Rail Postcards Archives

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 –[Read More…]

01.06.2018 2 comments

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 regularly[Read More…]

18.02.2017 9 comments

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[Read More…]

17.12.2016 5 comments

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[Read More…]

08.02.2016 0 comments

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[Read More…]

20.10.2015 0 comments

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 8th October[Read More…]

05.10.2015 0 comments

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 whether Franz[Read More…]

02.02.2015 0 comments

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 you, but[Read More…]

13.12.2014 1 comment

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 point. I[Read More…]

05.03.2014 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