Pages tagged: United Kingdom

Would it not be so much better if dozens of cars could be loaded onto a car train so that parents and kids could cruise to their holiday destinations in comfort during the day? Just think of the carbon emissions saved. A half century ago, there was just such a train. It was called the Christoforus Express. We take a look at car trains of yesteryear, focusing on daytime services where motorists could sit back and let the train take the strain.

Each year in early autumn, rail operators across Europe unveil details of new services, and then release tickets for beyond the date of the timetable change in mid-December. We take a look at ticket release dates for train services from mid-December 2021 on into early 2022.

Milan, Budapest and Berlin are spots where hapless travellers are prone to make for the wrong station, but of course it can happen in any city with multiple stations, and particularly where visitors are perhaps not familiar with the local geography and the various station names. And a last-minute change of departure station can and does happen.

The COVID pandemic has made some ferry companies rethink the whole issue of conveying foot passengers (ie. those travelling without cars). Since 1 January 2021 it is simply no longer possible to travel without a vehicle by ferry on the busy short-sea route from Calais to Dover.

Looking back on past train journeys, we often think of a trip as being indelibly associated with a particular book. Paul Scraton recalls some of the volumes which he has taken along on a train ride.

Three routes in our Europe by Rail book are affected by major track renewal programmes in the first half of 2021. Get updates on how train service changes in France, England and Serbia are affecting travellers following those three routes.

Paul Scraton reflects on the appeal of the urban tram as he explores tram routes in Berlin, Sarajevo, Prague and elsewhere. For visitors to a city, the tram is more than merely a way of getting around - it is an invitation to adventure.

Would it not, in these difficult times, be so much better if operators initially open sales only for those trains which would run in the most skeleton timetable? If the pandemic abates, everyone will be delighted to then see operators responding quickly by adding in extra trains to meet renewed demand. We look at the offer of two operators: Eurostar and Thalys.

Across Europe, and more widely, there are huge variations in the extent to which national rail networks are electrified. With the need to decrease emissions, we look at the state of different countries, pondering both the future as well as taking a look into the past.

Imagine you have an unexpected hour or two at a railway station far from home. What are the ingredients of a pleasing station? Perhaps uplifting architecture, a relaxed café, a decent bookshop and an engaging range of trains to watch. Paul Scraton reflects on the ideal railway station.

Can you hazard a guess as to how many night trains to Scotland might have left London every evening sixty years ago? Four or five? A dozen perhaps? Enjoy our detailed review of Scotland-bound night trains in 1960/61.

Tony Judt, who died ten years ago in August 2010, is remembered as a first-class historian. But he was also a great advocate for rail travel. Berlin-based writer Paul Scraton shares thoughts on Tony Judt's enthusiasm for the train.

Here is an update on European night train services as of July 2020. In this post we particularly take a look at night sleepers which, for one reason or another, have not yet been reinstated. But there are also some entirely new routes.

As a response to the pogrom against the Jews in Nazi Germany, the British Jewish community organized the Kindertransport which brought nearly 10,000 mostly Jewish children to Britain in 1938 and 1939. One of the children who came to Britain was Frank Meisler, then a boy of thirteen. He would grow up to become a sculptor.

There are plans that a new company station will open close to Berlin called Dahlewitz Rolls-Royce granting access to the Rolls-Royce Aerospace plant for the company's employees. That good news prompts us to look at the fate of earlier company railway stations in France and Britain.

Perhaps a future generation of travellers will look back at the international rail timetables for early April 2020, barely able to believe that Europe could have become so fragmented. But will they even be able to find out what the timetables were? In this digital age, we do just wonder whether scholars a century hence will be able to find copies of the railway timetables which were applicable in this difficult period.

Looking through our bookshelves recently, we stumbled upon our copy of the Great Western Railway (GWR) timetable for the early months of 1902. Being largely confined to indoor activities these days, we took the opportunity to touch base with railway services of yesteryear.

Here’s a summary of a few of the changes to train services in the United Kingdom and Ireland which will be introduced with the timetable changes in December 2018.

The surveys of passenger numbers which underpinned Richard Beeching’s 1963 report on the future of Britain’s railways were conducted in the last week of April 1961. So it is interesting to look at the pattern of train services which prevailed at that time.

