Analysis

A collection of 296 posts

Analysis

The longest train journey in the EU

Anyone who has been following my work for a while knows I have long had a rather abstract discussion about the definition of the World's Longest Train Journey. I started calculating this back in 2021, after an incorrect map on Reddit went viral, and have updated my thoughts

Analysis

I'm not that bothered if SNCF Connect is forced to sell Trenitalia tickets, but someone has to be able to offer me both

It has been kicking off in the French Senate in the past few days on the topic of railway ticketing. The Senate wants to force SNCF Connect, the French state incumbent railway's ticketing platform, to sell tickets for trains run by SNCF's competitors on French routes

Analysis

My railway work: no shortage of meaning, but for the EU institutions that can be uncomfortable

I stumbled across an excellent essay about the EU this week: "Not a messaging problem. Why institutional narratives keep failing" by Meisoon Nasralla and Lilit Poghosyan. They write: "We are told, once again, that Europe “has a communications problem.” [...] as if proximity to citizens were an issue

Analysis

Rising fuel costs due to the Iran conflict give European railways an opportunity - can they seize it?

Go back a couple of short years to the months prior to the 2024 European Elections, and railways were trying to set their political direction. This was is in CER's manifesto (PDF): "the regulatory framework today is not fair, with railways carrying many costs and obligations not

Ticketing

Bundling up tickets and booking horizons: railways are making a problem for themselves

Last summer I faced a peculiar conundrum: the train I wanted to take from Trondheim to Oslo in Norway was already sold out before tickets for the train from Boden in Sweden to Narvik in Norway, an earlier leg of my trip, were even available for sale. The reason? Different

Analysis

Rail path dependency: how the oil crisis and the British government left SNCF with a problem in Italian tunnels

When writing my previous post about the loading gauge of SNCF's Alstom built TGV-M Avelia Horizon train being too large for Italian tunnels, I had this nag in the back of my mind: how did they get themselves into this tangle? And it is not the first time

Analysis

Confirmed: SNCF's Alstom built TGV-M Avelia Horizon trains are too large for some Italian rail lines

When Les Echos and BFM reported that SNCF's TGV-M trains (branded Avelia Horizon by their manufacturer Alstom) were too tall for Italian tunnels I could scarcely believe it. This news came in the same week as SNCF received some good news that they can get a package of

Analysis

One ticket, or more than one ticket, for my international train trip? More than one, with passenger rights, is the simpler solution

"Cross-border train travel is still too difficult for many citizens" were the words in Ursula von der Leyen's political guidelines for the 2024-2029 European Commission (PDF here). The document continues, bold is my emphasis: "People should be able to use open booking systems to purchase

Analysis

How to safely overload a high speed train (and why it matters for the debate about ticketing reform in the EU)

Imagine you're making a simple international trip: Frankfurt (Main) Hbf to Lyon Part Dieu. One change of train, in Strasbourg*. But your Frankfurt - Strasbourg train is delayed, and you miss the Strasbourg - Lyon TGV on which you were booked. What do you do? You would either

Analysis

How to fix railway ticketing in the EU

We know there is a problem with rail ticketing in the EU - anyone who has ever tried to book trains cross-border has encountered the issues. If you can find the trains you want, you often cannot get prices for the tickets. And even if you can get prices, you

A February trip to Berlin: to systematically document my #CrossBorderRail work

It's probably the aspect of a project everyone dislikes the most: documenting it all once the research phase is done. And with my #CrossBorderRail project there has been a lot of research - major tours to visit international railway lines in every corner of Europe every summer 2022-2025.

Analysis

How do I overcome my railway Groucho Marx problem?

