56 posts
A little Nordic rail trip
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I will be making what should be a reasonably simple rail trip in early December – the 600km journey between Copenhagen (station: København H) and Oslo (station: Oslo S). So how do I do it? Well, it turns out that it is all nowhere as simple as...
All the (train)roads lead to Athens
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The European Green Party has chosen Athens to host its second 2012 council. This meeting, which put together delegates from all european green parties, will happen between the 11 and the 13 of November. I am actually delighted with the choice of loca...
In praise of @DB_bahn (not the railway, but the Twitter account)
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This is for you Torsten, Simon, Norman, Marc, Kai, Danny, Janice, Matthias, Maik, Filiz, Jana, Christian, Christian and Nicole: a huge thanks from a regular DB traveller for helping to make my journeys a little more manageable and pleasant. For those...
NS does a Jimmy Carr (2)
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OK, so that was quite a way to come back after my summer vacation. From this blog post here about tax evasion by the Dutch state railway company NS came this GeenStijl story, which in turn led to a ginormous article in De Volkskrant last Saturda...
UK, trains and the EU
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Some in the UK have a tendency to point to the EU has a source of lots of problems, not really investigating the issue in detail and often referring to only superficial links. The privatisation of the trains in the UK is an example of this.So why do...
Cheap rail tickets through Germany
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So you want a one-off rail ticket through Germany, and you want it as cheap as possible. You’re doing a journey like Belgium (- Germany -) Austria, or Denmark (- Germany -) Czech Republic, but you’re not going to stop* in Germany. Here...
Railways for the many, not high speed rail for the few
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Labour will be travelling on the wrong line if it gives its wholehearted support for the proposed HS2. This is one infrastructure scheme that deserves to hit the buffers. Labour absolutely must support a better rail network, but what we really need i...
Scrapping ‘Maastricht Hop’ Does Little for Belgian Train Punctuality
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Since last month, Maastricht is no longer directly connected by train to Brussels. Although it’s uncomfortable for the thousands of international students and expats working in Maastricht nowadays, it’s not the end of the world, according...
Germany – Stuttgart Station gets popular ‘Go!’
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The construction of Stuttgart 21, the billion-Euros station project in the capital of Baden-Württemberg, can finally go ahead. Yesterday a 58,8 percent majority of the 7,6 million voters gave their green light. For Winfried Kretschmar, the Green pre...
Boris, Foster and the cross-channel metro
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Contingency planning. Never sexy, always worthwhile. In tonight’s evening standard, there’s a double page spread on future London airport capacity. Alongside the by now well known Boris island idea sit plans now developed by Sir Norman Fo...
The case for night trains from Brussels
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As part of my relentless pursuit to be green with my travels, I’m always taking the train. But for a trip I’m planning 3-6 December to Berlin, my patience is really running low. To get to Berlin from London I … Continue reading U...
High-speed Europe ?
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The European rail system is one of the means of transportation that has not been updated over the past decade. It is still difficult to book a ticket in another country and make the true European journey workable. France could take a leading role in...
A knock on the door telling you to get off in Dortmund – not the best rail comms
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By popular demand here’s the story on my return from Billund (getting to Billund is here). It all started fine. I waited for the bus to Kolding at a freezing cold bus stop outside Lego HQ but the bus arrived, departed, and got me to Kolding wit...
Bruxelles Midi (Belgium) to Vejle st (Denmark) by train
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I need to get to Billund in Denmark for work in December, and as I’m trying to be green this year I’m going to take the train. I’m in Brussels the day before, so will leave from there, and I need to get to Vejle, the town closest to...
Regulation on a European Rail Network for Competitive Freight
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Regulation (EU) No 913/2010 concerning a European rail network for competitive freight has been published in the Official Journal. The regulation aims at the establishment of international rail corridors for a European rail network for competitive fr...
Traintastic ideas for High Speed 1
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Eurostar image from Wikipedia As you know, the HS1 high speed route has a lot of importance for me. Not only is it my route to Brussels – vital for work – but also to London. So with HS1 in the news today, some thoughts… 1) Commu...
