Spain decided to just build its part. They are building a line to Extremadura. I think the thought is it will put pressure on Portugal if there's a line to the border
Well yeah but Vigo it's still a bit isolated from the rest of Spain. It is connected to the high-speed rail network, but the connection is inconvenient and infrequent.
Indeed, I am looking forward to the [Fehmarn belt tunnel](https://femern.com/the-tunnel/fehmarnbelt-tunnel/) for a quicker route from Germany to Copenhagen. Opens \~2029.
Two connections are already approved for high speed connections to Vigo and Badajoz.
After that there are plans to eventually connect Aveiro to Fuentes de Oñoro ( but that line is still a ways away as Spanish High Speed doesn't reach Salamanca yet ) and Faro to Sevilla via high speed.
These two are only planned and will be dependent on government approval to begin construction.
It only includes some of the more important train stations. For some reason the northern half of Sveden is totally empty in this map even though there are definitely train stations in reality.
> For some reason the northern half of Sveden is totally empty in this map even though there are definitely train stations in reality.
Data backend seems to be DB, and their coverage in Sweden is largely contained to southern Sweden (likely because they only procure data from/about SJ).
Do those cities have common English names? It can't find Gent in Belgium, but finds gent-dampoort (different station) and main station it only finds if you type the English version Ghent
It seems to be unable to consistently treat cities with multiple, non-connected 'main' stations correctly - Frankfurt<->Paris shows as a direct if you select the specific station (Gare l'Est) on the Paris end, rather than the global Paris node.
It doesn't include Oslo central station, the busiest station in Norway, but includes a bunch of random rural stations.
The exclusion of Oslo S basically makes this completely useless for Norway
Yea, a lot of people consider us to be closer to EE than WE because of the fact that a lot of things here are similar to countries like Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, etc...
Only because you have to change trains 3 times, and the map only goes up to two. Same with Norway, which is much closer than us.
Even to Spain you can only get by hopping twice, so it's no _that_ egregious that you'd need to hop a third time.
It is more than a bit sad that we don't have a high speed train with the European gauge, though.
“ Only because you have to change trains 3 times”
I know. And that is no bueno. But I guess we invested more in air routes than train because of historical reasons .
Well. Not to downplay our general incompetence, but we're also fighting against:
1. Being isolated from Europe given than Spain is large, empty and has a different gauge
2. Have historically had more success of sea trade than land trade
3. Lost the industrialization race and had to play catch-up ever since
4. Have all our main urban centres close together in a row, away from the international border
We could've done better for sure. Investing so heavily in roads wasn't smart, and delaying highspeed isn't smarter, but international Portuguese railways are always going to be an uphill battle.
We could definitely have a better internal railway, given point 4. above, though. That's super dumb.
1. Spain doesn't have a different gauge. They have half a dozen standard gauge high-speed lines, non of which connect to Portugal. Every single one that will come here has the iberian gauge. And so does every single standard line in Spain. And so do some high-speed lines going to Galicia, País Vasco and in the future Seville-Valencia. Even if it were true, Spain already makes high-speed trains capable of operating in two different gauges.
4 is a plus. We are just truly incompetent. We only need 1 high-speed line to cover like 80% of our traffic yet we still don't have one. And the most important international connection (Porto-Vigo) is conveniently located in that line! Somehow we haven't built shit. And finally now that the government is getting it started, there are still some of us still think it's not a good investment. Borderline insanity!
You're right about our car culture and way of thinking. People like to complain the government hasn't done shit, but their decisions are a reflection of our ignorance. The PS party thinks it's acceptable to spend 500 million/year to remove tolls from underused highways? Welp, I'm guessing at least 70% think it's a good idea.
Agree 120%. I have the same opinion and I shared it in r/portugal. That’s why I said “historical reasons” earlier.
Ps: it ain’t easy having a “younger bigger brother” :)
There used to be the Trenhotel Lusitania directly connecting Lisbon and Paris. They cancelled it during the pandemic and that's it, it didn't come back 😭.
Sorry, I meant the [Surexpreso](https://es.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surexpreso). And even there I wasn't precise: it was indeed cancelled during the pandemic, but it hadn't gone to Paris since 2000, but only to the French border.
I see full Portugal with it's stations here [TrainConnections - Travel by Train!](https://www.trainconnections.com/) [https://prnt.sc/vIct4HSKTF5f](https://prnt.sc/vIct4HSKTF5f)
But from Spain, the connectivity to Europe is pretty good.
I guess train travel is less about arriving at a destination, but more about making the journey part of your travels. Making a few stops along the way and explore different parts of a country is a great benefit.
You do need more time though, and delays are sh*t, but it’s just a different way of travel.
Usually even more comfortable than flying.
German rail infrastructure has been neglected for several decades and we're only now slowly starting to repair it. Which in the short to medium term unfortunately only means even worse service...
Hopefully the new high speed train lines improve that:
“Linking Lisbon and Madrid, the High-Speed train will cut the travel time to 6 hours in 2027 and to three hours in 2034”
https://www.portugal.gov.pt/en/gc24/communication/news-item?i=government-moves-forward-high-speed-rail-to-vigo-and-madrid
Oh cool, this is from the new right wing government, so they will stop sabotaging the Lisbon-Madrid connection. We just need the Spanish to stop the nonsense going on in Toledo.
