I think it's a tough call to claim privatisation didn't boost ridership. Sure, it increased costs and it might have increased fragmentation in certain areas too, but I'm dead sure it boosted passenger numbers. Here's why 👇🧵

https://twitter.com/christianwolmar/status/1783373921565184249

To win a franchise against the competition, you needed a gee-whiz idea. This couldn't be based on cutting costs as your track & train costs are fixed. Or raising fares (except at margins) as key inelastic fares were regulated. Or cutting services as service levels were specified.

LNER is launching a simplified fares London to/from Newcastle, Berwick & Edinburgh as a pilot scheme. Just 3 fares, all one way - which is good... 🧵 👇

https://twitter.com/stuartthomas/status/1747181611580342404

However, most of us had expected the 3 fares to be fully-flexible, semi-flexible & inflexible, in other words, Anytime, Off-Peak & Advance...

EUROPEAN TIMETABLE 2024: A thread summarising the most significant changes with the 2024 timetable starting 10 December 2023... 1. A new Nightjet sleeper service starts, Brussels-Berlin & Paris-Berlin 3 times a week, due to become daily from October 2024. This restores a key east-west link, ideal for journeys from Paris, London, Brussels to Berlin, Warsaw, Krakow & Prague. See seat61.com/international-…

MILAN TO LONDON BY TRAIN in a day. First up, carefully avoiding August landslides, the 08:20 EuroCity from Milan Centrale to Geneva…



Platformed late, think this is an last-minute Italian replacement for the booked Swiss unit. 15 late start. I have 2 hours in Geneva. Why do booking systems insist on offering 9-minute connections in Switzerland between Italy & Paris? Inexperienced travellers actually book those!

IT’S ITALY’S MOST EPIC SLEEPER TRAIN: Over 950 miles from Milan to Palermo, it’s a train that goes onto a boat, and a private single-bed sleeper cost me all of €84.90. I can resist anything except temptation…



Also available as 2 or 3 berth…. Toiletries kit (for your delight & delectation)

Ticket office closures: A second thread.
Reading my first thread, you can see I was expecting proposals that were more rational, reasoned, co-ordinated. I was wrong...

https://twitter.com/seatsixtyone/status/1676301915871760384?s=20

I was expecting ticket offices to be retained at category A & B stations, reviewed at category C & D, closed at category E, for example. Logical, consistent... (Station categorisation is explained at )en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Ki…

Ticket office closures: An explanatory thread...
It's been announced that up to 1,000 ticket offices will close, leaving a core of just 400 or so stations with staffed ticket offices. Story from @SimonCalder : independent.co.uk/travel/news-an… First up, they're not proposing to close the major ticket offices at Leeds or York or Edinburgh or Kings Cross. It's the Pluckleys and Mardens and Headcorns of the world they're proposing to close.

It's almost a year since I rode the inaugural @LumoTravel lo-cost train between London & Edinburgh with fares from £14.90. I said back then that 5 daily 400-seat trains had the potential to empty a lot of planes. One year on, have they? Or just abstracted revenue from LNER? The figures reported in this week's @RAIL are remarkable: Total rail journeys between London & Edinburgh in April 2022 up 35% on April 2019 - and LNER (who've also been doing a great job) have reported separately that they're now carrying more passengers than pre-pandemic...

The Nightjet reveal event begins at 10, and I’m here. Must be Europe’s first 230km/h sleeper train? #excited? Nope, make that #hoppingupanddownexcited. Here today are (1) a sleeping-car with 1 & 2 berth compartments, all with shower & toilet, (2) couchette car with three 4-berth compartments & 24 minisuites and (3) a seats car. I sneaked a peek at the compartment side of the couchette car with its distinctive window arrangement.

Berlin Gesundbrunnen. Tonight’s sleeper from Berlin to Vienna & Budapest is diverted to start from here rather than Berlin Hbf. Feels like hanging around Watford Junction hoping one of the endless suburban trains turns out to be a Caledonian Sleeper to Scotland….

