On 6th June, the #CrossBorderRail finale started – with the first part of the trip continuing until 24th June. Now, the day before the trip starts again it’s time for a quick recap of what happened so far, and what I learned from it. The map of the whole route, with a layer for each day, is here.

Also at the time of writing the project is 74% financed. That means I can pay myself the German minimum wage only up until Day 22 of the 45 days of the project – that’s 8th July in Komárno. Beyond that I will be doing this research work for free. So donations to the crowd funding are hence still very much welcome!

Here’s a quick summary of what I have learned so far. All of this will be developed in more depth later in the summer once I am back home!

My TGV to Frankfurt in Paris Est (the train on the left). Alexander Dobrindt’s illegal border controls delayed the arrival of this train in Frankfurt, meaning I had to make a massive re-routing via Regenburg and Plzen to get to Praha on the first day of the trip. Not a good start!

Day 1, the new Baltic Express (4x a day Praha – Gdynia, via Wrocław and not serving Warszawa) at Czech border station Lichkov. This is a very welcome new service, although it is rather slow on the cross border section! This is the border on my borders map.

Day 1 and a retro train on a wonderful line – open windows on the Slezský Semmering line Hanušovice – Jeseník.

North of Jeseník the infrastructure is in a worse state. Here is the line at the border into Poland – I am looking back towards Czechia here. 50km/h speed.

The Polish town Głuchołazy – the town and rail junction across the border – was badly damaged by floods in 2024. The main bridge in town is still this temporary construction.

Głuchołazy station is an eerie place. It is all orderly, and well looked after, but completely forgotten. And I was the only passenger boarding the cross border service here. The station has two lines to Czechia, and only one line to the rest of Poland. It is here on the borders map.

Further east is the dismantled line from Chuhcelná in Czechia to Racibórz in Poland – here on the map. This is the old border station, Polish side, now transformed into a kind of community centre. Nice area, but this line is unlikely to ever be re-opened.

Day 2 and onwards to the towns Český Těšín – Cieszyn at the eastern end of the Poland-Czechia border. There is a cross border railway line here with regional trains (which is about as much as you can do with it), and a former cross border tramway, with a nicely preserved tram parked by the river. Both towns felt a little eerie though. Mapped here.

Southwards to Čadca in Slovakia, an important railway junction with trains from both Czechia (the main line from Ostrava / Bohumin) and Poland (Zwardoń). The station hall is an amazing socialist era pyramid – this photo does not do it justice! Mapped here.

There are only three active railway lines crossing the Poland-Slovakia border, and Čadca – Skalité – Zwardoń is the westernmost one. The problem however: while it is electrified, and some stations (like Zwardoń shown here) semi renovated, the line speeds are really slow, and on the Polish side the route long and winding before you get to any centres of population – map here. But this then leads to a solid conclusion: the best way from south central Poland to Bratislava in Slovakia is through Czechia first, as the infrastructure is better that way. And the best way from Poland to eastern Slovakia – notably towards Poprad and Kosiče – is to use the other electrified border line much further east – at Muszyna (mapped here, visited in 2022), not least as a new line Polish side currently under construction will speed up access to this one.

The dismantled line Trstená (Slovakia) – Nowy Targ (Poland) has been transformed into an impeccable cycle lane thanks to EU funds. This one is too remote to consider re-opening as a railway.

Few railways in Europe have seen the progress in recent years that Poland has – new trains, new services, renovated stations and more passengers. This new and comfortable IC train took me from Nowy Targ to Gdanśk, right across the middle of Poland.

My purpose in Gdanśk: speaking at the Velo-City conference, about a new Cyclists Love Trains report published by ECF – download the PDF of the report here.

In 1994 when the Channel Tunnel opened I remember reading a story – that I have subsequently found again! – about taking the train to Hel. Thirty years on I finally managed to get there! And it’s wonderful.

