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 […]
Recent Posts
#ZugGegenFlug – it’s on, but not quite yet…
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 […]
Modernising a Dahon – MINI folding bicycle
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 […]
Labour: a new relationship with the EU
An excellent Twitter thread by Alistair King caught my attention yesterday, critiquing Keir Starmer’s supposed new slogan “make Brexit work”. Meanwhile Andrew Adonis summed it up visually with this: “Make Brexit Work” pic.twitter.com/ExqjoKThal — Andrew Adonis (@Andrew_Adonis) November 7, 2021 Aside from the snarky tweet, there is a nugget of […]
#ZugGegenFlug – an idea
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 […]
What the European Commission ought to do: an annual index of cross border rail in Europe
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 […]
How to book a Stockholm-Hamburg train ticket, using the Stockholm-Malmö night train
*** 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 […]
When the personal is political (and why I am now building a campaign about railways)
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 […]
From Split to Kraków by train. Or maybe not?
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 […]
For now, the EU doesn’t have to care about what Brits think of it
This tweet caught my eye this morning: Underlines the problem facing the EU as retaliatory steps liable only to reinforce this perception. The EU may be an effective negotiator, but it is pretty terrible when it comes to comms. https://t.co/zaBwCAtf5L — Anand Menon (@anandMenon1) August 2, 2021 My first reaction: […]
A trip to Wendisch Rietz – an example of car-free mobility
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 […]
An annual cross-border rail index – a means to assess what’s going on with EU wide rail?
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 […]