Jon Worth

Jon Worth

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Bundling up tickets and booking horizons: railways are making a problem for themselves

Bundling up tickets and booking horizons: railways are making a problem for themselves

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

Rail path dependency: how the oil crisis and the British government left SNCF with a problem in Italian tunnels

Rail path dependency: how the oil crisis and the British government left SNCF with a problem in Italian tunnels

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

Confirmed: SNCF's Alstom built TGV-M Avelia Horizon trains are too large for some Italian rail lines

Confirmed: SNCF's Alstom built TGV-M Avelia Horizon trains are too large for some Italian rail lines

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

Crossrail 2 starts to be built in 2026

Crossrail 2 starts to be built in 2026

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

IRJ tries to explain the EU rail ticketing reform, so I will try to decipher what they were trying to say

IRJ tries to explain the EU rail ticketing reform, so I will try to decipher what they were trying to say

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

Runway and apron of the former Tegel airport

Berlin to build a maglev to Tegel

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 without looking like they are

Drone pic of a small road crossing a small railway line

Who is to benefit from the forthcoming reform of the railway ticketing regime in the EU?

"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

Two SNCF ticket machines

One ticket, or more than one ticket, for my international train trip? More than one, with passenger rights, is the simpler solution

"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 purchase

Drone picture of Gyushevo station, Bulgaria

Bulgaria - North Macedonia Tunnel by 2028

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 effort to finally

Photo from the viral insta post

Norway launches panoramic glass roof train to see northern lights

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.

Interior of the refurbished train. Look at those seats!

Railway churnalism: how many stories do I need about some new seats and a bit of carpet?

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. Big deal! It is going to cost £75 million apparently. How do I know? Because in my rail news

Dear European leaders: here's a little idea for your competitiveness agenda

Dear European leaders: here's a little idea for your competitiveness agenda

This idea would: * Allow Europeans to travel internationally, while emitting as little CO2 as possible * Create jobs in European manufacturing industries, some even in the most deprived corners of the EU * Boost the construction industry that would get contracts to build new lines * Benefit both state owned and privately owned

Door of a single deck TGV, 1st class, shoping "Strapontin" pull down seats in vestibules

How to safely overload a high speed train (and why it matters for the debate about ticketing reform in the EU)

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

Trenitalia and SNCF ticket machines

How to fix railway ticketing in the EU

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

Loop line to connect British and Irish cities

Loop line to connect British and Irish cities

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,

OSE diesel locomotive in Thessaloniki

Sofia-Thessaloniki trains to return

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 yet News: https://www.

A map of the Sachsen-Czechia border, with pins showing railway lines

A February trip to Berlin: to systematically document my #CrossBorderRail work

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 2022-2025.