Each new edition of the European Rail Timetable (ERT) includes a really useful section called Newslines. Compiled each month by the ERT team, 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 are grateful to them for supplying us with the Newslines features for publication here. This is an arrangment which goes back over 15 years.
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, there is still a place for a printed timetable which selectively presents schedules for key rail routes across Europe.
In our Newslines archive, you’ll find every 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.
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. In May 2024 European Rail Timetable Ltd imoved to new ownership under the stewardship of Adrian Noskwith and Laura Godsall. The new owners took the decision to reduce the publication frequency so the timetable no longer appears monthly. In 2025, there were two print editions and a similar pattern is planned for 2026 (with publication in 2026 in February and June). The monthly digital edition was discontinued in late 2025, but a pdf version of each print edition is still produced. This means that Newslines now appears less frequently..
Susanne Kries and Nicky Gardner (updated May 2026)
