Dear Violeta, Have you ever changed trains in Baden Baden (in Baden-Württemberg between Freiburg (Breisgau) and Karlsruhe)? I guess not. It’s a pretty unlikely place to have to hop off a TGV and onto a ICE, but that’s what I had to do there today – because of yet another […]
Latest Posts
Why securing Europe’s railways against terrorism shouldn’t be attempted
So apparently this morning Ségolène Royal, Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, has announced that security gates will be built to access Thalys trains: https://twitter.com/jul_mm/status/669058150729957377 De Telegraaf interprets this as meaning bag scanners, going further than La Voix du Nord does (although their story also says the gates (portiques) […]
We now have no idea what’s happening with Brussels-Strasbourg TGVs
This blog entry was published on 2nd November, and remains intact below. However, two things have happened since then. First, the Eckwersheim Derailment has led to the suspension of all TGV tests, and will mean the part of the LGV Est that the Brussels-Strasbourg service will use will not open […]
More transparency needed – an EU citizen can’t currently know when and where Schengen is suspended
On Thursday 29th October I am taking the train from Berlin to Vienna, via Nürnberg. This means I will cross the German – Austrian border at Passau. But what is the status of that border at the moment? Is Schengen suspended there, or not? This is a valid question to […]
A rail postcard from Köln
Dear Violeta, It’s only a week or so since I wrote the last postcard to you. That one didn’t receive a response – perhaps you were too busy talking to the rail industry, rather than thinking of passengers’ needs? Anyway, today at Köln Hbf things went spectacularly wrong as happens […]
Not always the cheapest train in France, and a sneaky 50 cent Belgian charge
A couple of weeks ago Seat61 had the splash that booking cross-border France-Spain TGVs would cost you more on French language websites than anywhere else (Seat61’s news page here – you have to scroll down as he has no link to individual stories). After a bit of a furore that […]