Back in January a post on the TrainTracks.eu blog by Sebastian Wilken caught my eye – the post rated how easy it was to get to the three European Capitals of Culture this year (Esch 🇱🇺, Novi Sad 🇷🇸 and Kaunas 🇱🇹) by train. I can confirm the trip to […]
That the European Union needs to get more passengers and freight onto its railways is a no-brainer. Europe has a dense network of railways, with a lot of them in reasonable condition, a decent percentage electrified, and plenty of lines allowing trains to run at a good speed. With roads […]
This entire blog post has been superceded by a separate campaign website! Please consult that first! When, in a quiet moment late last year, I wondered what had come of the missing rail links Michael Cramer had proposed to fix when he was a MEP, I could not have […]
In as far as there is a debate about the problems of cross border railways in Europe, one question crops up over and over: “why is there no Skyscanner for rail?” If one website can aggregate all the flights in Europe and allow a customer to compare prices and book […]
In the wider scheme of the ills of modern communication, this was a pretty minor one. In Time Out’s “22 best new things to do in the world in 2022” this was at number 17: 17. Ride new Regiojet sleeper train all the way across Europe – Prague, Czech Republic, […]
Back in 2015, Michael Cramer MEP published his list of missing links in the European railway network. Cramer – a politician from the Greens-EFA group and chair of the TRAN Committee of the European Parliament at the time – had the idea that smaller, cheaper, lower scale cross border railway […]
This tweet has been doing the rounds, claiming to map the longest train journey in the world: The new longest possible train journey in the world. pic.twitter.com/W9ajgTyY0b — Epic Maps 🗺️ (@Locati0ns) December 12, 2021 The problem is… it’s not right. At the time of writing this route is impossible […]
I am writing this blog post at the end of a 5 day trip from Berlin to Bled in Slovenia by train and back, through the 4th wave of the COVID pandemic and crossing Austria in lockdown. I’ve been tweeting about the trip as I went along on the hashtag […]
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 […]