It’s quite rare that anyone organises a kind of protest for the re-opening of an international railway line, but that is exactly what is happening on Sunday 14 April at Breisach-Volgelsheim, the part of the Freiburg-Colmar cross border railway line that is missing. You can find out all about the work to re-open the line here, but the gist is that a cycle ride starts from Freiburg at 9am, or for those arriving by S-Bahn at 10am, and the human chain action starts in Breisach at 11am. Personally once the protest is done I will cycle from Volgelsheim to Colmar, and depart from there.

It’s not the first time I am going to Breisach – I was there in 2022 as part of my first #CrossBorderRail project – you can read more about it in the Badische Zeitung at the time. There is also a Flickr Album from my trip there.

But given I have to travel more than 4 hours to get to Breisach, and need to arrive on Saturday 13th April, there’s time for a little bit more #CrossBorderRail as well – because south of Freiburg there is a further international railway line, where tracks are in place but for months there have been rail replacement buses – it’s Neuenburg 🇩🇪 – Bantzenheim 🇫🇷 – you can see it here on my All The Borders map.

So on Saturday 13th April I am looking at that – and you would be most welcome to come along!

Here is the rough timetable:

12:15 – departure of rail replacement bus to Müllheim (Baden), forecourt of Mulhouse Gare SNCF [map]
12:53 – arrival of rail replacement bus in Bantzenheim Gare [map]
13:00 – departure of group by bike – cycling c. 44km to Freiburg
13:45-14:00 – pause at Müllheim(Baden) Bahnhof [map]
16:00 – end of the cycling route at Strandcafé Freiburg [map]
16:00-18:00 – coffee and/or beer and conversation at Strandcafé
from 18:00 – possibly dinner at Bodega der Geier [map] if there are enough people

The proposed cycling route is here on Komoot – the part between Müllheim and Freiburg might be tweaked a little if locals know better paths through the vineyards than Komoot suggested to me!

You are of course welcome to simply come along for a coffee or a beer at Strandcafé and talk about the joys and challenges of international public transport – there is no obligation to join for the cycle route!

I would just be grateful if you could tell me if you plan to come along – please use this form. That way if something goes wrong, or I am delayed for some reason, I can inform you.

Photo used in this post

Sulzburg
Ad Bercht
August 10, 2016
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0