"Dutch researchers Christiaan Behrens and Eric Pels analyze the passenger market between London and Paris from 2003 through 2009. The primary competitors in this corridor are conventional air carriers like Air France and British Airways, low-cost carriers like easyJet, and the Eurostar high-speed rail service. Over the course of the study — which looked at roughly 9,500 business and 18,000 leisure trips — the Eurostar has been far and away the dominant travel choice."

"Weekend trips have doubled in the past 20 years, far outpacing the growth of ridership during the workweek. Last year, the subway had 5.36 million rides on average during weekends, one of the highest counts on record." I wonder if the same thing's happening in London; there's certainly always grousing at weekend engineering works.

I should write more on this, but for now, just a bookmark. "The prototypes all have their flaws, but they're a vast improvement on BART's Nixon-era norm. And with a small budget surplus forecast for the year ahead, this is an ideal time to begin rolling the changes out systemwide."

"Board a Manhattan-bound Q or B train from DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn (or on weekends, currently due to constructions, the R train runs on this track as well) and look out the right side just before the train emerges out of the tunnel onto Manhattan Bridge." Nice.

"International train travel has always had a romantic appeal." On travelling halfway around the world by train.

"I don’t love trains because they teach me about America. I don’t love them because they connect me with a country I have never known. I love them because they disconnect me from everything else. When the train pulls out of the station, it’s like a plug being yanked from a socket."

"Why are trains in south London more affected by snow than those elsewhere?" Short answer: the third rail ices over, which makes it stop working. Overhead cables (used north of the river) aren't affected, while the DLR's third rail connects underneath (not above) the rail, so that's OK too. It's good to see the article note that the old Southern Railway actually converted away from overhead to third rail in the 1920s.

'Some said it would be slow, boring and expensive, but spending 15 days covering 6,511 miles on an epic Amtrak journey across America's heartland was "soul calming"' - Anna Pickard on the jounrey around the US.

What has been forgotten in this hysterical nostalgia is that our current Penn Station is also a miracle: pitiless and comically jury-rigged, sure, but miraculous.

On the likelihood of fare rises for British rail. "Railways have enjoyed a renaissance over the past decade. Passenger numbers have surged and are now at their highest since the second world war." "Yet rail travel is a niche interest. It accounts for just 7% of all journeys."

"SNCF and Deutsche Bahn are for the first time competing directly for mastery of European high-speed rail." "ICE trains are more spacious. French trains à grande vitesse (TGVs) are faster. The TGV is usually cheaper, but ICE trains are used to competing with German luxury cars."

The eye-catching lede - "America’s system of rail freight is the world’s best. High-speed passenger trains could ruin it" - is just the first of many interesting parts of this Economist briefing. Well worth reading.

"German ICE trains still underperform their zappy French TGV counterparts. Deutsche Bahn hopes its new high-speed train will improve Germany's record -- but old tracks and complex networks may put the brakes on the plan." Nice photo gallery, and an interesting comparison with Alstom/SNCF.

The Londonist post announcing the London Transport Museum online film archive. No doubt this'll prove distracting.

"an Oyster-generation map will need to show all the routes available to card users, the design has become too limited in its scope. Mapmakers have had their work cut out trying to fit all the information into a legible sheet of paper. For years, there have been maps on platform walls of the Overground mixed up with the Underground, yet these are scrappy – even ugly – things in comparison with the classic tube-only map." Slight ahistorical (it doesn't mention Beck's all-London maps, or the fact the Connections map dates from 1976) but Glancey still has something of a point.

"Bay Area Rapid Transit has become the first transit agency to partner with the location-based mobile network Foursquare, with the goal of encouraging public transit use."

"Greenwich Foot Tunnel, which links south of the Thames with the Isle of Dogs, is likely to close for renovation in the autumn for up to 10 months. With Woolwich Foot Tunnel also due to shut it leaves the nearest viable crossing an awkward detour to Tower Bridge." "One of the options is for the DLR to relinquish its ban on bicycles [but] DLR and Transport for London both say it is against health and safety procedures for bikes to be allowed on board."

Jonathan Glancey on the Javelin trains that will run from St Pancras to Kent (and the Olympics, in 2012). He's right; it is a damned shame (especially given how good BR's engineering was, with the APT being strangled before it could work out its teething troubles while the Intercity was an under-appreciated HST, compromised mainly by the tracks it had to deal with.

For some reason, by far the most detailed English-language report on the S-Bahn fiasco I've found is from the World Socialist Web Site. Less surprisingly, once they get past the technical issues, there's a big critique of the way Deutsche Bahn has been running the S-Bahn in the run-up to its IPO.

Commentary from a local on the Berlin S-Bahn fiasco, particularly focussing on the role of the mayor.

"for the first time in its 85-year history the S-Bahn has been forced to cut its service dramatically—by 70%—for technical reasons"

"it’s still possible to travel 3,585 miles across the United States without being the target of billboards, golden arches or absurdly large twine balls. The rails offer a view onto Unbranded America — the land as it was"