If I wanted to blow up a train this isn’t going to stop me
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I’ve seen some idiotic security controls in my time, but yesterday at Estació de França, Barcelona, beats all of them. The station, as the name implies, is the old terminus station for trains from the north of Catalonia towards France, and i...
My Europe (1): Trains
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It is "My Europe Week" and instead of writing long articles I am looking for photos that make me remember my Europe. In the early times of this blog I wrote a post titled "Talking to Europe" in which I told some stories I experienced while travellin...
Some lessons learnt from Europe’s travel chaos (and some tips to help you get home)
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5 days into the volcano mess and the finger pointing is starting, some of it more and some of it less well argued. Charlemagne has an elegantly penned argument of why he will not comment, while EUObserver has a summary of the rants of Europe’s...
Forum: Rail safety
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On 15 February this year, 18 people died and 200 were injured when two passenger trains collided on the outskirts of Brussels. Who or what is to blame? Two MEPs and the director of the European Railway Agency debate liberalisation of the sector, lack...
European rail passengers’ rights – time to do something? But what..?
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I have a reputation as a blogger that gets things done – I don’t just have opinions on things, I try to transform my thoughts into practical action. Campaigns such as Gender Balanced Commission and the Atheist Bus Campaign hav...
Maybe Eurostar needed divine intervention?
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In some weird transport / religion crossover an online magazine called Communicate Jesus has done a write-up on the Eurostar mess and has linked to my post about the issue. Seems they did not notice the Atheist Bus banner in my sidebar Their articl...
You would have thought SNCF would have learnt from Eurostar… sadly not
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Eurostar has not been running for 3 days and has been roundly criticised for not informing passengers what’s going on. In that climate you would have thought that other train operators would have been especially attentive to customer service in...
Just to make it crystal clear: these Eurostar problems are not unprecedented
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Over the last 48 hours there has been much searching for the root of the problems Eurostar has been facing. There has been plenty of human incompetence for sure, but at the start the trains were at fault. I’ve consistently been tweeting that th...
The Eurostar case: learn the lessons, for this is not a good case of social media use
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We Are Social, the firm behind Eurostar’s presence on Twitter and Facebook, have written a note about their role in helping the rail company respond to the ongoing travel difficulties starting on 18th December, and continuing as I write. Eurost...
First rule of social media (well, any comms) – don’t lie. Eurostar – learn the lessons!
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A friend contacted me via Skype – she has a ticket for a Brussels-London Eurostar at 1800 today and wanted to find out my experiences. I told her I was back home, having been categorically told via the announcements at Gare du Midi...
Abject Eurostar communications and technological failure
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Last night at 2202 a newsletter arrived in my inbox entitled ‘Europe: the ideal Christmas gift’, urging me to offer friends and family a trip on Eurostar. At the same time Eurostar knew a difficult situation was developing on its ser...
Delays come to an end (EU HSR 2009)
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Today (13 December), full high-speed service started on five European lines. Thus, 2009 is another...
Building two separate rail networks: one for high-speed passenger trains and one dedicated to freight
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Rail is a highly sustainable mode of transport that is well-adapted to the medium population densities present in Europe. However, the European rail networks need to be transformed deeply. To read the full article, click here ———&...
The world according to DB (with apologies to the atheist bus campaign)
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Inspired by my previous blog entry, and the atheist bus campaign. Time for a new web campaign - save the night train?
So much for being green - no more Brussels-Berlin/Hamburg night trains
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I’ve been taking it for years - the DB / City Night Line train from Brussels to Berlin / Hamburg but from the December timetable change the line no longer exists (see the routes PDF here). The train starts in Paris and will take a new route com...
Thalys via Paris: it’s the planes and the second seat that are the real scandal
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From the start of the French Presidency of the EU (1st July), a 300km/h Thalys train is going to be hired to transport MEPs and EP officials from Brussels to Strasbourg for the monthly plenary sessions. Sounds like a reasonable idea - via the high sp...