Good morning! Today kicks off with the 07:17 Danish Intercity train from Copenhagen to Hamburg, connecting for Berlin & the Nightjet sleeper to Vienna. Just sneaked into 1st class for a cup of complimentary instant coffee. I say ‘sneaked’, I actually have a 1st class Interrail, just couldn’t get a 1st class seat reservation, all booked up. May need to unsneak when more ppl get on…

I’ve an appointment in Vienna…. So the journey from Helsinki begins, with the 17:36 Intercity to Turku Port. I’m in Ekstra class, which is rocking those headrests… I am fighting the recline mechanism on this seat. It is winning.

I promised you something special in Stockholm. Well, when I was 9 years old, my classroom had a library corner. One book fascinated me above all others. I read it again and again… ..it was about the raising of the warship Vasa, which heeled over & sank on its maiden voyage in 1628 and was raised from the sea bed in Stockholm harbour in 1961, a great feat of engineering…

STOCKHOLM EXPRESS… So here I am in the business lounge at @StPancrasInt, for 15:04 Eurostar to Brussels, on to Cologne & Hamburg tomorrow, then to Stockholm on the inaugural run of the new @SJ_AB EuroNight sleeper train. What’s in Stockholm? Something really special… I have spotted that I may need a retread. Where’s that F1 pitstop team when you need them..?

This is interesting. 25 Oct, 10:45 Lumo service, £19.90 fare available on the Lumo website. So far, so good... It's also correctly shown on Thetrainline.com...

LUMO IS GO! FirstGroup's new lo-cost London-Edinburgh trains will take on easyJet & Ryanair at their own game starting 25 October, 6 times less CO2 than a flight with fares from £14.90 - 60% of fares will be £30 or less. I'm going to enjoy watching this - pass the popcorn... Using all-electric Hitachi class 803 trains with a one-class interior, they'll ramp up to 5 trains per day each way by early next year. Typical journey 4h30 centre to centre with no check-in. We're promised high-quality interiors different from current class 80x, but we'll see.

The new Nightjet sleeper train from Vienna, Innsbruck & Munich to Amsterdam starts on Monday! But it's causing a few sniggers so I've been forced to read up on cannabis culture. Yes, really. Read on... It seems that in 1971, a group of high-school kids got together at 4.20pm every day to smoke weed. '420' became their code. It's been absorbed into the wider culture as slang for weed, and there are even annual '420' festivals on 20 April. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/420_(cann…

Today's big rail news: New public body ('Great British Railways') to take over all trains & track in biggest reforms since privatisation independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi… It's being presented as a 'new dawn' of course, but I think we're really looking at the only real sensible move anyone in charge can make, given where we now are. In fact, it's exactly the move that most of us expected, for example as trailed in @Rail editorials...

THOUGH FOR THE DAY... Should timetable planners be allowed to set fares..? Shouldn't that be the job of the Commercial Department..? Let me explain... The 16:22 @TGV_Lyria from Paris to Zurich is direct at weekends, but on weekdays you have to change in Basel. It's a quick & easy change, it doesn't even extend the journey time. So what's the problem? The problem is, that simple change of train DOUBLES THE FARE...

OBB reveal more details for the new Brussels-Vienna sleeper starting January: Runs Monday & Thursday, leave London at 12:58 by Eurostar, Brussels depart 18:04 by Nightjet sleeper train arriving Vienna 08:27, Munich 07:12, Innsbruck 09:14. nightjet.com/en/reiseziele/… Connection to Budapest: Vienna depart 09:42, arrive Budapest Keleti 12:19.

Connection to Italy: Innsbruck depart 11:24, Verona arrive 14:58.

Painless boarding the Stena Line superferry from Harwich to Hook van Holland... Home sweet home... Comfort Class cabin with complimentary minibar, shower, toilet & satellite TV (Ryanair eat my shorts...)