Back in June I wondered why – despite it being heavily rumoured for more than a year – Eurostar still had not signed a deal with Alstom for the purchase of 50 Avelia Horizon double deck high speed trains. These trains are to be called TGV-M in France, while Avelia […]
Latest Posts
Constraints on future Channel Tunnel operators
Sometime this autumn the UK’s Office of Rail and Road (ORR) will adjudicate on capacity allocation at Temple Mills depot in east London. Responses to ORR from Eurostar and the four other companies that seek to also enter the market for long distance trains through the Channel Tunnel can be […]
Why you probably should not re-gauge railways in Europe
Once in a while the debate pops up that some country should re-gauge its railways – Finland being the most recent example. In this blog post I am going to delve into this issue, and explain why – in most cases – it does not make sense. But first let’s […]
SNCF’s half hearted effort to support international night trains in danger of hitting the buffers
In December 2023 the Paris-Berlin night train re-started after a 9 year hiatus. Operated as a Nighjet service by ÖBB, SNCF provided motive power for the train from Mannheim to Paris. They even put SNCF stickers on some of the carriages, and ÖBB lauded the launch of the service as […]
Two public bike tours, and a speech on board the Kulturzug Berlin-Wrocław – let’s talk #CrossBorderRail this autumn!
Starting 15th September I am back on the rails (and cycle paths!) of Europe on my #CrossBorderRail conclusions tour. You can find the whole route of the tour here (dates indicated in the data panel of the map), and the signup form for all the events here. But there are […]
Building a machine-translated railway news aggregator
One of the side effects of the fracturing of the social media landscape has been it has become harder to follow breaking news that has niche importance. If it’s the big questions of war and peace, sure, we all still see it. But what is happening in European railways – […]
