European Union

9th July 19:00 CEST – presentation of the first conclusions of #CrossBorderRail South East Europe 2024

The research phase of #CrossBorderRail 2024 is done, so now it is time to start to assess what I learned. The first conclusions will be presented in a public webinar at 19:00 CEST on 9th July. The webinar has now concluded, and you can view it here: The slides that […]

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Live Blog – #CrossBorderRail 2024 Extra Days 26 April – Valenciennes – Quiévrain – Gussignies – Aulnoye-Aymeries – Paris – Nuits-sous-Ravières

Jump to: Text updates | Summary videos | Latest photos | Today’s background | Today’s route   The best way to follow #CrossBorderRail as the trip develops is on social mediaThere are always posts on Mastodon (@jon@gruene.social & #CrossBorderRail)   Today’s live text updates This day of live coverage is […]

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Back to Valenciennes, back to where #CrossBorderRail began – for the event to mark 20 years of the EU Agency for Railways

On 14 June 2022, on a crisp summer morning, I was the only passenger on an international train from Mons to Aulnoye-Aymeries, and would go on from there to the EU Agency for Railways in Valenciennes – the official start of the #CrossBorderRail project. Josef Doppelbauer, the boss of the […]

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Bantzenheim, a bike ride, a beer garden – on the eve of a protest at Breisach-Volgelsheim

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 […]

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Postcards during #CrossBorderRail South East Europe 2024

During my #CrossBorderRail projects in 2022 and 2023 I sent postcards throughout the trips. In 2022 European Commissioner for Transport Adina Vălean even received a postcard from me every single day of the project! For #CrossBorderRail 2024 I am going to be repeating the postcards, with a slightly different format. […]

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As 2023 draws to a close, what next for #CrossBorderRail?

My 2023 projects might not have had the one-off “wow, some dude is crossing all of Europe’s borders in one go!” effect that 2022 had, but looking back the past 12 months have both been a lot of fun and has been politically interesting too. After the 83* borders crossed […]

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#CrossBorderRail is done for 2023 – now 193 railway borders in Europe investigated

I’m writing this blog post at my desk in Berlin, back home after the final part of my Autumn 2023 #CrossBorderRail journey. The past 10 days have taken me to Slovenia’s borders, then via Karlsruhe through France to Spain and Portugal, and then via Santiago to Compostela and Portugal again, […]

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