Europe train map

Paris → Strasbourg · 439 km · 1 h 46 min

SNCF Voyageurs · TGV Euroduplex

Where a modified TGV hit 574.8 km/h in 2007: still the world rail speed record for steel wheels.

Madrid → Valencia · 391 km · 1 h 40 min

Renfe · Ouigo · iryo · S-112 “Pato”

Madrid to the Mediterranean paella coast in 100 minutes aboard the duck-nosed “Pato”.

Madrid → Málaga · 513 km · 2 h 20 min

Renfe · iryo · S-102 Talgo 350

Splits from the Seville line at Córdoba and dives through the Sierra to the Costa del Sol.

Rome → Naples · 225 km · 1 h 10 min

Trenitalia · Frecciarossa 1000

Italy’s first true alta velocità line. Vesuvius on the horizon barely an hour after leaving Rome.

Barcelona → Alicante · 543 km · ≈ 5 h 18 min

Renfe · Talgo 250 (S-130)

Talgo tilting sets swap the Madrid high-speed line for the classic Mediterranean corridor at Camp de Tarragona, then follow the coast and the Iberian-gauge line beyond Valencia to Alicante.

Belgrade → Subotica · 182 km · 1 h 19 min

Srbija Voz · Soko (Stadler KISS 200)

Serbia’s first 200 km/h railway, built with Chinese and Russian contractors. Novi Sad in 36 minutes since 2022, Subotica since October 2025.

Milan → Venice · 267 km · 2 h 13 min

Trenitalia · Frecciarossa 1000

300 km/h out of Milan, then Verona, Vicenza and Padua: finishing with the causeway glide across the lagoon to Santa Lucia’s doorstep on the Grand Canal.

Málaga → Granada · 165 km · 1 h 23 min

Renfe · Renfe Avant

The Bobadilla branch of 1874 served Granada for a century and a half; its high speed replacement opened in 2019, but Málaga meant a change at Antequera until the Gobantes chord made it direct in 2022.

Berlin → Cologne · 573 km · 4 h 8 min

DB Fernverkehr · ICE 4 · Class 412

Races the length of the North German Plain; the dead-straight Hanover–Berlin racetrack, partly laid on old border land, lets ICE 4 sets hold 250 km/h.

Frankfurt → Munich · 410 km · 3 h 15 min

DB Fernverkehr · ICE 3 · Class 403

Sprints down the 300 km/h Nuremberg–Ingolstadt high-speed line, one of Germany’s fastest, on gradients so steep that freight trains are banned.

Hamburg → Frankfurt · 490 km · 3 h 34 min

DB Fernverkehr · ICE 1 · Class 401

Runs the Hanover–Würzburg route, Germany’s first Neubaustrecke of 1991, boring through a chain of long tunnels under the hills of Hesse.

Berlin → Frankfurt · 545 km · 3 h 56 min

DB Fernverkehr · ICE 3 Velaro D

Joins the political and banking capitals via Kassel and the Fulda gap, the Velaro D holding 250 km/h over the wooded ridges of northern Hesse.

Stuttgart → Munich · 241 km · 1 h 58 min

DB Fernverkehr · ICE 3 Velaro D

Opened in December 2022, the Wendlingen–Ulm line tunnels under the Swabian Jura and cut the Stuttgart–Ulm leg to just 42 minutes.

Berlin → Basel · 843 km · 7 h 7 min

DB Fernverkehr · ICE 1 · Class 401

Crosses Germany from end to end, Berlin to the Swiss border, finishing down the Upper Rhine past Freiburg to Basel in about seven hours.

Berlin → Amsterdam · 641 km · 6 h 44 min

DB / NS · ICE 3neo · Class 408

Upgraded to new ICE 3neo trains in late 2025, replacing loco-hauled Intercitys on the roughly six-hour cross-border run to the Dutch capital.

Amsterdam → Frankfurt · 440 km · 3 h 56 min

DB / NS · ICE 3neo · Class 408

ICE 3M multi-system sets leave Amsterdam and, past Cologne, dive onto the 300 km/h Cologne–Rhine/Main line with its motorway-style gradients.

Paris → Lyon · 427 km · 1 h 57 min

SNCF · TGV Duplex (inOui)

France’s first high-speed line, opened in 1981: the Paris–Lyon route that launched the whole TGV era, now run in under two hours.

Paris → Rennes · 350 km · 1 h 25 min

SNCF · TGV Atlantique

The 2017 Bretagne–Pays de la Loire high-speed line cut Paris–Rennes to 1 h 25 min, sending TGVs racing across Brittany at 320 km/h.

Paris → Nantes · 385 km · 1 h 59 min

SNCF · TGV 2N2 Euroduplex

TGV Atlantique runs Paris to the Loire estuary city of Nantes in about two hours, topping 300 km/h across the plains of the west.

Paris → Geneva · 500 km · 3 h 8 min

Lyria · Euroduplex (TGV 2N2)

A Lyria Euroduplex glides from Paris into Switzerland at Genève-Cornavin; the 2010 Haut-Bugey line trimmed the run to about three hours.

Paris → Lyon · 427 km · 1 h 57 min

SNCF · TGV Duplex (Ouigo)

SNCF’s low-cost double-decker TGV, launched in 2013 with fares from €10, races Paris to Lyon at up to 300 km/h.

Paris → Nice · 971 km · 5 h 42 min

SNCF · TGV Duplex

France’s longest domestic TGV run: 300 km/h to Marseille, then the classic Riviera line along the Mediterranean to Nice.

Paris → Lille · 225 km · 1 h 2 min

SNCF · TGV Réseau

The dead-straight LGV Nord links Paris to Lille in just 62 minutes at 300 km/h, France’s fastest big-city hop.

Madrid → Alicante · 480 km · 2 h 12 min

Renfe · S-112 "Pato"

Branches off the Madrid–Levante high-speed line to reach the Costa Blanca, opened in 2013 and worked by S-112 “Pato” trainsets.

Madrid → Zaragoza · 307 km · 1 h 35 min

Renfe · S-103 Velaro

The first stretch of Spain’s Madrid–Barcelona line (2003), crossing the Guadalajara plateau and Ebro valley to Zaragoza in 75 minutes.

Madrid → A Coruña · 646 km · 3 h 36 min

Renfe · S-106 Avril · S-730 Alvia

Leaps into Galicia through 30 tunnels, including the 8.6 km O Corno bore, then runs on down the Atlantic axis through Santiago de Compostela to the coast at A Coruña.

Madrid → Granada · 568 km · 3 h 5 min

Renfe · S-112 "Pato"

Opened in 2019, it branches off the Córdoba–Málaga line at Antequera to lift the AVE network into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

Barcelona → Málaga · 1,119 km · 6 h 57 min

Renfe · S-112 "Pato"

A single high-speed run tying the Mediterranean to the Costa del Sol, skirting Madrid to stitch two AVE corridors together.

Turin → Milan · 150 km · 1 h

Trenitalia · ETR 1000

A Frecciarossa 1000 hit 393.8 km/h on this Turin–Milan high-speed line in a 2016 test, an Italian rail speed record.

Milan → Naples · 770 km · 4 h 10 min

Trenitalia · ETR 1000

The 300 km/h spine of Italy. Milan–Bologna–Florence–Rome–Naples runs almost entirely on dedicated high-speed track finished in 2009.

Rome → Bari · 480 km · 4 h

Trenitalia · ETR 1000

South of Caserta the Freccia climbs through the Apennines to Foggia, then races across the Tavoliere plain to the Adriatic port of Bari.

Rome → Reggio Calabria · 671 km · 5 h

Trenitalia · ETR 485

One of Italy’s longest Freccia runs: some 671 km down the Tyrrhenian coast, the tilting ETR 485 leaning through curves toward the Strait of Messina.

Milan → Rome · 570 km · 2 h 59 min

Italo · NTV · AGV 575

Italo was Europe’s first private open-access high-speed operator; its Alstom AGV 575 links Milan and Rome in under three hours.

Milan → Trieste · 403 km · 4 h 8 min

Trenitalia · ETR 600

A tilting ETR 600 Frecciarossa crosses the Po plain and Veneto from Milan to Trieste on the Adriatic, a run it took over in June 2023.

Rome → Venice · 528 km · 3 h 45 min

Trenitalia · ETR 1000

Frecciarossa 1000 sets cross from Rome over the Apennines and the Po plain via Florence and Bologna to reach Venice in under four hours.

Málaga → Seville · 290 km · ≈ 2 h 05 min

Renfe · Renfe Avant S-104

Andalusia’s own high-speed shuttle: Málaga to Seville via Córdoba’s mezquita city in two hours, on the S-104 sets built for exactly this.

Rome → Lecce · 630 km · 5 h 30 min

Trenitalia · ETR 485

A tilting ETR 485 runs Rome to the heel of Italy’s boot via Foggia, Bari and Brindisi, reaching baroque Lecce in the Salento.

Milan → Bari · 860 km · 6 h 39 min

Trenitalia · Frecciarossa (ETR 500)

Frecciarossas run the whole Adriatic seaboard: high-speed to Bologna, then the classic 1872 Adriatica within sight of the sea past Rimini, Ancona and Pescara to Bari.

Paris → Barcelona · 1,073 km · 6 h 39 min

SNCF Voyageurs · TGV Euroduplex

Paris to Barcelona in 6 h 39 min, diving under the Pyrenees through the 8.3 km Perthus tunnel at the Spanish border.

Paris → Milan · 856 km · 6 h 50 min

Trenitalia France · Frecciarossa 1000 (ETR 400)

Italy’s 300 km/h flagship on French rails, using the 13.7 km Fréjus tunnel of 1871: back since April 2025 after a 19-month landslide closure.

London → Brussels · 373 km · 1 h 57 min

Eurostar · e320 · Class 374

The original Channel Tunnel service to the EU capital takes St Pancras to Bruxelles-Midi in under two hours, city centre to city centre.

London → Amsterdam · 585 km · 4 h 04 min

Eurostar · e320 · Class 374

A single train from St Pancras to Amsterdam Centraal since 2018: under the Channel, across Flanders and over the Dutch polders in about four hours.

Paris → Frankfurt · 573 km · 3 h 49 min

SNCF · Deutsche Bahn · TGV Euroduplex · ICE 3

A Franco-German alliance since 2007: 320 km/h on the LGV Est to Lorraine, then the Saar and Rhine-Main into Frankfurt, TGV and ICE sharing the run.

Madrid → Cádiz · 664 km · 4 h 25 min

Renfe · Renfe S-130 gauge-changing Talgo

Off the 1992 Madrid–Seville high-speed spine, a gauge-changing Talgo carries on through sherry country to the Atlantic at Cádiz.

Madrid → Oviedo · 480 km · 3 h

Renfe · Renfe S-106 Avril

The 2023 Variante de Pajares pierced the Cantabrian wall with a 25 km base tunnel, cutting Asturias’ link to Madrid to about three hours.

Madrid → Badajoz · 440 km · 4 h

Renfe · Renfe S-730 dual-mode Talgo

High speed reached long-isolated Extremadura in 2022, passing the Roman city of Mérida to the Portuguese border at Badajoz.

Madrid → Murcia · 529 km · 2 h 55 min

Renfe · Renfe S-112 & S-106

High speed reached the Segura in December 2022, running Madrid to Murcia via Cuenca and Albacete on a new elevated approach into the palm-country capital.

Milan → Reggio Calabria · 1,213 km · 9 h

Trenitalia · Frecciarossa 1000 (ETR 1000)

The red arrow’s longest domestic run: the length of Italy from Milan down the Tyrrhenian coast to the Strait of Messina at Reggio Calabria.

Paris → Montpellier · 750 km · 3 h 10 min

SNCF Voyageurs · TGV Duplex

Races down the Rhône on the LGV Méditerranée, then rides the 2017 Montpellier bypass, the first new stretch of French high-speed line in a decade, to the edge of the Camargue.

Paris → Zürich · 590 km · 4 h 03 min

Lyria (SNCF · SBB) · Euroduplex

Via the LGV Rhin-Rhône to the Swiss border at Basel, then along the Aare to Zürich. Paris to Switzerland’s largest city in almost exactly four hours.

Hamburg → Munich · 780 km · 5 h 45 min

Deutsche Bahn · ICE 4

Germany’s busiest long-distance axis, the length of the country from the Elbe to the Isar via Hanover, the Fulda gap and Nuremberg.

Frankfurt → Stuttgart · 184 km · 1 h 20 min

Deutsche Bahn · ICE 3

Down the Rhine-Neckar to Mannheim and up into the Swabian capital: a hard-worked spine of the south-west ICE network.

Munich → Vienna · 460 km · 4 h

ÖBB · DB · ÖBB Railjet

Bavaria to the Danube capital along the Westbahn, past Salzburg’s fortress and the baroque abbeys of Upper Austria.

Graz → Klagenfurt · 127 km · 41 min

ÖBB · ÖBB Railjet

Austria’s game-changer of December 2025: the 33 km Koralm Tunnel cuts Graz–Klagenfurt from nearly three hours to 45 minutes, forging a new Baltic–Adriatic high-speed axis.

Brussels → Cologne · 210 km · 1 h 47 min

Deutsche Bahn · ICE 3

The high-speed link binding Belgium to the Rhineland: past Liège’s soaring Calatrava station and over the language border at Aachen, Charlemagne’s capital, at 300 km/h.

Paris → Luxembourg · 385 km · ≈ 2 h 10 min

SNCF Voyageurs · TGV inOui

The only direct rail link between the two capitals: 320 km/h across Champagne on the LGV Est, then down the Moselle past Metz’s golden cathedral.

Madrid → San Sebastián · 549 km · ≈ 5 h 50 min

Renfe · Renfe S-730 gauge-changer

Gauge-changing Alvias to the Basque coast: the 2022 Burgos high-speed line, Vitoria’s green ring and the belle-époque bay of La Concha at the end.

Madrid → Santander · 440 km · ≈ 4 h

Renfe · Renfe S-730 gauge-changer

Off the high-speed line at Palencia and over the 1866 Reinosa pass, then a mountain descent to the Cantabrian Sea and Santander’s curved bay.

A Coruña → Vigo · 156 km · ≈ 1 h 20 min

Renfe · Renfe Avant S-121

Galicia’s rebuilt Atlantic spine: 250 km/h between the rías with Santiago de Compostela halfway. The north–south line Madrid’s radial map forgets.

Lyon → Strasbourg · 490 km · ≈ 3 h 45 min

SNCF Voyageurs · TGV inOui

France’s only province-to-province LGV: Burgundy to Alsace without a glance at Paris, Dijon and Belfort on the way to the cathedral city.

Paris → Brest · 612 km · ≈ 3 h 25 min

SNCF Voyageurs · TGV inOui

To Brittany’s Atlantic tip: the 2017 LGV to Rennes, then the granite north coast by Saint-Brieuc and Morlaix’s viaduct to the naval roadstead of Brest.

Paris → Quimper · 607 km · ≈ 3 h 33 min

SNCF Voyageurs · TGV inOui

Brittany’s other arm: the same 2017 high speed line to Rennes, where the Brest and Quimper halves of the train part company, then south to the Morbihan coast by Vannes, Auray and Lorient to Quimper in Finistère.

Madrid → Toledo · 75 km · ≈ 35 min

Renfe · Renfe Avant S-104

Thirty-three minutes off the Seville high-speed line to the city on the Tagus bend: El Greco’s Toledo as a Madrid day trip.

London → Dover · 125 km · 1 h 3 min

Southeastern · Class 395 Javelin

Britain’s only domestic high-speed service: 225 km/h down HS1 to Ashford, then the 1844 South Eastern main line past Folkestone and under the white cliffs into Dover.

London → Margate · 147 km · 1 h 26 min

Southeastern · Class 395 Javelin

The Javelin put Margate 86 minutes from London: HS1 at 225 km/h as far as Ashford, then the 1846 Canterbury line across east Kent to the Thanet coast.

London → Margate · 120 km · 1 h 29 min

Southeastern · Class 395 Javelin

The other Javelin to Margate: off HS1 at Ebbsfleet onto the 1846 North Kent line, past Rochester’s castle and cathedral, Faversham’s breweries, then the seaside string of Whitstable, Herne Bay and Margate.