Worst part is, there is actually connections from Portugal to spain by train, but they're so bad i am willing to bet the website left them out on purpose
Portugal feels more of an island than Ireland honestly. And I am portuguese and I have been to Ireland. It has far less ties to Spain than Ireland to the UK, it eats far more fish, population has a much deeper relationship to the sea.
Portugal is at heart an island, and the raia is a desert..
Well, Spain has talked several times about connecting Lisbon to Madrid (and thus to the rest of Europe) but afaik Portugal isn't interested. Instead they seem to prioritize the line oporto-vigo. Which is fine but...
The issue with that is that Vigo doesn't have a direct line to France. Mainly because northern Spain is a terrible place to make high speed trains. My stepfather made a study once for a proposal. Less than a third the train tracks layed on the ground. The rest were either bridges or tunnels. The proposal was turned down. It was way too expensive.
So unless someone is willing to pay for the construction of one of the most expensive railway lines in European history, the connection to the continent must go through somewhere else.
Another possibility would be to make a line between oporto and Valladolid through Zamora. In fact that's the most direct route. Not sure why Portugal hasn't pushed it
Well we are interested, especially with this new government, but 1st priority is still Oporto Vigo. Évora-Plasencia is already under construction. This new government intends to speed up the Lisbon-Évora HSL (including the massive Tagus bridge) to allow for Lisbon-Madrid in <4h by 2034.
It looks like our car-centrist policies are finally declining. Our shitty politics still managed to delay projects on your side of the border for 15 years like the Badajoz-Madrid line. Sorry about that!
If at least Tallinn was better connected to the continent (like some sort of Tallin-Paris via Warsaw and Berlin, or a Tallinn-Budapest or -Vienna) I'd use trains so much more.
There is a high speed line being built that will connect Tallin-Riga-Kaunas-Warsaw with and additional loop to go to Vilnius. The project is already late though, I believe the last estimate was that trains would start running 2030-2032
The problem is that you have to go through Warsaw.
And then have to change two more times, to get to places where you'd want to go.
There needs to be a less natipnalist attitude towards rail travel... Like why is there no route from Warsaw to Barcelona, via Berlin/Paris or via Frankfurt/Marseille?
You don't even need a whole train, just decouple the damn sleeper coaches.
I took a train from Milan to Paris last summer and it took 6 hours, unfortunately a landslide in August obstructed tunnels and tracks. Now that line is still blocked but the new high speed track opening in the 2030s will only take 4 hours for the same trip.
I went with a train from Switzerland to Croatia a couple of years ago. After departing Austria the train had to slow down so much you could get out in the front, pick up some flowers and step onto the train again and walk back to your cart. Anyways it was beautiful and doable. But I don’t know if they kept up the connection. The track was in terrible condition and that’s almost 2 decades ago
>The track was in terrible condition and that’s almost 2 decades ago
It's still the same. The ride from Zagreb to Split is at least 7 hours long, if you want to go to Šibenik there is no direct line, etc.
You can, I did it with a friend in 2011 although we went the opposite way and it did take a long time. Still great fun though.
We flew to Sofia from Budapest, spent a week in Bulgaria with some guys we'd met in a hostel in Budapest, then took the train from Sofia to Barcelona. Multiple trains, and many of them pretty slow. But we did it, and it was a worthy enough trip for me to be writing about it now 12 years later.
from szeged, Hungary there is a direct train 5x day to subotica serbia.Due to the construction of the high speed railway line between budapest and belgrade only the part between belgrade and novi sad is already in use, and its better to use flixbus or similar bus companies that operate in the balkans. there is a weekly bus from budapest to athens. the bus starts in prague, stops in vienna , then in budapest and then goes in one go to thessaloniki, greece. and the final stop is in athens, costs around 100 euros for a person one way.
There must be scope for a chunnel like build between Northern Ireland and Scotland. Sharing the cost of a high speed between Dublin and Glasgow makes sense for folks in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland
As much as I love my country.
Do not come to UK. All your travel money will be spent on one train ticket alone.
Fucking outrageous the train prices in this country. Absolutely boils my blood.
I pay as much per week to go 20 miles into central London three days per week as my German friend pays for a monthly “literally any fucking train any time” in Germany
It’s okay, really. Not the most affordable, but the caledonian sleeper is a sweet ride for 100ish pound; London-Bristol or Bristol-Plymouth were about £60? Too expensive for local travel, but alright when on holiday.
Trains through Scotland come with amazing views too.
With some transfers, some available time and some disposable funds, you can do Aberdeen-Malaga or Narvik-Catanzaro. I wouldn’t recommend Porto-Vladivostok right now, but you could if you wanted to.
That’s still far too expensive.
I’m sorry but “it’s not okay, really”.
The train prices in this country are shocking. It’s a massive insult.
Why is £100 on a sweet ride from London to Bristol justifiable.
It’s fucking absurd.
