There's a higher chance that Scotland becomes independent, and joins the EU and Schengen, than the Caledonian Sleeper is extended through the Channel Tunnel under the current political framework.Really.I am not joking.Whatever the SNP and The Scotsman might say.I know a thing or … | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: After years of frustration, suddenly progress with France - Spain rail connectionsBullshit Meter: Direct trains Trieste - BeogradGood week: A little summer holiday pauseAlso a good week: Electrification at Fuentes de Oñoro might be done this y … | Continue reading
Italian Transport Minister Matteo Salvini went to meet President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić, and promised there would be Trieste - Beograd direct trains. There was no commitment as to when these trains would run, or whether they would be freight or passenger trains. You can read … | Continue reading
Today should have been simple enough.A TER train Nuits-sous-Ravières - Paris Bercy, a TGV Paris Nord - Lille Flandres, then SNCB IC trains Lille Flandres - Kortrijk and Kortrijk - Brugge.But a half an hour out of Nuits, bang. The train hits something. I was in the first | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: Praha - Berlin - København: well at least the carriages can complete the entire journeyBullshit Meter, retrospective: Lisboa-Madrid to be a bit less painfulGood week: Andorra to get a railway (well, a tram, maybe)Also a good week: New France - … | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: A train trip across a roasting EuropeBullshit Meter: Kyiv-Chișinău train to run every day from end of June onwardsGood week: Delivery of new 200km/h IC trains for ItalyGood week, possibly: Talgo has a record backlog, | Continue reading
When I took the Kyiv - Chișinău train last summer, I must admit it was not my best journey. Having boarded it just a few kilometres into Ukraine at Mohyliv-Podilskyi, it then crawled its way across Moldova, on a circuitous and slow route via Ungheni to | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: TGVs Bruxelles - France, the unloved other high speed train from BelgiumBullshit Meter: NS to operate trains Amsterdam - Utrecht - Germany from 2028Good week: Trains from Luxembourg find new life in RomaniaAlso a Good week: Stadler's first EUR … | Continue reading
This one was widely reported this week, and for once I think this is actually going to happen!The line from the Netherlands - Germany border to Duisburg (OpenRailwayMap) is currently being rebuilt, but once that is done there will be capacity to run some more trains, and at the m … | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: SNCF would sooner leave passengers stranded than make simple timetable adjustmentsBullshit Meter: Beograd - Zagreb - Ljubljana trains back and faster by 2029Good week: New Cottbus - Legnica service from December 2026Good week, possibly: Renfe … | Continue reading
Observer of rail in the Balkans Fabian Vendrig sent me this story about plans to have the infrastructure in place by 2029 to be able to run a Beograd - Zagreb - Ljubljana train with a reasonable trip time, pointing to the renovation of the Ruma - Šid section | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: There are always more international rail lines to discover and understandBullshit Meter, retrospective: Frecciarossa Milano-Ljubljana in 2025Good week: Foundation of the European Rail Passengers' UnionAlso a good week: Record rail passenger nu … | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: Italo in Germany. Nice idea, but many open questions.Bullshit Meter: Leo Express Przemyśl - Frankfurt train to start in 2026Good week: Czechia and Poland are serious about building a narrow gauge cross border rail lineAlso a good week: TGV-M | Continue reading
1800km! 18 hours! One of Europe's longest scheduled services! Claims Notes from Poland, based on press materials from Leo Express.Ah.One problem.It won't happen, at least not in full.Look on Leo Express's website and tickets from Przemyśl to Frankfurt | Continue reading
On 25th June I need to travel from France to Berlin. One option is to take the once daily direct train from Paris Est to Berlin Hbf. Here's the timetable and the price of that train from SNCF:And here is the same connection on the same day | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekRant: Screaming down the tracksEvent: Passenger Package Webinar - 28 MayBullshit Meter: Baku - Tbilisi train to restart this monthGood week: Turku will get its tramAlso a good week: My newsletter host, Magic Pages, gets a new luxury trainVery bad | Continue reading
