How trains could replace planes in Europe

THE CENTREPIECE of this year’s European Year of Rail was the “Connecting Europe Express”. Between September and October its cars whisked EU officials across the continent on a whistle-stop tour promoting the future of railways. But the train itself was a nostalgia trip: most of its wagons were built in the 1980s, since more recent models were less likely to be certified by the rail-safety boards of all 26 countries it visited. Without arm-twisting by the European Commission, said Alberto Mazzola of the CER, a rail-industry group, the trip would have been impossible.

It was a classic European story. The EU has grand ambitions for trains as a way of cutting carbon emissions, and its national railway networks are strong. But rail is the form of transport that requires the most co-ordination, and on a continent split into dozens of countries that is a problem. Governments pour money into domestic high-speed lines, but often leave just a winding bit of track linking to the neighbours. For the national carriers that dominate the sector, such as Germany’s Deutsche Bahn and France’s SNCF, cross-border trips are a side business and competitors a nuisance. “The single European railway area exists in terms of a market opening,” says Kristian Schmidt, the European Commission’s director of land transport. ”But we have a long way to go.”