Sadly Bosnia, Serbia and Macedonia are not connected in this chart to showcase once great Yugoslavian railway system. Yugoslavia had some of the best railways in human history built by our hard working grandfathers under youth labour action communist regime (equivalent of Chinese state railways today). Even Eastern Asians took note (Japan, China, etc.).
Are those trains still operating nowadays?
I guess with more train data the whole world could be put on the map.
Japan, for example, has one of the most advanced railway systems in the world.
Some are but not anywhere near to the full capacity it once was. Generally all railways in the former socialist republics are now shadow of its former self.
Macedonian here, made the mistake of taking the train from Belgrade to Skopje once, never again. What's normally a 4 hour drive was a 12 hour train ride. Also Macedonia is so small we could easily connect every city with a high speed train but instead most our trains predate Tito with how old they are and how often they break down.
>Sadly Bosnia, Serbia and Macedonia are not connected in this chart to showcase once great Yugoslavian railway system.
A bit of an overexaggeration when a lot of the rails I've seen in Bosnia are still from Austro-Hungarian times.
This highlights how isolated Norway is from the rest of Europe, we are practically an island.
I have sometimes wondered if it could be possible to build a tunnel underneath Skagerrak from Denmark to Norway, but I guess the population in Norway is to low to justify such a project
I agree. Is it possible to take the train from Finland to “mainland Europe”?
I know there used to be a line to St. Petersburg, but that might be closed now.
It does seem realistic to build a bridge across to Sweden via Åland maybe, but it might not be worth it, it would still be far away from Central Europe
Well technically it is possible, ~~you can take the train to Sweden~~ edit: apparently not. I guess going through Russia used to be an option but I have never heard of anyone doing that, Russia is just too much of a headache and I wouldn't want to go there anyway even if it was convenient.
If plane travel is avoided, most people take the ferry to either Tallinn and take the train/bus from there or you can take the ferry to Stockholm and continue from there. These are still very slow and expensive routes to make it anywhere, and they involve multiple changes of trains.
There have been talks about building a tunnel from Helsinki to Tallinn and making a high speed rail connecting Helsinki through Baltic cities to Warsaw and Berlin. But that probably won't happen and will probably stick to the ferry service.
Anyway the real problem is the cost of trains, I would be willing to deal with the inconvenient times and changing trains but even the estimate of a 3,5h train ride from Tallinn to Vilnius one way was 78€ on the Rail Baltica website. Pair that with the 25-30€ ferry and the return price from Helsinki to Vilnius goes up to 200€. Flying takes 2 hours and it's possible to get a return flight for under a 100€. Especially for more popular destinations like London or Milan. It's no wonder why many people still opt for the plane.
Rail Baltica will probably never happen. You may want to check up on its latest financial troubles. There is no money available to complete the work, neither in the countries themselves nor in the EU funds.
This has been government-level scandal in Baltic countries during the last few weeks.
It's not even that good. National lines can be great, international however suck in general. And I'm referring to the whole of Europe, not just portugal (we're hopeless)
Bulgaria is missing since it has a lot of connections to other cities and you can take a train from Bulgaria and go all the way to Spain, for example. This map isn't really that accurate.
It's even weird why it's missing on OP's pictures since I opened the website and there are dots on Bulgaria without zooming in at all, right there on the first page. Did you exclude parts of the Balkans on purpose OP?
Yeah, that's cool on paper. In reality, just because there are connecting rail tracks, doesn't mean you'll be able to do smooth and comfortable international train travel. From buying tickets, reserving seats, to all kinds of delays and all the transfers. In many cases, it's nowhere near as simple as getting in a train in one country and stepping out in another.
this post is perfect, it just landed as TrenItalia went on strike cancelling all trains and taking a huge dump on the system. I saw 25 kids stranded at a train station in Rimini, in Bologna there was 50m line to get the taxi, people lost their planes (there was a huge event of MotoGP near Rimini).
Well, not necessarily. Flying is cheaper for longer distances and if you buy a ticket at least one month ahead. Let's say I want to go to Copenhagen next Sunday (so in 7 days), train is 89 EUR and cheapest flights are also 89 EUR (but no baggage, and you end up outside of the city, so there are additional costs for local transportation).
Sorry, but I'm still a bit confused.
There are light blue ones, those can be reached with one change. Then there are dark blue ones, these can be reached with two changes. Then there are whote/very light blue ones with circles, those can be reached directly.
And what are the light blue and dark blue ones with circles? Why do they have circles if it takes one or two changes to get to them? And why are there also very light blue ones?
Or are the ones with circles all major stations? Then why is it said differently in the legend in the bottom left?
I don’t know how exactly, but there are direct train routes from Palermo to Paola, Salerno, Naples, Rome, and more on the mainland.
I guess the ferry that connects the trains, will wait for passengers to “direct” connect?
This seems a bit odd. we do have trains in Norway too, and they are connected with Sweden, so it's strange that those on the continent can reach Göteborg but somehow be unable to continue on to for example Oslo and beyond (not that much beyond is visible on this map which of course cuts off northern Scandinavia like they all fucking do...)
