The Rail Room
The great lines of Europe.
The map
Drawn here by hand, from the coastline out. Every family of lines carries its own colour. The key is at the foot of the sheet.
- The Channel CrossingLondon to Paris, and London to Brussels and Amsterdam
- The Roads NorthLondon to Edinburgh and Glasgow, and on to Inverness
- The Irish LinesBelfast to Dublin, and Dublin to Cork and Galway
- The Roads of FranceParis to Marseille and Nice, to Bordeaux, and east to Frankfurt
- The Iberian LinesBarcelona to Madrid and Seville, and Lisbon to Porto
- The Rhine RoadCologne to Mainz and Frankfurt, along the river
- The German SpineHamburg and Berlin to Munich, Cologne and Zurich
- The High PassesZurich and Geneva to Milan, and Munich to Venice by the Brenner
- The Spine of ItalyMilan to Florence, Rome and Naples, and east to Venice
- The Eastern LinesMunich to Vienna and Budapest, and Berlin to Prague and Warsaw
- The Northern LinesHamburg to Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo and Bergen
Why the train
Every great station was built in the middle of the city. No airport ever was. The train asks you to arrive minutes before it leaves and sets you down on a street with a name, the afternoon still ahead of you. Flying asks for your morning and returns you to the edge of somewhere. We plan around rail wherever the map allows it, and not out of nostalgia. Europe is reopening its sleeper routes city by city, because the fastest way across a continent has never been the same thing as the best way to see it.
One bag, well packed
No one has ever weighed a bag on a railway platform. Rules differ by line and we confirm them for every leg before you go, but the principle holds everywhere: a train asks only that you can carry what you brought and put it where you sit. Most bags that go missing go missing at a transfer, which is something that only happens to bags you handed over. Take one case you can lift above your head and a small bag for the seat beside you. You will move through every station on the trip like someone who lives there.
The window matters
On any great line, one side of the carriage is worth more than the other: the sea side, the gorge side, the side the viaduct swings toward. Timetables will not tell you which, and neither will the booking screen. This is exactly the kind of small knowledge the house keeps. When we put you on a train, the seat is chosen, not assigned.
When one of these lines belongs in your own trip, write to the desk.
Write to Doug directly