When I took New York Times to Seifhennersdorf in August 2022, little did I know that change was around the corner. The railway station was in a sorry state, weeds growing over the platforms and the tracks rusting.
But in June 2023 that all changed – trains were extended from Varnsdorf (Czechia) to Seifhennersdorf (Germany) once again, bringing to an end 8 years of rail replacement buses for the small town in Sachsen.
I was lucky enough to be able to go to the party to re-launch the train – the picture above is me with Karin Berndt, the Mayor of Seifhennersdorf, whose determination was key to get the train back. Operated by Trilex (Netinera Group), the line runs from Seifhennersdorf (Germany), through Varnsdorf (Czechia) to Zittau (Germany). From there it runs through PorajĂłw (Poland) to Liberec (Czechia) – and Liberec-PorajĂłw-Zittau is another one of my priority borders.
European Commission Analysis
In 2018 the European Commission published its “Comprehensive analysis of the existing cross-border rail transport connections and missing links on the internal EU borders”. The main report (74 pages, PDF) summarises the issues, and Annex 3 of the report (384 pages, PDF) analysed every single border.
For the sake of simplicity, I have made a PDF just of the relevant pages of Annex 3 that cover Seifhennersdorf-Varnsdorf – you can find that PDF here.
Photos from this location
