Eurostar's PR machine pitched up in the radio studios of BBC on 13th March - CEO Gwendoline Cazenave was interviewed on the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4. There was one particularly interesting, and particularly disingenuous, line from her in the interview - that Eurostar would … | Continue reading
Last summer I faced a peculiar conundrum: the train I wanted to take from Trondheim to Oslo in Norway was already sold out before tickets for the train from Boden in Sweden to Narvik in Norway, an earlier leg of my trip, were even available for sale.The reason?Different | Continue reading
When writing my previous post about the loading gauge of SNCF's Alstom built TGV-M Avelia Horizon train being too large for Italian tunnels, I had this nag in the back of my mind: how did they get themselves into this tangle?And it is not the first time | Continue reading
When Les Echos and BFM reported that SNCF's TGV-M trains (branded Avelia Horizon by their manufacturer Alstom) were too tall for Italian tunnels I could scarcely believe it. This news came in the same week as SNCF received some good news that they can get a package of | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: Rail in Slovenia: only new lines can improve it from hereBullshit Meter this week: Crossrail 2 starts to be built this yearGood week: SNCF gets paths for its OUIGO service in ItalyBad week: NEWAG sues Dragon Sector and SPS for exposing | Continue reading
After the success of Crossrail in London, there has been some debate about whether a second such line would be a good idea. TimeOut - a publication with a very tenuous relationship with the truth when it comes to any railway topic - reckons Crossrail 2 will start to be | Continue reading
The rail trade press - International Railway Journal anyway - has woken up to the fact that there is legislation forthcoming to reform rail ticketing in the EU. You can read their piece here.The problem is the piece jumbles up a number of the key issues, and I am | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekHungary-Serbia by train, before Orbán's section of the Chinese built line opensBullshit Meter this week: Berlin to build a maglev to TegelGood week: Cuneo - Breil s/ Roya - Ventimiglia gets some divine interventionBad week: Plans to use | Continue reading
In the Extra Newsletter this weekAnalysis: Astérix has a view on TGV stationsGadgetbahn of the week: UrbanloopGood week: This RegioJet is going straight to hellBad week: Berlin's new trams are too heavyVery bad week: Fehmarn disputesPhoto of the week: Postcards | Continue reading
At the moment the Land administration of Berlin is CDU (Christian Democrat) - SPD (Social Democrat), and both the mayor and the Senator for Transport are pro-car, anti-tram Christian Democrats.That means any idea to avoid building tram lines, and anything that can be built withou … | Continue reading
"You are not only a rail expert," a friend wrote to me in response to this blog post about multiple rail tickets. "You are also an expert passenger. You cannot expect the average citizen to know all companies and manually come up with their connections through separate | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: Positive talk about the future of rail between Netherlands and BelgiumBullshit Meter this week: Bulgaria - North Macedonia Tunnel by 2028#CrossBorderRail is back: Spring tour starts 3rd MarchGood week: New Trains for the Lille MetroBad week: M … | Continue reading
"Cross-border train travel is still too difficult for many citizens" were the words in Ursula von der Leyen's political guidelines for the 2024-2029 European Commission (PDF here).The document continues, bold is my emphasis: "People should be able to use open booking systems to p … | Continue reading
The future #CrossBorderRail line between Gyushevo (Bulgaria) and Kriva Palanka (North Macedonia) is remarkable for how long it has been almost done - more than a century in fact!Gyushevo station, and the line connecting it with Sofia, was completed in 1913.Now there is a new effo … | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: Lessons from an event at the Assemblée Nationale in Paris about night trainsBullshit Meter this week: Norway launches panoramic glass roof trainGood week: Poland and Germany sign a bit of paper (with a major omission)Bad week: Stadler's | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekFree to read: How to fix railway ticketing in the EUAnalysis: Chinese investment in European railwaysBullshit Meter this week: Loop line connecting British and Irish citiesGood week: A future for the Una line?Bad week: Bane NOR seems to have caused its | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekFree to read: How to fix railway ticketing in the EUAnalysis: Chinese investment in European railwaysBullshit Meter this week: Loop line connecting British and Irish citiesGood week: A future for the Una line?Bad week: Bane NOR seems to have caused its | Continue reading