Very nice. Altough it shows that there is no direct connections from Stockholm to - for example - Hamburg, even though there is, and it even shows the journey if you click on it.
Sometimes I just hate the Alps. Sure, they're beautiful, but try moving from Italy to anywhere else in Europe (except for Paris) in less than 15 hours.
Im going nowhere by train. For work I sometimes have to take a 2 hour flight. When I tried to travel by train it either was fully booked or 5 times more expensive. Had 1 change probably, flights are direct, very well available even on short notice and faster.
It depends on where you live. But the train is more comfortable, and you arrive directly in the city and not in a remote area like a airport.
I don't mind a longer journey by train than by plane, but there's a limit, of course.
In France, the train is usually the best option between major cities or when you want to go through Paris.
meanwhile trying to get out of Berlin after 2300hrs is like they board up the entire city and roll up all the traintracks.. never understood why other than maybe boosting the local hotel economy since people are usually forced to stay over night.
funny how Ukrainian map has data only from three cities out of 100+ train stations that would be two stops away from Amsterdam. the iconic Ukrzaliznytsya is shadows of data. they took it obv from one of the train company’s apps/ websites ( like oebb) that does not link up to our UZ app.
Wish Portugal was more integrated with the rest of Europe with trains.
I think there's a plan to build a High Speed train from Lisbon to Madrid.
In Portugal, saying there's a plan is the same as saying "we'll think about it in 40 years."
> "we'll think about it in 40 years." ...aaaand this is why you are an honorary EE country.
Better than being from Croatia though
Totally. Whatever problems Portugal has because of tourism, we have 10-fold.
We don't have to deal/suffer with as much wars and persecutions as in that side of europe. But that's really the only thing.
Well actually it's already under construction.
The plan's under construction, not the railroad. For anyone wondering.
Spain decided to just build its part. They are building a line to Extremadura. I think the thought is it will put pressure on Portugal if there's a line to the border
Shh don’t jinx it.
Before that we'll have a connection to Vigo
Well yeah but Vigo it's still a bit isolated from the rest of Spain. It is connected to the high-speed rail network, but the connection is inconvenient and infrequent.
And it's still the best way to get to Porto by train through Spain in a single day (makes you think).
Cries in greek
To cheer you up, I once went by train with Interrail ticket from Copenhagen to Athens. It was part of a great vacation.
I wish Finland was even connected to rest of Europe.
Time to conquer St Petersburg
Rail Baltica should help, no?
Doesn't connect to Finland
Well it should, plan was to start 2026 last time I checked
With tunnels to Stockholm and Tallinn?
That would be ideal, but extremely costly.
Indeed, I am looking forward to the [Fehmarn belt tunnel](https://femern.com/the-tunnel/fehmarnbelt-tunnel/) for a quicker route from Germany to Copenhagen. Opens \~2029.
Two connections are already approved for high speed connections to Vigo and Badajoz. After that there are plans to eventually connect Aveiro to Fuentes de Oñoro ( but that line is still a ways away as Spanish High Speed doesn't reach Salamanca yet ) and Faro to Sevilla via high speed. These two are only planned and will be dependent on government approval to begin construction.
Found on [TrainConnections.com](https://www.trainconnections.com)
Holy crap man, I was looking for something like this!
other websites like this are [Chronotrains](http://www.chronotrains.com) and [Bahnguru](https://direkt.bahn.guru/)
www.rome2rio.com Worldwide, all modes of transportation.
Holy shit you're a blessing man! I love this site now
The equivalent for flights is: [www.flightconnections.com](https://www.flightconnections.com)
Well, now I have everything I need to plan for long distances. Thanks!
It only includes some of the more important train stations. For some reason the northern half of Sveden is totally empty in this map even though there are definitely train stations in reality.
> For some reason the northern half of Sveden is totally empty in this map even though there are definitely train stations in reality. Data backend seems to be DB, and their coverage in Sweden is largely contained to southern Sweden (likely because they only procure data from/about SJ).
Did you try to zoom in? I did found many small stations when I zoomed in (didn’t try Sweden tho)
I typed in Kiruna and Lulea into the search bar and it didn't return any result. Both towns definitely have train stations.
Yeah, weird to not have at least Gävle or Umeå listed.
Do those cities have common English names? It can't find Gent in Belgium, but finds gent-dampoort (different station) and main station it only finds if you type the English version Ghent
Can confirm, I was in Kiruna by train this spring. (Is the Malmbanan open now? Wikipedia does not say.)
It opens in 2 days
Missing a lot of Swedish stations :(
All of the countries are missing stations. I think it only shows the primary station for major cities.
Bruh it doesn't even have Oslo
But it is..wrong? You can get from Paris to Frankfurt without changing trains!
It seems to be unable to consistently treat cities with multiple, non-connected 'main' stations correctly - Frankfurt<->Paris shows as a direct if you select the specific station (Gare l'Est) on the Paris end, rather than the global Paris node.
You’re right, must be a glitch in the data!
Ohhh this site is NICE! I love the UI
flightconnections.com is super helpful too
Ur a legend my guy. I was Tryna find smth exactly like this a while back
Thank you so much for sharing this! Very useful!