Is there a nautical equivalent of the track basher? Are there ferry enthusiasts who book to travel on unusual ferry routes? September has been a good month for collectors of unusual ferry routes in the Hebrides – though unseasonal stormy weather has also made it a trying month for both CalMac and their passengers.

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Badly behaved Brits on the winter-season direct overnight ski trains between London and the French Alps have prompted Eurostar to rethink its policy on the consumption of alcohol.

Travel for just €29 from London to Salzburg! Yes, it really is possible to buy a ticket from Deutsche Bahn which will take you from London to Austria for €29. The itinerary takes in six countries: England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria.

Eurostar’s new direct year-round train from London to the Mediterranean has an en-route stop at Lyon. This coming winter that Lyon stop may prove to be a favourite connecting point for travellers bound for the French Alps - and make even offer an advantage over the regular Eurostar ski trains to the Tarentaise Valley.

Revised rail timetables come into effect in Britain later this month with many train operators launching their summer schedules on Sunday 17 May 2015. Here’s a run-down of some the main features of the new timetables in north-west England.

Deutsche Bahn (DB) has a very attractive rover offer for this summer. At some time over the weeks ahead, DB will announce details of its 2015 Deutschland-Pass. This is a rail pass which allows unlimited rail travel for one month across Germany.

In the two or three months prior to the annual revamp of European rail timetables, there is inevitably speculation and angst about how the new timetables might impact on travel plans. We have a glimpse at the travel opportunities introduced by the new Eurostar services for travellers leaving from London St Pancras.

Britain has a reputation for overcrowded trains, which is in some measure due to the enduring popularity of rail travel in England, Wales and Scotland. Over the last nine years passenger journeys by rail in Great Britain have more than doubled. In 2013, over 1.6 billion journeys were made by train.

Long before anyone had even heard of Eurostar, the British Rail Board (BRB) published a series of indicative timetables for a possible Channel Tunnel rail service linking London with Paris. We reproduce here what we believe is the first iteration of that timetable, released 40 years ago in 1973.

Here is a thought to ponder as you make those final preparations for Christmas. In Berlin extra trains will run tonight on the city’s rail networks. Switch to London, and the rail network is today beginning to shut down. No trains will run anywhere in Britain on Christmas Day — and all but a handful of routes (in and around London and Glasgow) will be train-less on 26 December.

The new rail timetables that start in Britain on 9 December 2012 bring much improved services on the East Suffolk Line from Lowestoft to Ipswich and a big expansion of the London Overground network. But we think the most significant innovation to long-distance services in Britain in the new schedules comes in the competitive London to West Midlands market — evidence, perhaps, that a little competition on the rails can be very good for the consumer. Not for the first time, it is Chiltern Railways who are making the running.

Cast back half a century and there would have been nothing unusual about a direct train from Edinburgh to the port of Oban on Scotland's west coast. Indeed, our 1961 Bradshaw shows three direct trains each weekday from the Scottish capital to Oban — all running along the now sadly defunct Callander route, and serving along the way stations like Kingshouse Platform (on request), Killin Junction and Luib. All names that have long disappeared from the timetables.

There is something quite exquisite about grand railway termini. Folk fly through them, the dash for the train diminishing the status of these great cathedrals to travel. But these are not places through which one should rush. An earlier generation of Londoners referred to Victoria station as the "gateway to the continent". Victoria's role has been eclipsed by St Pancras — the grandest of termini in a capital that has many fine railway stations.

Boulogne has always knocked spots off Calais as a port-of-entry into France. The city has a particularly attractive Ville Haute (Upper Town). But sadly, you'll not find a lot of travellers from England visiting Boulogne nowadays. The famous port has been left proverbially high-and-dry with no ferry operators regularly serving the port.

A few days ago I travelled by train from the Berlin suburb of Lichterfelde to Ewell in England, just south of London. In total I paid €55 for the entire 15-hour train journey of 1393 km. Looking at the different fare components, I see that I travelled across Germany for less than one cent per kilometre.

Looking back at rail journeys we made in 2010, we would say a December journey with UK operator Wrexham and Shropshire really was one of the highlights. We travelled north from London's Marylebone station on one of W&S' sleek silver and grey trains, sliding through rime-clad Chiltern countryside. So we were perturbed to find that late last month, Wrexham & Shropshire ceased operations.