Thread by @jonworth

Right

So version 2 of my Cross Border Rail schedule is now ready!

To recap - I assessed ex-MEP Michael Cramer's Missing Links jonworth.eu/revisiting-mic… and wanted to travel to as many borders as possible...

This is the full map!

My aim is to cross every EU and EFTA internal border where there are rail lines - in some places I want to investigate tracks or services missing, so I have to resort to cycling across the border instead!

And en route I will spend at least 2 hours in every political capital city

My aim is essentially political here - cross border rail generally works less well than rail within a single country in the EU. My trip aims to highlight that, tell the stories of what does and doesn't work, and highlight what can be done to improve matters!

I'm also motivated by European Commission's "Connecting Europe Express" that ran last year

That expensive publicity train felt rather hollow to me - as it ran in places regular passengers cannot travel, and did little to solve the problems of cross border rail

Can I do better?

My route is divided up into 3 parts - a North circuit, a South West circuit, and a South East circuit. Each circuit lasts 12-13 days

I will spend a week or so home in Berlin between each circuit, and will complete everything in a 6 week period mid June until early August

I will blog, tweet and live stream as I go. That's part of the reason to do this in a relatively compressed schedule - so as to be able to draw attention to the tour on social channels

I will take a folding bike with me - to get to the places the train cannot reach

The North circuit
Probably 13 June - 24 June

37 trains
6 bike trips
1 ferry
15 border crossings, and 1 further piece of broken border infrastructure investigated
12 days

The South West circuit
Either 29 June - 12 July, or 3 - 16 July

52 trains
6 bike trips
1 bus
28 border crossings
13.5 days

The South East circuit
Probably 21 July - 3 August

53 trains
8 bike trips
1 taxi
30 border crossings
13.5 days

That gives

142 trains
20 bike trips
1 ferry
1 bus
1 taxi
73 border crossings
39 days trip time (excl. breaks in Berlin)

The zoom-able Google Map is here:
google.com/maps/d/u/0/edi…

And the full detailed schedule here:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

This version has a few changes, esp. to the South East circuit, where I have changed the parts covering Austria, Slovenia, Czechia, Slovakia quite a lot - and now added Bad Radkersburg (Austria-Slovenia too)

Due to the COVID situation I don't know if I can yet go ahead with this trip - I will take that decision in April probably, and then seek to fund it (Crowdfunding via my blog)

I also aim to organise a meeting with green/rail activists at least in every capital city!

I've also been additionally motivated to do this by @paul_clarke's wonderful photo diary from a similarly intense trip stories.paulclarke.com/the-disorient-… and his travel companion @lloydshep's posts lloydshepherdwriter.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/day…

For now though:
*** I NEED YOUR FEEDBACK ***
Please tell me what you think! Are these the right borders to cross? (I want a mix of good and bad) The right cities to visit?

Please *don't* tell me "but you have not included [this country]" - I have my reasons! Covering the external rail borders of EU-EFTA countries is too much for this trip. If this trip works, I might plan an external borders tour another time...

But anyway, that's enough of my planning for now... it's time for some feedback!

/ends

P.S. Crossing every border does not mean taking every cross border line! Were I to do *every line* I'd need months.

P.P.S. There will eventually be a blog post explaining the plan, and each line chosen, in more detail.