This timely new report analyses and ranks 69 European train companies and services according to six key indicators for combined bike-and-train travel, such as bicycle spaces in trains and the quality of bike ticket or reservation channels. The report’s rankings show that there is much room for improvement in Europe.

Only one train service, NS-DB (Intercity Berlin), which runs between Amsterdam and Berlin, scored in the “excellent” category. Operators that scored in the “good” category in facilitating bike-and-train travel include SNCB/NMBS, SBB, Deutsche Bahn and MÁV-START.

One fourth of the 69 operators and services scored in the “moderate” category, including České dráhy, SNCF and Trenitalia, while the rest perform either “poorly” or “very poorly” on most indicators, including Flixtrain, Greater Anglia, Renfe and Eurostar.

Updated map of night trains in Europe for the December 2018 timetable change. Source & XL version: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_night_trains_in_europe.png.

Via Back on Track Train Coalition.

The French passenger association “Oui au train de nuit” (“Night trains yes!”) has compiled a report about European night trains: “Put the night trains back on track“. During the last five years, most of Europe’s night trains have disappeared, although they are popular with travelers and the only alternative to the airplane.

* The report was brought to our attention by Back on Track, a European coalition that supports cross-border rail and brings the latest news about international passenger travel in Europe. * Previously: High speed trains are killing the European railway network. * Picture taken from the back window of the night train Madrid – PortBou in 2013.

Students from Dalarna University, Sweden, have won a competition for creating efficient rail-based transport, claiming a world record in the process. Team Eximus 1 was competing in Delsbo Electric, where teams must design and build a battery-operated railway vehicle that uses as little energy as possible. Delsbo Electric is open to college and university students. It was inspired by the Shell Eco-marathon, with the concept translated for rail-based rather than road-based travel.

Vehicles must carry between one and six passengers weighing a minimum average of 50 kg (110 lb) each. Vehicle efficiency is measured on a per person basis, meaning vehicles carrying six passengers are not at a disadvantage. The Eximus 1 carries five passengers. The vehicle is estimated to weigh about 100 kg (220 lb) and to measure about 5,500-mm (217-in) long by 1,500-mm (59-in) wide. It was powered by four 12 V, 45 Wh batteries linked together in parallel and a 500 W motor.

The team’s final efficiency score was 0.84 Wh/person-km (watt-hours for every kilometer traveled by each passenger). Delsbo Electric claims that is a new world record. “We have done research and not found any information about somebody or something traveling as efficient rail-based in the world. In fact, it seems like Eximus 1 achieved a lower energy consumption per person than the current Shell Eco Marathon record.”

See & read more at Gizmag: Silver machine rolls down the track to new efficiency record. Vehicles from other participants can be found here. Thanks to Frank Van Gieson.

Related:

• Handcarts on rails
• Pallets on rails
• Streetcar scooter

“Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than a moving plane, ship or train. There is an almost quaint correlation between what is in front of our eyes and the thoughts that we are able to have in our heads: large thoughts at times requiring large views, new thoughts new places. Introspective reflections which are liable to stall are helped along by the flow of the landscape…

Of all modes of transport, the train is perhaps the best aid to thought: the views have none of the potential monotony of those on a ship or plane, they move fast enough for us not to get exasperated but slowly enough to allow us to identify objects…

Every time the mind goes blank, having hit on a difficult idea, the flow of consciousness is assisted by the possibility of looking out of the window, locking onto an object and following it for a few seconds, until a new coil of thought is ready to form and can unravel without pressure.

At the end of hours of train-dreaming, we may feel we have returned to ourselves — that is, brought back into contact with emotions and ideas of importance to us. It is not necessarily at home that we encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, but who may not be who we essentially are.”

Quoted from: The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton, 2003. Picture: Compartment C, Car 293, Edward Hopper.

The French National Railway (SNCF) has started a fleet of buses to replace international express trains. iDBUS, a brand allied with its low-cost iDTGV now occupies the Paris-Amsterdam, Paris-Brussels, Paris-London, Lyon-Milano and Lyon-Barcelona routes, offering 9 to 45 euro trips to those who have been priced off Thalys, Eurostar and trains now selling for up to 180 euro.

About 25 percent of the traffic is former overnight train trips, and the rest daytime runs with fares only a few euros cheaper than trains. Concurrently, the international expresses that used to serve Prague from Zurich, München, Frankfurt and Stuttgart also vanished, replaced by Nürnberg-Prague buses in Deutsche Bahn colors labeled IC Bus.