Trains between the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi, and the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, were suspended at the time of the COVID pandemic and have not been re-started. Until this month, probably. At talks this week in Baku, governments of both countries agreed to resume services on M … | Continue reading
At the time of writing, my #CrossBorderRail project has taken me to 419 international railway lines since 13 June 2022.One of the very first borders I went to - on 19 June 2022 - was Haparanda 🇸🇪 - Tornio 🇫🇮 (OpenRailwayMap) at the very northern en … | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: EU railway ticketing proposals are out. What now?Bullshit Meter: Berlin - Oslo ICE direct train in 2028Good week: FS Engineering wins a contract in SerbiaBad week: Only the length of the delay is a Wunder by now - Wunderline re-opening delayed | Continue reading
According to DB there is going to be a daily direct train from Berlin to Oslo, via Hamburg, København and Göteborg, running from summer 2028. DB's news story about it is here.I am not altogether convinced by this idea, but I think it | Continue reading
The Passenger Package - three pieces of legislation proposed yesterday by the European Commission mostly to address issues with railway ticketing in the EU - have been a long time coming.No sooner had the ink dried on the 2021 Rail Passenger Rights Regulation, it was obvious it l … | Continue reading
In my earlier piece, I argued that the European Commission's Passenger Package is both radical and unworkable when it comes to the rail aspects of it, and explained how the Commission ended up there.In this piece I will start to sketch out some possible fixes - to | Continue reading
Ursula von der Leyen called her disciples, the Commissioners, to gather around. Holding up a bound edition of the Political Guidelines, she conferred a great responsibility onto each of them.Beckoning disciple for transport, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, towards her, she gave him his i … | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: EU rail ticketing reform proposal is out next week: this is what to look out forBullshit Meter, retrospective: Berlin-Warszawa with FlixtrainGood week: Record PKP IC fleet for the summer seasonBad week: Inaugural run of the ComfortJet Praha - … | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: Albania's shoddy new railwayBullshit Meter: Skopje commuter train service to start 1st SeptemberGood week: Hungary gets a good transport ministerBad week: Romania orders hydrogen trainsElsewhere this week: The Guardian about RyanairPhoto of th … | Continue reading
Skopje is going to get a commuter rail service! Zelenikovo - Skopje! This year! The tracks are being repaired. That bit - from Minister of Transport Aleksandar Nikoloski - might be true. The problem is that to run a train service you, well, need trains. And the state of the | Continue reading
Anyone who has been following my work for a while knows I have long had a rather abstract discussion about the definition of the World's Longest Train Journey. I started calculating this back in 2021, after an incorrect map on Reddit went viral, and have updated my thoughts | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: We now know the scale of EU rail ticketing issues. Commission, over to you!Bullshit Meter: Italo to run high speed trains in GermanyGood week: Nox raises €2 million in pre-seed fundingBad week: Sweden doesn't seem to know how | Continue reading
Stuttgarter Zeitung had the story this week that Italian private high speed rail operator Italo is to enter the German rail market, and will likely buy 25-30 Velaro trains from Siemens to do this. There are a whole slew of hurdles Italo would have to overcome before they can laun … | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: Launch of the new #CrossBorderRail database of international railway linesBullshit Meter: Kyiv - Bulgaria trains to start in summer 2026Good week: Opening of Tornio-Haparanda now in sight, and it will allow a new record to be setBad week: Dama … | Continue reading
When Ukrainian Railways decides to do something, they normally find a way. And this time we have a commitment from the Minister of Transport as well as a provisional map of the route:Provisional map of the routeNo one is under any illusions here - the train would have | Continue reading
It has been kicking off in the French Senate in the past few days on the topic of railway ticketing. The Senate wants to force SNCF Connect, the French state incumbent railway's ticketing platform, to sell tickets for trains run by SNCF's competitors on French routes | Continue reading
