Quick takes

A collection of 60 posts

Germany

What good is live tracking data if I cannot act on it? (and how to subsequently claim compensation from Flixbus, in some circumstances)

This morning I was meant to take Flixbus 1324 from Amsterdam Sloterdijk to Berlin ZOB, booked because Deutsche Bahn train drivers are striking today. Needs must and all that. The timetable for the service is departing Sloterdijk at 06:10 and arriving ZOB at 16:20, before the bus continues

Germany

Bad Muskau - Łęknica, and the joys and tensions at the Germany - Poland border

It's one of the many joys of my #CrossBorderRail project - it takes me to these amazing and sometimes slightly odd border places, and I never know quite what I am going to find when I get there. This was the case when I went to Bad Muskau - Łęknica

Belgium

Mannheim-Bruxelles in 1972, and what it tells us about Mannheim-Bruxelles today

I stumbled across this little gem on Facebook - posted by Peter Osten (one of my predecessors as President of JEF Europe) and reproduced here with his permission. It is a rail ticket from April 1972 Mannheim Hbf - Bruxelles return, and it cost DM 95.20. Look at it closely and

Cycling

Please look after your activists when they are alive - the Natenom case

Cycling activism is not really my thing - I am a regular cyclist in cities in Germany, know plenty of people who campaign for better cycling infrastructure, and follow a bunch of activists on social media. But I've never been more than a participant in Critical Mass or other

Cycling

Why Berlin can't just do as Paris does on cycling and parking policy

Paris is to hold a referendum in February 2024 to triple parking charges (to €18/hour) in parts of the city, and double them (to €12/hour) in some of the outer parts of the city. Details of exactly what is proposed here. Great idea, I am all for it.

Hungary

Budapest to Belgrade by train - from 28 November 2023

In the summer of 2021 I made a trip from Berlin to Beograd, Serbia (this blog post resulted from the trip) - with as much of it by train as possible. At that stage Budapest-Kelebia-Subotica, and Subotica-Novi Sad were both possible by train, but Novi Sad-Beograd had

Belgium

Why DB Reiseasukunft on the web is still my main train planning tool

This week's schedule: Tuesday - train Berlin-Bruxelles Wednesday - train Bruxelles-Maastricht-Bruxelles Friday - train Bruxelles-Berlin Three countries. Borders I have crossed dozens of times before. But not altogether simple when it comes to the railway connections. At least I know that for all of these countries all

France

When the only way from Wissembourg to Strasbourg is... through Germany (with 3 changes of train)

52.2km as the crow flies. 67.3km train route kilometres. Those are the distances between Wissembourg (Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France) and Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France). And I want to travel between the two by train after dinner on Saturday 21st October. Fair enough, surely? France the country of

European Union

Strasbourg? Karlsruhe? No - Saarbrücken? Where the future Paris-Berlin ICE stops is not the issue

There are two high-ish speed routes between Paris Est and Frankfurt(Main)Hbf by train - the shorter one in terms of route-km but with less high speed infrastructure via Saarbrücken (mapped here), and the 70km longer one but with more high speed lines via Strasbourg and Karlsruhe (mapped

Quick takes

Toute l'Europe - a future night train map that's very, very bad

This cropped up in my LinkedIn feed earlier today. At the time I commented on it, simply saying it was bullshit. Now I am going to take it apart, and break down why it is bullshit. The map comes from this article from Toute l'Europe. We've

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

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,

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 opportunity to

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 analysis

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

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 too

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 went