Welcome to today's thread - #CrossBorderRail 2026 Tour Day 32 - 5 May - Strasbourg - Rumelange - Kirchberg - Wiltz - Libramont - Bruxelles
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@maha You’re a passenger. Why does SNCF care about you? (Sorry)
@jon I see!
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SNCF Connect, it can *always* be worse than you imagine. I am on Interrail today but wondered how much Metz
- Bettembourg 
costs. SNCF Connect can’t tell me, TER Grand Est site can. SNCF is the operator. 
️ #CrossBorderRail
@jon Looks like it is (once again) a weird SNCF Connect bug on some morning departures: it works for all the other trains of the day, and it does work if you click on "direct trains only".
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Here’s the location of the former #CrossBorderRail line
@jon What a pitty
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Lëtzebuergesch is a funny language to read as a speaker of German and English!
@jon This language clearly had a stroke. Which is no surprise as its speakers have the benefit of French vineyards and German portion sizes.
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@jon I didn't find those seats very lux(urious). My butt hurt when I sat on them longer than a short ride lol
@simonschre Yes! They’re rock hard!
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@jon Are they made by FIAT?
@happydisciple CAF!
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@jon Looks like it is (once again) a weird SNCF Connect bug on some morning departures: it works for all the other trains of the day, and it does work if you click on "direct trains only".
@corentin aaasgghhhhhhh. Having the data but not being able to show it is even worse!
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@jon What a pitty
@matschlegel this one was always likely hopeless. This is why it was the last LU-FR one I went to!
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Lëtzebuergesch is a funny language to read as a speaker of German and English!
@jon The more special I find this since Luxembourgish is not an official language of the European Union.
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@jon I don’t think there’s a bible version that opens with “Caf lux” though…
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I don’t have any data on these either. But I’m getting closer to my destination: the European Court of Auditors
After 75 minutes being grilled by the Court of Auditors for a report they’re writing about railways, I’m on my way again. Next: Wiltz
And this - as ever - is unpaid. Everyone else the Court will speak to has a job to allow them time for this. But as I’m self employed it’s just me, me giving my time. It’s nice to be asked of course!
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After 75 minutes being grilled by the Court of Auditors for a report they’re writing about railways, I’m on my way again. Next: Wiltz
And this - as ever - is unpaid. Everyone else the Court will speak to has a job to allow them time for this. But as I’m self employed it’s just me, me giving my time. It’s nice to be asked of course!
@jon
Did you tell them to ask all the others whether they got to Luxembourg by train?
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@jon
Did you tell them to ask all the others whether they got to Luxembourg by train?@notsoloud Mine was the first non-Webinar meeting!
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@notsoloud Mine was the first non-Webinar meeting!
@jon
An acceptable state of things -
After 75 minutes being grilled by the Court of Auditors for a report they’re writing about railways, I’m on my way again. Next: Wiltz
And this - as ever - is unpaid. Everyone else the Court will speak to has a job to allow them time for this. But as I’m self employed it’s just me, me giving my time. It’s nice to be asked of course!
In the end on the Court of Auditors thing, it is once more a problem of being a freelancer in a sector with no freelancers, and so once more I am doing complicated intellectual work for free
BUT when they ask me a question about a railway topic I can answer it straight up. No need to defend what a company tells me, what a senior manager decides. I think a few unvarnished comments about the problems are helpful for them to frame their work
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@jon Oh right, that might be why Connect fails to create a ticket. It might be looking for a tariff for Bettembourg frontier > Bettembourg, finding none and thus failing to create a price. While the région is using an inventory system (the one that creates tickets) that knows to just skip that segment.
We don’t integrate directly with SNCF Connect, but if it is possible to select border points in the API it might be possible as a reseller to get a ticket that way.
@stefanlindbohm @jon @jeanbaptistemarie Maybe it already has been mentioned (sorry, reading all the posts since the last 2 days whilst I'm in Taiwan), there is a dedicated page from TER Grand-Est. Well, it's still some kind of non-userfriendly "Gebastel", though… https://www.ter.sncf.com/grand-est/tarifs-cartes/tarifs-transfrontaliers/billets-Luxembourg
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In the end on the Court of Auditors thing, it is once more a problem of being a freelancer in a sector with no freelancers, and so once more I am doing complicated intellectual work for free
BUT when they ask me a question about a railway topic I can answer it straight up. No need to defend what a company tells me, what a senior manager decides. I think a few unvarnished comments about the problems are helpful for them to frame their work
But the crux is this: the Court of Auditors does not mess around. When they check things, they check. They dig. They work. Their report on high speed rail infra a few years ago was excellent.
So hopefully something solid on rail services, cross border, will emerge from this.
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But the crux is this: the Court of Auditors does not mess around. When they check things, they check. They dig. They work. Their report on high speed rail infra a few years ago was excellent.
So hopefully something solid on rail services, cross border, will emerge from this.
@jon Thanks a lot for contributing your expertise, and your time!
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@trantion @pseudomonas please don’t get me to do cable cars. There are some alpine ones too!
@jon @trantion @pseudomonas Cross border Cable car to San Marino since it's all uphills anyways
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In the end on the Court of Auditors thing, it is once more a problem of being a freelancer in a sector with no freelancers, and so once more I am doing complicated intellectual work for free
BUT when they ask me a question about a railway topic I can answer it straight up. No need to defend what a company tells me, what a senior manager decides. I think a few unvarnished comments about the problems are helpful for them to frame their work
@jon
Organizations don't like dissenting opinions. I also make myself unpopular from time to time, to a slightly lesser extent. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7457134592383320065/?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28ugcPost%3A7457134592383320065%2C7457172433134026752%29&dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_comment%3A%287457172433134026752%2Curn%3Ali%3AugcPost%3A7457134592383320065%29
(LinkedIn is a collection of whitewashing.)
