The end for Freiburg-Colmar? But was there ever a start?

In the Newsletter this week
Analysis: The end for Freiburg-Colmar? But was there ever a start?
Bullshit Meter: Virgin Trains to run Channel Tunnel services in 2030
Good week: Koralmbahn results in less traffic and and an economic boost
Also a good week: Newag's locomotives the most reliable, and strong passenger numbers for PKP IC
Bad week: Berlin-Paris ICEs cancelled, because French industrial group Alstom messed up
Very bad week: Boss of ČD under pressure due to a shortage of toilet paper
Photo of the week: Orient Express approaches Nuits sous Ravières
Elsewhere this week: Channel Tunnel update on Green Signals
Calendar: "October" opening for the Wunderline Groningen - Leer

Newsletter 026, Friday 21st August 2026.
Subscriber-only newsletter, sent every Friday at 14:00 CET.

First newsletter after a summer break, hence format somewhat different from previous editions!

7th September I will start the record attempt - Longest train journey in the EU. Find out about the project here! I am also looking for a reliable contact within Portuguese railways CP who could help me with one small aspect of the project - if you are reading this and know someone, please pass on the information to me!

The end for Freiburg-Colmar? But was there ever a start?

It is probably the best known international missing railway link in Europe - Freiburg 🇩🇪 - Breisach 🇩🇪 - Volgelsheim 🇫🇷 - Colmar 🇫🇷. It was even one of the 15 listed by the European Parliament in its work on this topic. You can see it here on OpenRailwayMap - the bridge over the Rhein between Breisach and Volgelsheim is missing.

But when I went there during my first #CrossBorderRail project in the summer of 2022, it was immediately clear this one is hard to fix.

This drone picture, annotated with arrows, shows the first issue neatly.

Today's road bridge (orange arrows) is built on the foundations of the former railway bridge, detonated at the end of World War II.

To construct a railway line here you would have to cut around the edge of the hill with the vineyards (green arrows), or put the railway back on the existing bridge and then build a new road bridge where the red arrows are.

And if you look the other way it is no less complex. There are two further parts of the canalised Rhein to cross, with locks and a hydroelectric power plant. The green, orange and red lines here correspond to the ones from the first picture above.

So re-connecting the railway needs a rather complicated series of bridges. Nothing impossible, but that makes this all expensive.

Fast forward two years and I was back in Breisach for a day of action in spring 2024. There was even a human chain across the bridge between Breisach and Volgelsheim, and plenty of speeches from local politicians praising Franco-German friendship.

Yet for all the pleasant words, behind the scenes the problems were mounting. France and Germany had not managed to get the connection included as part of the EU's TEN-T comprehensive network, that would have opened up the opportunity to get EU funding for the bridge. Germany wanted it, France didn't was the accusation.

While it is fair to say that Germany is keener on re-activating a link between Freiburg and Colmar than France is, and who would have to do what is also not equally distributed.

The line from Freiburg to Breisach is electrified and used by passenger trains, while the line from Volgelsheim to Colmar on the French side is a slow speed, non-electrified freight line and would need a lot of work. I suppose battery electric trains might have been an option here, but at the very least a lot of track work would have been needed. But this is not only about the bridge.

That then is the sum of reasons why, this week, Baden-Württemberg reportedly stopped the work to plan the re-opening of the Breisach - Volgelsheim line. But there is nothing explaining this formally on the relevant BaWü ministry's website, but that would not be the first time I have experienced something a long way from full transparency from that Ministry when it comes to railways.

So this is unlikely to advance from here - or so it seems. But I have had no real belief it was going to happen anyway, due to the lack of political commitment to this from the French side, and not much more than lip service to it German side.

These, after all, are the two great friends, France and Germany, Grand Est and Baden Württemberg, that get along sooooo well they cannot manage to find a way to get a common fleet of trains they have ordered for existing lines to work. To expect they would find the will and commitment to a new rail bridge over the Rhein, well sorry that is a bridge too far.

It's not a TGV going at 300km/h, it's not something that anyone in Berlin or Paris really cares about, so it doesn't happen.

Bullshit Meter: Virgin Trains to run Channel Tunnel services in 2030

There was lots of media coverage of Virgin being granted paths on HS1 and into St Pancras from 2030 (see this in The Guardian for example), but the crux is this: if Virgin can get its trains delivered and running to schedule, then an October 2030 date for launch is viable. There is work to do, but this is not bullshit.

All previous Bullshit Meter posts can be found here.

