Thread by @jonworth

Let's do a little check, shall we?

@albertowmazzola was happy to tell me the other week that Skyscanner for Rail tools exist in Europe

And @CER_railways has trumpeted the need for ticketing platforms in #EUYearOfRail and on #ConnectingEurope Express

A quick 🧵

Were I to want to travel between Tourcoing (in France at the border to Belgium) to Lyon, tomorrow, where can I find the details of the only direct train there is?

Oh, and of course it's a train run by SNCF, member organisation of @CER_railways 👏

That train is a OUIGO low cost TGV

✅ Here is is on the OUIGO site 👇
ventes.ouigo.com

✅ The regular SNCF booking portal oui(dot)sncf has it too 👇
de.oui.sncf

❌ SNCF's international portal Rail Europe does not have it #Fail 👇
raileurope.com

❌ Deutsche Bahn was long known to have the best timetable site in Europe, but the Tourcoing-Lyon train is not in it 👇
reiseauskunft.bahn.de

❌ I'd been told by @Lenny_du_Nord that Swiss Railways had for a while listed OUIGO trains. No, not any more... 👇
sbb.ch

❌ As Tourcoing is right next to the Belgian border. How about SNCB International? No, you guessed it, that doesn't work either... 👇
b-europe.com

What about third party platforms?

✅ Trainline can find it 🤯 👇
thetrainline.com

❌ Omio can't find it 👇
omio.com

And now as OUIGO runs in 🇪🇸, how about for the LOLs, try that?

Nah, why would SNCF have joined up the sites? Why would someone searching in Spanish want to travel across France? 🤷‍♂️ ❌ 👇
ouigo.com/es/

So there we go...

I can buy the tickets from 3 sites, 2 of them directly under the control of SNCF itself. The OUIGO train doesn't even show in timetables run by railways other than SNCF

*** AT THE VERY LEAST *** we need a proper European timetable that shows all trains (even ones like OUIGO) in it! And then ideally platforms that allow these trains to be booked too.

We're a hell of a long way away from that just now!

/ends