Athens → Thessaloniki · 481 km · ≈ 4 h

Hellenic Train · ETR 470 “White Arrow”

Past Thermopylae and under Mount Olympus. Greece’s spine line, now run by tilting Italian arrows.

Dublin → Cork · 266 km · 2 h 15 min

Iarnród Éireann · Mark 4 push-pull

Heuston to Kent in 2 h 15 on Mark 4 push-pull sets, over the 1849 Great Southern and Western main line through Limerick Junction and Mallow.

London → Glasgow · 645 km · 4 h 30 min

Avanti West Coast · Class 390 Pendolino

Tilting Pendolinos sway through the Lune Gorge and over Shap summit on Britain’s busiest mixed-traffic artery.

Dublin → Belfast · 181 km · 2 h 10 min

Iarnród Éireann · NI Railways · De Dietrich sets · ICR railcars

Jointly run from both capitals since 1947, it rolls over the 1855 Boyne Viaduct at Drogheda and crosses the invisible Irish border without a pause.

Bucharest → Brașov · 166 km · 2 h 30 min

CFR Călători · Loco-hauled InterRegio

Climbs the Prahova gorge past Peleș Castle at Sinaia to Predeal, Romania’s highest station at 1,032 m, under the Bucegi’s 2,500 m walls.

Bratislava → Košice · 445 km · 4 h 51 min

ZSSK · ZSSK InterCity

Up the Váh valley, then along the 1872 Košice–Bohumín railway: the High Tatras panorama, crowned by 2,655 m Gerlach, rolls past at Poprad.

Vienna → Salzburg · 315 km · 2 h 30 min

WESTbahn · Stadler KISS double-decker

Austria’s first open-access challenger, running since 2011: 200 km/h Stadler KISS double-deckers that drove fares down on the Vienna–Salzburg run.

Kyiv → Lviv · 575 km · ≈ 5 h

Ukrzaliznytsia · HRCS2 Hyundai Rotem

Launched for Euro 2012 and never stopped: the Hyundai-built Intercity+ keeps capital and Galicia linked across the steppe, through blackout and war.

Helsinki → Turku · 193 km · 1 h 57 min

VR · Sr3-hauled InterCity

Finland’s two capitals on the 1903 Rantarata: “coast line” by name, though the track runs mostly inland through granite cuttings and forest. Pendolino Plus sets joined the double-deck ICs in late 2025.

Copenhagen → Aarhus · 330 km · 2 h 39 min

DSB · IC3 Lyntog

Zealand to Jutland with no ferry: an 8 km tunnel and the 6.6 km West Bridge across the Great Belt made Denmark one rail country in 1997.

Oslo → Stavanger · 598 km · ≈ 8 h

Go-Ahead Nordic · Type 73 tilting EMU

Norway’s south-coast main line, completed in wartime 1944: inland through pine and moor, touching salt water only at Kristiansand and the Jæren flats.

Warsaw → Katowice · 298 km · 2 h 20 min

PKP Intercity · Pendolino ED250

Poland’s fastest train, hitting 200 km/h on the dead-straight Central Rail Line (CMK) engineered for high speed back in the 1970s.

Warsaw → Poznań · 311 km · 2 h 35 min

PKP Intercity · EU44 Husarz + coaches

Historic trunk line on the Paris–Berlin–Warszawa–Moscow corridor; the same rails carry the Berlin-Warszawa-Express onward to Germany.

Warsaw → Przemyśl · 395 km · 5 h

PKP Intercity · EU44 Husarz + coaches

Crosses Poland to Przemyśl, the southeastern gateway where standard gauge meets Ukraine’s broad gauge, handover point for Kyiv-bound trains.

Prague → Ostrava · 356 km · 3 h 7 min

České dráhy · ČD Class 680

Czechia’s flagship tilting Pendolino links Prague with Moravia’s industrial capital Ostrava via the cathedral city of Olomouc.

Prague → Brno · 256 km · 2 h 33 min

RegioJet · Astra / Bmpz coaches

Yellow open-access trains with steward service and free coffee. RegioJet broke the state railway’s grip on the Prague–Brno run.

Prague → Cheb · 219 km · 3 h 3 min

České dráhy · ČD Class 380 push-pull

Heads west through Plzeň, birthplace of Pilsner lager, to the spa-country town of Cheb near the German border.

Budapest → Siófok · 115 km · 1 h 20 min

MÁV-START · Stadler KISS

Summer expresses to Siófok on the south shore of Lake Balaton, central Europe’s largest lake and Hungary’s beach playground.

Budapest → Debrecen · 221 km · 2 h 20 min

MÁV-START · Traxx + IC+ coaches

Hourly InterCity across the Great Hungarian Plain to Debrecen, the nation’s second city, on the 160 km/h eastern main line.

Budapest → Pécs · 229 km · 2 h 40 min

MÁV-START · Traxx + IC+ coaches

InterCity to Pécs, a sun-warmed city of Roman tombs and an Ottoman mosque near the Croatian border in southern Hungary.

Bucharest → Cluj-Napoca · 497 km · 8 h

CFR Călători · CFR IR coaches

The long haul from Bucharest over the Carpathians via Brașov and medieval Sighișoara to Cluj-Napoca, heart of Transylvania.

Bucharest → Timișoara · 533 km · 8 h 30 min

CFR Călători · CFR IR coaches

Follows the Danube past the Iron Gates gorge, then climbs to Timișoara, the Banat city where Romania’s 1989 revolution ignited.

Sibiu → Brașov · 149 km · 2 h 40 min

CFR Călători · Electric loco + coaches

Runs under the Făgăraș Mountains, Romania’s highest, along the Olt valley between the Saxon citadels of Sibiu and Brașov.

Sofia → Plovdiv · 156 km · 2 h 45 min

BDŽ · Siemens Desiro EMU

Bulgaria’s busiest intercity corridor, being rebuilt for 200 km/h, tying the capital to Plovdiv, one of Europe’s oldest cities.

Sofia → Varna · 543 km · 7 h 30 min

BDŽ · Siemens Desiro EMU

Crosses the Balkan range and the Danubian plain to Varna, Bulgaria’s summer capital on the Black Sea coast.

Sofia → Burgas · 458 km · 6 h

BDŽ · Siemens Desiro EMU

Runs via Plovdiv and Stara Zagora to Burgas, the port at the heart of Bulgaria’s southern Black Sea beaches.

Kyiv → Kharkiv · 480 km · 4 h 50 min

Ukrainian Railways · Škoda EJ675 / Hyundai HRCS2

Ukraine’s flagship Intercity+ express, launched for Euro 2012, races across the steppe from Kyiv to Kharkiv via Poltava.

Kyiv → Odesa · 585 km · 7 h 20 min

Ukrainian Railways · Škoda EJ675

Runs south from Kyiv through the black-earth farmland via the Znamianka junction to Odesa, the grand imperial port on the Black Sea.

Barcelona → Lleida · 172 km · 3 h 44 min

Renfe · Renfe regional

Barcelona to Lleida the slow way, three and three quarter hours down the coast to Vilanova and then inland by Valls and Montblanc, on the Valls to Vilanova line of 29 December 1881.

Ljubljana → Novo mesto · 75 km · 1 h 39 min

SŽ · SŽ regional

The Lower Carniola line south east out of Ljubljana, over the Grosuplje watershed and down the Krka valley to Novo mesto, opened in 1894 and still the fastest way there.

Ljubljana → Kočevje · 69 km · 1 h 31 min

SŽ · SŽ regional

Built in 1893 for the Kocevje coal and the forests behind it, closed to passengers for half a century, and carrying them again since 2021 through Ribnica and the Slovene karst.

Gijon → Puente de los Fierros · 74 km · 1 h 21 min

Renfe · Renfe Cercanias EMU

Up the Caudal valley from the Asturian coast through Oviedo and Pola de Lena to Puente de los Fierros, where the line stops at the foot of the Pajares ramp and the climb to Leon begins.

León → Ponferrada · 128 km · 1 h 55 min

Renfe · Renfe Media Distancia

The Rampa de Brañuelas took more than a decade to build and helped bankrupt the company that began it. León to Ponferrada over the Montes de León in under two hours, through since 4 February 1882.

Vigo → Barcelona · 1,371 km · 14 h 08 min

Renfe · Renfe Alvia

Fourteen hours from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, Vigo to Barcelona by Santiago, the Bierzo, León, Pamplona and Zaragoza. At 1,371 km it is the longest scheduled domestic run on this map.

Nancy → Luxembourg · 119 km · 1 h 34 min

SNCF · TER Grand Est

The whole sillon lorrain in an hour and a half: Nancy to Metz on the line of 1850, then down the Moselle through Thionville and over the border into Luxembourg.

Šibenik → Knin · 75 km · 1 h 57 min

HŽ Putnički prijevoz · HŽ regional

Up from the Adriatic into the Dalmatian hinterland, Šibenik to Knin in under two hours, on rails opened on 4 October 1877 to bring the coal of the Drniš basin down to the harbour.

Guarda → Vilar Formoso · 45 km · 39 min

CP · CP Regional railcar

The last forty five kilometres of Portugal, Guarda out to the Spanish frontier at Vilar Formoso across the high Beira, on the line to the border inaugurated on 3 August 1882.

Bergamo → Treviglio · 22 km · 34 min

Trenord · Trenord regionale

The line Bergamo had to fight for, because the Milan to Venice railway was first planned to miss the city altogether. A convention of November 1856 settled it and the trains ran from 12 October 1857.

Malpensa Airport → Milan · 52 km · 45 min

Trenord · Trenord Coradia

Terminal 2 to Milano Cadorna in three quarters of an hour, the airport link the Ferrovie Nord opened in May 1999 and the reason Malpensa has a railway station under it at all.

Bergamo → Brescia · 49 km · 59 min

Trenord · Trenord regionale

Milan to Venice once ran this way. Forty nine kilometres from Bergamo to Brescia, opened on 12 October 1857 and left a local line in 1878 when the direct cut from Treviglio to Rovato took the traffic.

Entroncamento → Abrantes · 29 km · 22 min

CP · CP Regional railcar

Twenty nine minutes up the Tagus from the junction at Entroncamento to Abrantes, the first leg of the line Portugal opened on 28 October 1863 to reach the Spanish border.

Espinho → Oliveira de Azeméis · 32 km · 1 h 03 min

CP · CP Allan railcar

The last metre gauge railway carrying passengers in Portugal, an hour from the Atlantic at Espinho inland to Oliveira de Azeméis, opened on 21 December 1908 and still running on the same narrow track.

Vinkovci → Gunja · 49 km · 59 min

HŽ Putnički prijevoz · HŽ regional

Forty nine kilometres south across the Slavonian plain to Gunja on the Bosnian border, a line finished in 1886 whose bridge over the Sava carried it into Bosnia in 1894 and on to Tuzla in 1946.

Osijek → Beli Manastir · 27 km · 30 min

HŽ Putnički prijevoz · HŽ regional

Half an hour north out of Osijek, over the Drava and up into Baranja towards the Hungarian border, on a line put into service at the end of 1870.

Ormož → Čakovec · 20 km · 24 min

SŽ · SŽ regional

Twenty kilometres from Ormož over the Drava into Croatia, on the railway opened on 24 April 1860 to join Budapest to the Vienna to Trieste main line by way of Nagykanizsa and Pragersko.

Abrantes → Badajoz · 146 km · 2 h 16 min

CP · CP Regional railcar

The borderland train across the cork oaks of the Alentejo, Abrantes to Badajoz by way of Ponte de Sor, Crato and Elvas, on the link to Spain that opened in September 1863.

Alexandroupoli → Ormenio · 174 km · 2 h 29 min

Hellenic Train · Hellenic Train DMU

Two and a half hours up the Evros with Turkey out of the right-hand window the whole way, on a line the Oriental Railway opened in 1874 and a border drawn across it in 1923.

Dendermonde → Kortrijk · 148 km · 2 h 17 min

SNCB · SNCB Intercity

Flanders corner to corner through the middle of Brussels, Dendermonde to Kortrijk and the French border beyond, on the Halle to Tournai line the young Belgian state opened in 1842.

Zwolle → Roosendaal · 205 km · 2 h 43 min

NS · NS ICM / VIRM

The long Dutch diagonal, Overijssel to the Belgian border in two and three quarter hours down the IJssel through Deventer and Zutphen and across Brabant, on the state railway the act of 1860 ordered built.

Leipzig → Frankfurt (Oder) · 236 km · 3 h 10 min

DB Regio · DB Regio double-deck

The long way across Lusatia, three hours and ten minutes from Leipzig to the Polish border at Frankfurt an der Oder by way of Torgau, Falkenberg, Cottbus and the Neisse at Guben, over the Halle to Sorau to Guben railway of 1872.

Namur → Lille · 149 km · 2 h 14 min

SNCB · SNCF · AM96

Wallonia end to end and out the other side, up the Sambre from Namur through Charleroi, La Louviere and Mons and over the French border to Lille, on a valley line opened in 1843 to move coal and steel.

Nijmegen → Roermond · 84 km · 1 h 18 min

Arriva · Stadler GTW / Alstom LINT

The Meuse line, Nijmegen to Roermond down the east bank in an hour and eighteen minutes, the one long Dutch railway that runs north to south rather than in and out of the Randstad.

Aberdeen → Inverness · 174 km · 2 h 15 min

ScotRail · Class 158 / 170

Scotland the other way round, coast to coast across the whin and barley of Aberdeenshire and Moray by way of Huntly, Keith, Elgin and Nairn, on a single track finished in 1858 and still mostly single today.

Budapest → Berlin · 992 km · 11 h

MAV · ZSSK · ČD · DB · Railjet

Four countries in eleven hours, Danube Bend to Brandenburg by way of Bratislava, Brno and Prague, and through the sandstone gorge of the Elbe on a railway the Saxons and the Austrians opened together in 1851.

Timișoara → Iași · 806 km · 16 h 15 min

CFR Călători · CFR Călători coaches

Romania corner to corner in sixteen hours without going near Bucharest, from the Banat over the Eastern Carpathians at Vatra Dornei on a crossing finished in 1938, and down through Bukovina to Moldavia.

Olsztyn → Białystok · 247 km · 4 h

PKP Intercity · PKP Intercity coaches

Masuria east to west without going near Warsaw, on a single track the Prussian army threw across the Narew in five weeks in 1915 to move troops to the Eastern Front.

Kyiv → Przemyśl · 719 km · 9 h

Ukrainian Railways · Hyundai Rotem HRCS2

The first Intercity+ to cross a border, and since 2022 the way most of Ukraine reaches the European Union: Kyiv to the Polish frontier at Przemysl in nine hours, through Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi, Ternopil and Lviv.

Kyiv → Dnipro · 480 km · 5 h 40 min

Ukrainian Railways · Hyundai HRCS2 / Škoda EJ675

Fast Intercity+ from Kyiv to Dnipro, the rocket-building metropolis on the mighty Dnieper in Ukraine’s industrial east.

Minsk → Brest · 346 km · 3 h 20 min

Belarusian Railway · Stadler BKG1 EMU

Follows the old Moscow–Warsaw corridor to Brest, the fortress city on the Bug where Belarus’s broad gauge meets the EU frontier.

Minsk → Gomel · 302 km · 4 h

Belarusian Railway · ЭПр Stadler EMU

Links the capital with Gomel, Belarus’s second city near the Ukrainian border and the fringe of the Chernobyl zone.

Chișinău → Iași · 130 km · 3 h 30 min

Calea Ferată din Moldova · CFM D1M railcar

A symbolic cross-Prut service reopened in 2021, switching from Moldova’s broad gauge to Romania’s standard gauge at the Ungheni frontier.

Amsterdam → Groningen · 208 km · 2 h 11 min

NS · ICM "Koploper" · ICNG

The northbound Intercity crosses the young Flevoland polders on the Hanzelijn (the Almere–Lelystad stretch past the Oostvaardersplassen wetlands was voted the Netherlands’ most beautiful train journey by NS passengers in 2016), then skirts the low Hondsrug ridge to Groningen in a little over two hours.

