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 […]
Anyone who follows me on Twitter will know I take the train for almost all my journeys, and many of these are business trips. Sean Hanley has asked me to sum up my experiences in a blog entry, so here goes. This post should be read in conjunction with the […]
The two guards on the EN472 “Ister” between Bucuresti Nord and Budapest Keleti pu. set aside their fading hats with the silver trim and the CFR logos and tuck into the dinner they have brought from home in the bar carriage. They crunch what look like home grown, gnarled gherkins, […]
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 […]
I travel a lot by train. On all kinds of services, all over Europe. As Europe’s rail market supposedly opens up to competition with the 4th railway package, what can I conclude about where competition does and does not work? 1) The profitable long distance route This is the ideal […]
Knowing how much I travel by train some friends have rather flippantly said I would be better booking Interrail tickets for my trips than the individual tickets separately. So with a trip København – St Malo, and then Par – Trieste – Brussels – København, and a week later København […]