Today’s live text updates
(And I’d really appreciate boosts of this one, rather than of the rubbish other media have been putting out all day)
Plans to boost capacity at St Pancras are welcome. But the hurdles to run trains from London to 🇩🇪, 🇨🇭 and 🇫🇷 beyond Paris are elsewhere, as I explain in this piece for the iPaper https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/travel/rail-routes-st-pancras-upgrade-open-up-fewer-hurdles-3548255 #CrossChannelRail
Tipp für Journalisten: Bevor du etwas über Züge schreibst, frage vielleicht jemanden, der sich mit Eisenbahnen auskennt, um einen Kommentar. So verhinderst du vielleicht, dass dein Artikel zwischen PR-Geschwafel und völligem Mist landet.
Niemand – weder Eurostar, Virgin Trains noch Evolyn – besitzt Züge, die von Deutschland nach London fahren dürfen. Die DB hatte die Baureihe 406, aber die sind ständig ausgefallen und daher nicht brauchbar.
Also macht mal Journalismus, recherchiert mal: Solange niemand Züge hat, wird das nicht passieren! 🤬
#CrossChannelRail
https://ard.social/@tagesschau/114042285827547349
Oh really do **** off and do some journalism
Time for another #Bullshitmeter
Or merda di bufalo d'acqua perhaps, and I can smell it from here
No, there are not going to be trains to Milano 🇮🇹 when St Pancras station is expanded
Response to this Times story https://www.thetimes.com/uk/transport/article/st-pancras-expansion-route-train-travel-fbfkmw9xv
Aaaannnndd the latest Channel Tunnel 💩
No there aren’t going to be London - Milano direct trains
It’s so far and complex I’m not even including it in my #CrossChannelRail project!
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/transport/article/st-pancras-expansion-route-train-travel-fbfkmw9xv
There's lots of talk that some companies might try to rival Eurostar on routes to London. But I struggle to see how they differentiate themselves. #CrossChannelRail
So I wrote about it 👇
https://jonworth.eu/want-to-rival-eurostar-on-channel-tunnel-routes-how-do-you-differentiate-yourself/
Guest coming to stay in Ravières. So the bike-taxi is deployed!
Folding bike into the bike trailer. Unfold it at Nuits-sous-Ravières station. Guest’s bag goes in the trailer and he and I cycle it home!
It's Geoguessr meets night trains! 😀
There are your 🇪🇸-🇵🇹 Talgo night train carriages - parked up and rusting in Gijón - Google Street view from June 2024 https://www.google.com/maps/@43.5352441,-5.7060069,3a,75y,143.24h,88.23t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s4i08vJyvu40OjoPFuGxrmA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D1.7687497230155032%26panoid%3D4i08vJyvu40OjoPFuGxrmA%26yaw%3D143.24403070570327!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDIxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
Satellite view https://www.google.com/maps/@43.5348112,-5.7074133,304m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDIxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
Follow up on the story posted by @vorortanleiter earlier!
Lisboa 🇵🇹 - Madrid 🇪🇸 night train back running first half of 2025 🤔 - like by the end of June? https://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/2025-02-12/tren-nocturno-madrid-lisboa-vuelve-2025-asi-es-servicio-llega-antes-ave-1qrt-1tna_4063579/
As the Elvas-Evora high speed line in Portugal still isn't done, I assume it'd have to go via Vilar Formoso, ⚡️ in PT, ⛽️ in ES still?
Not at all sure about this, sorry
Link via @vorortanleiter
This
*And* regulation done right can also create business
Why is there no proper third party rail ticket selling business? Because you can't get the data you need. You need regulation to free up that data and 🥁 new business will 💐
https://social.v.st/@quixoticgeek/113992153326254435
Geopolitics had the Schleswig Holstein Question
Machine intelligence has the Turing Test
And here we have the passenger railway equivalent - the VALENCE-ARMENTIÈRES PROBLEM
What the problem is, and why no one solves it currently, explained 👇
https://jonworth.eu/solving-the-valence-armentieres-problem-the-gold-standard-for-railway-trip-planning-and-ticket-sales/
So let's call this the “Valence - Armentières Problem”
If and when someone builds *the* perfect rail app of the future, it ought to be able to route me correctly AND sell me tickets for this one!
/ends
Ah, bonus points for this route - station names in France are a total mess
Trainline:
Valence TGV
DB:
Valence TGV Rhône-Alpes Sud
SNCF Connect:
Valence Tgv Rhone-Alpes Sud
And the other end…
Trainline, SNCF Connect:
Armentières
DB:
Armentieres
SNCF Connect cannot show me routes with more than 2 changes, and does not even seem to know the bus to the TGV station exists - it just shows the TGV station even if I enter Valence Ville and not Valence TGV
Trainline fails similarly, even though it could *theoretically* route me onto a Frecciarossa (they have Trenitalia data) they do not
So why do I want this *perfect complicated route*?
I want it so as to test train planning and ticket sales platforms
How do they handle it?
Deutsche Bahn - of course! - gives me a series of solid routes, even telling me when Trenitalia trains (see FR 6654) go, and offering me bus routes to Valence TGV
On criterion 4 there'd be no way by any means other than train to complete a Valence - Armentières trip in less than 6 hours
And criteria 1, 2 and 3 are fulfilled by a bunch of routes
Starting with 5, that basically means you have to have Paris - Lyon as part of the route, where Trenitalia competes with SNCF
That means your route has to be somewhere south-ish of Lyon to somewhere north-ish of Paris
Valence Ville also helps with 6 - in that a bus to the TGV station outside town is a useful additional way to complete the trip
Text updates are auto-generated from Mastodon – follow me on Mastodon @jon@gruene.social
Some updates will also be occasionally be posted on Bluesky – follow me @jonworth.eu
Today’s introduction and summary videos
All the #CrossBorderRail daily videos are on my Peertube channel
Today’s photos
Today’s background
A day of transition from north east Europe to central Europe! The daily InterCity train to Warszawa arrives too late to connect with the night train from there to Budapest, so it’s instead a coach for the cross border section, and then after a few hours in Warszawa onto the night train across 4 countries to Budapest.
Borders examined on this day:
Zebrzydowice 🇵🇱 – Bohumín 🇨🇿
Distance covered:
1407.9km
Transport modes:
🚆 1
🚌 1
Today’s route
The full zoomable and scrollable map, including today’s route, is on uMap here.
