Truss can sort of talk to Sefcovic in the coming few weeks, make little or no progress, and confront Johnson with an ultimatum in February: the EU won’t budge (probably on ECJ issue) so we should trigger Article 16.
(Set aside whether this threat to trigger will work in practical terms towards the EU - that’s not what it’s for. It’s a kind of back me or sack me play by Truss. It’s not intended to actually *happen*)
The border area Slovenia-Croatia-Hungary is fascinating for railway connections - many that don't work properly... due to neglect, politics, Schengen, history, lack of investment...
From the north in Hungary, Rédics used to connect to Lendava, but doesn't now. And Lendava can only be reached from the rest of the Slovenian rail network via Čakovec in Croatia
Čakovec to Nagykanizsa seems to have no passenger trains currently
Meanwhile the fastest Ljubljana-Budapest would probably route through Čakovec too, but instead goes via Hodoš, so as to avoid running through Croatia (and probably because the infra is ropey on the Croatian section)
Based on the discussion below this tweet and a question from @mattpoole2011, I wondered:
What would be the fastest Paris-Barcelona TGV?
Using current infrastructure
And with a stop pattern that works
Eliminate stops in Valence TGV, Sète, Agde, Béziers and Narbonne
Stop in Nîmes Pont du Gard (not Nîmes) and Montpellier Sud de France (not St Roch)
Shave 5 mins off the Perpignan stop
"But what about those stops?" I hear you cry - well connect those with either other TGVs, or with Intercités or TERs - to allow a connection in Perpignan for Barcelona - that's how Deutsche Bahn would do it!
But what about making my *own* Missing Links project? And better still *visit the borders*?
The fruits of my work are here as a Google Map 👇 google.com/maps/d/viewer?…
Each marker signals a change of train. Each colour indicates a different day. Berlin is start/end.