Amsterdam → Maastricht · 213 km · 2 h 23 min

NS · DD-IRM "VIRM"

Double-deck VIRM Intercitys run almost the whole length of the country to Maastricht, the old Dutch city on the Meuse near the Belgian border.

Amsterdam → Breda · 123 km · 1 h 8 min

NS · ICNG · Class 3100

New ICNG trains take the HSL-Zuid high-speed line, hitting 200 km/h as they link Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Breda without a change.

Brussels → Ostend · 123 km · 1 h 12 min

SNCB · M6 · HLE 27

One of Belgium’s original 1838 trunk lines, running dead-flat across Flanders through Ghent and Bruges to the North Sea ferry port of Ostend.

Brussels → Liège · 95 km · 1 h

SNCB · M6 double-deck

Terminates beneath Santiago Calatrava’s soaring white vault of steel and glass at Liège-Guillemins, one of Europe’s boldest modern stations.

Brussels → Luxembourg · 219 km · 3 h 5 min

SNCB / CFL · I11 · HLE 18

Climbs from Brussels through the forested Ardennes via Namur and Arlon; planned upgrades aim to cut the three-hour run to Luxembourg below two hours by 2030.

Antwerp → Brussels · 45 km · 35 min

SNCB · M6 double-deck

Traces the route of continental Europe’s first passenger railway of 1835 and ends under the vast domed railway cathedral of Antwerpen-Centraal.

Luxembourg → Koblenz · 159 km · 2 h 18 min

CFL / DB Regio · SÜWEX · CFL

The RE 11 follows the Moselle from Luxembourg into Germany, boring through the 4.2 km Kaiser-Wilhelm-Tunnel at Cochem to bypass the river’s huge loop.

Luxembourg → Longwy · 28 km · 37 min

CFL / SNCF · CFL Class 2200

A short cross-border hop from Luxembourg’s Ville-Haute down to the old French steel town of Longwy, one of the busiest daily commuter runs into the Grand Duchy.

Hamburg → Westerland · 235 km · 2 h 55 min

DB · IC · BR 245

Reaches the car-free island of Sylt over the 11 km Hindenburgdamm causeway of 1927, a dead-straight embankment laid across the tidal Wadden Sea.

Paris → Clermont-Ferrand · 420 km · 3 h 25 min

SNCF · BB 26000 + Corail

The Bourbonnais line to the Auvergne volcanoes; new Oxygène trainsets arrive from 2026 to retire its veteran Corail carriages.

Paris → Toulouse · 713 km · 6 h 20 min

SNCF · BB 26000 + Corail

The cross-country POLT line, Paris-Orléans-Limoges-Toulouse, runs 713 km through the Massif Central on France’s classic north–south artery.

Lisbon → Faro · 304 km · 2 h 52 min

CP · CP 4000 Pendolino

Portugal’s tilting Pendolino leans into the curves at up to 220 km/h, dropping down the Alentejo to the Algarve at Faro.

Lisbon → Guarda · 353 km · 4 h 11 min

CP · CP 5600 + Corail

Climbs the Beira Alta line to Guarda, Portugal’s highest city at 1,056 m, on the historic Sud Express path toward the Spanish border.

Porto → Valença · 135 km · 2 h 30 min

CP · CP Regional

Follows the Atlantic, then the Minho river, to the star-fort town of Valença, staring across the water at Spain’s Tui.

Lisbon → Figueira da Foz · 203 km · 4 h

CP · CP Regional

A slow, winding single-track line through the vineyards and spa towns of Estremadura (Torres Vedras, Caldas da Rainha) to the Atlantic at Figueira da Foz.

Piraeus → Aigio · 197 km · ≈ 2 h 20 min

Hellenic Train · Siemens Desiro (460)

Athens’s fast electric suburban line skirts the Saronic Gulf and crosses the Corinth Canal on its run from the port of Piraeus out to Kiato, and since 2020 on along the Gulf of Corinth to Aigio.

Zagreb → Rijeka · 229 km · 3 h 30 min

HŽ Putnički prijevoz · Končar 6112 EMU

Climbs through the forested Gorski Kotar highlands, through tunnels and curves before the steep final plunge to the Adriatic at Rijeka.

Zagreb → Osijek · 250 km · 4 h 55 min

HŽ Putnički prijevoz · Končar 7023 DMU

Runs east across the flat Pannonian farmland of Slavonia to Osijek, Croatia’s fourth-largest city, on the Drava near the Hungarian border.

Ljubljana → Koper · 152 km · 2 h 20 min

Slovenske železnice · Siemens Desiro (312)

Drops nearly 500 m off the Karst plateau to the sea, twisting through tunnels and curves on the descent to Slovenia’s only seaport, Koper.

Podgorica → Nikšić · 56 km · 50 min

Željeznički prevoz Crne Gore · CAF Civity EMU

Reopened to passengers after electrification in 2012, the line takes 12 tunnels and 9 bridges below the cliffs of Ostrog Monastery.

Skopje → Bitola · 178 km · 3 h 45 min

MŽ Transport · CRRC DMU

Climbs from the Vardar at Veles over the Babuna mountains on the looping Bogomila grade before dropping onto the Pelagonia plain to Bitola.

Skopje → Gevgelija · 173 km · 3 h 15 min

MŽ Transport · CRRC EMU

Follows the Vardar south and squeezes through the Demir Kapija, the “Iron Gate” gorge, on Corridor X’s run toward Greece.

Pristina → Peja · 80 km · 2 h

Trainkos · NOHAB Di 3 + coaches

Kosovo’s sole surviving passenger service: two little diesel trains a day amble west via Klina to Peja under the Accursed Mountains.

Bolzano → Merano · 32 km · ≈ 40 min

SAD · suedtirolmobil · Stadler FLIRT EMU

Half-hourly FLIRTs climb the Etsch valley between South Tyrol’s capital and the spa town of Merano, the 1881 line that feeds the Vinschgau reopening.

Prague → Český Krumlov · 194 km · ≈ 2 h 30 min

České dráhy · ČD InterCity

A direct express from Prague to the UNESCO town inside the Vltava’s double bend, over rails laid in 1891 to carry Schwarzenberg timber and graphite rather than tourists.

Plzeň → České Budějovice · 136 km · ≈ 1 h 55 min

České dráhy · ČD regional express

The rychlík between Pilsner country and Budweiser country: 136 km through the wooded south Bohemian hills via Strakonice, on rails laid in 1868.

České Budějovice → Linz · 125 km · ≈ 2 h 20 min

ČD · ÖBB · ČD · ÖBB cross-border regional

The Summerauerbahn: out of Budweis, over the granite hills where Europe’s first horse-drawn railway ran, down the Mühlviertel to the Danube at Linz.

Nice → Ventimiglia · 34 km · ≈ 50 min

SNCF · SNCF TER

The Riviera on rails: Nice, Villefranche, Monaco’s covered station, Menton lemon groves and over the border to Ventimiglia. Forty minutes of Mediterranean out the right-hand window.

Clermont-Ferrand → Lyon · 219 km · ≈ 2 h 25 min

SNCF · SNCF TER

Across the top of the Massif Central: volcano country out of Clermont, the Gorges over Roanne, then down into the Rhône at Lyon.

Caen → Tours · 263 km · ≈ 3 h 05 min

SNCF · SNCF TER

Normandy to the Loire without touching Paris: the cross-country line through Alençon and Le Mans that the TGV network forgot.

Caen → Rennes · 273 km · ≈ 3 h 25 min

SNCF · SNCF TER

The western way round: Saint-Lô, the Vire bocage, a glimpse of Mont-Saint-Michel country at Dol, then Rennes.

Reims → Dijon · 311 km · ≈ 3 h 35 min

SNCF · SNCF TER

Champagne to Burgundy behind the front: Châlons, Chaumont’s viaduct and the Langres plateau, four departements of France nobody flies over.

Metz → Strasbourg · 153 km · ≈ 1 h 35 min

SNCF · SNCF TER

Lorraine to Alsace under the Vosges foothills, through Sarrebourg and the Saverne gap: the eastern half of the historic Paris–Strasbourg corridor.

Ulm → Lindau · 125 km · ≈ 1 h 55 min

DB Regio · DB RE3

Württemberg’s Südbahn, electrified at last: Ulm’s minster to Lake Constance at Friedrichshafen, then along the shore to Lindau island.

Berlin → Rostock · 230 km · ≈ 2 h 35 min

DB Regio · DB Twindexx

Berlin to the Baltic in one seat: the Mecklenburg lake district at Neustrelitz and Waren, then Rostock and the ferries.

Cagliari → Sassari · 249 km · ≈ 3 h 15 min

Trenitalia · Trenitalia regionale

The Sardinian main line: three hours up the island’s spine through Oristano and the Campidano plain. Most visitors never know Sardinia has a main line.

Madrid → Salamanca · 228 km · ≈ 1 h 45 min

Renfe · Renfe Alvia S-730

Over the Guadarrama by high-speed line, then across Castile to the golden sandstone of Salamanca in well under two hours.

London → Sheffield · 266 km · ≈ 2 h 10 min

East Midlands Railway · EMR Class 810

St Pancras’s own main line: Leicester, Derby and Chesterfield’s crooked spire, into Sheffield under the Bramall Lane floodlights.

London → Hull · 315 km · ≈ 2 h 36 min

Hull Trains · Class 802 Paragon

An open-access original: Hull’s own train to London since 2000, off the East Coast racetrack at Doncaster and over the Ouse into Paragon station.

Cardiff → Portsmouth · 230 km · ≈ 3 h 25 min

GWR · GWR Class 166

Wales to the Solent the slow, lovely way: the Severn Tunnel, Bath’s crescents, Salisbury’s spire and the harbour at Portsmouth.

Liverpool → Norwich · 400 km · ≈ 5 h 20 min

East Midlands Railway · EMR Class 158

England corner to corner: five hours and a bit through Sheffield, Nottingham and the Fens, the longest all-stops cross-country ride in the country.

Gothenburg → Kalmar · 348 km · ≈ 4 h 30 min

SJ · SJ Regional

Coast to coast across Småland: Borås, the glass country around Växjö, and Kalmar castle on the Baltic at the far end.

Vienna → Sopron · 73 km · ≈ 1 h 15 min

GySEV · ÖBB · GySEV REX

Vienna into Hungary the old imperial way: Wiener Neustadt, the Ödenburg plain, and GySEV’s green-and-yellow home town of Sopron.

Vienna → Bregenz · 680 km · ≈ 6 h 35 min

ÖBB · ÖBB RJX

The full west-bound railjet: Salzburg, Innsbruck, the Arlberg tunnel and out at the Bodensee. Austria end to end in one train.

Zurich → Stuttgart · 240 km · ≈ 3 h 05 min

SBB · DB · SBB IC · DB

The Gäubahn intercity: over the Rhine at Schaffhausen, past the Bodensee’s back country and down the Neckar cuttings into Stuttgart.

Porto → Vigo · 180 km · ≈ 2 h 35 min

CP · Renfe · IC Celta

The only train across the Portugal–Spain border in the north: down the Minho, over the Valença bridge, into Galicia. Two countries, one ticket, 2 h 35.

Kraków → Przemyśl · 250 km · ≈ 2 h 30 min

PKP IC · PKP Intercity

The old Galician main line east: Kraków, Tarnów, Rzeszów and the fortress town of Przemyśl, last stop before Ukraine.

Paris → Granville · 327 km · ≈ 3 h 05 min

SNCF · SNCF Régiolis

Paris to the Channel the Norman way: through Dreux and Argentan to the walled harbour of Granville, no TGV in sight.

Nantes → Quimper · 254 km · ≈ 2 h 40 min

SNCF · SNCF TER

South Brittany strung together: Redon, the Gulf of Morbihan at Vannes, Lorient and the Odet valley into Quimper.

Bern → Lucerne · 95 km · ≈ 1 h 27 min

BLS · BLS RE 7

The Emmental cut-through: cheese country and covered bridges between the federal city and the lake at Lucerne, hourly.

Basel → Interlaken · 160 km · ≈ 2 h

SBB · SBB IC61

Basel to the Bernese Oberland in one seat: Olten, Bern, then the lakeside crawl past Thun and Spiez to Interlaken under the Eiger.

Ljubljana → Maribor · 156 km · 1 h 52 min

Slovenske železnice · SŽ 310 Pendolino

SŽ’s tilting Pendolino links Slovenia’s two largest cities along the 1840s Austrian Southern Railway, weaving down the Sava and Savinja valleys.

Stockholm → Malmö · 593 km · 4 h 22 min

SJ · X 2000

SJ’s tilting X2000 links Stockholm with Malmö and the Øresund gateway at up to 200 km/h. Sweden’s flagship fast run down the Southern Main Line.

Stockholm → Sundsvall · 400 km · 3 h 15 min

SJ · X55 · SJ 3000

Fast SJ trains climb the East Coast Line along the Gulf of Bothnia’s shore to the old timber city of Sundsvall.

Umeå → Luleå · 352 km · 3 h 55 min

Norrtåg · Bombardier Regina (X52)

A rare passenger run through Norrland’s forests joining two northern university cities near the head of the Gulf of Bothnia.

Gothenburg → Copenhagen · 336 km · 3 h 50 min

Öresundståg · X31 Contessa

Rolls off Sweden’s West Coast Line and over the 8 km Øresund Bridge, plunging into the Drogden tunnel to reach Copenhagen.

Copenhagen → Aalborg · 425 km · 4 h 27 min

DSB · IC3 (MF)

DSB’s long haul up Jutland, crossing the Great Belt Fixed Link, to Aalborg, gateway to Denmark’s north.

Copenhagen → Esbjerg · 315 km · 2 h 55 min

DSB · IC3 (MF)

Runs west to Esbjerg, Denmark’s North Sea port and the historic embarkation point for steamers and emigrants to Britain.

Oslo → Halden · 136 km · 1 h 45 min

Vy · Stadler Flirt Type 75

Vy’s RE20 traces the Østfold Line down the east shore of the Oslofjord toward the Swedish border at Halden.

Oslo → Gjøvik · 124 km · 2 h

Vy · NSB Class 69

Climbs out of Oslo through the deep Nordmarka forest and over Hadeland to Lake Mjøsa at Gjøvik.

Eidsvoll → Skien · 242 km · 2 h 52 min

Vy · Stadler Flirt Type 74

RE11 starts at Eidsvoll, calls at the airport, then runs down the fjord’s west side through Tønsberg, Norway’s oldest town, to industrial Grenland.

Spikkestad → Lillestrøm · 58 km · 1 h 24 min

Vy · NSB Class 72

Crosses Oslo end to end: the 1872 Drammen Line’s original alignment out to Spikkestad at one end, Norway’s first railway of 1854 to Lillestrøm at the other.

Drammen → Lillehammer · 222 km · 2 h 55 min

Vy · Stadler Flirt Type 74

Threads Oslo from Drammen, calls at the airport, then follows the east shore of Mjøsa, Norway’s largest lake, north to the Olympic town of Lillehammer.

Drammen → Oslo Airport · 88 km · 1 h

Flytoget · Class 71 · CAF Oaris Type 78

Norway’s fastest train at 210 km/h, running out to Gardermoen through the 14.6 km Romeriksporten tunnel under the Romerike ridge.

Helsinki → Oulu · 690 km · 5 h 24 min

VR · IC25 double-deck · Sm6 “Pendolino Plus”

Finland’s Main Line north to the Gulf of Bothnia: the double-deck IC25 is now the fastest to Oulu, with ex-Russia Allegro sets running alongside as Pendolino Plus since late 2025.

Helsinki → Joensuu · 448 km · 4 h 9 min

VR · Sr2 · double-deck IC

A double-deck InterCity east along the Karelian line to Joensuu, gateway to Finland’s forested North Karelia.

Helsinki → Kuopio · 455 km · 4 h 8 min

VR · InterCity2 double-deck

The Savo line threads through Finland’s lake district to Kuopio, water rarely out of sight; InterCitys continue north to Iisalmi and Kajaani.

Tallinn → Tartu · 185 km · 1 h 55 min

Elron · Stadler FLIRT

Estonia’s busiest intercity run: orange Stadler FLIRTs linking Tallinn with Tartu, the country’s ancient university city.

