European passenger rail trips continue to expand, with a disturbance of the new opening and competition routes heated on basic routes, including the rail line running beneath the English channel. Plans to rationalize the detention process throughout Europe could also make rail trips easier and more efficiently.
The European Commission encourages the impulse. At the hearing of confirmation in November, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the new European Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism, said the connection of European cities with high -speed rail rails is “top priority”. He was also swore to present the regulation plan for a single digital detention system and tickets for the European rail before the end of the first year in his office, which will fall on December 1st.
Demand for train travel is strong and increasing. The cross -border rail traffic in Europe increased by 7 % in 2024 compared to 2023, according to the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure companies, an industrial team based in Brussels. The rail traffic of passengers within individual countries increased by about 3 %.
Victor Thévenet, Political Railway Director at Transport and Environment, an environmental team based on Brussels, described the possibility of a ticket detention and issue system as “the big thing on the agenda in 2025.”
“In a single ticket. You will be able to buy a trip that connects different train operators and you will be sure you will protect your passengers’ rights if something goes wrong during the trip,” Mr Thévenet said, noting that the System will work for all major and peripheral trains throughout Europe. He added that public consultations on such a plan are taking place this year and that the proposed legislation should go to the European Parliament in 2026.
Paris in Milan and beyond
For travelers who love rail lines, there are many new routes to choose from.
An immediate service during the day between Paris and Berlin watching about eight hours began in December. Travel tickets – which also stops in Strasbourg, France and Karlsruhe and Frankfurt in Germany – start at 60 euros or about $ 62. The new route is besides the slowest overnight stay connecting French and German capitals, which opened at the end of 2023.
Alberto Mazzola, Executive Director of the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies, the industry industry, described the new Paris-Verlin route as “an important relationship between two major European capitals”. But he added that the route is only partially high speed. With the correct infrastructure, travel time could fall in just five hours. “There is an opportunity to do even better,” he said.
Paris will soon see other new services, especially as the Italian Railway Trenitalia is increasing its presence on the French market.
Trenitalia and SNCF, France’s National Railway Company, will reopen competitive services between Paris and Milan in the spring, more than 18 months after the landslides are completed in the French Alps, forced the line to close. SNCF’s Paris-Milan service will start on March 31, with tickets starting at 29 euros. Trenitalia’s service will open the next day. Both operators will include stops in Lyon and Turin, including cities, along the route. Elsewhere in France, but also in competition with SNCF, Trenitalia will begin performing a service between Paris and Marseilles on June 15, with stops in Lyon, Avignon and Aix-En-Provence.
The Spanish Renfe Operator also invites in France. The company announced that a high -speed service will soon be running between Barcelona and Toulouse in southwestern France. The three and a half hour trip will include stops at Perpignan and Carcassonne to France and Girona in Spain, including cities. It will take place seasonally, starting in the second quarter of this year and will continue until mid -September.
High -speed connections are also found in the works between Belgrade and Budapest. Lisbon and Porto. And Prague and Brno in the Czech Republic.
The new Sleper Services are also starting this year. The private operator European Sleeper opened a seasonal overnight rail connection between Brussels and Venice, offering two services a week in February and March. The company is already managing a train for Sleper all year between Brussels and Prague, a service that began last year.
The resuscitation of Sleeper’s trains has spread to Portugal and Spain, where governments work to reopen the overnight stay between their two countries. Services – which connect Lisbon, Madrid and the French city of Hendaye, on the border with Spain – were interrupted when the pandemic lock hit in March 2020, but could start running again just in the first half of this year.
Break Channel Contest
Competition is heated along one of Europe’s virtual railway routes: the line running under the English channel. Travelers hoping to go by train between London and Epirus could travel one day with a railway body other than Eurostar, though not before 2029 the earliest.
Eurostar, which had a monopoly on the route between the channels since the line opened in 1994, is seeing intense demand. Throughout its network – which includes links between London and Paris and London and Brussels, including services – the operator hosted 19.5 million passengers in 2024, an increase of more than 5 % compared to the previous year. The company could see another boost this year, as its immediate service between London and Amsterdam begins this month, after a cessation of about eight months due to infrastructure upgrades at Amsterdam Central Station.
But the company, which shrunk its network during the pandemic, is still facing challenges. In a December report published by transport and the environment, Mr Thévenet’s non -profit organization, Eurostar recently came into ranking of 27 European railways, gaining low points for its price, credibility and strict policies for the bikes. (Fully assembled bicycles are not allowed in the Paris-London service due to security restrictions beyond Eurostar control. On other routes, Eurostar allows bikes “limited numbers and under certain conditions”, including the removal of both wheels. )
Eurostar CEO Gwendoline Cazenave wrote in an email that he disagreed with the findings of the report and noted that the rankings “failed to recognize Eurostar’s most important environmental contributions”, including “Elimination between Brussels and Paris and Paris. of flights between London and Paris. “
Competitors are an investment. The two outside are Virgin Group, founded by Richard Branson, and Evolyn, a new operator led by the Spanish family Cosmen, the heavy heavyweight travel.
Virgin Group’s Phil Whittingham said the company expects to close a 12 -speed trains in the first half of this year. He added that Virgin has applied for access to Temple Mills, a maintenance warehouse in London, where Eurostar trains are currently served. Access to warehouse is an essential step to launch a cross -channel service.
“We think there is room to get there,” Mr Whittingham said. “We believe that competition would be good for them and good for us.”
Lisa O’Brien, a spokesman for the British Railway Office, confirmed that both Virgin and Evolyn had applied for space at Temple Mills Depot. He added that the government regulatory authority has appointed external consultants to determine the warehouse’s ability to handle more trains.
“Our next steps will depend on the outcome of this abilities study,” he said.
Richard Bowker, a former president of Britain’s railway strategy and now co-authored by Green Signals’ Podcast railway, said there were unsuccessful controversy at Eurostar in the past, but “this time feels different”.
Mr Bowker, who also worked for the Virgin Group, noted the “well -won in the company” to be a disruptionr “as well as the depth of the Evolyn team’s experience in the transport sector.
“It’s exciting,” he said. “He suggests growth and more travel opportunities and possibly better consumer agreements.”
Paige McClanahan is the author of “The New Tourist: Waking Up to the Power and the Risks of Travel”.
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