866000 likes on Instagram, but it is not true. NRK even put out a story about the fact that it is fake.There is an Arctic Train to/from Narvik in winter time, but it is an old EMU.Thanks Zugreiseblog for the suggestion to include this one. | Continue reading
Cross Country in the UK has revealed the first of its rebuilt fleet of Voyager DMUs. These trains are getting some new carpets and some new seats. And some new paint.Seats set up for people to admire some new paint on a train.Big deal! It is going to | Continue reading
This idea would:Allow Europeans to travel internationally, while emitting as little CO2 as possibleCreate jobs in European manufacturing industries, some even in the most deprived corners of the EUBoost the construction industry that would get contracts to build new linesBenefit … | Continue reading
Imagine you're making a simple international trip: Frankfurt (Main) Hbf to Lyon Part Dieu. One change of train, in Strasbourg*.But your Frankfurt - Strasbourg train is delayed, and you miss the Strasbourg - Lyon TGV on which you were booked.What do you do?You would either | Continue reading
We know there is a problem with rail ticketing in the EU - anyone who has ever tried to book trains cross-border has encountered the issues. If you can find the trains you want, you often cannot get prices for the tickets. And even if you can get prices, you | Continue reading
If we had any doubt about the UK's lack of coherent high speed rail planning, the country has been unable to connect its existing high speed railway line HS1 to the new HS2 line it is building.But now along comes Chris Williamson (who is President of RIBA | Continue reading
If we had any doubt about the UK's lack of coherent high speed rail planning, the country has been unable to connect its existing high speed railway line HS1 to the new HS2 line it is building.But now along comes Chris Williamson (who is President of RIBA | Continue reading
In the Newsletter this weekAnalysis: Ferromobile, Flexy, EcoTrain, Draisy and TELLi - France's efforts to save branch linesJon elsewhere this week: Europapodcast-Folgen auf deutschBullshit Meter this week: Thessaloniki-Sofia trains to returnGood week: Polish railwaysBad week: ÖBB … | Continue reading
So Sofia-Thessaloniki #CrossBorderRail is meant to re-open "next year"It's operationally possible (it used to run), but given how slow it is, and the mess of Greek railways and the poor financial state of Bulgarian ones I don't believe it yetNews: https://www. | Continue reading
It's probably the aspect of a project everyone dislikes the most: documenting it all once the research phase is done.And with my #CrossBorderRail project there has been a lot of research - major tours to visit international railway lines in every corner of Europe every summer 202 … | Continue reading
Independent Railway Commentator | Continue reading
It's election time in Hungary. That has nothing to do with the "announcement" that Hungary is to buy a big round number of InterCity trains from China, oh no. You can read about it Railway Gazette here. Hungary might eventually buy some Chinese trains, but promising | Continue reading
As of today, 27th January 2026, this site is running on Ghost rather than WordPress. All the posts have been moved across, and URLs ought to pretty much all work as well. If something is missing here, the old site can still be found at oldsite.jonworth.euWhy am | Continue reading
“I Don’t Want to Belong to Any Club That Will Accept Me as a Member” Groucho Marx is supposed to have said. And I have come to the view that I am facing something similar in my railway work. “Why would any company in the railway sector consider me to […] | Continue reading
Discussion about re-opening Kent stations on HS1 between London and the Channel Tunnel is getting more interesting. The Bring Back Euro Trains campaign has been gathering public support to re-open the stations, Ashford’s MP says re-opening the station in his constituency is his h … | Continue reading
I am a child of the digital era. When I planned a first Interrail trip in 1999 Deutsche Bahn’s website already had a timetable search for pretty much everything (I still have the printouts from back then). I have never bought a European Rail Timetable book, although somewhere on … | Continue reading
