New Channel Tunnel entrant? You need a plan for what happens if you fail, so you can actually succeed

No company wants to enter a market thinking they are going to fail. But what happens were they to fail might have a bearing on whether they succeed in the first place. It was with this in mind that I read this morning that Virgin Trains is looking for money partners. […] The post … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 9 hours ago

The really simple guide to what we need to fix in EU wide rail ticketing, and how

I have just been in a focus group for an academic project about cross border railways in Europe, and ticketing was one of the aspects of it. Some of the others in the discussion were ticketing people from state owned railways, some from rivals to state incumbents, and some from [ … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 14 hours ago

Want to rival Eurostar on Channel Tunnel routes? How do you differentiate yourself?

For three weeks in late March and early April I am running a project called #CrossChannelRail that is looking at the future of long distance high speed train services through the Channel Tunnel. The future of Eurostar and any of its potential rivals if you like. A whole lot of [… … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 23 days ago

Solving the Valence-Armentières Problem – the gold standard for railway trip planning and ticket sales

Geopolitics had the Schleswig Holstein Question. Machine intelligence has the Turing Test. Jumble those up, throw in a little extra European Union complexity, and I am proud to present you the railway equivalent: the Valence-Armentières Problem. At one level the theoretical solut … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 month ago

The rail planning tool we need in Europe

It’s a common question I receive on social media, and from friends offline too: “can you recommend me a platform to book rail tickets Europe wide?” And the answer is, no, I cannot. Not universally. The answer to the question is normally: “can you tell me roughly where you’re goin … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 month ago

Bundling trip planning and ticketing together – it’s not in the passengers’ interest

A train trip between small or medium sized towns at opposite ends of France by train normally works like this: TER regional train to the nearest city, TGV at high speed across the country, and then a TER for the last leg. So let’s take a worked example – Haguenau […] The post Bun … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 month ago

What should be in an EU High Speed Rail Action Plan?

“EU High Speed Network Plan Announced” screamed the headline on the Community of European Railways (CER) LinkedIn page this week. It caused me to scratch my head a bit, as there is no such plan yet – this was CER getting a bit carried away with one line in the […] The post What s … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 month ago

Assumptions

I’ve been struggling quite a lot recently with negative reactions to what I write about railways, but not in the “you’re wrong” sort of way, but a more insidious kind of casting doubt about my ability, my motivation or my knowledge. So here I am going to lay out some […] The post … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 month ago

Introducing the Rail Story Bullshit Meter

Sometimes ideas are borne from frustration. After reading for the umpteenth time on LinkedIn that Portugal will relaunch night trains to Spain in 2025 (it likely won’t), I snapped. I have hence come up with a simple system to call out bullshit stories about railways – the Rail St … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 month ago

“here’s what a joined-up 21st-century [train] network needs” – trying to give some answers

A story entitled “I love to travel Europe by train. But here’s what a joined-up 21st-century network needs” by María Ramírez was published by The Guardian yesterday. ‘I don’t disagree with the piece’ was the gist of my answer when asked about it on social media, but the piece doe … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 2 months ago

More passengers are a problem for the railways

When – from a passenger point of view – I make the case why the EU ought to pass a Regulation to fix cross border railway ticketing, the reaction from the railway industry (especially state owned railway firms) is essentially “why should we make booking easier, because our cross … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 2 months ago

In this peculiar world of cross border railways, the new slow Bruxelles-Paris OUIGO train makes sense

Bruxelles-Paris by Eurostar (ex-Thalys) 300km/h high speed train takes just 1 hour 22 minutes, but as anyone who has taken it in recent years can testify, the prices can be horribly high, mostly because capacity is not adequate and no one has yet entered the market against the in … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 2 months ago

No Eurostar isn’t the worst performing train company in Europe. But if you’re T&E does it matter?