California Rail News editor Richard Tolmach also sent us a news article that does not bode well for the future of high speed rail travel in France:

France’s economic conditions mean passengers aren’t willing to pay up the money for the most expensive high speed rail routes. Recording a net loss of 180 million euros in 2013 and effectively reversing the 376 million euro profit of the previous year is down to the 1.4 billion euro writedown of the high speed long distance train network value. SNCF said that TGV “is not sufficiently profitable to cover the carrying amount of its fleet and its renewal”.

Previously: High Speed Trains are Killing the European Railway Network.

A rail map is especially interesting if you want to avoid high speed trains (which are more expensive), if you make long-distance trips, or if you just love to marvel at spectacular scenery. While an online rail map sounds more modern, nothing beats the convenience of a printed map when you are planning a trip.

Image: a detail of the Thomas Cook Rail Map of Europe, 18th edition

Thomas Cook Rail Map of Europe

The most famous rail map is Thomas Cook’s Rail Map of Europe, which measures 100 x 70 cm and shows all of the main passenger railways of Europe; from Greece, Italy and Spain in the south, to lower Scandinavia, the Baltic States and part of Russia in the north. It depicts over 6,000 cities and towns, with colour-coding for high-speed lines (red) and scenic routes (green). The legend is in four languages.

The map also includes many ferry routes, which is especially handy if you are travelling around the Mediterranean or the Baltic Sea. On the reverse of the map is an enlargement of Central Europe, which focuses in more detail on the area from Paris in the west to Budapest in the east.

Published every two years, the latest is the 18th edition of the Rail Map of Europe, which was published in 2011. It was also the last. Thomas Cook abandoned its publishing business in July 2013. The publication of Thomas Cook’s rail timetable is continued by former members of the editorial team as the “European Rail Timetable”, but the rail map is not yet available.

The Rail Map of Europe includes the British Isles, but Thomas Cook also had a more detailed Rail Map of Britain and Ireland on offer. It, too, was published every two years, with the latest 7th edition being that of 2011. This map is for sale at the European Rail Timetable.

Kümmerly+Frey Railmap Europe

Although I find the Thomas Cook rail maps to be the most handy, the Railmap Europe from Swiss publisher Kümmerly+Frey (KuF) is a worthy alternative. It is almost twice as large as Thomas Cook’s Rail Map of Europe, but this extra space is not used to show more detail: the scale is 1 to 5 million, versus 1 to 4 million for Thomas Cook’s map. Rather, KuF’s Railmap Europe shows the railways in a wider geographical context.

Every single square kilometre of Europe is covered, including the upper parts of Scandinavia, which Thomas Cook doesn’t show. Furthermore, the map includes the railways of northern Africa, the Middle East, and Russia (as far east as Yekatarinburg). Curiously, about one-tenth of the whole map serves just to include Iceland, which has no railways.

An interesting feature is that Kümmerly+Frey’s Railmap Europe also shows the type of track (single or double, electrified or not, real or upgraded high speed line, cargo or passenger line, broad or narrow gauge). Thomas Cook distinghuises fewer types of track. On the other hand, KuF’s map does not show ferry routes, although it does depict train ferries (both for cargo and passengers trains). The map is sold folded or unfolded, and the legend is in 6 languages. KuF also publishes a national rail map of Germany.

Other Folded Rail Maps

There are more rail maps available, none of which I ever held in my hands. Quail Map Company publishes several rail maps of individual European countries: Portugal (3rd edition, 2010), Greece (2000), and Estonia (1997). American Publisher East View has a paper Rail Map of Europe, which is cheaper than most others but seems to be of lesser quality. It reportedly misses a large part of Eastern Europe.

Canadian publisher International Travel Maps sells a Europe Railways Map, which seems to be somewhere in between Thomas Cook’s and KuF’s products, although it also shows major roads and is printed on plastic paper. The Streetwise Europe Rail Map is printed on laminated paper, and has one half of Europe on each side. It is a very small map, the size of a sheet of paper, which shows very few details (the scale is 1 to 11.5 million). Lastly, there is also a Skirail map of the Alps.

Eisenbahnatlas EU

None of the rail maps described above show all train routes. Local railroads are only depicted in popular tourism areas, or not at all. The European network connects 30,000 cities, villages, and hamlets, while the Thomas Cook Rail Map of Europe only displays the rail links between one fifth of them.

