railway companies

Eurostar celebrated its 25th anniversary on Thursday morning with a special train from London to Paris, featuring an orchestra on the platforms of St Pancras International station and a revival of the uniforms of the time. Above all, a forest was temporarily installed at the entrance to the London station...

Lufthansa is adapting to passenger demand for greater integration between rail and air, and more rail connections on the shortest domestic routes. From mid-December, the German airline, in cooperation with its partner Deutsche Bahn, will be increasing the number of its connections to the airport...

With Brexit fast approaching, a plan for an alliance between Eurostar and Thalys, called Green Speed, has been presented by the management of the two rail companies, supported by SNCF as majority shareholder in both entities. The new unified company would benefit from the pooling of teams and 55 vehicles...

In December, Lyria will begin operating 15 TGV Duplex trains redesigned in its own colours. The new trains will offer passengers greater comfort and new services such as free Wi-Fi, with a 30 % increase in seating capacity. The number of daily services will be increased, with eight round trips...

It became official on the evening of 18 September: the Elysée Palace has made its choice for the future boss of SNCF. Jean-Pierre Farandou, who has headed Keolis since 2012, will succeed Guillaume Pepy, who has headed the group since 2008. "The President of the Republic, acting on a proposal from the Prime Minister,...

Here's a development that runs counter to the renewed popularity of rail travel in Europe in the face of global warming: last year, SBB saw the number of passengers on its international trains fall by an average of 4%. This decline concerned the three main international markets from Switzerland to...

Already in use since May to Leeds (2 hours from London), 65 Azuma trains - built by the Japanese group Hitachi - will be running within a year on the network in the north-east of England operated by the state-owned London North Eastern Railway. In addition to an increase in capacity of around 100 seats per train...

The Flygskam movement - "ashamed to fly" in the face of the urgency of global warming - was launched last year in Sweden, and in the space of just a few months has taken on an unexpected scale. And it could have a snowball effect in France. During the debates on the Mobility Act, two MPs proposed the idea of...

Is it really a coincidence that the SNCF has chosen the day of the vote in the National Assembly on the Mobility Orientation Law (LOM) to present the SNCF Assistant, which the 13 million users of the SNCF app will be able to use from 19 June. The new application "is designed to be open to all...

Since 9 May, as part of its drive to simplify fares, SNCF has been exchanging its Fréquence season tickets for its new Liberté card. "Marketing has got off to a flying start with business customers, with 25,000 cards sold in 15 days," says Jérôme Laffon, Marketing Director at Voyages SNCF. Sold at €399 for...

As in France, Deutsche Bahn is increasingly popular with the public, particularly with the development of the ICE network and improved connectivity. "We have recently integrated the routes of neighbouring networks with which we cooperate, such as SNCF, Thalys, OeBB and Trenitalia, into our booking platform. This has enabled us to...

In just over a year's time, business travellers will finally be able to choose their rail operator in Spain. But for the government and the future operators, the future has already begun! Last December, the Council of Ministers approved a Royal Decree aimed at liberalising rail traffic in Spain. The...

How would you sum up 2018? Rachel Picard - In 2018, our high-speed offer attracted more than three million new customers out of a total of 140 million passengers. All destinations benefited from good momentum, especially those most frequented by our business travellers. Growth is...

Thanks to the combination of the Eurostar and Virgin Trains rail networks, organisers can now book multi-stop journeys from continental Europe to the heart of Great Britain on a single platform. The aim is to make it easier for cities such as Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham, which are currently overshadowed by London in this market, to become more accessible. For...

This is the biggest project to be undertaken in the Baltic region for over 100 years. If there are no delays, around 2026 the first high-speed trains on Rail Baltica will run from Finland to Warsaw via Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This new high-speed line,...

In 2018, 11 million passengers boarded Eurostar: a record figure, up 7 % on the previous year. Among the positive factors behind this trend were the influx of American passengers (+9%) and the introduction of the London-Amsterdam route, which attracted more than 250,000 passengers...

Italian and British business travellers are not in the same boat: while the former have benefited from an upmarket rail offer following the opening up of the market to competition, the latter are not doing so well. The report published on 29 January by Transport Focus condemns a historically low satisfaction rate....

Last week, the French government announced that it would be issuing a call for tenders in 2020 to allow competition on two railway lines, which will serve as a test: Nantes-Lyon and Nantes-Bordeaux, two minor lines representing a combined passenger traffic of 1.1 to 1.2 million. Rail competition would then begin in 2022,...

Wi-Fi is coming to the Franco-Spanish rail network. On 9 January, Renfe-SNCF made official a new connectivity service, available free of charge on board international trains. "Two connection services authorised by Renfe and SNCF are being used to take advantage of this wi-fi service, through Play Renfe, on the Lyon-Barcelona and Marseille-Barcelona-Madrid routes,...

From 11 June, Eurostar will be operating a third daily service from London to Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Ticket sales began on 4 January. "Our new route to the Netherlands has met with strong demand from our customers," says Mike Cooper, Eurostar's Managing Director. "A third daily train...