"I Don’t Want to Belong to Any Club That Will Accept Me as a Member" Groucho Marx is supposed to have said. And I have come to the view that I am facing something similar in my railway work. "Why would any company in the railway

Analysis

Ebbsfleet or Ashford? It has to be one or the other, not both, and it needs to be Ashford

Discussion about re-opening Kent stations on HS1 between London and the Channel Tunnel is getting more interesting. The Bring Back Euro Trains campaign has been gathering public support to re-open the stations, Ashford's MP says re-opening the station in his constituency is his highest priority and is building

Analysis

I've been wrong all these years about printed train timetables (the lessons from a Montbard - Nuits-sous-Ravières train that doesn't run)

I am a child of the digital era. When I planned a first Interrail trip in 1999 Deutsche Bahn's website already had a timetable search for pretty much everything (I still have the printouts from back then). I have never bought a European Rail Timetable book, although somewhere

Analysis

Radical enough to see purpose in my work, sensible enough to propose something that can be done?

I find myself buffeted from both sides at the moment in my transport work. Am I radical enough, or too radical? Based on who's lecturing me on social media it is both, simultaneously. This quandary most importantly crops up regarding the future of the Channel Tunnel. The question

Analysis

If you were to build a depot for Channel Tunnel passenger trains, where would you build it?

When it was announced that Virgin Trains was successful in being allocated maintenance depot capacity at Temple Mills in east London, there was a sort of reaction "we'll that will mean that Virgin will be the competitor to Eurostar then." But no sooner had the decision

Analysis

Flat rate national ticketing: public transport policymaking through shock

A post by UITP Secretary General Mohamed Mezghani caught my eye on LinkedIn - it's about Spain's plan to introduce a €60 a month flat rate national public transport ticket next year, along the lines of what Germany did with Deutschlandticket. "While this plan will

Analysis

A creative solution to serve Köln Hbf en route from Frankfurt (Main) to London

One of the aspects of my #CrossChannelRail report that drew the most reaction was my conclusion that serving Köln Hbf with trains to London was too complicated, and it would better to serve Köln/Bonn Flughafen or Horrem instead - as it would be easier to secure a platform and

Analysis

A little short term subsidy for this or that route is no way to support night trains - lessons from the end of Basel-Malmö before it even started

So there will not be a Basel - Malmö night train from the spring of 2026. Switzerland's parliament did not approve the subsidy to allow it to run. Without the 10 million CHF the parliament refused to grant to get this going (from a wider fund of 47

Analysis

European Rail Passengers Union: lobbying for passengers, cross border

It has been something in the back of my mind for more than a decade: how could railway passengers be better represented to campaign for improvements in international rail? Here's a piece I wrote in 2014 about the topic. And the issue very much came to a head

Analysis

An open letter, and an invoice for €59.94, to Alberto Mazzola, boss of Community of European Railways

Dear Alberto, It is a little odd for me, a blogger and campaigner, to be writing an open letter to you as Executive Director of Community of European Railways (CER). But the combination of circumstances I have faced today on a cross border journey involving trains operated by two of

Analysis

The Avelia Horizon trains Eurostar has ordered from Alstom are not compliant with Channel Tunnel evacuation rules - what can be done about it?

*** This post is an adapted version of one part of my #CrossChannelRail Project Final Report *** Let's get one thing out of the way first: the problems here are nothing to do with the Avelia Horizon trains being double deck. The loading gauge in the Channel Tunnel and HS1

Analysis

#CrossChannelRail final report released, and the next steps

After three weeks of research on the ground in spring 2025, dozens of follow conversations, and plenty of desk research, today I finally published the conclusions report from my #CrossChannelRail project - you can download the PDF of the report here. The stations map is also available in a zoomable

Analysis

Renfe, why should we trust a word you say about ticketing?

A post popped up in my Bluesky feed from Renfe: https://bsky.app/profile/renfeoperadora.bsky.social/post/3m4xurom2is2k CER praised it, of course. And - after a bit of searching - I finally found the right link to the press release (as the one on Bluesky did not work)

Analysis

"News" that Régiolis cross border trains cannot operate in Germany is actually nothing new

The latest setback in the entry into service of the new Régiolis fleet for France-Germany cross border services: now there is a problem with the emergency brakes, Le Republicain Lorrain reported yesterday. While the trains are OK to operate in France, but they do not respect the standards on the