Cross border rail Archives

Open Letter – Trains to Kaunas

Back in January a post on the TrainTracks.eu blog by Sebastian Wilken caught my eye – the post rated how easy it was to get to the three European Capitals of Culture this year (Esch ??, Novi Sad ?? and Kaunas ??) by train. I can confirm the trip to[Read More…]

17.02.2022 0 comments

Analysis

What the European Commission ought to do: an annual index of cross border rail in Europe

When you travel by rail Europe-wide as much as I do (and also spend as much time debating rail policy in Europe as I do when I am not travelling), you end up with an overwhelming impression: cross border rail does not work as well as train travel within one[Read More…]

18.10.2021 0 comments

Analysis

An annual cross-border rail index – a means to assess what’s going on with EU wide rail?

So goodbye Thello. A strange open access rail operator, providing night trains on the Paris – Milano – Venezia route, and daytime trains on the Marseille – Nice – Genova – Milano route, suspended thanks to COVID, and, now we know, never to return. Cue activists writing disgruntled letters, and[Read More…]

12.07.2021 1 comment

Analysis

Why is the Berlin-Amsterdam train so slow? And why is it so hard to do anything about it?

This tweet and news story from The Netherlands caught my eye this morning – “Dutch Railways will make trains to Berlin and Brussels much faster: “We want to seduce air passengers”” the title says. Whether prioritising that route – to get people off planes – even makes sense is open[Read More…]

27.08.2020 13 comments

Analysis

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[Read More…]

14.11.2016 0 comments

A rail postcard from Hendaye

Dear Siim*, Although we have never met, you seem familiar to me. I follow all your upbeat reports on Twitter about the bright future of European rail, and your great liberalisation plans, and investments in trans-European networks. Well Siim, for me as a traveller, I’m not feeling it. I am[Read More…]

30.11.2013 0 comments

The worst international train service I’ve taken for a long time – in Switzerland! (OK, with an Italian train)

The Cisalpino joint venture between the Swiss SBB and Trenitalia no longer exists, wound up in 2009 due to failing service quality and problems with an order of new trains. The sad news is that now, with the EuroCity trains between Switzerland and Italy using some of the same railsets[Read More…]

01.09.2013 0 comments

The future of channel tunnel long distance passenger railway services

A small step forward step in the prospect of long distance high-speed train services using the channel tunnel was taken this week, with Deutsche Bahn granted a ‘Certificate B’ to operate trains through the tunnel. This has been a long time coming – in 2010 DB was talking of running[Read More…]

15.06.2013 0 comments