A message from a friend this morning: “Have you seen that piece in The Guardian saying Eurostar is the worst performing train service in Europe?” Oh what now, my heart sinking as I waited for her to send me the link. This is The Guardian’s piece, and it relates to […] | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 3 months ago

“We can’t transport more passengers because our planes are already full” – said Michael O’Leary. Never. So why are rail companies saying essentially that?

It’s a pretty obvious point if you think about it. If all of Ryanair’s planes were all running full, all the time, what would Michael O’Leary (CEO of Ryanair) do? He’d order more planes. And yes, that’d mean more maintenance facilities and more staff and more costs. But it would … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 4 months ago

Only EU law is going to solve cross border rail ticketing problems

French state owned rail operator SNCF will not sell me tickets for Italian state owned rail operator Trenitalia’s trains. Trenitalia will not sell me tickets for SNCF’s trains. But in Brussels both Trenitalia and SNCF want to have you believe that a rail industry initiative calle … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 4 months ago

Tzitzikostas at his EP hearing 4th November: it’s time to hear HOW he wants to fix EU-wide rail ticketing

When Ursula von der Leyen’s released her political guidelines for her second term as President of the European Commission, there it was – a commitment to fix railway ticketing in the EU, including passenger rights: “Cross-border train travel is still too difficult for many citize … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 4 months ago

Berlin’s problem with dumped cars

It is a pernicious combination. Parking on the street is free in most of Berlin, and the city’s administration deficient – there is even a lack of clarity as to who is supposed to clear such wrecks. So that means Berlin is extremely slow to deal with cars dumped and […] The post … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 6 months ago

International rail ticketing that is customer unfriendly – that is the system working as intended. We need EU law to change the system.

Justin Scholz, a thoughtful friend of mine, sent me a link to this post by Anil Dash, entitled “Systems: The Purpose of a System is What It Does” – do read it in full. Let’s have a go applying this to international railway ticketing, and use one what – superficially […] The post … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 6 months ago

The Stadler RS Zero: the new solution to save the smallest branch lines

Harrachov, Czechia Adorf (Vogtland), Germany Černousy, Czechia Selb-Plößberg, Germany Holzhau, Germany Bayerisch Eisenstein, Germany On the smallest branch lines in Germany and Czechia (and even just into Poland on one line) you will find them – Stadler RS1 railbuses, with their … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 6 months ago

Deutsche Bahn has an amazing opportunity in ticket sales, but is too blinded by Flixtrain to seize it

While clearing old belongings here (pre-move to France) I stumbled across a 2003 Interrail diary of mine, and in it were timetables for trains in Italy and Romania printed out from the website of Deutsche Bahn. Today, 21 years on, I am still using Deutsche Bahn’s website to plan … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 6 months ago

How to not fall foul of SNCF’s luggage rules

SNCF – for all TGV and TER trains – introduced new luggage rules in February 2024, with a transition period up until mid September 2024 for their introduction, although it seems that even at the time of writing (August 2024) some SNCF staff are getting a bit over zealous in […] T … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 6 months ago

Somewhere between hell and hype(r-loop) – where our railway discussion ought to be

Another day, and another stream of railway news pops up in my social media feed. On the hell side – unsurprisingly from Germany – comes news that the situation for passengers at München Hbf continues to worsen, while DB has closed the Hamburg-Berlin line for 4 months for works, s … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 7 months ago

Peel back the rhetoric and state railways are naked on Europe-wide ticketing – only EU law is going to fix this mess

For the past few years the state owned railways in Europe – represented in Brussels by Community of European Railways (CER) – have been working on their “Ticketing Roadmap” (yes, don’t laugh, railway companies really have a roadmap). This roadmap is the railways’ response to cust … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 7 months ago

So long Berlin. I’m off to a Bourgogne village

On 27th September, a removal truck will pull up outside the building in Berlin Neukölln I currently call home, and into it will go my belongings. My time in Berlin will be over. I’ll race ahead of the truck in a train, and from that evening Ravières (population: 719) in […] The p … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 7 months ago

Note to the new EU Transport Commissioner: fixing cross border rail ticketing will help millions of Europeans, and can secure your legacy

