I spent yesterday at the France-Germany border – I started in Freiburg, cycled to the human chain protest at Breisach, and cycled onwards to Colmar in France. The Association Trans Rhin Rail has been working for twelve years to try to re-open the cross border section of the Freiburg-Colmar line. […]
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Previously in Yugoslavia, and today in Serbia, North Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina these locomotives are known as class 441. In Croatia they are class 1141. In Romania class 43 and 46. They are operated by Srbija Voz, TENT, MŽ, ŽFBH, ŽRS, HŽ, CFR and some private freight operators too. […]
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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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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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As was the case in 2022 and 2023, I will be organising and attending a variety of events throughout #CrossBorderRail in 2024. Although the 6 non-EU countries in South East Europe are my focus for 2024, I am nevertheless making a rather large diversion to Tallinn at the start of […]
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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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You have to give credit to the people that have kept the campaign for the re-activation of the Freiburg – Breisach – Volgelsheim – Colmar railway line alive. For a decade they’ve been campaigning, and the next step is a day of action on 14th April – where they aim […]
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The motivation for the whole #CrossBorderRail project was to assess why there had been such meagre progress fixing the 15 missing links Michael Cramer had proposed in his 2015 report. Only 1 of the 15 from Cramer’s list – Selb-Plößberg (Germany) to Aš (Czechia) – has so far been fixed. […]
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Once in a while someone gives you an idea so simple you wonder why you never thought of it yourself. “Jon, did you ever think of making a board game to explain the problems with international rail in Europe?” the producer of a documentary I am working on asked me […]
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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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