(1) PARIS to BERLIN: Until last year passengers had to change trains in Frankfurt. There is now a direct daily service between the 2 capital cities taking about 8 hours in each direction.

(2) PRAGUE to GDYNIA (BALTIC EXPRESS): Thanks to co-operation between the Czech State Railways and the Polish State Railways in 2024 a 4 times daily Eurocity Service going via Wroclaw and Poznan was launched. The end-to-end journey time is about 9 hours with many opportunities to stop off and visit attractive and interesting cities along the way. The service runs every 4 hours, where the last train of the day is effectively a “night train”. taking about 10.5 hours. You can read more about the journey here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/travel/article/20250221-the-baltic-express-central-europes-new-hop-on-hop-off-train

(3) WARSAW to the 3 BALTIC CAPITAL CITIES: Until a few years ago it was virtually impossible to make this journey, as there were no through services and no proper connections linking the 4 capital cities. Then 2 years ago a regular daily service began between Warsaw and Vilnius with a simple connection at Mockava on the Lithuanian border. We have just heard that this service will be increasing to 3 times a day in 2026 !! Then last year a regular daily service began linking Vilnius with Riga. And finally in 2025 this service was extended to Valga on the Estonian border with a simple onward connection to Tallinn.

(4) MORE DIRECT DAY TRAINS PLANNED BETWEEN ITALY, AUSTRIA AND GERMANY via the Brenner Pass: Again, due to co-operation between the 3 State Rail companies, 2 daily Eurocity services linking both Milan and Rome to Munich will run from December 2026. These will be followed by 2 more in 2027, one linking Milan and Berlin and another linking Naples with Munich. Finally in 2028 a further service will be introduced between Naples and Berlin.

There is an alternative choice of services via Paris GDLyon to Milano with an easy change in Geneva or Lausanne. This route provides at least one day-time journey opportunity from London.

Another alternative choice, also via Paris GDLyon to Milano, involves an easy change at Basel or Zurich. This route provides at least two day-time journey opportunities from London.

This is the first time for several years where all the main connections from London to Northern Italy via Paris are available. Either the Gotthard route through Switzerland had been partially closed for a year or the Simplon route via Lausanne had been periodically closed due to extensive engineering works.

AND FINALLY – A few places are still left for the EPF conference in Swindon on 13th/14th June. Members of our campaign are entitled to the discounted rate of 100 Euros. See the link below for details: https://www.epfconference.eu/

RUNWAYS TO RAILWAYS : UNLOCKING THE GROWTH POTENTIAL OF THE CHANNEL TUNNEL

Monday 31st March – 6pm to 8pm in London – The Campaign for Better Transport will be holding a panel discussion about how the UK can make better use of International Rail. See below to register for this free event.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/runways-to-railways-unlocking-the-growth-potential-of-the-channel-tunnel-tickets-1262329444349?aff=oddtdtcreator

RESTORING INTERNATIONAL SERVICES FROM ASHFORD & EBBSFLEET

A group of Kent & Sussex MPs have met with Eurostar urging them to carry out a proper assessment of consumer demand for train services serving these 2 stations in Kent. They also met with Virgin & the Rail Minister who confirmed they were both keen to see international services restored to the 2 Kent stations.

ORR – “THE REGULATOR” IS HELPING TO REMOVING ANOTHER BARRIER PREVENTING VIRGIN & EVOLYN STARTING NEW SERVICES FROM LONDON

Last year Virgin & Evolyn made a formal Section 17 depot access application to the ORR (The Office of Rail & Road) for permission to use the International Depot at Stratford for train-preparation & servicing. Eurostar then claimed that there was no space for another operator and also claimed that ORR have no power to make such a decision. The ORR have now ruled that they have the legal authority to make this decision and have appointed an independent expert to investigate & report. They then hope to make a decision later this year. We predict that they will rule that there is enough space, but, for only one new operator.

MORE EUROPEAN DESTINATIONS BECOMES GOVERNMENT POLICY

Lord Hendy – the Rail Minister stated in Parliament on 25th February “The Dft is working as hard as it can to increase the number of European destinations accessible through Eurotunnel”

AND NOW THE SWISS WANT TO COME TO LONDON

Now that the owners of HS1 and Getlink (who own the channel tunnel) are working together to develop more passenger services to/from Europe, our Department of Transport officials have been discussing with Swiss Federal Railways the feasibility of direct services between London and Switzerland. Direct high-speed trains from London to Geneva or Basel could offer journey times of just under 6 hours. See here for more details from Swiss Info: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/could-a-direct-high-speed-train-link-between-switzerland-and-london-soon-be-a-reality/49071586

(1) On the 7th of August during “Storm Hans”, extreme rainfall and flooding caused the collapse of a bridge near Lillehammer on the main trunk line serving Northern Norway between Oslo and Trondheim. It will take a minimum of 3 months to restore any kind of service. There is only one alternative slower route with limited capacity.