I find myself buffeted from both sides at the moment in my transport work. Am I radical enough, or too radical? Based on who’s lecturing me on social media it is both, simultaneously. This quandary most importantly crops up regarding the future of the Channel Tunnel. The question … | Continue reading
When it was announced that Virgin Trains was successful in being allocated maintenance depot capacity at Temple Mills in east London, there was a sort of reaction “we’ll that will mean that Virgin will be the competitor to Eurostar then.” But no sooner had the decision been made … | Continue reading
A post by UITP Secretary General Mohamed Mezghani caught my eye on LinkedIn – it’s about Spain’s plan to introduce a €60 a month flat rate national public transport ticket next year, along the lines of what Germany did with Deutschlandticket. “While this plan will certainly make … | Continue reading
One of the aspects of my #CrossChannelRail report that drew the most reaction was my conclusion that serving Köln Hbf with trains to London was too complicated, and it would better to serve Köln/Bonn Flughafen or Horrem instead – as it would be easier to secure a platform and bui … | Continue reading
After yesterday’s news that Basel-Malmö will not happen, today there’s news today that a new night train route will open up – European Sleeper is proposing to run from Bruxelles and Amsterdam to Switzerland and Milano from June 2026. Their press release about it is here (PDF). A … | Continue reading
So there will not be a Basel – Malmö night train from the spring of 2026. Switzerland’s parliament did not approve the subsidy to allow it to run. Without the 10 million CHF the parliament refused to grant to get this going (from a wider fund of 47 million CHF […] | Continue reading
It has been something in the back of my mind for more than a decade: how could railway passengers be better represented to campaign for improvements in international rail? Here’s a piece I wrote in 2014 about the topic. And the issue very much came to a head in 2021 […] | Continue reading
I was sent this a few hours ago in a messenger group, and it’s brilliant: Geo Racers, a kind of web based version of Race Across the World the TV series. It’s made by Chris Pattle – more about him here, and you can donate here. You have a limited […] | Continue reading
Dear Alberto, It is a little odd for me, a blogger and campaigner, to be writing an open letter to you as Executive Director of Community of European Railways (CER). But the combination of circumstances I have faced today on a cross border journey involving trains operated by two … | Continue reading
*** This post is an adapted version of one part of my #CrossChannelRail Project Final Report *** The two existing train types that operate long distance high speed services through the Channel Tunnel (TMST and Siemens Velaro 16 carriage version) are both single units, each train … | Continue reading
After three weeks of research on the ground in spring 2025, dozens of follow conversations, and plenty of desk research, today I finally published the conclusions report from my #CrossChannelRail project – you can download the PDF of the report here. The stations map is also avai … | Continue reading
A post popped up in my Bluesky feed from Renfe: 🚄 Renfe se suma a la declaración conjunta @cer-railways.bsky.social y @eurocities.eu para ✅ Triplicar el tráfico para 2050✅ Conectar todas las capitales y grandes ciudades✅ Billetes integrados y financiación sostenible¡Una E … | Continue reading
The latest setback in the entry into service of the new Régiolis fleet for France-Germany cross border services: now there is a problem with the emergency brakes, Le Republicain Lorrain reported yesterday. While the trains are OK to operate in France, but they do not respect the … | Continue reading
There’s this railway joke* where a passenger is at Calais Fréthun station, staring at the “Londres, Ebbsfleet – Voie 3” sign. The passenger stops a gnarled SNCF employee and asks “How do I get to London?” (in French, obviously), and the response is “Well I wouldn’t start from her … | Continue reading
Today the European Commission released its “plan to accelerate high-speed rail across Europe” (press release here). Only it’s not a plan. And Community of European Railways (CER), the state owned railways’ trade body, stated this will “revolutionise the way travel distances are p … | Continue reading