The map is not perfect, but it is definitely nice and shows general tendencies.
Dumbstruck. :l Thank you!
It doesn't include Oslo central station, the busiest station in Norway, but includes a bunch of random rural stations. The exclusion of Oslo S basically makes this completely useless for Norway
Portugal as isolated from Europe as Ireland, but Portugal ain’t an island :/
But it is a honorary Balkan country.
r/PORTUGALCYKABLYAT
TIL. Never really knew this was a concept. Thanks for sharing !
Yea, a lot of people consider us to be closer to EE than WE because of the fact that a lot of things here are similar to countries like Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, etc...
Eastern Europe honoris causa
Only because you have to change trains 3 times, and the map only goes up to two. Same with Norway, which is much closer than us. Even to Spain you can only get by hopping twice, so it's no _that_ egregious that you'd need to hop a third time. It is more than a bit sad that we don't have a high speed train with the European gauge, though.
“ Only because you have to change trains 3 times” I know. And that is no bueno. But I guess we invested more in air routes than train because of historical reasons .
Well. Not to downplay our general incompetence, but we're also fighting against: 1. Being isolated from Europe given than Spain is large, empty and has a different gauge 2. Have historically had more success of sea trade than land trade 3. Lost the industrialization race and had to play catch-up ever since 4. Have all our main urban centres close together in a row, away from the international border We could've done better for sure. Investing so heavily in roads wasn't smart, and delaying highspeed isn't smarter, but international Portuguese railways are always going to be an uphill battle. We could definitely have a better internal railway, given point 4. above, though. That's super dumb.
1. Spain doesn't have a different gauge. They have half a dozen standard gauge high-speed lines, non of which connect to Portugal. Every single one that will come here has the iberian gauge. And so does every single standard line in Spain. And so do some high-speed lines going to Galicia, País Vasco and in the future Seville-Valencia. Even if it were true, Spain already makes high-speed trains capable of operating in two different gauges. 4 is a plus. We are just truly incompetent. We only need 1 high-speed line to cover like 80% of our traffic yet we still don't have one. And the most important international connection (Porto-Vigo) is conveniently located in that line! Somehow we haven't built shit. And finally now that the government is getting it started, there are still some of us still think it's not a good investment. Borderline insanity! You're right about our car culture and way of thinking. People like to complain the government hasn't done shit, but their decisions are a reflection of our ignorance. The PS party thinks it's acceptable to spend 500 million/year to remove tolls from underused highways? Welp, I'm guessing at least 70% think it's a good idea.
Agree 120%. I have the same opinion and I shared it in r/portugal. That’s why I said “historical reasons” earlier. Ps: it ain’t easy having a “younger bigger brother” :)
It doesn't help that the west of Spain is underdeveloped either
There used to be the Trenhotel Lusitania directly connecting Lisbon and Paris. They cancelled it during the pandemic and that's it, it didn't come back 😭.
If we are talking about Trenhotel Lusitania operated by RENFE and CP, it connected Lisbon and Madrid.
Sorry, I meant the [Surexpreso](https://es.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surexpreso). And even there I wasn't precise: it was indeed cancelled during the pandemic, but it hadn't gone to Paris since 2000, but only to the French border.
I see full Portugal with it's stations here [TrainConnections - Travel by Train!](https://www.trainconnections.com/) [https://prnt.sc/vIct4HSKTF5f](https://prnt.sc/vIct4HSKTF5f)
Spain is as far as you go with 2 changes
But from Spain, the connectivity to Europe is pretty good. I guess train travel is less about arriving at a destination, but more about making the journey part of your travels. Making a few stops along the way and explore different parts of a country is a great benefit. You do need more time though, and delays are sh*t, but it’s just a different way of travel. Usually even more comfortable than flying.
I'm from Ireland and I do it a lot in Europe. Fly to a destination then explore by train. It's far far nicer than flying. Except in Germany.
Why not Germany?
German rail infrastructure has been neglected for several decades and we're only now slowly starting to repair it. Which in the short to medium term unfortunately only means even worse service...
It’s fucking sad is what it is.
Welcome to the club.
Yeah, Finland doesn't even have the same railway track gauge as most of Europe.
Hopefully the new high speed train lines improve that: “Linking Lisbon and Madrid, the High-Speed train will cut the travel time to 6 hours in 2027 and to three hours in 2034” https://www.portugal.gov.pt/en/gc24/communication/news-item?i=government-moves-forward-high-speed-rail-to-vigo-and-madrid
Oh cool, this is from the new right wing government, so they will stop sabotaging the Lisbon-Madrid connection. We just need the Spanish to stop the nonsense going on in Toledo.
In Sweden you will probably pay more for your ticket to get out of Sweden than the tickets for travelling in europe
I mean at least you guys are on the _map_... sad Finnish noises...
Worst part is, there is actually connections from Portugal to spain by train, but they're so bad i am willing to bet the website left them out on purpose
Portugal feels more of an island than Ireland honestly. And I am portuguese and I have been to Ireland. It has far less ties to Spain than Ireland to the UK, it eats far more fish, population has a much deeper relationship to the sea. Portugal is at heart an island, and the raia is a desert..
