The trouble with cross-border rail in Europe

Although rail travel in Europe can trace its history to the 19th Century, its evolution into a continent-spanning network capable of competing with road and air travel has been constantly hampered by commercial and bureaucratic barriers.

Indeed, it could be said that the very concept of seamless rail travel across Europe was doomed from day one. As each country took charge of assembling its own domestic network - to its own specifications - the continent became a patchwork of systems overseen by powerful national monopolies.

Whilst this created extensive national networks - even the smallest of towns can have direct rail connections to their nearest major city - services that cross into neighbouring countries were often relegated to winding branch lines, with operations beset with problems ranging from the incompatibility of track widths, voltages and signalling technologies, to the intransigence of the entrenched national operators.  

Such is the parochial nature of European rail that by the turn of the 21st century more than 20 different signalling systems were still in use across the continent. A train departing Amsterdam from London, for example, would have to pass through ten different system boundaries, with vehicles fitted with all the requisite onboard equipment and driver teams qualified in the operating rules of each territory.

Even today, Eurostar, the passenger service that operates through the Channel Tunnel, contends with eight different signalling technologies across five countries.

And not all the blame can be put down to the short-sightedness of the early pioneers: when France, Spain and Italy developed high-speed networks in the 1980s and 1990s they were largely envisaged as national emblems showcasing domestic technological prowess.

Inefficient, expensive and shunned

Cross-border rail in Europe has long been perceived as inefficient, unreliable and expensive. And with good reason: in 2023, the environmental campaign group Greenpeace reported how long-distance rail in Europe cost, on average, twice that of flying. Travelling between London to Barcelona rail can cost up to 30 times more.

As a result, figures from 2019 (the last full year of pre-pandemic data) published by Eurostat, the official provider of EU statistics, found only 8% of the distance travelled by land within in the EU was by rail.

And yet with the EU’s own Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy expecting all 'scheduled collective travel up to 500km' to be carbon-neutral by 2030, rail transit - and electric-powered trains, in particular - must be front and  centre of Europe’s future transport mix (according to the International Energy Agency, rail averages around one-fifth of the greenhouse-gas emissions per passenger-kilometre of air travel, measured on a well-to-wheels basis).

Not a level playing field

Europe's policy makers have been trying to address the situation. From the late 1980s various waves of legislation have attempted to forge a 'level playing field' across Europe's rail networks, tackling obstacles such as the opaque track access charges between Member States, and establishing common technical and operational standards.

So far these attempts to open up competition have delivered mixed results. Some countries have balked at the costs. Others have dragged their heels in adopting some of the measures.

The European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS), for example, has been championed for the more than 30 years as a common control and signalling system for mainline routes in Europe. But its widespread adoption has long been hindered by the machinations of an industry that continued to procure rolling stock - which have lifespans of upto 40 years - that were still designed for existing domestic signalling systems.

So, what to do?