Resources

Here are my recommended projects, blogs and other resources to explore railways and cycling.

The Man in Seat 61 contains lots of tips for traveling by train abroad, in Europe and worldwide.
The Cross-Border Rail project by Jon Worth, about visiting and documenting the state of railway lines between European countries. The initial project (visiting each EU country by train) happened in 2022, with yearly editions since then. Other recommended reads and tips from Jon Worth’s main blog:
- Interrail tips and tricks (2024), explaining how to best book seat reservations with an Interrail pass.
- The future of long distance train services through the Channel Tunnel (2024), an in-depth analysis of why you shouldn’t expect new services to run via the Channel Tunnel in the next few years.
- A diagram to explain EU cross border rail passengers rights – and to push for political change (2023). Recommended if you ever find yourself stranded due to delayed trains (might be good to check before a trip in a new country).

[in French] Altis play (website, YouTube channel), a channel dedicated to urban planning with a focus on cycling infrastructure.

Exploring the world is more fun with maps!

OpenRailwayMap, an interactive map of railway lines around the world, powered by OpenStreetMap data. It supports layers to display lines by maximal speed, electrification, signaling system, etc. A bit clunky on mobile but works well on my laptop.
OpenCycleMap, tuned to show cycling routes, water fountains, bicycle parking and other cycling amenities from OpenStreetMap.
The Railway History Map ( source code), aiming to show current and past railway lines. Currently in construction, with coverage of a dozen countries in Europe.
The Railway Routing tool by Pierre Bessac, which calculates the expected railway itinerary between two (or more) train stations.