Tallinn → Narva · 210 km · 2 h 27 min

Elron · Stadler FLIRT

Runs east to Narva on the Russian frontier, where two medieval castles face off across the border river.

Tallinn → Viljandi · 161 km · 2 h 5 min

Elron · Stadler FLIRT

A rural FLIRT ride south through Estonia’s forests and bogs to the lakeside hill town of Viljandi.

Riga → Daugavpils · 218 km · 3 h

Pasažieru vilciens · DR1A DMU

The historic Riga–Dünaburg line to Daugavpils, Latvia’s second city, hard by the Lithuanian and Belarusian borders.

Riga → Valga · 170 km · 2 h 25 min

Pasažieru vilciens · PESA 730ML

Vivi’s new PESA railcars reach the twin border town of Valga/Valka, split between Estonia and Latvia, now a link in the Baltic capitals chain.

Riga → Liepāja · 215 km · 3 h 16 min

Pasažieru vilciens · DR1AM DMU

A once-daily run reborn in 2017, crossing Courland to Liepāja, the windswept Baltic port and former Tsarist naval base.

Vilnius → Kaunas · 102 km · 1 h 5 min

LTG Link · Škoda EJ575

Hourly express between Lithuania’s two largest cities along a segment of the old St Petersburg–Warsaw Railway.

Vilnius → Klaipėda · 376 km · 4 h 39 min

LTG Link · PESA 730ML

LTG Link’s longest domestic haul, crossing Samogitia to Klaipėda, Lithuania’s only seaport on the Baltic.

Vilnius → Riga · 360 km · 4 h 13 min

LTG Link · PESA 730ML

The first direct Vilnius–Riga train in decades, restored in 2023, reconnecting two Baltic capitals via Šiauliai and Jelgava.

Vilnius → Warsaw · 620 km · 7 h 30 min

LTG Link / PKP Intercity · LTG DMU + PKP IC

For years the Baltics’ only rail gateway to the rest of Europe. Vilnius to Warsaw through the Suwałki Gap, changing trains at Mockava.

London → Penzance · 491 km · 5 h

Great Western Railway · Class 802 IET

The daytime flyer to Britain’s far south-west since 1904, racing 300 miles past Dartmoor and along the wave-battered Dawlish sea wall to Penzance.

London → Swansea · 306 km · 2 h 45 min

Great Western Railway · Class 800 IET

GWR’s flagship South Wales express; Hitachi bi-modes drop off the 25 kV wires west of Cardiff and switch to diesel for the last dash to Swansea.

London → Bristol · 190 km · 1 h 19 min

Great Western Railway · Class 800 IET

Brunel’s original 1841 main line: billiard-table levels from Paddington to Didcot, then a 1 in 100 fall through the 3 km Box Tunnel, said to face the sunrise on his birthday.

London → Manchester · 296 km · 2 h 7 min

Avanti West Coast · Class 390 Pendolino

Italian-built tilting Pendolinos lean into the curves of the West Coast Main Line, holding 125 mph where an upright train would have to brake.

London → Liverpool · 312 km · 2 h 8 min

Avanti West Coast · Class 390 Pendolino

Fast tilting Pendolinos finish at Liverpool Lime Street, opened 1836 and one of the world’s oldest grand terminus stations still in daily use.

London → Birmingham · 182 km · 1 h 23 min

Avanti West Coast · Class 390 Pendolino

Traces the pioneering 1838 London and Birmingham Railway, the first great trunk line driven into the capital, from Euston to England’s second city.

London → Leeds · 299 km · 2 h 9 min

London North Eastern Railway · Class 801 Azuma

Japanese-designed Azuma bi-modes sprint the East Coast Main Line out of King’s Cross (1852) to reach Leeds in a little over two hours.

London → Newcastle · 432 km · 2 h 37 min

London North Eastern Railway · Class 800 Azuma

Azuma expresses hold 125 mph down the East Coast Main Line, coming over the Tyne into Newcastle on Robert Stephenson’s High Level Bridge.

Aberdeen → Plymouth · 1,118 km · 11 h 30 min

CrossCountry · Class 220 Voyager

Britain’s longest direct train: one Voyager grinding 695 miles and nearly 40 stops from Aberdeen on the North Sea to Plymouth on the Channel.

London → Holyhead · 425 km · ≈ 3 h 50 min

Avanti West Coast · TfW · Avanti Class 805

The old Irish Mail route to the Dublin ferries, crossing Robert Stephenson’s Britannia Bridge to Anglesey and skirting the walls of Conwy Castle.

Dublin → Galway · 208 km · 2 h 20 min

Iarnród Éireann · Class 22000 ICR

Iarnród Éireann’s diesel railcars strike west across the boggy Irish Midlands, crossing the Shannon at Athlone to the Atlantic city of Galway.

Dublin → Limerick · 200 km · 2 h 15 min

Iarnród Éireann · Class 22000 ICR

Leaves the Dublin–Cork main line at Limerick Junction, a curious station where trains long had to reverse, before the final run to the Shannon at Limerick.

Dublin → Sligo · 216 km · 3 h 3 min

Iarnród Éireann · Class 22000 ICR

The old Midland Great Western route from Dublin Connolly over the drumlin lakelands to Sligo, W. B. Yeats’s country beneath flat-topped Ben Bulben.

Dublin → Waterford · 179 km · 2 h 10 min

Iarnród Éireann · Class 22000 ICR

Curves south-west from Dublin through medieval Kilkenny to Waterford, Ireland’s oldest city, founded by Vikings on the tidal River Suir.

Howth → Greystones · 45 km · 1 h 28 min

Iarnród Éireann · DART EMU fleet

Ireland’s only electrified railway, running around Dublin Bay from the Howth peninsula past Killiney’s Irish Riviera to Greystones since 1984.

Exeter → Okehampton · 40 km · 40 min

Great Western Railway · Class 150

The first line reopened under Britain’s Restoring Your Railway plan, bringing regular trains back to Okehampton on the edge of Dartmoor half a century after closure.

Belgrade → Niš · 230 km · ≈ 6 h 20 min

Srbijavoz · Electric-locomotive-hauled regional coaches

Serbia’s first main line squeezes through the Grdelica Gorge on stone viaducts. Corridor X’s slowest link, now rebuilding for 200 km/h.

Zagreb → Ljubljana · 141 km · 2 h 32 min

HŽPP · Slovenske železnice · SŽ series 342 electric locomotive · EuroCity coaches

The EC “Sava” restored a direct Zagreb–Ljubljana run, and since June 2025 extends once a week onward to Pula for the first time in 30 years.

Bucharest → Constanța · 225 km · 2 h 07 min

CFR Călători · Alstom Coradia Stream EMU

Romania’s fastest domestic run crosses the Danube on Anghel Saligny’s 1895 bridge before new EMUs race on to the Black Sea.

Trenčianska Teplá → Trenčianske Teplice · 5.5 km · ≈ 15 min

TREŽ, n.o. · Class 411.9 electric railcar (built 1951–52)

One of Europe’s oldest surviving interurban tramways: 1950s narrow-gauge electric railcars still shuttle up to a Habsburg-era spa town.

Frederikshavn → Skagen · 40 km · ≈ 40 min

Nordjyske Jernbaner · Siemens Desiro DMU

Runs to Denmark’s northernmost station through dune plantations to the sand-blown artists’ town where two seas meet at Grenen.

Geneva → Brig · 217 km · 2 h 16 min

SBB · IR 90 InterRegio

The IR 90 follows the whole north shore of Lake Geneva, then turns up the Rhône between towering valley walls: Lavaux vineyards, the castles of Aigle and Sion, and the Simplon railhead at Brig.

Liverpool → Newcastle · 272 km · ≈ 3 h 30 min

TransPennine Express · Class 802 “Nova 1”

Coast to coast across northern England: Liverpool to Manchester, over the Pennines by way of Huddersfield and Leeds, then up the East Coast Main Line to the Tyne.

Bordeaux → Marseille · 651 km · ≈ 6 h 50 min

SNCF · BB 26000 + Corail

The great southern transversale, Atlantic to Mediterranean with no Paris detour: Garonne vineyards, Carcassonne’s citadel and the Sète lagoons on the slow way round to Marseille.

Milan → Ventimiglia · 290 km · 3 h 50 min

Trenitalia · Loco-hauled Intercity

Down the Po plain to Genoa, then the full Italian Riviera westward: tunnel after tunnel between the mountains and the sea to San Remo and the French border at Ventimiglia.

Berlin → Warsaw · 570 km · 5 h 25 min

PKP Intercity & DB · EuroCity (EU44 Husarz)

Six EuroCitys a day across the North European Plain, with the cult WARS dining car serving pierogi between the Oder and the Vistula.

Munich → Verona · 442 km · ≈ 5 h 20 min

ÖBB · DB · ÖBB Railjet (EuroCity)

Munich to Verona over the first railway across the main Alpine crest (1867), still topping the open pass at 1,371 m: no summit tunnel, just a border station.

Sarajevo → Maglaj · 148 km · 2 h 33 min

ŽFBiH · ŽFBiH brzi voz

North out of Sarajevo through the Bosna gorge and past Zenica’s steelworks to Maglaj, the surviving stub of the 1947 youth railway to the Sava.

Warsaw → Wrocław · 355 km · 3 h 40 min

PKP Intercity · ED250 Pendolino

Southwest across the Polish plain via Łódź to Lower Silesia’s handsome market city of Wrocław, threaded with its hundred bridges.

Munich → Lindau · 220 km · 2 h 15 min

DB · ÖBB · ÖBB Railjet · EC

Electrified in 2020 to speed the Munich–Zürich EuroCitys across the Allgäu past baroque abbeys and Alpine foothills to the island station of Lindau on Lake Constance.

Prague → Karlovy Vary · 200 km · 3 h 15 min

České dráhy · ČD 854 · RegioPanter

A winding cross-country run to the grand colonnades of Karlovy Vary, the Bohemian spa where Goethe, Beethoven and half of Europe’s royalty took the waters.

Oslo → Gothenburg · 350 km · 3 h 30 min

Vy · SJ · Vy Flirt · SJ

The busiest cross-border run in Scandinavia: down Norway’s Østfold Line to the frontier at Kornsjø, then through Dalsland’s forests and lakes to Sweden’s second city; a new fast line is planned to halve the time.

Oslo → Stockholm · 562 km · 5 h 30 min

SJ · Vy · SJ InterCity · Vy

Two Scandinavian capitals across the forests and lakes of Värmland, via Kongsvinger and Karlstad on Lake Vänern: a near-five-hour run that new open-access operators are racing to cut.

Trondheim → Storlien · 103 km · 1 h 40 min

SJ · Vy · SJ Norrtåg · Vy

Up the Stjørdal valley from the Trondheim fjord to the Swedish border at Storlien: freshly electrified in 2024, the northern rail gateway between Norway and Sweden toward Östersund.

Besançon → La Chaux-de-Fonds · 85 km · ≈ 1 h 35 min

SNCF · TER X73500 railcar

The Watchmakers’ Line: out of Besançon and up the Doubs gorges to 1,000 m Jura plateaus, crossing into Switzerland at Le Locle for watch-capital La Chaux-de-Fonds.

Züssow → Świnoujście · 66 km · ≈ 1 h 50 min

UBB · Stadler GTW railcar

The imperial spa line: along Usedom’s beaches from Züssow over the Peene bridge to Ahlbeck’s pier, then across the border into Świnoujście.

Exeter → Barnstaple · 63 km · ≈ 1 h 10 min

GWR · GWR Class 158 · 150

Along the Taw through Henry Williamson’s Tarka the Otter country: Devon’s surviving branch line winding from Exeter’s cathedral city to Barnstaple.

Gdynia → Hel · 76 km · ≈ 1 h 45 min

Polregio · Polregio EN57 · Impuls

A railway down a sandbar: 34 km along the Hel spit, at points 200 m wide, open Baltic one side and lagoon the other. Packed solid every Polish summer.

Dublin → Westport · 244 km · ≈ 3 h 25 min

Iarnród Éireann · Class 22000 ICR

Across the midland bogs and Mayo’s drumlin country to Clew Bay: Ireland’s western rails since 1866, with Croagh Patrick rising past the buffer stops.

London → Nottingham · 205 km · ≈ 1 h 40 min

East Midlands Railway · EMR Intercity (Class 810 · 222)

St Pancras’s own intercity: the Midland Main Line under Barlow’s great arch, up through Bedford and Leicester to Nottingham, Britain’s last classic trunk to join the atlas.

London → Norwich · 185 km · ≈ 1 h 50 min

Greater Anglia · Stadler FLIRT intercity

“Norwich in 90”: East Anglia’s main line across Constable country with its all-new Swiss-built FLIRT fleet. A whole English region in one green run.

Cardiff → Manchester · 290 km · ≈ 3 h 10 min

Transport for Wales · TfW Class 197

The great spine outside England’s trunk lines: Cardiff to Manchester up the castle-studded Welsh border through Abergavenny, Ludlow and Shrewsbury.

Dublin → Tralee · 333 km · ≈ 3 h 55 min

Iarnród Éireann · Class 22000 ICR

Ireland’s longest ride: off the Cork line at Mallow and west past Killarney’s lakes to Tralee, with Kerry and the Atlantic at the end of the rails.

London → Brighton · 82 km · ≈ 55 min

Govia Thameslink · Southern · Thameslink Electrostar

Victorian London’s dash to the sea, once home of the all-Pullman Brighton Belle, and still under the hour from Victoria to the pier and the Lanes.

Glasgow → Edinburgh · 76 km · ≈ 45 min

ScotRail · ScotRail Class 385

Scotland’s busiest corridor since 1842: four electric expresses an hour between its two great cities over the Falkirk high route.

Helsinki → Jyväskylä · 342 km · ≈ 3 h 5 min

VR · VR InterCity · Pendolino

Into Finnish Lakeland by the tunnel-heavy Jämsä gorge cutoff, to Alvar Aalto’s university city among a thousand lakes.

London → Weymouth · 230 km · ≈ 2 h 55 min

South Western Railway · SWR Class 444

Waterloo’s main line to the sea: Winchester’s cathedral close, Southampton’s ocean-liner docks, Bournemouth sands and the Jurassic Coast at Weymouth.

Helsinki → Vaasa · 419 km · ≈ 3 h 45 min

VR · VR InterCity

Fourteen direct ICs a day to Finland’s sunniest city, down the Ostrobothnian flats to Vaasa and the UNESCO Kvarken archipelago.

Edinburgh → Tweedbank · 56 km · ≈ 55 min

ScotRail · ScotRail Class 158

The Waverley Route reborn: Britain’s longest railway reopening in a century (2015), winding out of Edinburgh to Walter Scott’s Abbotsford.

Stockholm → Mora · 310 km · ≈ 3 h 40 min

SJ · SJ InterCity

To Dalarna, Sweden’s folklore heart: Lake Siljan, Leksand’s midsummer poles and the Vasaloppet town of Mora, where the Inlandsbanan begins.

Riga → Tukums · 67 km · ≈ 1 h 15 min

Vivi · Vivi Škoda EMU

Latvia’s beach train: across the Lielupe to the villas and pines of Jūrmala’s resort strip, then the bog boardwalks of Ķemeri national park.

Limerick → Galway · 118 km · ≈ 2 h

Iarnród Éireann · Class 2800 railcar

The Western Rail Corridor, reopened in 2010 after 34 years: north from Limerick through Ennis and the stone-walled edge of the Burren to Galway Bay, west of the Shannon the whole way and never near Dublin.

Bucharest → Iași · 406 km · ≈ 6 h 50 min

CFR Călători · CFR InterRegio

Wallachia to the old Moldavian capital: Romania’s busiest eastern corridor, hours of steppe and vineyards ending in university-city Iași.

Sofia → Ruse · 404 km · ≈ 6 h

BDZ · BDZ fast train

Capital to the Danube: through the Iskar gorge, across the Pleven plain, down to Ruse’s Habsburg-flavoured riverfront and the bridge to Romania.