There is one exception, however: the Eisenbahnatlas EU, published by Schweers+Wall in Germany in May 2013. As the name implies, this is not really a map but an atlas, which shows the European railway network in scale 1 to 2 million, twice the detail of the Thomas Cook map. It is a bit overkill for the average train traveller, who is problably not interested in the voltages and track width of every single rail line on the continent. The Eisenbahnatlas shows it all, including the location of marshalling yards and logistic stations.

Schweers+Wall also publishes the Eisenbahnatlas for individual countries. These have even more detailed maps, including subways, tramways, milestones, tunnels, crossovers, abandoned lines, and lots of technical information. The scale is 1 to 150.000 or 300,000 for general maps, and 1 to 50,000 or 100,000 for maps of railway hubs. The legend of the Eisenbahn atlases is in 4 languages. For now, half a dozen countries have their own Eisenbahnatlas: Germany (which is published since 1994), Austria, Switzerland, and Italy (which also includes Slovenia). The atlas for France is on its way.

European Railway Atlas

English publisher Ian Allan had a similar series called the “European Rail Atlas“, which was discontinued some years ago. They still publish a “Rail Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland” and a massive amount of other books on railroads.

M.G. Ball, the editor of the series, now publishes his own “European Railway Atlas“, as well as compact railway atlasses of individual European countries or regions (which are in fact all separate chapters from the European Railway Atlas). They are available both as A4 sized books and as Adobe Acrobat pdf files. All passenger, freight and proposed lines are shown, as are most heritage railways. Main lines are distinguished from secondary lines, and the same goes for single and multiple tracks. Electrification systems and track gauges are shown. Changes and corrections are listed on the website.

Oxford Publishing Company’s “Rail Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland” was first published in 1977. The thirteenth edition appeared in 2013. Great Britain is also the subject of the most detailed rail atlas available: the TRACKatlas of Mainland Britain. The maps show track level detail in a schematic format set over geographic centre lines. All stations appear with most signal boxes, junctions and tunnels including their names and railway mileages; most level crossings are included together with information describing their type.

Online Rail Maps

You can obtain a free rail map of Europe if you buy an InterRail or EuRail Pass, which gives you unlimited train travel in Europe for a certain period. It is a rather small (52 x 30 cm) but useful map, which can also be consulted online. The European Rail Guide has rail maps online, both for Europe as a whole and individual countries separately, and so have Raildude and All Europe Rail. There is also a large collection of national train maps to be found on this amateur website. While an online rail map sounds more modern, nothing beats the convenience of a printed map when you are planning a trip.

Rail maps are of little use in the US, where you can be happy to find one single route between two cities. Sadly, this also seems to be the future of the European rail system.

Kris De Decker (edited by David Fox)

Source: EngRailHistory.

“Rail cars are pushed to the top of a grade using excess power from renewable energy plants or when electricity demand is low. Then, when the wind drops, the sun stops shining, or electricity demand rises, the rail cars are released back down the hill, generating electricity through regenerative braking. The technology integrates recent advantages in motor/generator traction drives and power control technologies with proven rail technology to produce a reliable and highly capable system that approaches an 80% charge/discharge efficiency.”

The company, founded in 2010, is operating a pilot project in the United States. More information can be found at the ARES website and in this Gizmag article, which has more pictures. Videos of the system can be found here, here, and here. ARES is a great low-tech project that deserves praise for its sustainable thinking. One problem might be that climbing slopes is not what trains are good at, while it is the vertical distance travelled that matters. The consequence is that the method requires a lot of space. A 50 MW rail energy storage system needs an eight kilometre track on an eight percent grade with 32 vehicles, each weighing 300 tonnes.

There exists a low-tech method that needs less space. Energy Cache, an American firm founded in 2009, has been testing a method of gravity energy storage which is based on aerial ropeways. When it comes to transportation of passengers and goods in hills and mountains, aerial ropeways are more efficient than railways in terms of energy and space, and they are much cheaper to build. Ropeways might have the same benefits for energy storage.

KDD (edited by Alice Yaxley)

Source: Department of Geography and Sociology of the University of Lleida.

See also: figures on the presence of railways in Europe.

The research team has published some more historical GIS-maps.

Previously: How eco-friendly is a high speed train? / The age of speed / Only idiots travel by train.