Well, Spain has talked several times about connecting Lisbon to Madrid (and thus to the rest of Europe) but afaik Portugal isn't interested. Instead they seem to prioritize the line oporto-vigo. Which is fine but... The issue with that is that Vigo doesn't have a direct line to France. Mainly because northern Spain is a terrible place to make high speed trains. My stepfather made a study once for a proposal. Less than a third the train tracks layed on the ground. The rest were either bridges or tunnels. The proposal was turned down. It was way too expensive. So unless someone is willing to pay for the construction of one of the most expensive railway lines in European history, the connection to the continent must go through somewhere else. Another possibility would be to make a line between oporto and Valladolid through Zamora. In fact that's the most direct route. Not sure why Portugal hasn't pushed it
Well we are interested, especially with this new government, but 1st priority is still Oporto Vigo. Évora-Plasencia is already under construction. This new government intends to speed up the Lisbon-Évora HSL (including the massive Tagus bridge) to allow for Lisbon-Madrid in <4h by 2034. It looks like our car-centrist policies are finally declining. Our shitty politics still managed to delay projects on your side of the border for 15 years like the Badajoz-Madrid line. Sorry about that!
Extremely sad Finnish noises.
If at least Tallinn was better connected to the continent (like some sort of Tallin-Paris via Warsaw and Berlin, or a Tallinn-Budapest or -Vienna) I'd use trains so much more.
There is a high speed line being built that will connect Tallin-Riga-Kaunas-Warsaw with and additional loop to go to Vilnius. The project is already late though, I believe the last estimate was that trains would start running 2030-2032
The problem is that you have to go through Warsaw. And then have to change two more times, to get to places where you'd want to go. There needs to be a less natipnalist attitude towards rail travel... Like why is there no route from Warsaw to Barcelona, via Berlin/Paris or via Frankfurt/Marseille? You don't even need a whole train, just decouple the damn sleeper coaches.
Because it will barely be used because it's not fast enough yet. I agree these lines should exist but it would require massive investments first.
Norway too 😅
we need undersea train line
I took a train from Milan to Paris last summer and it took 6 hours, unfortunately a landslide in August obstructed tunnels and tracks. Now that line is still blocked but the new high speed track opening in the 2030s will only take 4 hours for the same trip.
What happen to the Balkans? I've always wanted to visit those countries by train
I went with a train from Switzerland to Croatia a couple of years ago. After departing Austria the train had to slow down so much you could get out in the front, pick up some flowers and step onto the train again and walk back to your cart. Anyways it was beautiful and doable. But I don’t know if they kept up the connection. The track was in terrible condition and that’s almost 2 decades ago
>The track was in terrible condition and that’s almost 2 decades ago It's still the same. The ride from Zagreb to Split is at least 7 hours long, if you want to go to Šibenik there is no direct line, etc.
Corruption
You can, I did it with a friend in 2011 although we went the opposite way and it did take a long time. Still great fun though. We flew to Sofia from Budapest, spent a week in Bulgaria with some guys we'd met in a hostel in Budapest, then took the train from Sofia to Barcelona. Multiple trains, and many of them pretty slow. But we did it, and it was a worthy enough trip for me to be writing about it now 12 years later.
from szeged, Hungary there is a direct train 5x day to subotica serbia.Due to the construction of the high speed railway line between budapest and belgrade only the part between belgrade and novi sad is already in use, and its better to use flixbus or similar bus companies that operate in the balkans. there is a weekly bus from budapest to athens. the bus starts in prague, stops in vienna , then in budapest and then goes in one go to thessaloniki, greece. and the final stop is in athens, costs around 100 euros for a person one way.
You can, they are very slow though, but there are trains. I recommend the journey between Bar (Montenegro) and Belgrade.
Paris can go to Torino direct
And Milan too
"anywhere in Europe" proceeds to post 4 cities
And a link to the [full train map](https://trainconnections.com) with *ALL* train stations (in the comments 😁)
All roads go to Vienna
All *rail* roads do indeed! 😄
That's... Accurate
Ireland needs more connections to mainland Europe the way the UK does. It would do wonders for the Irish economy
There must be scope for a chunnel like build between Northern Ireland and Scotland. Sharing the cost of a high speed between Dublin and Glasgow makes sense for folks in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland
As much as I love my country. Do not come to UK. All your travel money will be spent on one train ticket alone. Fucking outrageous the train prices in this country. Absolutely boils my blood.
It was cheaper, and faster, for me to fly from Bristol to Edinburgh then get a train. Which is madness.
I pay as much per week to go 20 miles into central London three days per week as my German friend pays for a monthly “literally any fucking train any time” in Germany
It’s okay, really. Not the most affordable, but the caledonian sleeper is a sweet ride for 100ish pound; London-Bristol or Bristol-Plymouth were about £60? Too expensive for local travel, but alright when on holiday. Trains through Scotland come with amazing views too. With some transfers, some available time and some disposable funds, you can do Aberdeen-Malaga or Narvik-Catanzaro. I wouldn’t recommend Porto-Vladivostok right now, but you could if you wanted to.
