Rail travel tips

Train travel has seen a surge in popularity with the growing emphasis on slow travel and making a holiday more sustainable. The latest government data on train travel shows that there was a 155% increase in passenger rail journeys last year. Furthermore, research shows that 64% of UK travellers are searching for green travel options, including choosing more environmentally friendly transport options and sustainable accommodation. VisitScotland’s new campaign encourages people to enjoy train travel by promoting a route that connects all of Scotland’s historic cities by train.

With an international train station in the heart of the stunning alpine city, Innsbruck provides a unique opportunity for winter sports enthusiasts to travel by rail. Innsbruck Main Station (Hauptbahnhof) is a hub for major European rail routes, enabling visitors from London St Pancras to be in the Capital of the Alps in approximately 12 hours, depending on the route.

There’s an affinity between trains and Christmas, but what precisely is the connection? Ghostliness comes into it – the mystique of a train in the wintry night. I think of the misty, hypnotic adaptation of Dickens’s story The Signalman, in 1976, part of the BBC’s A Ghost Story for Christmas strand; or the ghost story in the Christmas number of the Railway magazine (that publication’s only excursion into whimsicality is always worth reading).

‘It’s cold here in January,” says my guide, Michèle Caserta, as we stroll along Cannes seafront, where warm autumn sunshine sprays diamonds on the waves. “Maybe 15C?” She notices my raised eyebrow. “I’m Mediterranean: for me, that’s cold!”

This two-hour train trip gets seriously scenic after Coleraine, when it partly follows the coast and Lough Foyle. As it runs along Downhill Beach, the sands and turbulent ocean are just outside the window, with the domed Mussenden temple perched on the cliffs above. On through farmland and past views of craggy Binevenagh – a towering cliff on the edge of the Antrim plateau – it will offer views of wintering geese, whooper swans and waders on the shores of the lough.

There’s been a rockslide somewhere in the Maurienne Valley, deep in the French Alps. By the time I’m due to set off on an intricately planned, early autumn European rail trip from London to Athens, nearly a week has passed since the incident. My intended path through France, Italy and then on to Greece via sea had relied on a connection from Lyon to Milan passing directly through this region. Now the route is out of action and it could be months before the railway tracks are dug out from the rubble. Initially, I’m irate. En route to the Eurostar terminal at London’s St Pancras at 6.30am, however, I encourage myself to think differently.

The classic rail route from Prague to Vienna through southern Bohemia was relegated to secondary status in the 1970s, but today it still offers one of the most engaging railway journeys in central Europe. Never ones to rush, my partner and I decided earlier this month to travel the length of the Emperor Franz Joseph Railway by slow trains.

Based on extensive customer research, and in an effort to better meet customer needs, Amtrak has introduced a new, simplified fare structure with more flexible and affordable options. The simpler fare structure launched this week and builds on other recent improvements Amtrak has made to the booking experience.

Pristine white peaks all around, and skis crunching over crisp snow. If any holiday feels like escapism, it’s a ski holiday. But climate breakdown is increasingly threatening to poop the party.

The new Eurostar – which has been created following the merger of Eurostar and Thalys – has launched with a new brand identity, all underpinned by its new motto, ‘Together We Go Further’.

I grew up in a terrace house in Portsmouth. At one end of the street was Fratton Park, where the local football team played, and at the other was the Istanbul Grill House. Only one of these venues was in the habit of providing value for money.

Madame Ziemowit the witch nods and scratches her beard as I flip a tarot card, revealing the chariot symbol. Picking the chariot seems fitting, as the turban-clad sorcerer and I are on a train, having just crossed the border from Germany into Poland. Multicoloured lightbulbs adorn carriage windows, framing a green-blue blur of fields and rivers. Next to us a toddler, sitting in a mini-library by the loo, draws squiggles on an Etch A Sketch. A jaunty brass fanfare plays through the carriage speakers.

One of the fruits of getting on a train is that it makes me want to chat. So instead of gazing at Kent as we proceed to Paris from London, I talk to my neighbour. Martha grew up in San Francisco, studied in Oregon, and puts syrup on everything. When we part ways on the concourse of Gare du Nord – she to lunch with a friend from Wisconsin, me to amble around before continuing towards Turkey – she says the best things about the US are Taylor Swift and meatloaf. It’s good to talk.

France could well be the perfect place to track the progress of the main battle over the future of travel: trains versus planes. In May 2021, France positioned itself as the frontrunner in a carbon-cutting train renaissance when its government enacted a ban on domestic flights where the journey could be done by train in less than two and a half hours. “We are the first to do it,” Emmanuel Macron said on Twitter, and it was hailed by minister Clément Beaune as a “powerful message” and a “strong symbol”. The European Commission designated 2021 as the “Year of European Rail” and billions of euros have since poured into railway infrastructure across central and eastern Europe.

Does there come a point in every marriage when you realise you don’t know your spouse very well after all? For me, that moment came not when watching yet another ill-judged birthday present shoved to the back of my husband’s wardrobe, but when I noticed a half-price sale on Interrail passes and decided to book a pair for what I felt sure would be an excellent and perhaps even romantic late-summer adventure.

It took the second thud to rouse me. Worried I’d slept through it, I slid up the blind to find our train pulling into the port city of Villa San Giovanni in Calabria, Italy. Not quite 6am, the last of the night’s sky was taking leave: navy clouds pulled apart before my eyes, a single neon-pink patch igniting the ridgeline of the Peloritani mountains in north-east Sicily.

LeShuttle, the popular cross-channel car rail service, has entered into an ancillary deal with InterLnkd to offer customers fashion, beauty, retail and essential holiday products alongside their travel bookings.

Chinese tourists have flocked to train stations over the past two weeks, with 109.5 million journeys made between Jan. 7 and Jan. 21 in the build-up to Lunar New Year celebrations, which took pace on Jan. 22.

Train and air services throughout France will be disrupted on Tuesday by a nationwide strike against pension reforms, French authorities said on Sunday.  

The Royal Scotsman is set to launch the ‘Dior Spa Royal Scotsman’ in collaboration with Dior Beauty starting from April 2023. 

Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, May 31. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.