could make something of it and use it, as the thing had been sitting in a storage room unused for more than 5 years. The bike itself […]
“Jon, did you know?” a friend asked me today. “There’s now Eurostar Brussels to Amsterdam and it’s cheaper than the Thalys!” As a rail nerd I did of course know it exists but I have not had the chance to take it yet. But that gave me the idea for a […]