Bucharest → Suceava · 446 km · ≈ 6 h 45 min

CFR Călători · CFR InterRegio

The Moldavia main line north through Bacău and Roman to Suceava, jumping-off point for Bukovina’s painted monasteries.

Vienna → Lienz · 470 km · ≈ 5 h 20 min

ÖBB · ÖBB railjet

Osttirol’s capital link restored: two railjets a day over the Semmering, through the new Koralm tunnel and up the Drau valley. A child of the Dec 2025 timetable.

Prague → České Budějovice · 169 km · ≈ 1 h 30 min

České dráhy · ČD Pendolino · InterJet

Czechia’s first 200 km/h running: the rebuilt Fourth Corridor past Tábor’s Hussite hilltop to the Budweiser city, a record 85 minutes on the fastest Pendolinos.

Munich → Innsbruck · 172 km · ≈ 1 h 45 min

ÖBB · DB · Railjet · EuroCity

The Brenner corridor’s northern approach: out of Munich, across the Inn at Rosenheim, into Tyrol at Kufstein and up the valley beneath the Karwendel wall.

Innsbruck → Salzburg · 190 km · ≈ 1 h 50 min

ÖBB · ÖBB railjet

Tyrol to Salzburg the fast way, through Bavaria: Austrian expresses cut the German corner nonstop via Rosenheim, Alps on the horizon the whole run.

Hamburg → Cologne · 425 km · ≈ 3 h 45 min

DB Fernverkehr · DB IC · ICE

Germany’s busiest conventional corridor: ports to Ruhr through Bremen, Münster and five more big cities. Twice an hour, and no high-speed line in sight.

Zurich → Geneva · 280 km · ≈ 2 h 45 min

SBB · SBB IC 2000 · Giruno

Switzerland’s flagship express and spine of the clockface timetable: Zurich to Geneva across the Mittelland, Bern and Lausanne on the way, every half hour.

Vienna → Bratislava · 65 km · ≈ 1 h 5 min

ÖBB · ZSSK · ÖBB Cityjet

Europe’s closest capital pair, an hour apart on the 1848 Marchegg line across the Morava floodplain: two countries, one commuter corridor.

Bratislava → Budapest · 214 km · ≈ 2 h 20 min

ZSSK · MÁV · EuroCity

The Danube-bend main line: EuroCities every two hours sweeping past Štúrovo and the great river’s knee at Visegrád into Budapest.

Munich → Prague · 430 km · ≈ 5 h 50 min

Die Länderbahn · ČD · alex RE 25

The only direct Munich–Prague train: a famously unhurried crossing of the Bavarian Forest and Bohemia while the corridor awaits its wires.

Budapest → Zagreb · 340 km · ≈ 6 h

MÁV · HŽPP · MÁV · HŽPP EuroCity

The only Hungary–Croatia day train: along Balaton’s southern shore, over the Drava at Gyékényes and down through Zagorje to Zagreb.

Budapest → Košice · 270 km · ≈ 3 h 25 min

MÁV · ZSSK · EuroCity

Budapest’s only direct reach into eastern Slovakia: the little EuroCity that grows at Miskolc, bound for Košice’s Gothic cathedral square.

Kraków → Wrocław · 260 km · ≈ 3 h 15 min

PKP Intercity · PKP Intercity

Poland’s two great tourist cities linked across industrial Silesia on the 1847 Upper Silesian Railway, the mesh line no Warsaw-bound train covers.

Budapest → Szeged · 191 km · ≈ 2 h 20 min

MÁV-START · MÁV InterCity

Hourly ICs across the Great Plain to Hungary’s paprika capital and its vast Votive Church. The southern spoke of the MÁV intercity star.

Zurich → Chur · 117 km · ≈ 1 h 15 min

SBB · SBB IC 2000

The approach every Glacier and Bernina rider actually takes: along Lake Zurich and the Walensee’s cliff wall to Chur, where the narrow gauge begins.

Poznań → Szczecin · 213 km · ≈ 1 h 55 min

PKP Intercity · PKP Intercity

Continuation of the Warsaw expresses to the Baltic’s big absent city: Szczecin’s Prussian boulevards and the gateway to Świnoujście.

Szeged → Békéscsaba · 96 km · ≈ 1 h 42 min

MÁV-START · MÁV-START regional

Line 135 strikes east across the Great Hungarian Plain through Hódmezővásárhely and Orosháza; the rails carry on past Békéscsaba to Salonta, over a border drawn in 1920.

Poznań → Piła · 95 km · ≈ 1 h 13 min

Koleje Wielkopolskie · Koleje Wielkopolskie regional

Built in 1879 to hook Poznań onto the Prussian Eastern Railway; a recent rebuild cut about fifteen minutes off the run north through Chodzież to Piła.

Frankfurt → Kassel · 199 km · ≈ 2 h 16 min

DB Regio · RE 30 · Main-Weser-Express

One of Germany’s first trunk railways, opened in stages between 1849 and 1852 through Gießen and Marburg; its 160 km/h ceiling is only reachable on the southern half.

Rome → Pescara · 237 km · ≈ 3 h 30 min

Trenitalia · RE 4266 · Regionale

Rome to the Adriatic the hard way, over the Apennines by Tivoli, the drained Fucino basin at Avezzano and Sulmona, where the Transiberiana d’Italia branches into the Abruzzo highlands.

Taranto → Reggio Calabria · 470 km · ≈ 5 h 57 min

Trenitalia · IC 558 · Intercity

Six hours down the instep and toe of Italy, from Taranto by Metaponto, Sibari and Crotone to the Strait of Messina; the sections were joined into one railway in 1875.

Zafra → Huelva · 184 km · ≈ 3 h 18 min

Renfe · Media Distancia

Built in 1889 to carry Sierra de Aracena ore down to the quays at Huelva, and still crossing it past halts named for villages miles from the line: Jabugo, Almonaster, Valdelamusa.

Linköping → Kalmar · 235 km · ≈ 3 h 18 min

SJ · Krösatågen

Four separate railways stitched into one 235 kilometre run across Småland; the last section opened in 1902, and only since 1996 has the trip been possible without changing trains.

Poitiers → La Rochelle · 135 km · ≈ 1 h 29 min

SNCF Voyageurs · TGV inOui

The Paris TGVs peel off at Poitiers and finish on this line, opened to Niort in 1856 and to La Rochelle the year after: ninety minutes across the Poitou plain to the Atlantic.

Bordeaux → Hendaye · 233 km · ≈ 2 h 39 min

SNCF Voyageurs · TER Nouvelle-Aquitaine

Dead straight down the Landes pine forest to the Basque coast; the rails left Bordeaux in 1841 and took until 1864 to reach the Spanish border at Irun.

Amiens → Rouen · 117 km · ≈ 1 h 25 min

SNCF Voyageurs · TER Hauts-de-France

Opened complete on 18 April 1867 rather than in stages, and still the cross country way from Picardy into Normandy by Poix-de-Picardie, Abancourt and Serqueux.

Halle → Halberstadt · 92 km · ≈ 1 h 11 min

Start Mitteldeutschland · RE 4 · Regional-Express

The Halle end of the line that reached Vienenburg in 1872, ninety two kilometres by Könnern, Sandersleben and Aschersleben to Halberstadt on the northern edge of the Harz.

Krefeld → Kleve · 66 km · ≈ 59 min

RheinRuhrBahn · RE 10 · Niers-Express

The Rhine’s quiet left bank to the Dutch border: Kempen, Geldern, the pilgrim town of Kevelaer and Goch, on rails that reached Kleve on 1 March 1863.

Manresa → Lleida · 117 km · ≈ 1 h 59 min

Renfe · Rodalies R12

Inland Catalonia the slow way, over the Segarra plateau by Calaf and Cervera; the first trains ran into Lleida in 1860 while the coastal route through Valls took the traffic.

Turin → Genoa · 165 km · ≈ 1 h 41 min

Trenitalia · Regionale Veloce

Five years of tunnelling under the Apennines opened this line in December 1853, and the 3.3 km Giovi tunnel at its summit was then the longest in the world.

Domodossola → Milan · 122 km · ≈ 1 h 33 min

Trenitalia · Regionale

The Simplon’s Italian approach, down the Toce and along the western shore of Lake Maggiore by Stresa and Arona; the rails reached Domodossola in 1888.

Verona → Bologna · 115 km · ≈ 52 min

Trenitalia · Frecciarossa

Thirty seven years to cross the Po plain: begun at Bologna in 1887, over the river at Ostiglia in 1911 and finished into Verona on 1 February 1924. Fifty two minutes now.

Milan → Bologna · 216 km · ≈ 2 h 45 min

Trenitalia · IC 583 · Intercity

The old road through Emilia by Lodi, Piacenza, Parma, Reggio and Modena, single track when it opened in 1861 and doubled by 1894; the Frecce take the high speed line beside it.

Dresden → Görlitz · 105 km · ≈ 1 h 25 min

Die Länderbahn · RE 1 · trilex

Saxony end to end through Bautzen and the Lusatian hills, opened in stages from November 1845 and formally complete on 1 September 1847.

Aalborg → Frederikshavn · 85 km · ≈ 1 h 12 min

DSB · DSB regionaltog

The last railway in Jutland, through Brønderslev and Hjørring to the ferry quays at Frederikshavn; it reached Aalborg itself in 1879, when the Limfjord bridge opened.

Zalaegerszeg → Boba · 56 km · ≈ 1 h 02 min

GYSEV · GYSEV regional

Up the Zala valley on rails the Transdanubian local company laid: Boba to Ukk in January 1889, on through Zalaegerszeg in October 1890, and now the first leg of the line to Slovenia.

Udine → Trieste · 82 km · ≈ 1 h 24 min

Trenitalia · Regionale

Friuli to the Adriatic through Gorizia and out along the Carso above Miramare; the last two sections opened three days apart in October 1860.

Prato → Bologna · 80 km · ≈ 1 h 14 min

Trenitalia · Regionale

The 1934 Direttissima under the Apennines: an 18.5 km base tunnel, then the second longest in the world, and 180 km/h where the old line over the pass managed 75.

Ljubljana → Jesenice · 64 km · ≈ 55 min

Slovenske železnice · Slovenske železnice

The Slovenian half of the Rudolf Railway, opened complete on 14 December 1870, up the Sava by Škofja Loka and Kranj to the mouth of the Karawanks tunnel.

Gotha → Leinefelde · 67 km · ≈ 42 min

DB Regio · RE 1

Forty two minutes across the Thuringian Basin through Bad Langensalza and Mühlhausen, opened in 1870 and now rebuilt for 160 km/h.

Roskilde → Kalundborg · 79 km · ≈ 1 h 09 min

DSB · DSB regionaltog

Zealand from Roskilde out to the Great Belt at Kalundborg, opened on 30 December 1874 and doubled as far as Holbæk in 2014.

Oldenburg → Osnabrück · 108 km · ≈ 1 h 29 min

NordWestBahn · RE 18 · Regional-Express

Across the Oldenburg moors and the Artland by Cloppenburg and Quakenbrück; opened as far as Quakenbrück in October 1875 and through to Osnabrück on 15 November 1876.

Jena → Saalfeld · 47 km · ≈ 42 min

Abellio Rail Mitteldeutschland · RB 25

Forty two minutes up the Saale gorge from Jena by Kahla, Orlamünde and Rudolstadt, on a line opened through to Saalfeld on 30 April 1874.

Plovdiv → Karlovo · 61 km · ≈ 1 h 24 min

BДЖ · BДЖ regional

North out of Plovdiv to the Rose Valley at Karlovo under the Balkan range, sixty one kilometres opened on 28 September 1933.

Håkantorp → Gårdsjö · 122 km · ≈ 2 h 01 min

Västtrafik · Kinnekulletaget

Four small railways stitched round the flat-topped hill of Kinnekulle by Lidköping and Mariestad, the last piece laid in 1910 and the whole of it regauged to standard by 1953.

Wetzlar → Koblenz · 103 km · ≈ 1 h 34 min

DB Regio · RE 25

The Lahn from Wetzlar down to the Rhine through Weilburg, Limburg, Nassau and the spa at Bad Ems; opened in three pieces and finished on 10 January 1863.

Civitanova Marche → Fabriano · 94 km · ≈ 1 h 44 min

Trenitalia · Regionale

Off the Adriatic at Civitanova and up the Chienti and Potenza valleys by Macerata and Matelica; begun in 1884 at the far end and joined up in 1888.

Vemb → Thyborøn · 56 km · ≈ 1 h 20 min

Midtjyske Jernbaner · Midtjyske Jernbaner

A Danish local line that never belonged to the state: Vemb to the fishing port of Thyborøn by Lemvig and Harboøre, finished on 1 November 1899 and still privately run.

Crailsheim → Heilbronn · 88 km · ≈ 1 h 14 min

Westfrankenbahn · RE 80

Up the Kocher from Heilbronn through Schwäbisch Hall to Crailsheim; the first half opened in August 1862 and the rest waited until 10 December 1867.

Hochstadt-Marktzeuln → Probstzella · 54 km · ≈ 45 min

DB Regio · RE 14

The climb over the Frankenwald from the Main valley to the Thuringian border at Probstzella by Kronach and Ludwigsstadt, finished in October 1885 and steep enough to need banking engines.

Delmenhorst → Hesepe · 88 km · ≈ 1 h 36 min

NordWestBahn · RB 58

The Oldenburg south line through Vechta and Lohne, built in four pieces between 1888 and 1 May 1900, and still eighty kilometres an hour the whole way.

Roccasecca → Avezzano · 80 km · ≈ 1 h 58 min

Trenitalia · Regionale

Up the Liri from Roccasecca by Arce, Sora and Balsorano into the Fucino basin; eighteen years from the first section in 1884 to the last on 20 August 1902.

Mátészalka → Záhony · 55 km · ≈ 1 h 46 min

MÁV-START · MÁV-START regional

Opened on 27 September 1905 as a local line from Nagykároly to Csap; the border of 1920 cut it in three, and this is the Hungarian piece, out to the frontier at Záhony.

Golești → Câmpulung · 62 km · ≈ 1 h 56 min

CFR Călători · CFR Regio

Inaugurated on 21 June 1887 and derailed two months later between Mihăești and Stâlpeni; still an hour and a half up the Râul Târgului to Câmpulung.

Hatvan → Újszász · 52 km · ≈ 1 h 06 min

MÁV-START · MÁV-START regional

Down the Zagyva through the Jaszsag, opened on 10 March 1873 with four stations on it and electrified a century later in 1975.

Paris → Cherbourg · 364 km · ≈ 3 h 10 min

Région Normandie · SNCF · Omneo Premium

Normandy’s trunk from Saint-Lazare: Lisieux, Caen and Bayeux of the Tapestry, out along the Cotentin to the great naval harbour of Cherbourg.

Paris → Le Havre · 228 km · ≈ 2 h 5 min

Région Normandie · SNCF · Omneo Premium

The Impressionists’ line down the Seine: Vernon for Giverny, Rouen’s spires, and the ferro-concrete UNESCO city at the river’s mouth.

Nantes → Bordeaux · 375 km · ≈ 4 h 20 min

SNCF Voyageurs · Intercités

The Atlantic link that skips Paris: marshes of the Vendée, La Rochelle’s towers and the Charente to Bordeaux. Ridership has doubled, and it is contracted to 2036.

Nantes → Lyon · 660 km · ≈ 7 h

SNCF Voyageurs · Intercités

France’s great west–east diagonal, no Paris required: the Loire at Angers and Tours, Bourges’ cathedral, then Roanne and the Lyon hills.

Rome → Genoa · 500 km · ≈ 5 h

Trenitalia · Trenitalia Intercity

The Tyrrhenian artery the high-speed network bypasses: Maremma’s coast, Pisa, the marble Apuans and the whole Riviera di Levante into Genoa.

Bari → Matera · 77 km · ≈ 1 h 30 min

Ferrovie Appulo Lucane · FAL narrow-gauge railcar

The only railway to the Sassi: a 950 mm oddity climbing the Murgia plateau from Bari to cave-city Matera, every visitor’s first sight of Basilicata.

