(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 […]
Tag: Deutsche Bahn
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 […]
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 […]
A rail postcard from Baden Baden
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 […]
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 […]