Analysis

A collection of 288 posts

Analysis

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

Analysis

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

Analysis

Connecting the everyday user experience with the big picture politics of French railways

There is currently an argument in France about the future of the national railway operator SNCF that goes roughly like this: better keep the whole thing together, because then some smaller places that are not profitably served can still have their trains. If we let private companies cherry pick the

Analysis

Green Signals podcast about rivals to Eurostar, and some further thoughts about the challengers

I was a guest this week on the Green Signals podcast about rivals to Eurostar and their chances of success. You can watch it here: You can likewise get it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. Also - amazingly! - the comments on Youtube are mostly constructive. That is

Analysis

Replying to the European Commission's call for evidence on revision of Rail Passenger Rights

On 20th August the European Commission heavily promoted (Bluesky, LinkedIn, Mastodon) its public consultation on the revision of the Rail Passenger Rights Regulation. As a few people asked me what I thought of this process, here's my response - part analysis of the problem, and part list of

Analysis

A high speed rail plan for Europe? Let's start with a high speed rail plan for France's borders

The European Commission and the state owned railway companies are getting very excited about the idea there could be a EU masterplan for high speed rail. With that in mind, let's do a little thought experiment. This started as a Bluesky thread, and has been lightly edited into

Analysis

Solar panels between the tracks on an active railway line: a dreadful idea

In Switzerland, as a test, 48 solar panels have been laid between the tracks on an active railway line between Neuchâtel and Buttes. News about it here, and cue all the feel-good-but-don't-think-twice influencers crowing about it. But let's think twice about this. First, should you install

Analysis

New Channel Tunnel entrant? You need a plan for what happens if you fail, so you can actually succeed

No company wants to enter a market thinking they are going to fail. But what happens were they to fail might have a bearing on whether they succeed in the first place. It was with this in mind that I read this morning that Virgin Trains is looking for money

Analysis

The really simple guide to what we need to fix in EU wide rail ticketing, and how

I have just been in a focus group for an academic project about cross border railways in Europe, and ticketing was one of the aspects of it. Some of the others in the discussion were ticketing people from state owned railways, some from rivals to state incumbents, and some from

Analysis

Want to rival Eurostar on Channel Tunnel routes? How do you differentiate yourself?

For three weeks in late March and early April I am running a project called #CrossChannelRail that is looking at the future of long distance high speed train services through the Channel Tunnel. The future of Eurostar and any of its potential rivals if you like. A whole lot of

Analysis

Solving the Valence-Armentières Problem - the gold standard for railway trip planning and ticket sales

Geopolitics had the Schleswig Holstein Question. Machine intelligence has the Turing Test. Jumble those up, throw in a little extra European Union complexity, and I am proud to present you the railway equivalent: the Valence-Armentières Problem. At one level the theoretical solution to the problem is simple: calculate all the

Analysis

The rail planning tool we need in Europe

It's a common question I receive on social media, and from friends offline too: "can you recommend me a platform to book rail tickets Europe wide?" And the answer is, no, I cannot. Not universally. The answer to the question is normally: "can you tell

Analysis

Bundling trip planning and ticketing together - it's not in the passengers' interest

A train trip between small or medium sized towns at opposite ends of France by train normally works like this: TER regional train to the nearest city, TGV at high speed across the country, and then a TER for the last leg. So let's take a worked example

Analysis

What should be in an EU High Speed Rail Action Plan?

"EU High Speed Network Plan Announced" screamed the headline on the Community of European Railways (CER) LinkedIn page this week. It caused me to scratch my head a bit, as there is no such plan yet - this was CER getting a bit carried away with one line

Analysis

Assumptions

I've been struggling quite a lot recently with negative reactions to what I write about railways, but not in the "you're wrong" sort of way, but a more insidious kind of casting doubt about my ability, my motivation or my knowledge. So here I

Analysis

Introducing the Rail Story Bullshit Meter

Sometimes ideas are borne from frustration. After reading for the umpteenth time on LinkedIn that Portugal will relaunch night trains to Spain in 2025 (it likely won't), I snapped. I have hence come up with a simple system to call out bullshit stories about railways - the Rail

Analysis

"here’s what a joined-up 21st-century [train] network needs" - trying to give some answers

A story entitled "I love to travel Europe by train. But here’s what a joined-up 21st-century network needs" by María Ramírez was published by The Guardian yesterday. 'I don't disagree with the piece' was the gist of my answer when asked about it

Analysis

More passengers are a problem for the railways

When - from a passenger point of view - I make the case why the EU ought to pass a Regulation to fix cross border railway ticketing, the reaction from the railway industry (especially state owned railway firms) is essentially "why should we make booking easier, because our cross

Analysis

In this peculiar world of cross border railways, the new slow Bruxelles-Paris OUIGO train makes sense

Bruxelles-Paris by Eurostar (ex-Thalys) 300km/h high speed train takes just 1 hour 22 minutes, but as anyone who has taken it in recent years can testify, the prices can be horribly high, mostly because capacity is not adequate and no one has yet entered the market against the incumbent.

Analysis

No Eurostar isn't the worst performing train company in Europe. But if you're T&E does it matter?

A message from a friend this morning: "Have you seen that piece in The Guardian saying Eurostar is the worst performing train service in Europe?" Oh what now, my heart sinking as I waited for her to send me the link. This is The Guardian's piece,

Analysis

"We can't transport more passengers because our planes are already full" - said Michael O'Leary. Never. So why are rail companies saying essentially that?

It's a pretty obvious point if you think about it. If all of Ryanair's planes were all running full, all the time, what would Michael O'Leary (CEO of Ryanair) do? He'd order more planes. And yes, that'd mean more maintenance

Analysis

Only EU law is going to solve cross border rail ticketing problems

French state owned rail operator SNCF will not sell me tickets for Italian state owned rail operator Trenitalia's trains. Trenitalia will not sell me tickets for SNCF's trains. But in Brussels both Trenitalia and SNCF want to have you believe that a rail industry initiative called

Analysis

Tzitzikostas at his EP hearing 4th November: it's time to hear HOW he wants to fix EU-wide rail ticketing

When Ursula von der Leyen's released her political guidelines for her second term as President of the European Commission, there it was - a commitment to fix railway ticketing in the EU, including passenger rights: "Cross-border train travel is still too difficult for many citizens. People should

Analysis

International rail ticketing that is customer unfriendly - that is the system working as intended. We need EU law to change the system.

Justin Scholz, a thoughtful friend of mine, sent me a link to this post by Anil Dash, entitled "Systems: The Purpose of a System is What It Does" - do read it in full. Let's have a go applying this to international railway ticketing, and use

Analysis

The Stadler RS Zero: the new solution to save the smallest branch lines

Harrachov, Czechia Adorf (Vogtland), Germany Černousy, Czechia Selb-Plößberg, Germany Holzhau, Germany Bayerisch Eisenstein, Germany On the smallest branch lines in Germany and Czechia (and even just into Poland on one line) you will find them - Stadler RS1 railbuses, with their characteristic trapezoid shaped windows. Built between 1996 and 2013