EU railway ticketing proposals are out. What now?

In the Newsletter this week
Analysis: EU railway ticketing proposals are out. What now?
Bullshit Meter: Berlin - Oslo ICE direct train in 2028
Good week: FS Engineering wins a contract in Serbia
Bad week: Only the length of the delay is a Wunder by now - Wunderline re-opening delayed again
Very bad week: Track fault damages 60 RER trains in Paris
Everyone messed up this week: Iryo - Renfe maintenance dispute ends up in court
Elsewhere this week: In the media about the Passenger Package
Photo of the week: Hop On the Connecting Europe Express

Newsletter 017, Friday 15th May 2026.
Subscriber-only newsletter, sent every Friday at 14:00 CET.

EU railway ticketing proposals are out. What now?

In last week's newsletter I outlined what to look out for in what is now to be known as the "Passenger Package" (Commission page about it here), three legislative proposals from the European Commission that address the future of railway ticketing in the EU.

This week I wrote three detailed public articles about the proposals - how the European Commission ended up with a proposal both radical and unworkable, what to do to make it more workable, and why the state owned railways being so incoherently furious about it doesn't really help anyone. There is also a detailed critique from ERPU here.

Had I been trying to solve these ticketing issues I would have not done it this way, but we are where we are.

However I think the proposals as drafted do not make anything worse for any passenger, and do make some things better for some sorts of passengers in some circumstances, so that is a welcome step forward.

I still have this nagging impression in my head that the European Commission has a rather narrow concept of the sort of cross border railway passenger they want to reach with this proposal: someone who goes on holiday once a year, and needs to be tempted to take the train rather than the plane.

But there are all sorts of other cross border passengers - people making business trips, people who are regular rail travellers nationally and need to add on an international leg once in a while, and people with rail passes and reduction cards of various sorts. All of these groups are at best only partially catered for in the "single ticket" system the European Commission has chosen to pursue.

How to do that can go in two directions - either tightening up how to get the "single ticket" or better working out what to do in cases where such a ticket is not available for passengers, because whatever the Commission says, it is easy to work out cases where that could happen.

The proposals will now move to the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, and both will propose a whole slew of amendments. It is going to take at least twelve months before the Regulations are going to be agreed.

Personally I am going to be following all of this as closely as I can, and do my best to provide updates here in this weekly newsletter. The first opportunity to discuss all of this with numerous other experts from the sector will be at the EPF Conference 5-6 June in Maastricht. But given I have no budget whatsoever to do lobbying work, there are going to be some major limits to what I can accomplish here compared to those with much deeper pockets, but I will do what I can.

All my articles about the ticketing topic can be found here.

Bullshit Meter: Berlin - Oslo ICE direct train in 2028

According to DB there is going to be a daily direct train from Berlin to Oslo, via Hamburg, København and Göteborg, running from summer 2028. DB's news story about it is here.

I am not altogether convinced by this idea, but I think it will happen. First of all a trip time of something like 14 hours is hellish long. Second, the ICE L trains built by Talgo are not running correctly within Germany yet - it strikes me promising such an ambitious route might be a little presumptuous. Third, two direction changes (in København H and Göteborg C) make it operationally tricky, not least as the ICE-L driving control cars are not yet approved (maybe this happens by 2028). Fourth, given the many sections of fragile infrastructure - especially between Norway and Sweden, and between Denmark and Germany, the chances that this runs reliably look rather low.

Honestly I would prefer a solid hourly service Hamburg - København, and every 2 hours København - Oslo, than this irregular extremely long trip. But I do think DB, together with Danish counterpart DSB and Norwegian Vy will nevertheless try this.

All previous Bullshit Meter posts can be found here.

Good week: FS Engineering wins a contract in Serbia

Somehow, in a piecemeal fashion, Serbia is starting to turn away from China for the renovation of its railway. A few weeks ago it was CAF (rather than CRRC) being given the contract to build new commuter trains for Beograd, and this week it is Italian company FS Engineering being given the contract for the renovation of the Ruma - Šabac - Zvornik (OpenRailwayMap) line, with the railway continuing into Bosnia from Zvornik. Story from Ferrovie.info here. Having travelled the line in 2024 I can confirm this renovation cannot come soon enough!

Meanwhile a contract has also been signed in Croatia for the renovation of the Dugo Selo - Novska section (OpenRailwayMap) of the mainline from Zagreb to Tovarnik, the old mainline all the way to Beograd. Having travelled on this one with Vlado Vince a couple of weeks ago, this one is urgently needed too!

Bad week: Only the length of the delay is a Wunder by now - Wunderline re-opening delayed again

It is one of the most frustrating sagas in cross-border rail in Europe - the ten year interruption of trains between Groningen (Netherlands) and Leer (Germany), the so called Wunderline.

Now the Friesenbrücke - damaged by a ship collision in 2015 - has finally been repaired, but the track works on the German side are still not done. So rather than re-opening before the summer season, it will now be September 2026 before the line is open again. Until, one presumes, some other problem will crop up. All the background from RTV Noord here, link found thanks to Suzanne Veerman.

Very bad week: Track fault damages 60 RER trains in Paris

A few weeks ago in the newsletter I reported on an issue of dozens of trains in Denmark damaged by an overhead wire problem.

Now something not too dissimilar - 60 trains on RER Line J in Paris have wheels damaged by a track problem. The issues started back in April, as reported by Le Parisien, have still not fully been resolved - the headaches for commuters on the line are ongoing. Track maintenance might not be sexy, but if you do not do it correctly you end up with major headaches!

Thanks Graeme Hilton for pointing me towards this one!

Everyone messed up this week: Iryo - Renfe maintenance dispute ends up in court

Trying to liberalise a railway ends up with headaches when it comes to train maintenance, sooner or later. Trenitalia has concluded in France that it needs its own maintenance facilities as it cannot enter SNCF facilities, but for its Iryo subsidiary in Spain it pursued a different course - liberalisation in Spain foresaw a process whereby rivals to Renfe could use the state operator's facilities. Only Renfe has not been able to grant Iryo what it needs, so the dispute has ended up in the courts. Trenvista has all the background.

Renfe alleges granting capacity to Iryo will mean it can run fewer trains, and that will reduce its revenue, while Iryo says transporting the trains to Italy for maintenance instead will leave it with a hefty bill. And Iryo's initial promise to build its own facilities never materialised.

It is all rather unsightly, but given there does seem to be some limited capacity at Renfe's two main maintenance facilities, maybe once everyone has calmed down, the courts can force a solution?

Thanks to Alan Grant for pointing me towards this one.

Elsewhere this week: In the media about the Passenger Package

It was a busy week of media work - my take on the European Commission's Passenger Package was in the FT, Deutschlandfunk, European Correspondent, Green Mobility Magazine and Euractiv.

Photo of the week: Hop On the Connecting Europe Express

Back in 2021 a special train toured Europe - the Connecting Europe Express. The slogan: Hop On! Maybe that got one step closer this week?

Photo Rights

All photos in this edition are taken by Jon Worth. Bullshit Meter images always have photo rights listed directly on the image.