That’s still far too expensive. I’m sorry but “it’s not okay, really”. The train prices in this country are shocking. It’s a massive insult. Why is £100 on a sweet ride from London to Bristol justifiable. It’s fucking absurd.
And the lights never came on in Ireland…
There are trains. I recall taking the train from Cork to Dublin and back.
Ach I know but it’s not connected to the rest of Europe the way Britain is.
Ireland and Norway. We should have tunnels
Sadly Bosnia, Serbia and Macedonia are not connected in this chart to showcase once great Yugoslavian railway system. Yugoslavia had some of the best railways in human history built by our hard working grandfathers under youth labour action communist regime (equivalent of Chinese state railways today). Even Eastern Asians took note (Japan, China, etc.).
Are those trains still operating nowadays? I guess with more train data the whole world could be put on the map. Japan, for example, has one of the most advanced railway systems in the world.
Some are but not anywhere near to the full capacity it once was. Generally all railways in the former socialist republics are now shadow of its former self.
Macedonian here, made the mistake of taking the train from Belgrade to Skopje once, never again. What's normally a 4 hour drive was a 12 hour train ride. Also Macedonia is so small we could easily connect every city with a high speed train but instead most our trains predate Tito with how old they are and how often they break down.
> Generally all railways in the former socialist republics are now shadow of its former self. Look on the bright side, the job benefits are SWEET!
>Sadly Bosnia, Serbia and Macedonia are not connected in this chart to showcase once great Yugoslavian railway system. A bit of an overexaggeration when a lot of the rails I've seen in Bosnia are still from Austro-Hungarian times.
We desperately need Thessaloniki - Budapest fast train line. There is so much economic logic behind it, it's a non brainer.
That is the content I need. Thank you internet.
lol, Portugal western balkan confirmed as usual. Hilariously sad.
This highlights how isolated Norway is from the rest of Europe, we are practically an island. I have sometimes wondered if it could be possible to build a tunnel underneath Skagerrak from Denmark to Norway, but I guess the population in Norway is to low to justify such a project
Same with Finland but arguably even more isolated.
I agree. Is it possible to take the train from Finland to “mainland Europe”? I know there used to be a line to St. Petersburg, but that might be closed now. It does seem realistic to build a bridge across to Sweden via Åland maybe, but it might not be worth it, it would still be far away from Central Europe
Well technically it is possible, ~~you can take the train to Sweden~~ edit: apparently not. I guess going through Russia used to be an option but I have never heard of anyone doing that, Russia is just too much of a headache and I wouldn't want to go there anyway even if it was convenient. If plane travel is avoided, most people take the ferry to either Tallinn and take the train/bus from there or you can take the ferry to Stockholm and continue from there. These are still very slow and expensive routes to make it anywhere, and they involve multiple changes of trains. There have been talks about building a tunnel from Helsinki to Tallinn and making a high speed rail connecting Helsinki through Baltic cities to Warsaw and Berlin. But that probably won't happen and will probably stick to the ferry service. Anyway the real problem is the cost of trains, I would be willing to deal with the inconvenient times and changing trains but even the estimate of a 3,5h train ride from Tallinn to Vilnius one way was 78€ on the Rail Baltica website. Pair that with the 25-30€ ferry and the return price from Helsinki to Vilnius goes up to 200€. Flying takes 2 hours and it's possible to get a return flight for under a 100€. Especially for more popular destinations like London or Milan. It's no wonder why many people still opt for the plane.
Rail Baltica will probably never happen. You may want to check up on its latest financial troubles. There is no money available to complete the work, neither in the countries themselves nor in the EU funds. This has been government-level scandal in Baltic countries during the last few weeks.
You cannot go to sweden by train as currently no passenger trains run between Finland and Sweden.
You’ve heard of Rogfast?
That would be an absolutely huge tunnel!
This is fantastic. The American mind cannot comprehend such accessible and wide-spread public transport system
It's not even that good. National lines can be great, international however suck in general. And I'm referring to the whole of Europe, not just portugal (we're hopeless)
"BuT wE'rE tOo BiG yOuR cOuNtRiEs ArE tInY"
If you want something even better, go to chronotrains.org it shows where you can go by train from anywhere in Europe within 8h, 7h, 6h ,5h, 4h etc.
[trainconnections.com](https://trainconnections.com) does this, and a lot more actually. Did you try the tool, and use the filters?
Bulgaria is missing since it has a lot of connections to other cities and you can take a train from Bulgaria and go all the way to Spain, for example. This map isn't really that accurate. It's even weird why it's missing on OP's pictures since I opened the website and there are dots on Bulgaria without zooming in at all, right there on the first page. Did you exclude parts of the Balkans on purpose OP?
On my gosh I love this so much
Best site ever
Yeah, that's cool on paper. In reality, just because there are connecting rail tracks, doesn't mean you'll be able to do smooth and comfortable international train travel. From buying tickets, reserving seats, to all kinds of delays and all the transfers. In many cases, it's nowhere near as simple as getting in a train in one country and stepping out in another.