Good week: Koralmbahn results in less traffic and and an economic boost

The Koralmbahn line between Graz and Klagenfurt opened last year, and detail on the impact it has had is starting to emerge. There has been a drop in traffic on the motorway that runs parallel to the new rail line, and it has shaken up the labour market and how students are choosing where to pursue their education. Tourism is benefitting too. Nothing surprising, but nevertheless good to see!

Also a good week: Newag's locomotives the most reliable, and strong passenger numbers for PKP IC

It's often hard for passengers to be able to gauge how reliable trains are likely to be. Sites like chuuchuu are trying to use aggregated real time data to make predictions, but once in a while something interesting emerges from operators as well - and this week it was from Poland's PKP IC. As reported by Rynek Kolejowy, we now know the numbers of faults per kilometre driven of all the main different types of rolling stock and, as you might hope, the most modern electric locomotives in the fleet - Newag built EU160 - are the most reliable. Older locomotives like EU07 dating from the 1970s and 1980s suffer more faults. I still consider Newag to be a malevolent firm, but they are capable of building solid trains.

Meanwhile PKP IC also reported record passenger numbers over the August holiday weekend. And there is even the prospect of more trains Warszawa - Berlin from December this year.

Bad week: Berlin-Paris ICEs cancelled, because French industrial group Alstom messed up

It was not the best end to my summer holiday Interrail trip - rather than the direct ICE from Berlin to Paris, I had to depart from Berlin earlier and change in Frankfurt onto a shortened cross border service, because for the foreseeable future the once daily direct ICE Berlin-Paris service is cancelled. This is despite the train being a surprising success, and DB wanting to up the offer.

The reasons, it turns out, are technical. And don't reflect well on France.

First a little background.

Cross border high speed trains between Germany and France are run in cooperation between DB Fernverkehr and SNCF Voyageurs. Frankfurt - Marseille trains are TGVs as those are compatible with the high speed line between Lyon and Marseille, while Paris - Berlin services have to be ICEs as those are compatible with the ETCS version on the high speed line between Erfurt and Halle (don't you love interoperability!) Paris - Frankfurt and Paris - Stuttgart - München trains might be either ICEs or TGVs depending on the time of day.

The ICEs DB has to use are one specific series, the class 407 (the earlier unreliable class 406 having been withdrawn, and the new class 408 are not approved for France yet - but eventually will be). There are only 17 407s, and 1 is permanently out of service, so make that 16.

And DB gave the contract to French rail engineering group Alstom to upgrade the signalling system on the 407 fleet. 8 of the fleet are upgraded, 8 are not, but the signalling on the upgraded ones is so unreliable that France has barred those trains from its network. More on this here.

With only 8 trains then available for the cross border service, DB has had to cut back, meaning the Paris - Berlin service runs only Paris - Frankfurt, to make sure the 8 available trains can cover the rest of the services. An understandable although rather frustrating decision.

An eagle eyed subscriber to this newsletter spotted that the train is shown as running all the way to Berlin again from 2nd November on bahn.de, but I have nothing to indicate that this is anything other than a data error - I would definitely not count on it.

Very bad week: Boss of ČD under pressure due to a shortage of toilet paper

This story, as reported by Zdopravy this week, was so strange I needed to check that my machine translation was working correctly. The boss of Czech state operator Česke drahy is under pressure from politicians due to - yes, I am not joking - a lack of toilet paper in the operator's trains.

It's nice to have a railway generally working well enough for that to need to be highlighted as a problem! And a day after the story broke a friend sent me the above picture of extra supplies on board a ČD long distance service.

All of this seems to be complaining at a high level from the Czech politicians. You could be in Denmark with DSB where you would be lucky to even get a functioning toilet on your prime international service!

Photo of the week: Orient Express approaches Nuits sous Ravières

By chance a friend saw the Orient Express this morning in Dijon and alerted me. So I hopped on my bike, put up the drone, and could photograph it approaching my local station, Nuits sous Ravières. If you want to use these pics for something they are CC BY 4.0 Licensed, and available here.

Elsewhere this week: Channel Tunnel update on Green Signals

After the short excerpt last week, now the full episode of Green Signals - Richard Bowker and I discuss what is happening regarding future Channel Tunnel through services.

Calendar: "October" opening for the Wunderline Groningen - Leer

For the first time in more than a decade trains should run between Groningen 🇳🇱 and Leer 🇩🇪 "in October", as reported by Treinreiziger and others. When precisely in October this will happen we do not know yet!

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Photo Rights

All photos by Jon Worth, except the picture of toilet rolls on a ČD train that was sent to me by a friend and used with permission.
Bullshit Meter images always have photo rights listed directly on the image.