After having been stuck again this morning due to lack of collaboration between EU rail firms, I started to wonder: can liberalisation of EU rail actually ever work? And, were it to ever work, what are the prerequisites to making it work? The blog entry tries to at least pose the […]
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A rail postcard from Brussels
(this is part of my Rail Postcards to the Transport Commissioner series – you can find all the other postcards here) Dear Violeta, I’d hoped to not have to write another one of these postcards to you so soon after my last one. But things go wrong all too regularly […]
A rail postcard from Aachen
Dear Violeta, Today I am writing to you from Aachen, and I am not here for the Christmas Market. I am here because I am stuck due to the immense incompetence of European railways and the lack of basic collaboration between them in the interests of passengers. This story is going […]
How do you book an Austrian train (ÖBB Nightjet) from Germany to Switzerland?
The bad news from the timetable change in December was that Deutsche Bahn stopped all its night trains. The good news was that Austrian Railways (ÖBB) has taken over some of the routes under the new brand name NightJet. If you want some background on this change I was quoted […]
Why Belgium’s plan for PNR for rail and buses/coaches must be stopped
Put yourselves in the shoes of a terrorist for a moment. You need to transport your home made bomb from Frankfurt (Main) in Germany to Brussels in Belgium. You know the plane is no good for this – they’ll check your bag. Loads of documentation is needed to hire a […]
Taking the train is a strain – Newport to Berlin case
My parents live in Newport in South Wales. I live in Berlin. I am going home for Christmas, and so – on 27th December – I want to return to Berlin. All in one day. By train. If I wanted to do this in a few weeks’ time, it would […]