Each new edition of the European Rail Timetable (ERT) includes a really useful section called Newslines. Compiled each month by ERT editor Chris Woodcock, Newslines highlights significant new developments in European rail travel and previews upcoming changes in service patterns. As a courtesy to readers of our Europe by Rail book, and the wider community of rail travellers, we present here the monthly Newslines files which you can read below. We count it as a great privilege to have enjoyed, over many years, good relations with the ERT team, and we've realised just how appreciative they are when we feed them industry intelligence about new or revised rail services. But the ERT team are the experts. We learn far more from them than they ever do from us.
The monthly Newslines column is of course no substitute for acquiring your own copy of each new edition of the European Rail Timetable. The book is a masterpiece of compression and, even in these days of information overload on the internet, we would never dream of setting out from home without the latest copy of the ERT.
In our Newslines archive, you’ll find every monthly edition since the ERT resumed republication in March 2014. You’ll also find a piece of publishing history, as we also reproduce below the last 28 editions of Newslines from Thomas Cook days. Brendan Fox compiled Newslines until Thomas Cook closed its publishing division in late summer 2013. Our archive thus also includes the monthly Newslines from May 2011 until August 2013 inclusive.
Please note that due to the Coronavirus pandemic, no issue of the ERT was produced in certain months in 2020 and 2021. The Newslines covering these months are missing accordingly.
We, like so many dedicated rail travellers in Europe, are indebted to John Potter, who took the lead in creating the new company which has published the European Rail Timetable since 2014. John, Chris, Brendan and their fellow compilers at ERT have done a brilliant job in perpetuating a publishing tradition which goes right back to the 19th century. The very first issue of Thomas Cook's European Timetable was published in 1873, so it has now achieved the remarkable feat of having been published more or less continuously for 150 years.
With the news in late May 2024 that European Rail Timetable Ltd is moving to new ownership, we wish the whole team every success in taking forward this timetable project in a way that takes full advantage of modern digital datastreams. And we wish John Potter a long and happy retirement.
Susanne Kries and Nicky Gardner (updated May 2024)