After Gdanśk I headed south east to the Poland-Ukraine border, staying for now on the Polish side of the border. While there has been considerable attention to rail transport into Ukraine in the media, the state of the infrastructure on the ground left a lot to be desired. I will write up all of my conclusions about this border in more depth later in the summer.

Cycling around eastern Poland was both wonderful – the bench pictured is a bus stop! – and a challenge (rain from that cloud hit me 10 minutes later). But thin infrastructure necessitated quite a number of bicycle stages so as to be able to get to see the rail infrastructure.

A broad gauge freight train in Poland near Hrubieszów.

The railway line from Zamość towards Rawa Ruska/Рава-Руська in Ukraine passes the site of the Belzec extermination camp, the third most deadly extermination camp of the Holocaust. What is today’s cross border railway line to Hrebenne was used to transport more than 500000 people to their deaths. This memorial stands on the spot today.

The line from Rawa Ruska to Werchrata is used for freight – today single track, formerly double track.

Hard to photograph anything due to the security situation, the border at Medyka (mapped here) is the best Poland – Ukraine rail crossing, at least it is electrified on both sides of the border.

South of Przemyśl in Poland is the line to Khyriv/Хирів in Ukraine, and from there the line crosses back into Poland to Ustrzyki Dolne (all mapped here). Just south of Przemyśl (pictured) the line has been renovated, while near Ustrzyki Dolne it is in a notably worse state.

The train from Ustrzyki Dolne to Rzeszów was not a joyous experience. Many stations had no platforms at all (see pic 1), and due to illness I could not go further towards the border to Slovakia towards Medzilaborce (mapped) – pic 2 shows the station in Zagórz where this line starts. All the lines in this south eastern corner of Poland are in a bad state, and the RegioVan railbus copes badly with the bumps.

From Poland I headed to Bruxelles for personal reasons, and delays in Germany meant I was put in a taxi from Aachen to Bruxelles by Deutsche Bahn. And then headed north on the chronically disrupted EuroNight train from Hamburg to Stockholm – only by prematurely getting off the EuroNight in Malmö and taking an X2000 train instead did I get more or less on time to Stockholm, and from there headed to the Arctic Circle…

Sweden has long been one of my most problematic countries on #CrossBorderRail and this trip was no different. The cross border daytime service Luleå – Boden – Kiruna – Narvik was part cancelled, starting only from Kiruna (pic 1) and then departed heavily delayed. Pic 2 shows it at a rainy and windy border station Riksgränsen (here).

Heading south Norwegian side there is no railway between Narvik and Fauske – you need to take buses, and the bus goes on a ferry. It was chilly, rainy and grey.

South of Fauske and on the high fells you cross the Arctic Circle – the little mound marks the point.

One Hel is not enough! Hell, near Trondheim, was passed as well on this trip.

Trafikverket – the Swedish network operator – conspired to cut Oslo off the international rail network the weekend I needed to leave, by simultaneously doing works on the Oslo-Stockholm and Oslo-Göteborg routes on the same weekend. So I took a Flixbus across the border, and then local trains across southern Sweden, stopping off in Vänersborg where I had the opportunity to take this drone picture.

From Nässjö it was back onto the EuroNight train southbound. The cabins in the sleeping car are comfortable enough, but the carriages are old and the windows do not close very well, making the trip a bit noisy. And the train departed more than 2 hours late from Nässjö.

2 hours of delay would have been manageable, but then everything ground to a halt in Wrist in Schleswig Holstein due to a signal box failure. So I unfolded the Birdy and cycled to another station on another line to try to get around the disruption. A nice cycle, but in vain – no way home that day!

But the disruption meant going to a new border I had not planned on visiting – Reinheim – Bliesbruck (here). Closed since 1991, and now a cycle path.

And last but not least, from Sarreguemines my train to Strasbourg was one of the new Régiolis units meant to be deployed cross border but for now only used in France, because Grand Est and the three neighbouring German Länder have messed up the tender for cross border operations – as I explain here.

Right, so that’s all for now. 1st July it’s Nuits-sous-Ravières – Praha, and then I am on the rails of Europe until 5th August!