Dear 2024 nominee for European Commissioner for Transport, Congratulations on your nomination. Being Transport Commissioner is a massive challenge, and an enormous privilege. As pretty much all of living in the EU use some sort of transport every day, what you do is going to have … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 7 months ago

Schlimmer geht immer – rumours about the transport portfolio in the next European Commission

“Schlimmer geht immer” the Germans say. “It can always get worse” As regular readers of this blog know, I am not the biggest fan of current European Commissioner for Transport, Adina-Ioana Vălean. But her term is ending later this year, and while she might be re-nominated as a Co … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 9 months ago

SNCF is stopping sales of most international tickets – a decision rooted in incompetence, and communicated with malevolence

If you want to travel on 22nd May 2024 from Paris to Berlin (Germany), Verviers (Belgium) or Luzern (Switzerland), the app and website for SNCF ticketing, SNCF Connect, will show you prices and sell you a ticket. Try the same on 24th May 2024 and it will not. Here are […] The pos … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 10 months ago

Railways and the Enrico Letta report on the future of the Single Market

Former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta has been spending months preparing a report on the future of the EU’s Single Market. The report will be presented to Heads of State and Government this week, and was published yesterday – you can find the PDF here. A couple of well conne … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 11 months ago

A report for Jakop Dalunde MEP and a follow up event about rail and multimodal ticketing in the EU

I was commissioned by Jakop Dalunde, MEP from Miljöpartiet de gröna (Greens/EFA), to write a report about the ongoing challenges to fix multimodal and especially railway ticketing problems EU-wide. The report – entitled “Simplifying European Ticketing – A chance for a green trans … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 11 months ago

Abandoned luggage on trains, and the presumption of innocence

Once – in all my years travelling by rail – I left a bag on a train by mistake. It was sometime between 2005 and 2007 when I was working in both London and Sunningdale (50 mins west of London), and unusually I had a bag with a suit in […] The post Abandoned luggage on trains, and … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 11 months ago

No amount of investment in infrastructure can save rail companies from themselves

Wolfgang Cramer is a long time connection of mine on social media. He is obsessed about reducing his carbon footprint, and travels pretty much everywhere by train and bike, so you can see why I get along with him. He has thousands of kilometres of rail travel, Europe-wide, behind … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 11 months ago

If you reduced track access charges in European passenger rail, very little would happen – at least short term

Transport & Environment, Allrail, Trainline and some private railway companies and ticket sellers have released a letter (PDF here) to the European Commission calling for a reduction in track access charges for passenger trains. They specifically mention “trains with high capacit … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 11 months ago

Should Deutsche Bahn be obliged to sell tickets of private rivals in DB Navigator?

It was in the news this week that night train startup European Sleeper has contacted the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office) in Germany over Deutsche Bahn’s refusal to sell its tickets on bahn.de and in its DB Navigator app. I can see European Sleeper’s point of view very cl … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 11 months ago

Yield management and compulsory reservation – how much of each should we tolerate in railways?

Is taking a train something you do every day, rivaling a car? Something flexible, you just get on and go? Or is it something you do less regularly? Something where you plan, that you know long ahead where and when you will travel? More similar to how most people take […] The post … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 11 months ago

#CrossBorderRail South East Europe – crowdfunding now open

Since embarking on my first #CrossBorderRail tour in the summer of 2022 and follow up smaller tours in 2023, internal railway borders of the European Union have been my prime focus – and so far I have been to exactly 200 borders (you can see them all mapped here – […] The post #C … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 year ago

“Europa spoort niet” – reflections on appearing in vpro’s documentary about European railways

On 3rd March the documentary “Europa spoort niet” aired on NPO2, the Dutch public state broadcaster’s TV channel. It is in the documentary series Tegenlicht, produced by vpro. You can watch the whole thing (50 mins) with Dutch subtitles here, and there is a version for Youtube ed … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 year ago

What good is live tracking data if I cannot act on it?