(2) On the 27th of August there was a very large rockfall near Modane which blocked the key Transalpine link between France and Italy. It is estimated that it will take a minimum of 3-4 months to restore any kind of service. There is no real alternative route except for very lengthy and congested detours via Switzerland or the French & Italian Rivieras. This was made worse with the Simplon tunnel closed for engineering work until the 10th of September, and the Gotthard tunnel being only partially open since the 10th August due to a freight train derailment.

(3) On the 8th of September “Storm Daniel” in Greece damaged and/or flooded around 60 kilometres of the main Athens-Thessaloniki trunk line. At present, there is no estimate as to when services can be restored. This is the one and only double track electrified main line linking the 2 largest cities in Greece.

You can look here for some useful stopover hints: https://www.youtube.com/@low-carbon-travel/videos.

IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS: – Various campaigns are now taking shape with the aim of making further improvements to cross-border services. We can expect the start of 2 new night train services: – one from Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris to Barcelona and another from Zurich to Barcelona. We are hoping that a regular service of up to 8-9 daily regional trains can run from Barcelona to Perpignan in the next few years. Finally, on the Atlantic coast, we have the possibility of a completely new regular interval regional service between San Sebastian and Bayonne, once modernisation work on the line in Spain has been completed.

You can find out more about the possibilities at: https://www.epf.eu/wp/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Pau-Noy-AIF.pdf.

For further details see: https://www.europeansleeper.eu/en

The launch of the new service got a lot of good publicity including this article in The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2023/may/29/berlin-to-brussels-night-train-renaissance-gathers-speed-new-european-sleeper

On this route to mainland Europe Stena Line run both a day and a night crossing 7 days a week 365 days a year. It is also one of the few routes that is rail connected at both ports. It has become a little easier with the opening of the light rail (or metro) extension to Hoek van Holland Strand and the brand new through station at Hoek van Holland Haven.

On April 5th our correspondent disembarked from the night ferry at 08.05 and by 09.15 was on an Inter City train from Rotterdam heading towards Brussels.

Before you had a 500-meter trek to a temporary wooden platform, whereas now it is only 30 meters from the ferry terminal to the new station. A notice (only in Dutch) directs you there where you buy your RET chip card for the metro from a machine if you have not already ordered it online. 

On a weekday, the metro trains are busy at this time of the morning, with people travelling into Rotterdam for work. If you know what you are doing, you can quickly change at Schiedam Centrum to catch a train up the coast to The Hague and Amsterdam or catch a frequent train into Rotterdam Centraal and continue east or south. If your final destination is Utrecht or Germany, you also have the option of continuing on the metro line to the modern suburb of Alexander and changing there to an Inter-City train.

Rail passengers from the UK will be pleased to find several new connections between Germany, Denmark and Sweden, new day train services between Austria, Germany and Italy and the return of connecting Night Train services to Barcelona, Milan and Venice.

 On January 13th the European Passengers’ Federation (of which ERC(UK) is an associate member) marked its 20th birthday with a special event at the European Parliament in Brussels.

ERC(UK) and the German association PROBAHN helped sponsor the event, and two of our members attended along with 35 other colleagues from Continental public transport users’ associations, lobbyists and decision-makers. 

The event was hosted by Irish MEP Ciaran Cuffe and speakers included representatives of the Community of European Railways, ALLRAIL plus train campaigner and blogger Jon Worth.  

Topics covered in the presentations and discussion embraced cross-border services and passenger rights.  

For a full report see: http://www.epf.eu/wp/epf-celebrates-turning-20/

TO EUROPE BY RAIL/SEA/RAIL

One of the few convenient links to Europe by sea is the twice daily Stena Line service from Harwich to Hook van Hollande. While in the UK the ship connects directly into the UK rail network at Harwich, passengers arriving at Hook van Hollande have to buy a separate Metro Card for the Rotterdam area Metro service before connecting into the Dutch rail network.

In conjunction with our Dutch colleagues, we asked if they could sell the cards on board the ship to save passengers having to queue for the ticket machine on the platform. Stena Line are not yet willing to sell metro cards on board the vessel but have now set up a link (in English) explaining how these can be bought on the ferry using an app. They have also agreed to include this information in e-mails sent in advance to customers making a booking. For further information please see: –

https://www.ret.nl/home/reizen/stenaline.html

BIKES ON EUROSTAR

The cyclists’ organisation Cycling UK has been pressing Eurostar to allow cyclists again to carry their bikes on its trains.  For now, they have re-introduced this only for the London – Paris service, subject to space being available for large items of luggage.  Intending passengers must first book their Eurostar ticket and then contact the operator to book a space for their bike.

We obviously hope that these arrangements will be extended for the Brussels and Amsterdam services in due course. 

See: https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/12/28/flight-free-travel-europes-new-long-distance-train-routes-for-2022

And see also: https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/07/22/meet-the-man-battling-to-fix-europe-s-trains-via-an-epic-40-day-journey