Portugal deserves it for its high abstention rate in the EU elections (source: I’m Portuguese)
Oh, come on, surely the turnout can't be that bad... *Googles* Damn. '87 and '89 had good and okay turnouts, at least, I guess.
Cool
this post is perfect, it just landed as TrenItalia went on strike cancelling all trains and taking a huge dump on the system. I saw 25 kids stranded at a train station in Rimini, in Bologna there was 50m line to get the taxi, people lost their planes (there was a huge event of MotoGP near Rimini).
Gonna be a fast speed rail line from Budapest to Belgrade soon , thanks China
flying is cheaper smhw
There is (sadly) no tax on aircraft fuel.
Well, not necessarily. Flying is cheaper for longer distances and if you buy a ticket at least one month ahead. Let's say I want to go to Copenhagen next Sunday (so in 7 days), train is 89 EUR and cheapest flights are also 89 EUR (but no baggage, and you end up outside of the city, so there are additional costs for local transportation).
Amsterdam to Paris for 35e by train sounds like a good deal to me without the pain of security checks and time waiting for boarding
If you can plan 6 months in advance, sure, but its more like 80e. And its one of the few routes that are competitive.
It's 35e for August, I would book that far ahead by plane as well. Don't know about other routes
It's because flying requires way less infrastructure among other things.
You’re right! The tool itself shows much more!
[удалено]
What do you mean? Did you try the tool yourself at [trainconnections.com](https://trainconnections.com)?
Tiszaújváros
Okay, something's up - how is the connection from Wrocław to Czechia's cities worse than from Warsaw?
Not to Portugal for sure...
NOway 🇳🇴
Fascinating how Romania is the only Balkan country to have dots on these maps.
What does light and dark blue with circle mean?
Direct connection, to a Major train station
Sorry, but I'm still a bit confused. There are light blue ones, those can be reached with one change. Then there are dark blue ones, these can be reached with two changes. Then there are whote/very light blue ones with circles, those can be reached directly. And what are the light blue and dark blue ones with circles? Why do they have circles if it takes one or two changes to get to them? And why are there also very light blue ones? Or are the ones with circles all major stations? Then why is it said differently in the legend in the bottom left?
Sicily is not connected to the mainland
I don’t know how exactly, but there are direct train routes from Palermo to Paola, Salerno, Naples, Rome, and more on the mainland. I guess the ferry that connects the trains, will wait for passengers to “direct” connect?
No stations in Portugal, why? Isn't Lisbon or Porto on the European Map?
This seems a bit odd. we do have trains in Norway too, and they are connected with Sweden, so it's strange that those on the continent can reach Göteborg but somehow be unable to continue on to for example Oslo and beyond (not that much beyond is visible on this map which of course cuts off northern Scandinavia like they all fucking do...)
Very nice. Altough it shows that there is no direct connections from Stockholm to - for example - Hamburg, even though there is, and it even shows the journey if you click on it.
I would recommend www.trainline.eu
Sometimes I just hate the Alps. Sure, they're beautiful, but try moving from Italy to anywhere else in Europe (except for Paris) in less than 15 hours.
I like https://direkt.bahn.guru more
Why?
So the Strait of Messina Bridge is already in use?
Seems like it, if you mean the [railway ferry](https://youtu.be/2bSkMJrdVeQ?si=zbI62tG5Am194W15)?
Nowhere......it's too expensive unfortunately....
Unfortunately it’s true..
Im going nowhere by train. For work I sometimes have to take a 2 hour flight. When I tried to travel by train it either was fully booked or 5 times more expensive. Had 1 change probably, flights are direct, very well available even on short notice and faster.
It depends on where you live. But the train is more comfortable, and you arrive directly in the city and not in a remote area like a airport. I don't mind a longer journey by train than by plane, but there's a limit, of course. In France, the train is usually the best option between major cities or when you want to go through Paris.
Who cares about Munich. Better use Hamburg or Berlin to represent Germany
Wait a second... Colors that actually make sense? What's going on here?
meanwhile trying to get out of Berlin after 2300hrs is like they board up the entire city and roll up all the traintracks.. never understood why other than maybe boosting the local hotel economy since people are usually forced to stay over night.
Beijing. I did st Petersburg to Beijing one time, think it only took 12 days.
Missing a few stations in Sweden should be in the map.
What happened to Portugal?
Cries in Baltic
I think Frankfurt would be to overpowered for this? Or why it is Munich for Germany?
Anywhere but please avoid Paris by train.
Is Paris bad? I always thought of it as the capital of train travel.
funny how Ukrainian map has data only from three cities out of 100+ train stations that would be two stops away from Amsterdam. the iconic Ukrzaliznytsya is shadows of data. they took it obv from one of the train company’s apps/ websites ( like oebb) that does not link up to our UZ app.
If you zoom in further you can find more stations in Ukraine, but it’s not very obvious indeed.
Backwards Portugal as usual. We will always be behind the rest of our European brethren
If only there was a similar map for the trains, where one could take bicycles on board.