This morning I was meant to take Flixbus 1324 from Amsterdam Sloterdijk to Berlin ZOB, booked because Deutsche Bahn train drivers are striking today. Needs must and all that. The timetable for the service is departing Sloterdijk at 06:10 and arriving ZOB at 16:20, before the bus … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 year ago

How green are Europe’s railways?

At one level the answer to the question posed in the title of this tweet is obvious: very green. This 2020 report (PDF) by the European Environment Agency puts some numbers on it, summarised in this graph: I might quibble with some of the numbers here, but the overall picture […] … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 year ago

Bad Muskau – Łęknica, and the joys and tensions at the Germany – Poland border

It’s one of the many joys of my #CrossBorderRail project – it takes me to these amazing and sometimes slightly odd border places, and I never know quite what I am going to find when I get there. This was the case when I went to Bad Muskau – Łęknica […] The post Bad Muskau – Łękni … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 year ago

Mannheim-Bruxelles in 1972, and what it tells us about Mannheim-Bruxelles today

I stumbled across this little gem on Facebook – posted by Peter Osten (one of my predecessors as President of JEF Europe) and reproduced here with his permission. It is a rail ticket from April 1972 Mannheim Hbf – Bruxelles return, and it cost DM 95.20. Look at it closely […] The … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 year ago

Trainline, Rail Europe and Omio – only inadvertently solving cross-border rail ticketing headaches

“What ticketing platform can you recommend for cross-border railway bookings, Jon?” is a question I receive quite often. And the answer, rather disappointingly, is “It depends where you’re going.” Or – put that another way – I can give none of the third party privately owned book … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 year ago

A hydrogen tram for Görlitz: about the worst idea I can imagine

“Görlitz bekommt die erste Wasserstoff-Straßenbahn Europas” – “Görlitz will get the first hydrogen tram in Europe” the article claims. It might as well be entitled “Görlitz has decided to go for the most stupid public transport idea imaginable” It’s not only that a hydrogen tram … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 year ago

Please look after your activists when they are alive – the Natenom case

Cycling activism is not really my thing – I am a regular cyclist in cities in Germany, know plenty of people who campaign for better cycling infrastructure, and follow a bunch of activists on social media. But I’ve never been more than a participant in Critical Mass or other prot … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 year ago

There’ll be a new European Commissioner for Transport in 2024 – but I’m not hopeful for change

It’s my enduring memory of European Commissioner for Transport Adina Vălean. I was a passenger on the EU Year of Rail publicity train – the Connecting Europe Express – between Kraków and Ljubljana. And who was there to greet the train’s arrival at Ljubljana station – none other t … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 year ago

What Analysis would you like to read? Send me your ideas, and I will have a go

Writing a detailed explainer about Channel Tunnel through services was an idea I have had for a while. But that a 10000 word piece would be one of my most-read blog posts ever comes as a positive surprise! So that then leads me to wonder: what further Analysis pieces would […] Th … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 year ago

Interrail tips and tricks

In the course of my #CrossBorderRail project I have learned a fair bit about how to use Interrail passes in a bunch of different countries. While this is far from a complete guide, here are a bunch of tips and tricks I have picked up. All are correct as of […] The post Interrail … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 year ago

Deutschlandfunk and Süddeutsche Zeitung about railway ticketing, and a niche slow train in Croatia

Warum Bahnfahren in Europa oft so kompliziert ist Mal eben schnell mit ein paar Klicks buchen, das funktioniert nicht. Aber ein paar Tricks gibt es doch, um schneller oder zumindest maximal günstig an eine Fahrkarte zu kommen. “Man sollte die Planung von der Buchung trennen”, sag … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 year ago

The future of long distance train services through the Channel Tunnel

TL;DR – whatever you read in the press about future long distance train services through the Channel Tunnel is at best only part of the truth, because the reality is complicated Periodically stories appear in newspapers, on radio and television, and also in the dedicated railway … | Continue reading


@jonworth.eu | 1 year ago