Lisbon → Évora · 135 km · ≈ 1 h 30 min

CP · CP Intercidades

Across the Tagus and into the cork-oak Alentejo: ninety minutes from Lisbon to Évora’s Roman temple and bone chapel.

Lagos → Vila Real de Santo António · 140 km · ≈ 2 h 20 min

CP · CP Regional

The Algarve coast end to end: Portimão, Silves’ red castle, Faro and the Ria Formosa lagoons out to Vila Real de Santo António on the Guadiana. Every summer visitor’s slow shuttle.

Thessaloniki → Alexandroupoli · 440 km · ~8 h 20 min

Hellenic Train · Hellenic Train diesel InterCity

Greece’s only train across Thrace: 440 km laid in 1896 for the Salonika–Constantinople railway, threading the Nestos gorge between Drama and Xanthi.

Bayonne → Toulouse · 318 km · ≈ 3 h 28 min

SNCF · Intercités

Runs the whole width of the south-west along the foothills of the Pyrenees, opened in stages between 1861 and 1867 and still the direct way from the Atlantic to Toulouse.

Stralsund → Berlin · 237 km · ≈ 3 h 00 min

DB Fernverkehr · ICE

One of the oldest railways in Western Pomerania, built from 1863 by the Berlin-Stettin company and now the fast run down from Stralsund to Berlin.

Örebro → Stockholm · 204 km · ≈ 2 h 08 min

Mälartåg · Mälartåg

Follows the northern shore of Lake Mälaren from Stockholm through Västerås to Örebro, double track most of the way and rebuilt for high-speed running in 2005.

Falconara Marittima → Orte · 199 km · ≈ 3 h 06 min

Trenitalia · Regionale Veloce

Crosses the Apennines sea to sea, from the Adriatic at Ancona through Foligno, Spoleto and Terni to Orte on the Rome main line.

Tulle → Coutras · 186 km · ≈ 2 h 16 min

SNCF · TER Nouvelle-Aquitaine

Single track, never electrified, opened piece by piece from 1857: the cross-country link between the Paris–Bordeaux and Orléans–Montauban main lines.

Haparanda → Boden · 158 km · ≈ 1 h 31 min

Norrtåg · Norrtåg

Sweden's only railway to the Finnish border, and freight-only from 1992 until passengers came back in 2021.

Ulm → Immendingen · 142 km · ≈ 2 h 10 min

DB Regio · RE 55 · Regional-Express

Threads the young Danube from Ulm through Blaubeuren and Riedlingen to Sigmaringen, single-tracked and largely unelectrified, and once part of the Munich–Freiburg main line.

Treuchtlingen → Würzburg · 139 km · ≈ 1 h 54 min

Arverio Bayern · RE 80 · Regional-Express

Opened in three sections from 1859 and one of Germany's oldest main lines, running through Franconia via Ansbach and Ochsenfurt into Würzburg.

Ruse → Kaspichan · 136 km · ≈ 2 h 32 min

BDŽ · BDŽ regional

The first railway ever built in Bulgaria, opened on 7 November 1866 from the Danube quays at Ruse toward the Black Sea, and still line 9 of the national network.

Kristianstad → Karlskrona · 128 km · ≈ 1 h 50 min

Öresundståg · Öresundståg

The coast line through Skåne and Blekinge, opened in 1898 and now the Öresundståg run east to the naval city of Karlskrona.

Kristianstad → Helsingborg · 107 km · ≈ 1 h 38 min

Skånetrafiken · Skånetrafiken regional

Skånebanan links eastern and western Skåne by way of Hässleholm: an 1865 railway that only got its collective name from Banverket in 1990.

Stendal → Uelzen · 107 km · ≈ 1 h 11 min

DB Regio · RE 20 · Regional-Express

Mostly single track yet electrified and main-line rated, crossing the Altmark from Stendal to Uelzen with Salzwedel the one town of any size on the way.

Calafat → Craiova · 107 km · ≈ 3 h 30 min

CFR Călători · CFR regional

A secondary single line down to the Danube, largely unelectrified, that found new purpose when the Calafat–Vidin bridge opened the way into Bulgaria.

Taranto → Bari · 103 km · ≈ 1 h 09 min

Trenitalia · Frecciarossa

104 km across the Murge plateau from Bari through Gioia del Colle to Taranto, now covered end to end by Frecciarossa in a little over an hour.

Struer → Langå · 102 km · ≈ 1 h 33 min

GoCollective · Regional train

Central Jutland end to end: single track opened section by section from 1863, Langå to Viborg to Skive to the fjord port at Struer.

Komárno → Bratislava · 100 km · ≈ 2 h 24 min

Leo Express Slovensko · REX · Regional-Express

Follows the Danube across the Žitný ostrov plain, and in 2012 became the first Slovak line handed over to a private operator.

Libourne → Le Buisson · 98 km · ≈ 1 h 12 min

SNCF · TER Nouvelle-Aquitaine

97 km of single track east from the Paris–Bordeaux main line into the Périgord, opened in 1869 and still the cross-country link toward Agen and Cahors.

Košice → Prešov · 35 km · ≈ 37 min

ZSSK · REX · Os regional

Slovakia’s second city reached from its first: the Kaschau–Oderberg company opened the branch on 1 September 1870, north up the Hornád and off the Bohumín main line at Kysak.

Livorno → Florence · 96 km · ≈ 1 h 16 min

Trenitalia · Regionale Veloce

The Ferrovia Leopolda of the 1840s, still carrying Tuscany's busiest regional run from Livorno and Pisa through Pontedera and Empoli into Florence.

Heidelberg → Frankfurt · 84 km · ≈ 1 h 21 min

DB Regio · RB 68 · Regionalbahn

Opened in 1846 down the Upper Rhine plain west of the Odenwald, one of Germany's oldest railways and still the local road from Frankfurt through Darmstadt and Bensheim to Heidelberg.

Kutno → Łódź · 82 km · ≈ 1 h 32 min

PKP Intercity · InterCity

Łódź's link north to the Warsaw–Poznań main line at Kutno, through Zgierz, Ozorków and Łęczyca, part of it doubling as the city's freight ring.

Trier → Saarbrücken · 81 km · ≈ 1 h 30 min

DB Regio · RB 71 · Regionalbahn

The Saarstrecke of 1858–60 follows the Saar from Trier up to Saarbrücken, one of the oldest railways in Germany and still the valley's stopping service.

Saint-Malo → Rennes · 80 km · ≈ 46 min

SNCF · TER Bretagne

Brittany's run to the sea: 81 km from Rennes to the walled port of Saint-Malo, opened in 1864 and now covered non-stop in three quarters of an hour.

Valence → Moirans · 79 km · ≈ 1 h 07 min

SNCF · TER

Built by the PLM and opened on 9 May 1864 to join Valence to Grenoble, double track over two thirds of its length and electrified in the 2010s.

Regensburg → Ingolstadt · 73 km · ≈ 1 h

agilis · RB 17 · Regionalbahn

Single track but electrified up the Danube valley from Regensburg to Ingolstadt. With the Ingolstadt–Neuoffingen line, it forms the Bavarian Donautalbahn.

Stralsund → Rostock · 72 km · ≈ 52 min

DB Fernverkehr · ICE

Joins the two Hanseatic cities of the Baltic coast: single track, electrified, and rebuilt as German Unity transport project no. 1.

Redon → Rennes · 71 km · ≈ 42 min

SNCF · TER Bretagne

The 1862 line down the Vilaine from Rennes to Redon, the shared first leg of Brittany's runs to Nantes and to Quimper.

Nördlingen → Augsburg · 70 km · ≈ 1 h 03 min

Arverio Bayern · RE 89 · Regional-Express

Part of the Ludwig South-North Railway of 1844: fast electrified track from Augsburg to Donauwörth, then the branch on to the walled crater town of Nördlingen.

Ystad → Malmö · 69 km · ≈ 56 min

Skånetrafiken · Pågatåg

Malmö to the ferry town of Ystad across southern Scania, where the Österlen Line carries on to Simrishamn.

Lindau → Bludenz · 67 km · ≈ 1 h 12 min

ÖBB · S-Bahn Vorarlberg

Vorarlberg end to end: from Lindau on Lake Constance up the Rhine valley and the Walgau to Bludenz, where the Arlberg and Montafon lines begin.

Ózd → Miskolc · 57 km · ≈ 1 h 10 min

MÁV · MÁV regional

Branches off the Hatvan–Miskolc main line and runs up the Sajó through Bánréve to the steel town of Ózd, on the Slovak border.

Montmélian → Grenoble · 54 km · ≈ 40 min

SNCF · TER Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

Built double-track by the PLM and opened on 15 September 1864 to join Grenoble to the Savoy main line; fully electrified only in December 2013.

Skulte → Rīga · 52 km · ≈ 1 h 02 min

Vivi · Vivi regional

Latvian 1,520 mm track north from Riga to the Gulf coast at Skulte: what remains in service of the old Riga–Rūjiena and Riga–Tallinn route, cut at the Estonian border in 1992.

Pontarlier → Neuchâtel · 52 km · ≈ 52 min

SNCF · SBB · TER / RegioExpress

The Franco-Suisse line of 1860 through the Val-de-Travers, single track over the Jura from Pontarlier down to the Neuchâtel lakeshore.

Nakskov → Nykøbing Falster · 51 km · ≈ 51 min

Lokaltog · Lokaltog regional

Opened in 1874 and still crossing Lolland from Nykøbing Falster through Maribo to the shipyard town of Nakskov.

Paldiski → Tallinn · 47 km · ≈ 58 min

Elron · Elron regional

Estonia's oldest railway west from Tallinn, opened in 1870 to the ice-free naval harbour at Paldiski on the Baltic.

Lenzburg → Lucerne · 47 km · ≈ 1 h 35 min

SBB · S9

Opened in 1883 by British investors down the Seetal lakes to Lucerne. For a century a roadside light railway, it was rebuilt on its own alignment in the 2000s.

Helsingør → Copenhagen · 46 km · ≈ 59 min

DSB · RE · Regional-Express

The Sound coast line of 1897, one of Denmark's busiest: Copenhagen out past the Øresund beaches to Elsinore and Kronborg.

Hundested → Hillerød · 40 km · ≈ 54 min

Lokaltog · Lokaltog regional

North Zealand branch line: Hillerød to Frederiksværk from 1897, on to the Kattegat ferry harbour at Hundested from 1916.

Nelaug → Arendal · 35 km · ≈ 44 min

Go-Ahead Nordic · R 50 · Regional

The surviving southern stub of a line that once ran 90 km inland: electrified feeder trains down from the Sørland main line at Nelaug to the coast at Arendal.

Figeac → Arvant · 167 km · ≈ 2 h 57 min

SNCF · TER

170 km of single unelectrified track across the Massif Central, tying the Brive–Toulouse main line to the Cévennes line at Arvant.

Szombathely → Székesfehérvár · 168 km · ≈ 2 h 34 min

MÁV · InterCity

Electrified but mostly single track, crossing western Hungary from Szombathely through the Bakony foothills to Székesfehérvár.

Pori → Tampere · 131 km · ≈ 1 h 39 min

VR · InterCity

Opened in 1895 and following the Kokemäenjoki river down to the Gulf of Bothnia, with only five intermediate stations in 132 km.

Holstebro → Vejle · 113 km · ≈ 1 h 43 min

GoCollective · Regional train

Single track right across Jutland, built in pieces between 1894 and 1914 from the Vejle fjord to Herning and the west.

Füzesabony → Debrecen · 102 km · ≈ 1 h 51 min

MÁV · MÁV regional

Single track and unelectrified across the Great Plain, crossing the Tisza and the shallows of Lake Tisza at Tiszafüred.

Győr → Sopron · 84 km · ≈ 1 h 04 min

GYSEV · InterCity

Opened on 2 January 1876 by the Raab-Oedenburg-Ebenfurth company, and still run by its successor GYSEV rather than by MÁV.

Pieksämäki → Jyväskylä · 79 km · ≈ 1 h 01 min

VR · InterCity

Finnish 1,524 mm track through the lake country, one stop in 79 km between the junction town of Pieksämäki and Jyväskylä.

Celldömölk → Győr · 71 km · ≈ 1 h 14 min

MÁV · MÁV regional

MÁV line 10, single track and still unelectrified, running south-west from Győr across the Kisalföld plain to the junction at Celldömölk.

Vercelli → Pavia · 65 km · ≈ 1 h 39 min

Trenord · R 36 · Regional

Opened in 1882–83 across the rice paddies between Piedmont and Lombardy, linking Vercelli to Pavia and the Po.

Mönchengladbach → Aachen · 62 km · ≈ 50 min

National Express · RE 4 · Regional-Express

Built by the Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrort company between 1852 and 1854: one of Germany's oldest lines, and still the freight road from the Ruhr to Belgium.

Bátaszék → Dombóvár · 59 km · ≈ 1 h 14 min

MÁV · MÁV regional

The Danube–Drava branch through southern Transdanubia, single track between the junctions at Dombóvár and Bátaszék.

Winterthur → Romanshorn · 56 km · ≈ 48 min

SBB · IC 8 · InterCity

Switzerland's fourth-oldest railway, opened on 16 May 1855 down the Thur valley to Romanshorn, where trains once met the Lake Constance ferries.

Lucerne → Olten · 55 km · ≈ 45 min

Südostbahn · IR 26 · InterRegio

Built by the Schweizerische Centralbahn and open to Lucerne since 1856: double track, electrified, and still the fast way north to Olten and Basel.

Szentgotthárd → Szombathely · 53 km · ≈ 52 min

ÖBB · InterCity

The old Hungarian Western Railway toward Graz, now the through run from Szombathely to Szentgotthárd on the Austrian border.

Tølløse → Slagelse · 51 km · ≈ 53 min

Lokaltog · Lokaltog regional

A rural single track across western Zealand, joining the Northwest Line at Tølløse to the Copenhagen–Fredericia main line at Slagelse.

Tornanádaska → Miskolc · 58 km · ≈ 2 h

MÁV · MÁV regional

Hungarian line 94, a slow branch north of Miskolc up the Bódva valley to the Slovak border at Tornanádaska.

Kiskunfélegyháza → Kiskunhalas · 45 km · ≈ 49 min

MÁV · MÁV regional

Line 155 across the sandy Kiskunság between two market towns of the Great Plain, opened in 1912.

Neuchâtel → Bern · 42 km · ≈ 45 min

BLS · IR 66 · InterRegio

The Direkt Linie of 1901, driven almost dead straight across the Grand Marais, and still part of the shortest rail route from Bern to Paris.

Burgdorf → Thun · 40 km · ≈ 1 h 03 min

BLS · S 41

Opened in 1899 as the first electrified main-line railway in Europe, running from Burgdorf over Konolfingen to Thun.

Delle → Delémont · 40 km · ≈ 52 min

SBB · R 1 · Regional

Opened in stages from 1872 through the Jura canton (Glovelier, Porrentruy, Boncourt) and over the French border to Delle.

Nørre Nebel → Varde · 37 km · ≈ 52 min

GoCollective · Regional train

Nebelgrisen, the 'Nebel pig': 37 km of unelectrified West Jutland branch line from Varde out to the dune coast at Nørre Nebel.

Ins → Fribourg · 32 km · ≈ 43 min

TPF · S 20

Single track built by the Fribourg–Morat–Anet company, running from Fribourg past Murten and its lake to Ins in the Seeland.

Ciudad Real → Badajoz · 334 km · ≈ 4 h 42 min

Renfe · Regional Exprés

338 km west across La Mancha and the Extremadura dehesa, from Ciudad Real to the Portuguese border city of Badajoz, on track opened in 1866.

Almería → Linares-Baeza · 234 km · ≈ 3 h 52 min

Renfe · Media Distancia

Iberian gauge from the Alcázar–Cádiz main line at Linares down through the Sierra to the Mediterranean at Almería, through the desert country the spaghetti Westerns made famous.

Pieksämäki → Joensuu · 180 km · ≈ 2 h 20 min

VR · VR regional

Single track, unelectrified, running east through the Finnish lakes from the junction at Pieksämäki to Joensuu near the Russian border.

