Quick takes

A collection of 50 posts

Austria

TimeOut makes a right hash of the new Milano-München trains story

Christian Hunt (I was a guest on his podcast) just sent me this article from TimeOut about proposed Milano-München trains, and asked me if I could do some quick analysis of it. I have already written one piece about this proposed route here, but TimeOut makes such a complete mess

Italy

Viral rubbish about railways, this time about trains in Italy

This popped up in my Facebook feed just now: It links here. The graphic has 2.5k reactions, 375 comments, and 468 shares. The problem? Yeah, it's pretty much ALL wrong. Mi O My Italy who posted it posted the right km/h to mph conversion in their

Belgium

European Sleeper Bruxelles-Amsterdam-Berlin - you better know it exists!

In rail nerd circles we've had our eye on the launch of the European Sleeper service for some time - the new privately operated night train that will run Bruxelles-Amsterdam-Berlin, and eventually will be extended to Prague. As was announced recently in the company's newsletter, tickets

Denmark

When DPA gets it wrong about railways, the whole of the German media gets it wrong

Süddeutsche Zeitung. Hamburger Morgenpost. Bild. Stern. T-Online. NDR. RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland. Zeit. FAZ. They all wrote yesterday about the "new" night train Hamburg-Stockholm that - according to all the stories - had its premiere yesterday. The problem? The train has been running since 1st September 2022. Nothing new happened

France

Taking apart Euronews's puff piece about the new TGVs

One of the aims of this new "Quick takes" category here is for me to write things something longer than a toot or tweet, but not as well thought out as longer-form blog posts. So here goes. This toot - boosted into my Mastodon home feed by Aarne

Germany

Bike parking at Berlin Hbf

Today I made a rather unusual trip to Berlin Hbf - I was not actually departing on a train anywhere! Instead the purpose of my trip was to a meeting for some media work - I will post more about that in due course. But the trip gave me the

Quick takes

A new departure: transport commentary has its own site

For a long time all my analysis of railway policy was bundled in with the rest of the things I have written over the years about other topics - Brexit, EU politics, UK politics and technology. But as I want to work more on railway issues, and develop campaigns and

European Union

ChatGPT vs. Adina Vălean - the machine does a solid job

One of my repeated frustrations when working on railway policy in the European Union is how imprecise and woolly the communication from policy makers in the area is. This is in particular the case when European Commissioner for Transport Adina-Ioana Vălean talks about railways. So as ChatGPT is now available

Belgium

You are invited to the funeral for the Mons 🇧🇪 - Aulnoye-Aymeries 🇫🇷 train

One of the strangest experiences in my #CrossBorderRail trip this summer was as the only passenger on the Mons to Aulnoye-Aymeries train - it even features in my summary video. Given that the one I took departs Mons at 06:04 then I suppose that was no surprise. And then,

European Union

Bloomberg publishes new interactive website about night trains in Europe

Entitled "Europe Asks Travelers to Ditch Planes for Night Trains", Bloomberg has published a sort of interactive guide to night trains in Europe, and what the European Union is trying to do to solve the night train conundrum. It's not all quite right in the technical

European Union

A rail postcard from Passow (Uckermark)

Dear Violeta, It has been a little while since I last wrote you a postcard from one of my cross-border rail trips. But this week I took a little journey from Berlin to Szczecin / Stettin in West Pomerania in Poland, represented in the European Parliament by Bogusław Liberadzki - who

Belgium

A rail postcard from Brussels

(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

Belgium

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

European Union

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 -

European Union

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

European Union

A rail postcard from Berlin Südkreuz

Dear Violeta, I have had plenty of time to contemplate this postcard to you. Most of the day in fact, as I've wasted that long trying to get to the bottom of what ought to be a rather simple cross-border railway problem. Later this week - on Thursday

European Union

A rail postcard from Mannheim

Dear Violeta, Since my postcard from Forst (Lausitz) in December I've travelled the length and breadth of Germany by rail (even stopping off to hear you speak at the Schwarkopf Stiftung in Berlin), and today I am sending you a virtual postcard from Mannheim. I have no idea

European Union

A rail postcard from Forst (Lausitz)

Dear Violeta*, I'm a regular long distance rail traveller, and when things used to go wrong with EU-wide rail I would write postcards here on my blog to your predecessor, Siim Kallas. You can find old postcards from Hendaye, Göteborg and Liège. This is my first postcard to

Belgium

A rail postcard from Liège

Dear Siim, I'm writing to you today from Liège. In one way this is a surprise, in that I am not supposed to be in Liège, but judging from experience I suppose it was inevitable I was going to have to write to you from here at some

Quick takes

A rail postcard from Göteborg

Dear Siim, I hope you liked my last e-postcard from Hendaye. Today I am writing to you from Göteborg, Sweden. I’m only writing this from the comfort of the train south of Sweden’s second city because I’m lucky – my train from Oslo arrived 2 minutes early, at

European Union

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.

France

Paris, 114 km

The early spring sunshine is setting behind a straggle of clouds strewn across the agricultural plains of that non-descript part of France somewhere between Bourgogne and Paris. In the blink of an eye we’ll be looping around Paris and heading north to Brussels. But before that, a pause, for

Quick takes

DB Schenker takes to the rails in the UK

It was a small flash of white on maroon, but it meant so much - the DB Schenker logo on the side of a Class 60 UK railway engine somewhere between Chesterfield and Derby on 3rd October, out of the window from my Sheffield-London train. If anyone can help improve

Quick takes

The 0805 to St Pancras International

I was on it - the first ever 0805 Eurostar train from Brussels Midi to London St Pancras International on 15th November, the 2nd day of operation of the new high speed line. The line itself is relatively unexciting - a quick dip in a tunnel under the Thames at

Quick takes

OK, being community spirited is not such a good idea

On my wave of being socially responsible in London (see this post), I decided to do the same again and try to prevent my fellow passengers on the Stansted Express last night getting stuck at Tottenham Hale. But this time I encountered opposition and inaction. Maybe that will teach me