This week, the European Commission committed itself to facilitate train travel in the European Union more more. Booking train journeys should be easier and travellers should get passenger rights comparable to air passengers rights.
Booking cross-border, multi-operator train journeys must be as easy as booking an air journey consisting of different flights and different airlines. There should also be similar passenger rights. If one gets stranded, one should be assisted. Right now, that is hard. Danny wrote an op-ed on how difficult booking cross-border tickets is. I write how to cope with delays and cancellations. You need knowledge to get it right.
In its presentation, the Commission spoke of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) and European Transport Corridor. What are those?
TEN-T
The Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) is a planned network of roads, railways, airports and water infrastructure in the European Union. The TEN-T network is part of a wider system of Trans-European Networks (TENs), including a telecommunications network (eTEN) and a proposed energy network (TEN-E or Ten-Energy). The European Commission adopted the first action plans on trans-European networks in 1990.
TEN-T envisages coordinated improvements to primary roads, railways, inland waterways, airports, seaports, inland ports and traffic management systems, providing integrated and intermodal long-distance, high-speed routes. A decision to adopt TEN-T was made by the European Parliament and Council in July 1996.
The EU works to promote the networks by a combination of leadership, coordination, issuance of guidelines and funding aspects of development.
These projects were technically and financially managed by the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA), which superseded the Trans-European Transport Network Executive Agency (TEN-T EA). Since April 2021, the TENs are managed by the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA).
European Transport Corridor
There are currently ten corridors, according to Wikipedia and this EC web page. On the map, you see the United Kingdom (still) included and Croatia excluded. There are also parts of the corridors going through Switzerland and Serbia.
These corridors include passenger trains routes, freight trains routes, but also waterways for shipping.
| Corridor | Name | From | Via | To | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Baltic–Adriatic Corridor | Gdynia | Vienna | Ravenna | 2400 km[ |
| 2 | North Sea–Baltic Corridor | Helsinki | Warsaw | Antwerp | 3200 km |
| 3 | Mediterranean Corridor | Algeciras | Lyon – Venice | Miskolc | ~ 3000 km |
| 4 | Orient/East–Med Corridor | Hamburg | Budapest – Sofia | Nicosia | ~ 3700 km |
| 5 | Scandinavian–Mediterranean Corridor | Helsinki | Copenhagen – Munich | Valletta | 4858 km |
| 6 | Rhine–Alpine Corridor | Genoa | Cologne | Rotterdam | |
| 7 | Atlantic Corridor | Lisboa | Vitoria-Gasteiz | Strasbourg | |
| 8 | North Sea–Mediterranean Corridor | Dublin | Cork – Le Havre | Brussels | 933 km |
| 9 | Rhine–Danube Corridor | Amsterdam | Luxembourg | Marseille | |
| 10 | Strasbourg–Danube Corridor | Strasbourg | Budapest | Constanța | 2137 km |
More on trains
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- On board a TGV Atlantique from Marne-la-Vallée – Chessy to Bordeaux-Saint-Jean.
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- Malmö – Brussels night train to become Malmö – Brussels – Paris?.
- Moonlight Express wants a Barcelona – Perpignan – Brussels – Berlin night train.
- Ostende-Vienne Orient Experience plans tourist season night trains from Brussels and Antwerp to Salzburg, Innsbruck and Milan.
- GreenCityTrip: chartered night trains from Breda in the Netherlands to Venice, Prague, Milan, Vienna, Prague, Verona and Innsbruck.
- Not only Prague: RegioJet European Sleeper preparing Ostend – Warsaw night train.
- European Sleeper announces Berlin and Prague as destinations.
- Moonlight Express to offer night train services between Brussels, Liège and Berlin from April 2022.
- The couchette and sleeping cars for the Ostend – Brussels – Amsterdam – Berlin – Prague European Sleeper by RegioJet.
- ‘Hotel on rails’ Midnight Trains to link Paris to Edinburgh, Brussels, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Berlin, Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, Barcelona, Madrid and Porto.
- The couchette and sleeping cars for the Brussels – Liège – Berlin Moonlight Express.
- Moonlight Express to include bar / restaurant coaches and sustainable quality food on Brussels – Liège – Berlin night train.
- 2021, European Year of Rail.
- ‘Green Speed’: Train operators Thalys and Eurostar to become one.
- European Sleeper to launch night train services from the Netherlands and Belgium in April 2022.
- Nightjet Vienna/Innsbruck to Brussels, or how we got thrown off the train in Aachen.
- NIGHTJET | Austrian Federal Railways ÖBB and Swiss Federal Railways SBB-CFF-FFS present 2024 Austro-Swiss night train plans for Europe.
- Why the expensive ÖBB Nightjet is really not that expensive.
- Reliving the era of the great railway journeys, travelling overnight on Nightjet.
- How we plan a big rail trip.
- Ticket Distribution: the failure of railways to sell themselves.
- Malmö – Cologne – Brussels Night train.
- BOOK REVIEW | ‘Night Trains, The Rise and Fall of the Sleeper’ by Andrew Martin.
- To use night trains in Portugal and Spain or not?.
- Night trains in Europe.
- Low-cost, long-haul trains to conquer Europe?.
- Fly now before it’s taxed and consider using the train instead.
- A passengers train from Antwerp in Belgium to Shanghai in China?.
- Venice Simplon-Orient-Express comes to Brussels in June 2021 and April 2022.
- 2013 Scotland Rail Trip.
- 2016 America Rail Adventure.
- 2017 Eastern Europe, Balkan and Greece Rail Trip.
- 2018 Poland Trip.
- 2018 Rail Tour of France, Italy and Switzerland.
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