I stumbled across an excellent essay about the EU this week: "Not a messaging problem. Why institutional narratives keep failing" by Meisoon Nasralla and Lilit Poghosyan. They write:"We are told, once again, that Europe “has a communications problem.” [...] as if proximity to cit … | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: The solution for Nijmegen - Kleve is a tram-trainBullshit Meter: Monocab as a solution for rural rail linesGood week: Rail passengers in Lithuania get half price ticketsBad week: RegioJet pulls out of the Polish long distance rail marketVery b … | Continue reading
Another week, another Gadgetbahn. This time one from Germany - Monocab. It's supposedly so important there is even a Wikipedia page about it.This thing is a narrow monorail that is supposed to balance on a single traditional rail track, and has a gyroscope to keep it upright. | Continue reading
Some days following railway news leaves me shaking my head and wondering what I am doing in this whole business. Today was one such day.First I read the news that ÉcoTrain - a French GadgetBahn - has managed to raise €3 million. But it's the | Continue reading
It is one of the 100 startups to watch in France, according to Challenges - ÉcoTrain wants to build a new train to run on abandoned branch lines, and they have €3 million of initial funding. They even brought their prototype to the Elysée, and you | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: There is a solution to connect Saarbrücken and Luxembourg by train. But France has to play its part too.Bullshit Meter: Direct Eindhoven - Bruxelles TrainNot a 1st April joke, sadly: Sweden orders Talgo night trainsGood week: New trains and | Continue reading
There is definitely a more positive spirit around cross border rail between Netherlands and Belgium. But could there be a direct Eindhoven - Bruxelles train, as Thierry Aartsen suggests?Don't get me wrong: this is a good idea.The question is how you do it, and indeed if | Continue reading
Go back a couple of short years to the months prior to the 2024 European Elections, and railways were trying to set their political direction. This was is in CER's manifesto (PDF):"the regulatory framework today is not fair, with railways carrying many costs and obligations not | Continue reading
This morning state owned railway companies trade body CER put out this on LinkedIn, stating "YES, booking international train journeys once required a crystal ball, BUT now planning ahead is much easier."Typically for me I was actually this morning trying to do this, booking seat … | Continue reading
Tomorrow morning - Saturday 28th March 2026 - I had planned to make a trip I make half a dozen times a year.After a Friday evening teaching assignment in Paris, I would normally take a TER regional train from Paris back to Nuits-sous-Ravières in Bourgogne on a | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: Remind me, why are we trying to fix rail ticketing in the EU?Bullshit Meter: Zagreb-Sarajevo trains to re-startGood week: European Sleeper launches its new Paris-Berlin night trainConfusion this week: A timetable for Wien - Budapest - Beograd … | Continue reading
A bunch of people sent me this story - that trains between the capitals of Croatia and Bosnia will re-start.Unlike many of the stories I have assessed in the Bullshit Meter, this one is actually viable:The problems are more financial (I am pretty sure tickets are not going | Continue reading
Transport & Environment (T&E), the lobby organisation that works to green Europe's transport sector, has today put online a new page about its position on the forthcoming EU reform of rail ticketing. They were pushing it on LinkedIn as well. You can find everything I have | Continue reading
With Regulations to finally sort the problems with purchasing tickets for trains, Europe-wide, due to be presented by the European Commission this spring, there remains a crucial problem: do the people who are drafting this legislation (in the Commission), deciding on it (in the … | Continue reading
It's been rumoured for months, and finally this week there was official confimation: Trenitalia has the location for its maintenance facility for its Frecciarossa high speed trains in France. News from Railway Gazette here.And it will be at Maisons-Alfort Pompadour.Here on OpenRa … | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: New trains are not necessarily good trainsBullshit Meter: Eurostar is not going to maintain 67 trains at Temple MillsGood week: Go GoVolta to Berlin and HamburgGood and bad week: Rail Baltica possibly delayed, but EMU procurement startsBad wee … | Continue reading