Joensuu → Nurmes · 160 km · 2 h 1 min

VR · Dm12 railbus

Dm12 railbuses up the shore of Lake Pielinen: the rails carry on to Kontiomäki, but passenger trains have stopped at Nurmes since 1993.

Kontiomäki → Oulu · 166 km · ≈ 1 h 53 min

VR · InterCity

166 km of single electrified track inland from Oulu on the Gulf of Bothnia to Kontiomäki, where five railways meet.

Wrocław → Poznań · 164 km · ≈ 1 h 27 min

PKP Intercity · InterCity

Silesia to Wielkopolska via Leszno, opened in 1856 and now part of TEN-T corridor E59 from Scandinavia south to Vienna and Budapest.

Agen → Niversac · 161 km · ≈ 3 h 36 min

SNCF · TER Nouvelle-Aquitaine

A slow country line opened in 1863: three and a half hours for 164 km from the Garonne at Agen up through the Périgord to the Périgueux junction at Niversac.

Ylivieska → Iisalmi · 154 km · ≈ 1 h 46 min

VR · VR regional

Opened in 1923 as the cross-country link between Finland's Savonia and Ostrobothnia main lines, 154 km through the forests of Kainuu.

Castejón de Ebro → Altsasu · 138 km · ≈ 2 h 08 min

Renfe · Alvia

Iberian-gauge track up the Ebro and over into Navarre, opened in 1865 and still the Madrid–Basque Country road through Altsasu.

Mannheim → Saarbrücken · 129 km · ≈ 1 h 23 min

DB Fernverkehr · ICE

The Pfälzische Ludwigsbahn of 1847, the Palatinate's main artery through Neustadt, Kaiserslautern and Homburg, and today part of the Paris–Frankfurt run.

Tampere → Turku · 169 km · ≈ 1 h 50 min

VR · InterCity

Finnish 1,524 mm gauge across Southwest Finland and Häme, joining the port of Turku to the Helsinki–Tampere main line at Toijala since 1876.

Saint-Sulpice-Laurière → Montluçon · 121 km · ≈ 1 h 46 min

SNCF · TER Nouvelle-Aquitaine

An 1864 cross-country line over the western edge of the Massif Central, from the Paris–Toulouse main line at Saint-Sulpice-Laurière to Montluçon.

Haapamäki → Seinäjoki · 117 km · ≈ 1 h 39 min

VR · VR regional

The middle section of the old Tampere–Vaasa railway of 1882, still carrying the diesel run west from the junction at Haapamäki.

Simbach am Inn → Munich · 113 km · ≈ 1 h 30 min

DB · EuroCity

Opened on 1 May 1871 east from Munich through Markt Schwaben and Dorfen to Mühldorf and the Inn at Simbach: one of Germany's identified capacity bottlenecks.

Haapamäki → Tampere · 112 km · ≈ 1 h 27 min

VR · VR regional

Opened in 1902 north from Tampere into the lake and forest country of central Finland, meeting the Vaasa and Jyväskylä lines at Haapamäki.

Kontiomäki → Iisalmi · 106 km · ≈ 1 h 18 min

VR · InterCity

Opened in 1904 through the forests of Kainuu, the northern half of the Savonia route from Iisalmi up to the five-way junction at Kontiomäki.

Nagykanizsa → Szombathely · 101 km · ≈ 1 h 43 min

MÁV · MÁV regional

Western Hungary north to south since 1865, from the Croatian-border junction at Nagykanizsa up past Zalaegerszeg to Szombathely.

Périgueux → Limoges · 98 km · ≈ 1 h 13 min

SNCF · TER Nouvelle-Aquitaine

An 1861 line across the Limousin plateau, one stop in 99 km between the porcelain city of Limoges and Périgueux in the Dordogne.

Rēzekne → Krustpils · 95 km · ≈ 1 h 07 min

Vivi · Vivi regional

Latvian 1,524 mm track through Latgale, built as part of the Ventspils–Moscow railway and still the fast way east from the Daugava.

Komárom → Székesfehérvár · 82 km · ≈ 1 h 27 min

MÁV · MÁV regional

Single track and still unelectrified, running from the Danube crossing at Komárom south through the Vértes foothills to Székesfehérvár.

Thisted → Struer · 73 km · ≈ 1 h 25 min

GoCollective · Regional train

Denmark's north-west corner by rail: 73 km from the fjord port of Struer through Thy to Thisted, open since 1882.

Indra → Daugavpils · 69 km · ≈ 54 min

Vivi · Vivi regional

Unelectrified 1,520 mm single track south-east from Daugavpils to Indra, the only direct rail link between Latvia and Belarus.

Saintes → Angoulême · 76 km · ≈ 1 h 05 min

SNCF · TER Nouvelle-Aquitaine

Down the Charente from Angoulême toward Saintes and the Atlantic, opened in 1867 through Cognac and its cellars.

Freilassing → Mühldorf · 65 km · ≈ 58 min

Südostbayernbahn · RB 45 · Regionalbahn

The south-east Bavarian cross-link of 1908, from the Salzburg border at Freilassing over the Alz and Salzach country to Mühldorf.

Szombathely → Sopron · 62 km · ≈ 57 min

GYSEV · GYSEV regional

GYSEV's own line along the Austrian border since 1865, linking Szombathely to Sopron in the corner of Hungary that voted to stay.

Riihimäki → Lahti · 58 km · ≈ 58 min

VR · VR regional

Opened in 1869 as the first stretch of the Riihimäki–Saint Petersburg railway, and still the connection from the Helsinki main line east to Lahti.

Kotka → Kouvola · 53 km · ≈ 1 h 01 min

VR · VR regional

Opened in 1890 down the Kymi river to the Gulf of Finland, ending on the quays of the port of Kotka.

Laon → Reims · 52 km · ≈ 45 min

SNCF · TER Hauts-de-France

52 km across the Champagne vineyards and the Chemin des Dames country, from Reims to the cathedral on the hill at Laon.

Domodossola → Brig · 41 km · ≈ 32 min

SBB · EC · EuroCity

The Swiss–Italian side of the Simplon: 41 km from Brig to Domodossola, almost half of it inside the 19.8 km Simplon Tunnel of 1906.

Saintes → Royan · 37 km · ≈ 30 min

SNCF · TER Nouvelle-Aquitaine

Half an hour down the Seudre country from Saintes to the Atlantic resort of Royan, a branch open since 1875.

Csorna → Pápa · 36 km · ≈ 1 h 05 min

GYSEV · GYSEV regional

A slow 1896 branch across the Kisalföld between the junction at Csorna and the baroque town of Pápa.

Etzwilen → Winterthur · 31 km · ≈ 45 min

Thurbo · S 29

An 1875 single track north out of Winterthur through the Thur valley wine villages to Etzwilen near the Rhine.

Liège → Maastricht · 31 km · ≈ 39 min

Arriva · RE 18 · Sneltrein

Down the Meuse from Liège to Maastricht, a cross-border run open since 1861 and now worked by Arriva's Dutch regional trains.

Trebnje → Sevnica · 31 km · ≈ 45 min

Slovenske železnice · SŽ regional

Built in 1938 over the hills of Dolenjska, joining the Ljubljana–Novo mesto line at Trebnje to the Sava valley at Sevnica.

Molteno → Monza · 29 km · ≈ 56 min

Trenord · S 7

Brianza branch of 1911 climbing gently from Monza into the Lecco hills, twelve stops in twenty-nine kilometres.

Fornovo → Fidenza · 25 km · ≈ 30 min

Trenitalia · Regionale

A 1907 cut-off across the Emilian plain that lets Parma-bound freight and regional trains reach the Pontremolese line at Fornovo.

Huttwil → Wolhusen · 25 km · ≈ 29 min

BLS · S 7

Emmental single track of 1895, running from Huttwil down to the Little Emme and the junction at Wolhusen.

Magdeburg → Wittenberge · 112 km · ≈ 1 h 21 min

DB Fernverkehr · InterCity

Double track and electrified across the Altmark, opened in 1849 by the Magdeburg-Wittenberge company and among the oldest railways in Germany.

Słosinko → Człuchów · 84 km · ≈ 1 h 38 min

PolRegio · PolRegio

PKP line 413 across the Pomeranian lakes and forests, capped at 50 km/h: an hour and a half for 84 km.

Lübeck → Kiel · 80 km · ≈ 1 h 13 min

erixx · RE 83 · Regional-Express

Mostly single track and still without wires, joining the only two cities in Schleswig-Holstein with more than 100,000 people.

Haapamäki → Jyväskylä · 76 km · ≈ 1 h 12 min

VR · VR regional

Single track east from the Haapamäki junction to Jyväskylä, opened in 1897 through the lakes of central Finland.

Rostock → Bad Kleinen · 71 km · ≈ 52 min

DB Regio · RE 1 · Regional-Express

Opened in 1850 by the Mecklenburg Railway Company and now part of the electrified main line that carries Berlin and Hamburg trains to the Baltic at Rostock.

Manzanares → Ciudad Real · 64 km · ≈ 57 min

Renfe · Media Distancia

Single Iberian-gauge track across La Mancha, opened in 1861 by the MZA company and electrified today as Adif's line 522.

Augsburg → Ingolstadt · 62 km · ≈ 1 h 00 min

Bayerische Regiobahn · RB 13 · Regionalbahn

The Paartalbahn: 63 km of single unelectrified main line from Augsburg through Friedberg, Aichach and Schrobenhausen to Ingolstadt.

Saint-Étienne → Lyon · 57 km · ≈ 57 min

SNCF · TER Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

Continental Europe's first railway line, built by Marc and Camille Seguin between 1828 and 1833 to bring Loire coal down to the Rhône.

Saint-Dié-des-Vosges → Lunéville · 50 km · ≈ 45 min

SNCF · TER Grand Est

Fifty km of electrified single track up the Meurthe into the Vosges, never doubled because, unlike its neighbours, it carried no strategic traffic.

Yverdon-les-Bains → Fribourg · 49 km · ≈ 54 min

SBB · S 30

Single track across Romandy's Broye valley, crossing its sister line at Payerne on the way from Lake Neuchâtel to Fribourg.

Simrishamn → Ystad · 46 km · ≈ 43 min

Skånetrafiken · Pågatåg

Rebuilt from two closed Skåne railways and reopened in 2003, electrified and single track along the Österlen coast to Simrishamn.

Neumarkt-Sankt Veit → Landshut · 38 km · ≈ 42 min

Südostbayernbahn · RB 45 · Regionalbahn

Single track and unelectrified down the Vils valley from Neumarkt-Sankt Veit to the Isar at Landshut, open since 1883.

Ełk → Olsztyn · 165 km · ≈ 2 h 00 min

PKP Intercity · InterCity

Across Masuria through Szczytno and Pisz: the old East Prussian line from Allenstein to Lyck, still one train's ride end to end.

Turmantas → Vilnius · 147 km · ≈ 2 h 21 min

LTG Link · LTG Link regional

Part of the 1862 Saint Petersburg–Warsaw railway, running north from Vilnius past Ignalina's lakes to the Latvian border at Turmantas.

Buchholz → Hannover · 133 km · ≈ 1 h 58 min

Start Niedersachsen-Mitte · RB 38 · Regionalbahn

The Heidebahn crosses the Lüneburg Heath from Hanover to Buchholz: single track, no wires, and one of only two railways of any weight on the heath.

Amiens → Laon · 107 km · ≈ 1 h 33 min

SNCF · TER Hauts-de-France

Double track the whole way and still without wires, running east from Amiens through Tergnier to the hill town of Laon since 1857.

Marcinkonys → Vilnius · 99 km · ≈ 1 h 58 min

LTG Link · LTG Link regional

Another surviving arm of the Warsaw–Saint Petersburg railway, single track down through the Dzūkija pine forests to Marcinkonys.

Koidula → Tartu · 85 km · ≈ 1 h 42 min

Elron · Elron regional

One train a day each way in winter across Põlvamaa to the border station at Koidula; in summer the service carries on to Piusa.

Tartu → Valga · 84 km · 1 h 17 min

Elron · Stadler FLIRT

How Estonian trains reach Latvia: the Baltic Railway’s 1887 branch to Valga, built to meet the Riga line, and the Riga train still runs on it.

Lüneburg → Lübeck · 78 km · ≈ 1 h 10 min

erixx · RE 83 · Regional-Express

Single track, unelectrified, opened in sections between 1851 and 1864: one of Germany's oldest railways, from the Elbe salt town to the Baltic.

Valencia → Alicante · 179 km · ≈ 2 h 17 min

Renfe · Euromed & Intercity

The Iberian-gauge coastal alternative to the AVE: 1,668 mm single track through Xàtiva and Villena, still worked end to end by the Euromed.

Alicante → Murcia · 77 km · ≈ 54 min

Renfe · Alvia & Regional

Iberian gauge since 1884, threading the Elche palm groves and the Segura valley between two provincial capitals in under an hour.

Horb → Stuttgart · 61 km · ≈ 58 min

DB Fernverkehr · IC 87 · InterCity

The Stuttgart end of the Gäubahn, built by the Württemberg and Baden state railways and still the through road toward Zurich.

Bielsko-Biała → Kalwaria Zebrzydowska · 57 km · ≈ 1 h 34 min

PKP Intercity · InterCity

Built as the Kaiser Ferdinand Northern Railway's Bielitz–Kalwaria local line, running through Wadowice under the Beskids.

Bad Sankt Peter-Ording → Husum · 43 km · ≈ 56 min

Nordbahn · RB 64 · Regionalbahn

Out along the Eiderstedt peninsula through Tönning and Garding to the North Sea beach at Sankt Peter-Ording, on track laid in 1854.

Clisson → Cholet · 39 km · ≈ 40 min

SNCF · TER Pays de la Loire

Follows the Sèvre Nantaise east from Clisson to Cholet, 39 km of single unelectrified track joining two north–south main lines.

Münster → Rheine · 39 km · ≈ 30 min

National Express · RE 7 · Regional-Express

Double track and electrified across the Münsterland, opened by the Royal Westphalian Railway Company in 1856.

Treuchtlingen → Donauwörth · 34 km · ≈ 25 min

Arverio Bayern · RE 80 · Regional-Express

Double track over the Franconian Jura, part of the trans-European core network and of the Munich–Augsburg–Nuremberg main road.

Neckarelz → Osterburken · 31 km · ≈ 38 min

DB Regio · S 1

Opened in 1866 as part of the Baden Odenwald Railway from Heidelberg to Würzburg, now double track and electrified along the edge of the Odenwald.

Tessin → Rostock · 27 km · ≈ 30 min

DB Regio · RB 11 · Regionalbahn

What is left of the 1895 branch east of Rostock: trains still run to Tessin, while the track on to Tribsees has been lifted.

Weetzen → Haste · 25 km · ≈ 32 min

S-Bahn Hannover · S 2

The Deisterbahn of 1872 skirts the wooded Deister ridge west of Hanover, now worked as a link in the city's S-Bahn.

Burghausen → Tüßling · 25 km · ≈ 28 min

Südostbayernbahn · RB 42 · Regionalbahn

A short Bavarian branch to the Salzach and the longest castle complex in the world at Burghausen.

Vallorbe → Lausanne · 46 km · ≈ 51 min

SBB · R 3 · Regional

The climb from Lake Geneva into the Jura at Vallorbe: since 1870 the shortest rail route between Paris and Milan.

Thessaloniki → Florina · 196 km · ≈ 3 h 5 min

Hellenic Train · Hellenic Train regional

West on the 1894 Salonika–Monastir line: orchard country past Veroia, Edessa of the waterfalls, then the high lakes plateau to Florina.

Patras (Agios Andreas) → Rio · 8 km · ≈ 15 min

Hellenic Train · Stadler GTW 4500 metre-gauge railcar

Eight metre-gauge kilometres north along the Gulf of Patras to Rio, under the cables of the Rio–Antirrio bridge, on track reopened for the suburban in July 2010.

Patras (Agios Andreas) → Kato Achaia · 20 km · ≈ 35 min

Hellenic Train · Stadler GTW 4500 metre-gauge railcar

West out of Patras on the old metre-gauge Pyrgos line, running the beach villages of the Achaean coast to Kato Achaia, which got its trains back in February 2020.

