This morning I gave a presentation about solving the problems of Europe’s railways at an event organised by BEUC and hosted by UFC Que Choisir in Paris. Plenty of the debate centred on the problems of rail in France (and Spain) I documented during my #CrossBorderRail project. “Ha … | Continue reading
I’ve realised that now I am no longer using Twitter, there is no systematic overview of all the flow diagrams I have made over the years. So this is a post looking back over all the things I have diagrammed, and why! Please click on any image below to load […] The post Turning an … | Continue reading
I managed to make a bit of a name for myself throughout the Brexit process by turning the complexities of the it into complex flow diagrams. I’ve used similar techniques to explain party leadership processes in UK and Germany, how to choose a Bundesliga team to support, and even … | Continue reading
During my #CrossBorderRail project in the summer of 2022 I needed to take regional trains Badajoz-Merida and Merida-Madrid in Spain, and these trains require compulsory seat reservations. Buying a combined ticket and reservation online for these trains is no problem, but Interrai … | Continue reading
Christian Drosten has today stated that the COVID pandemic is over, and the virus is now endemic. That has led, rather predictably, to the demand that all Corona protection measures be lifted in Germany – FDP Justice Minister Buschmann was the swiftest to make this demand today. … | Continue reading
Back in the summer of 2022 it was party time – almost literally – for passengers on German public transport. For the months of June, July and August it cost just 9 Euro a month, flat rate, to use regional and local public transport anywhere in Germany (basically pretty much […] T … | Continue reading
Meine Mastodon Feeds sind voll mit Fragen, wie das neue 49 Euro Ticket für den öffentlichen Nahverkehr in Deutschland funktioniert. Deshalb werde ich in diesem Beitrag versuchen, alle häufig gestellten Fragen zum Ticket zu beantworten. Alle Angaben entsprechen dem Stand vom 26. D … | Continue reading
I was recording an episode of the Human Risk podcast with Christian Hunt this week – basically about humans and railways – and the conversation came back to what I think I ought to call the implementation gap in railway policy. “When I moved to München“, Christian was telling me, … | Continue reading
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, as […] T … | Continue reading
Another day, another earnest column in a broadsheet newspaper listing the problems with Europe’s railways – this time it’s Die Zeit. We should fly less, we need more high speed trains, we need more night trains, plans for more have come to nothing, why is infra investment in Germ … | Continue reading
There is no international railway line I have travelled more often than Bruxelles – Köln. A good part of my life since my teenage years on language exchanges in the mid-1990s in Verviers and Lahnstein, through to professional life today in my early forties as a self employed pers … | Continue reading
Years ago I used to run a little parody account on Twitter. Nothing major, nothing dangerous – just gently joking about a European Commissioner. The bio even said it was a parody. And then, from one day to the next, the account disappeared. No warning. I contacted Twitter’s suppo … | Continue reading
My Twitter feed has been full of people asking about how Germany’s new 49 Euro public transport ticket is going to work. So here in this post I will try to give answers to all the frequently asked questions! All of this is correct as of 6th November 2022 – […] The post Germany’s … | Continue reading
For the period spanning roughly 2015 to 2019, Brexit was my prime political preoccupation. Analysing what would happen next, and doing plenty of media work about the twists and turns of the sorry saga. When Boris Johnson won the December 2019 General Election it was time to step … | Continue reading
One of the most unpleasant episodes during my #CrossBorderRail project – where I crossed every internal border of the EU you can cross by train – happened at Frankfurt (Oder) in Germany on 24th June, when arriving from Poland. Already four hours late due to a problem on the Polis … | Continue reading
This blog has been rather quiet over the past few months as I have been running a project about cross border railways in the EU entitled #CrossBorderRail – and most of the daily reporting on that has been on Twitter. Now the research for the project – on the rails […] The post Th … | Continue reading
In Daniel Pink’s classic lecture about motivation and drive for the RSA, he talks about autonomy and the desire to be self directed. In recent weeks I have been wondering about this when it comes to public transport timetables. What constraints on a person’s autonomy are going to … | Continue reading
In early April I took a leap into the unknown, asking my blog readers and followers on Twitter to help me fund the #CrossBorderRail project. Within four days my fundraising appeal was a success, and I could start the project planning in earnest – sorting out the timetables, ticke … | Continue reading
A year ago I concluded I could no longer continue to dedicate my political energy on (post-)Brexit questions, and instead would focus on sustainable transport and railways. In the past year I have managed to be reasonably successful at that – my small campaign Trains for Europe h … | Continue reading
Two interesting pieces of information about transport and the climate transition crossed my timeline yesterday. This tweet from TUMI: Transport: Save money, protect the climate 🚶♀️🚶♂️🚲🚃🚋🔌@IPCC_CH pic.twitter.com/M04fFglFmN — … | Continue reading
Background Deutsche Bahn used to sell tickets called London Spezial that offered incredible value train tickets from Germany to London, changing onto the Eurostar in Brussels. These tickets were discontinued in March 2020, officially due to a change of Eurostar’s IT systems, but … | Continue reading
Rail might correctly consider itself the greenest transport mode, but there is nevertheless plenty railways can do to decarbonise – not least by doing away with diesel as the primary fuel to power trains on non-electrified lines. The question then comes: how best to do that? Anyo … | Continue reading
Back in January a post on the TrainTracks.eu blog by Sebastian Wilken caught my eye – the post rated how easy it was to get to the three European Capitals of Culture this year (Esch 🇱🇺, Novi Sad 🇷🇸 and Kaunas 🇱🇹) by train. I can con … | Continue reading
That the European Union needs to get more passengers and freight onto its railways is a no-brainer. Europe has a dense network of railways, with a lot of them in reasonable condition, a decent percentage electrified, and plenty of lines allowing trains to run at a good speed. Wit … | Continue reading
This tweet has been doing the rounds, claiming to map the longest train journey in the world: The new longest possible train journey in the world. pic.twitter.com/W9ajgTyY0b — Epic Maps 🗺️ (@Locati0ns) December 12, 2021 The problem is… it’s not right. At the time of writi … | Continue reading
This tweet has been doing the rounds, claiming to map the longest train journey in the world: The new longest possible train journey in the world. pic.twitter.com/W9ajgTyY0b — Epic Maps 🗺️ (@Locati0ns) December 12, 2021 The problem is… it’s not right. At the time of writi … | Continue reading
This week something interesting happened in matters Brexit: farmers at the National Farmers’ Union conference booed environment minister George Eustice (FT story here (€)). This was connected to the news that direct payments to farmers will be reduced by 25% from 1 January 2021, … | Continue reading
Some people have used the Coronavirus lockdowns to clean their homes and flats. I instead have spent a good part of the past fortnight cleaning my online presence instead – essentially getting this blog back into some order after a good while just posting day to day. The aim: to … | Continue reading
For most of my adult life I have lived in big cities, and that means never having the need to own a car (even though I have a driving license). My own bicycle is my normal way around Berlin where I currently live, with public transport (U-Bahn and S-Bahn mostly) … | Continue reading