One constant throughout my #CrossBorderRail projects – despite the name! – is my bicycle. The faithful Birdy folding bike has been with me throughout, in more than 30 countries. And mounted on the handlebars (using a Quad Lock mount – amazingly good as well) is an old iPhone 6s. And, […]
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When in some post-lockdowns, post-Brexit, where-do-I-invest-my-political-energy moment of inspiration (or madness?) I thought of crossing every internal border of the EU you can cross by train in one journey to investigate how we better improve international rail connections, little did I know I was starting something that would be a […]
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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 […]
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Launched with some fanfare in the summer of 2024 (see The Times and Kurier that covered it for example), the “Trieste” – Rijeka international train service is no more. The train will not run in 2025, and there is no known date for the resumption of the route. This was […]
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Three short years ago when planning the first tour that was known as #CrossBorderRail, little did I know this would be the start of a project that would become a good part of my professional life in the years in between. That list of 95 rail borders investigated in 2022 […]
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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 – […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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