On Friday to start my #CrossBorderRail project I need to get from Ravières (Bourgogne, France) to Praha (Czechia), and this is the connection DB (the best rail planning site) shows me: 06:39 Nuits-sous-Ravières SNCF TER91371 06:49 Montbard 15min to change 07:04 Montbard SNCF TGV 6760 08:09 Paris Gare de Lyon […]
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A high speed rail plan for Europe? Let’s start with a high speed rail plan for France’s borders
The European Commission and the state owned railway companies are getting very excited about the idea there could be a EU masterplan for high speed rail. With that in mind, let’s do a little thought experiment. This started as a Bluesky thread, and has been lightly edited into this blog […]
Read MoreThe accessibility problems with Alstom’s new TGV-M train – with implications for future Channel Tunnel operators
There is no way to sweeten this: my original conclusion that Alstom’s Avelia Horizon (known as TGV-M with SNCF) is not legal at higher station platforms outside France was incorrect. Because transparency and correcting my errors matters to me, you can read the original blog entry in full here – […]
Read MoreA story of two tunnels: Kriva Palanka to Gyushevo, and the Channel Tunnel
When I went to Kumanovo in June of 2024 and found a railway station half complete, I must admit I did not think trains would run there any time soon. But this week I was proven wrong – the first part of the line that will eventually connect Skopje ion […]
Read MoreIn 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 incumbent. This […]
Read MoreVDV on cross border re-activation of lines – nice idea, details more sketchy
The Verband Deutscher Verkehrsunternehmen (VDV) (Association of German Transport Companies) has a detailed new website about reactivation of railway lines, and a PDF report with more detail. And one aspect of their proposals are cross-border reactivations that they have been publicising with the little infographic that I reproduce here. So […]
Read MoreVDV zur Reaktivierung grenzüberschreitender Bahnstrecken – schöne Idee, Details noch unklar
(Dieser Artikel wurde mit Hilfe von Deepl aus dem Englischen übersetzt und leicht korrigiert) Der Verband Deutscher Verkehrsunternehmen (VDV) hat eine ausführliche neue Website über die Reaktivierung von Eisenbahnstrecken und einen PDF-Bericht mit weiteren Details veröffentlicht. Ein Aspekt ihrer Vorschläge sind grenzüberschreitende Reaktivierungen, die sie mit der kleinen Infografik, die […]
Read MoreA partial #CrossBorderRail success – Deutsche Bahn Sparpreis cheap tickets now work to Strasbourg and to some other destination in Eastern France
Credit to one of my students at TU Braunschweig, Roland Sivonen, for discovering this one – Deutsche Bahn’s cheap Sparpreis train tickets now work correctly from Germany to Strasbourg, and some other new destinations in France as well. In this blog post I am going to explain how this change can […]
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