Seville → Huelva · 121 km · 1 h 30 min

Renfe · Media Distancia · Intercity

The 1880 MZA line west over the Guadalquivir plain and Condado vineyards to the Atlantic at Huelva, whose neo-Mudéjar terminus has stood empty since 2019 and lost its roof to a fire in 2022.

Ballina → Manulla Junction · 33 km · ≈ 30 min

Iarnród Éireann · Class 22000 ICR shuttle

Mayo’s surviving branch: half an hour down the Moy valley from Ballina to Manulla Junction, meeting the Dublin trains on the Westport line.

Limerick → Waterford · 123 km · ≈ 2 h 30 min

Iarnród Éireann · Class 22000 ICR

Ireland’s quiet cross-country line of 1854: a change of trains at Limerick Junction, then the Suir valley through Cahir and Clonmel to Waterford.

Limerick → Ballybrophy · 92 km · ≈ 1 h 45 min

Iarnród Éireann · Class 22000 ICR

The Nenagh branch, joined up in 1864: along the Shannon past Castleconnell’s rapids, then North Tipperary farmland through Nenagh and Roscrea to the mainline junction at Ballybrophy. Two through trains a day.

Leeds → Morecambe · 113 km · ≈ 2 h 5 min

Northern · Northern Class 158

The 1850 “Little North Western” the slow way out of Airedale: Bentham’s fell country, the Lune valley at Wennington, and the sands of Morecambe Bay to finish.

Athens → Chalkida · 81 km · ≈ 1 h 25 min

Hellenic Train · Hellenic Train suburban

Athens’s other suburban artery: up the mainline past Oinoi, then the 1904 branch down to the Euripus strait at Chalkida, the gateway to Evia.

Piraeus → Athens Airport · 48 km · ≈ 1 h 10 min

Hellenic Train · Siemens Desiro (460)

Port to plane on one ticket: from Piraeus through central Athens, then east along the Attiki Odos motorway median to the airport at Spata.

Shrewsbury → Chester · 68 km · ≈ 55 min

Transport for Wales · TfW Class 197

The 1848 border line between two walled towns: over Telford’s country at Chirk and the great Cefn viaduct, down the Dee valley through Wrexham to Chester.

Almería → Granada · 176 km · ≈ 2 h 25 min

Renfe · Media Distancia

Across the high desert of the Hoya de Guadix: Almería’s palms to Granada by way of Moreda, through the badlands the spaghetti Westerns loved.

Jaén → Cádiz · 415 km · ≈ 5 h

Renfe · Media Distancia

One train across all Andalucía: olive country at Jaén, the Guadalquivir at Córdoba and Seville, sherry country at Jerez, and the Atlantic at Cádiz.

Jaén → Madrid · 378 km · ≈ 4 h

Renfe · Media Distancia

The classic climb out of Andalucía: through the Despeñaperros gorge, the old gateway pass, then straight across La Mancha to Madrid.

Seville → Zafra · 172 km · ≈ 2 h 45 min

Renfe · Media Distancia

North out of Seville into the Sierra Morena: cork oaks and mining country by Cazalla and Llerena to the junction town of Zafra.

Swansea → Milford Haven · 116 km · ≈ 2 h

Transport for Wales · TfW Class 153 · 197

The 1856 line west: Llanelli’s sands, the Tywi at Carmarthen, then deep Pembrokeshire to the haven Nelson called the finest port in Christendom.

Swansea → Pembroke Dock · 117 km · ≈ 2 h 10 min

Transport for Wales · TfW Class 153 · 197

Branch line to the sea at every turn: Tenby’s walls and beaches, Saundersfoot, and the Cleddau at Pembroke Dock.

Swansea → Fishguard Harbour · 115 km · ≈ 2 h

Transport for Wales · TfW Class 197

The boat train’s line since 1906: over the Preseli foothills to Fishguard Harbour, where the ferry sails for the Rosslare this atlas draws from the Irish side.

Cardiff → Rhymney · 37 km · ≈ 1 h

Transport for Wales · TfW Class 231 · 756 FLIRT

The Rhymney Railway’s own valley, opened to passengers in March 1858: out of Cardiff through the Caerphilly tunnel under the mountain, then Ystrad Mynach and Bargoed to the head of the valley at Rhymney.

Cardiff → Ebbw Vale Town · 47 km · ≈ 1 h

Transport for Wales · TfW Class 150 Sprinter

A coal line carrying people again: passenger trains ended in 1962, came back to Ebbw Vale Parkway in February 2008 and reached Ebbw Vale Town in May 2015, climbing the Ebbw valley off the Newport main line.

Cardiff → Maesteg · 46 km · ≈ 55 min

Transport for Wales · TfW Class 150 Sprinter

West along the South Wales main line to Bridgend, then up the Llynfi valley on Llynvi and Ogmore metals through Tondu to Maesteg. Reopened to passengers in 1992, twenty-two years after the last train.

Cardiff → Bridgend · 43 km · ≈ 1 h

Transport for Wales · TfW Class 231 FLIRT

The coast road to Bridgend: through Barry and out along the Glamorgan shore past Rhoose, where the airport is, and Llantwit Major. Passenger trains stopped in June 1964 and returned in June 2005 with two new stations.

Wrexham → Bidston · 44 km · ≈ 1 h 5 min

Transport for Wales · TfW Class 230 D-Train · 197

Wrexham to the Wirral: 1860s Wrexham, Mold and Connah’s Quay metals joined to the 1896 North Wales and Liverpool line, crossing the Dee on the Hawarden swing bridge and running on to Bidston for Liverpool.

Zurich → Munich · 332 km · 3 h 44 min

SBB · DB · SBB Astoro ETR 610

Electrified through in 2020, which cut an hour off the run: out of Zurich by Winterthur and St Gallen, over the Rhine at St Margrethen, along Lake Constance through Bregenz and Lindau, then the Allgäu to Munich.

Amsterdam → Vlissingen · 218 km · 2 h 44 min

NS · NS VIRM double-decker

The long way to the sea: Haarlem, Leiden, The Hague and Rotterdam, then over the Hollands Diep into Zeeland and along the Scheldt through Goes and Middelburg to Vlissingen, on rails finished in 1873.

Warsaw → Szczecin · 511 km · 4 h 19 min

PKP Intercity · PKP Intercity express

Warsaw to the Oder in four and a quarter hours, on the old Prussian main line west through Poznań, then Krzyż and Stargard to Szczecin, where Poland meets the German border.

Den Helder → Nijmegen · 197 km · 2 h 43 min

NS · NS VIRM double-decker

Coast to the German border in one train: from Den Helder at the tip of North Holland through Alkmaar and Amsterdam, then Utrecht, the edge of the Veluwe and Arnhem to Nijmegen on the Waal.

Zagreb → Vinkovci · 269 km · 4 h 22 min

HŽ Putnički prijevoz · HŽ regional

East across Slavonia on the old Zagreb to Belgrade main line: out through Dugo Selo, the Sava plain by Novska and Slavonski Brod, then the oak country beyond Đakovo to Vinkovci.

Porto → Guimarães · 55 km · 1 h 16 min

CP · CP UTE 3400

Metre gauge until 2004, when it was rebuilt to Iberian gauge and wired: out of Porto through Ermesinde and up the Ave valley by Trofa and Santo Tirso to Guimarães, where Portugal was founded.

Antwerp → Hasselt · 76 km · 1 h 2 min

NMBS/SNCB · NMBS/SNCB Desiro ML

An hour east from the Scheldt to the Demer: out of Antwerp through Lier, then Heist-op-den-Berg and Diest across the Campine to Hasselt, on rails joined up in the 1860s.

Oslo → Ski · 24 km · 31 min

Vy · Stadler Flirt Type 75

The original 1879 Østfold line out of Oslo, hugging the fjord shore through Nordstrand and Ljan before climbing the ridge to Ski, now the all stations companion to the Blix tunnel bored beneath it.

Oslo → Rakkestad · 76 km · 1 h 15 min

Vy · Stadler Flirt Type 75

Norway’s 1882 eastern line: through the Blix tunnel to Ski in eleven minutes, then out across the grain fields and timber towns of indre Østfold, calling at Askim and Mysen on the way to Rakkestad.

Porsgrunn → Notodden · 63 km · 1 h

Vy · Stadler Flirt Type 75

Built in 1917 to carry Norsk Hydro’s fertiliser from the Notodden works to the sea, the Bratsberg line climbs from the Telemark canal towns past Skien and crosses the Sørland main line at Nordagutu.

Prague → Trutnov · 183 km · ≈ 3 h 6 min

České dráhy · ČD rychlík

Rychlík from Prague across the Elbe lowlands to Hradec Králové, then up the foothills to Trutnov beneath the Krkonoše mountains.

Brno → Ostrava · 166 km · ≈ 2 h 24 min

RegioJet · RegioJet InterCity

RegioJet’s yellow trains on the R8: through the Moravian Gate via Přerov, on rails the Nordbahn laid toward Bohumín in 1847.

Warsaw → Lublin · 175 km · ≈ 1 h 54 min

PKP Intercity · PKP Intercity

The 1877 Vistula River Railroad east from Warsaw, rebuilt for 160 km/h: under two hours to Lublin’s renaissance old town.

Warsaw → Olsztyn · 231 km · ≈ 2 h 19 min

PKP Intercity · PKP Intercity

Off the Gdańsk main line at Działdowo, then through the wooded lake country via Nidzica and Olsztynek into Olsztyn, gateway to Masuria.

Warsaw → Bydgoszcz · 286 km · ≈ 2 h 34 min

PKP Intercity · PKP Intercity

The 1862 Warsaw–Bydgoszcz Railway via the brick-gothic city of Toruń, Copernicus’s birthplace, to the Brda riverside.

Wrocław → Szczecin · 355 km · ≈ 4 h 8 min

PKP Intercity · PKP Intercity

The Nadodrzanka: down the Oder valley through Głogów and Zielona Góra, the quiet 1870s corridor between Silesia and the Baltic.

Bratislava → Banská Bystrica · 229 km · ≈ 3 h 34 min

ZSSK · ZSSK rychlík

Named for the hill above Banská Bystrica: the southern rychlík route via Levice and Zvolen into the heart of central Slovakia.

Vienna → Venice · 612 km · ≈ 7 h 10 min

ÖBB · ÖBB railjet

One seat Vienna to Venice: over the Semmering, through the new Koralm tunnel to Klagenfurt and Villach, then the 1879 Pontebbana across the Julian Alps.

Vienna → Ljubljana · 428 km · ≈ 6 h

ÖBB · SŽ · ÖBB EuroCity

The EuroCity to Slovenia on the 1857 Southern Railway: over the Semmering to Graz, the Drava at Maribor, then the Sava valley into Ljubljana.

Cologne → Norddeich · 376 km · ≈ 4 h 32 min

DB Fernverkehr · DB Intercity

DB’s seaside Intercity: down the Rhine-Ruhr, through Münster and the Emsland flats to the North Sea pier at Norddeich Mole.

Prague → Brno · 259 km · ≈ 3 h 38 min

České dráhy · ČD rychlík

The slow way to Brno: the 1953-completed Vysočina highland line via Havlíčkův Brod and Žďár, the second main line between the two cities.

Košice → Humenné · 97 km · ≈ 1 h 27 min

ZSSK · ZSSK REX

Eastern Slovakia’s REX corridor via Trebišov toward the Vihorlat hills; the Humenné sleeper from Prague finishes on the same rails.

Frankfurt → Dresden · 492 km · ≈ 4 h 24 min

DB Fernverkehr · DB ICE T

The Saxony ICE: Fulda’s wooded hills, Luther’s Eisenach and Erfurt, the 2015 high-speed line into Leipzig, then the Elbe plain to Dresden.

Karlsruhe → Nuremberg · 295 km · ≈ 3 h 10 min

DB Fernverkehr · DB Intercity

The cross-country IC via the 1861 Remsbahn: Stuttgart, the Rems valley vineyards, then Aalen and Crailsheim’s hills to Nuremberg.

Poznań → Gdynia · 332 km · ≈ 3 h 13 min

PKP Intercity · PKP Intercity

Across Wielkopolska and Pomerania: Gniezno’s cathedral hill, Bydgoszcz, then the Vistula crossing at Tczew and the Tri-City coast to Gdynia.

Braunschweig → Uelzen · 97 km · ≈ 1 h 46 min

erixx · erixx RB47

The emigrants’ road: Braunschweig via Gifhorn to Uelzen, on to the America ships at Bremen and Hamburg; single track since the war, never wired, famously Germany’s most delayed line.

Hamburg → Binz · 332 km · ≈ 3 h 45 min

DB Fernverkehr · ICE T

The Rügen through train: out of Hamburg past Schwerin and Rostock to Stralsund, over the Rügendamm and on to the chalk coast at Binz.

Dortmund → Oberstdorf · 717 km · ≈ 8 h 25 min

DB Fernverkehr · ICE L

The Ruhr to the Allgäu in one train: Dortmund, the Rhine gorge past the Lorelei, Mannheim and Ulm, then up the Iller valley to Oberstdorf under the Alps.

Gera → Düsseldorf · 532 km · ≈ 6 h 05 min

DB Fernverkehr · DB IC coaches

East Thuringia to the Rhine: Gera and Jena, Erfurt and Eisenach under the Wartburg, then Kassel, the Ruhr and Düsseldorf.

Leipzig → Norddeich Mole · 547 km · ≈ 6 h 40 min

DB Fernverkehr · DB IC coaches

Saxony to the North Sea ferry pier: Leipzig, Magdeburg and Hannover, then Bremen and the East Frisian flats to the quayside at Norddeich Mole.

Leipzig → Warnemünde · 416 km · ≈ 4 h 32 min

DB Fernverkehr · DB IC coaches

Leipzig to the Baltic beach: Halle and Magdeburg, the Stendal cut-off and Schwerin, then Rostock and out to the pier at Warnemünde.

Folkestone → Calais · 58 km · ≈ 35 min

Getlink · Class 9 locomotives · vehicle wagons

Drive on at Folkestone, drive off at Calais: thirty five minutes under the Channel on the shuttle that carries the cars, and the only fixed link between Britain and the continent.

Klosters → Sagliains · 19 km · ≈ 19 min

Rhätische Bahn · RhB car-carrying wagons

Metre gauge under the Silvretta: cars loaded at Selfranga near Klosters and carried through the 19 km Vereina tunnel to the Engadine, open when the Flüela pass is shut.

Böckstein → Mallnitz-Obervellach · 12 km · ≈ 12 min

ÖBB · ÖBB car-carrying wagons

Salzburg to Carinthia without the pass: the car shuttle through the 1909 Tauern tunnel, hourly under the Alpine main ridge from Böckstein to Mallnitz.

Berlin → Przemyśl · 864 km · ≈ 11 h

DB · PKP Intercity · PKP Intercity coaches

The EuroCity across Poland: Berlin and the Oder, Wrocław and Opole, the Silesian cities and Kraków, then on east to Przemyśl at the Ukrainian border.

De Panne → Ghent · 85 km · 1 h 14 min

SNCB · SNCB Intercity

West Flanders end to end: out of the dunes at De Panne past Veurne and Diksmuide, then Tielt and Deinze to Ghent, on the line that finally reached the coast in 1870.

Antwerp → Hamont · 86 km · 1 h 30 min

SNCB · SNCB Intercity

East across the Campine heath from Antwerp, through Lier, Herentals, Geel and Mol to Hamont in the far corner of Limburg, on rails completed in 1879.

Antwerp → Ghent · 64 km · 56 min

SNCB · SNCB Intercity

Flanders’ two great cities in an hour, straight through the Waasland at Sint-Niklaas and Lokeren, on a line that reached Ghent in 1847 but Antwerp’s own stations only in 1970, through the Kennedy tunnel under the Scheldt.

Brussels Airport → Ostend · 175 km · 2 h 50 min

SNCB · SNCB Intercity

The long way to the sea: from the airport out to Denderleeuw, then Oudenaarde, Kortrijk and Roeselare through the Flemish Ardennes before Bruges and Ostend.

Antwerp → Charleroi · 102 km · 1 h 43 min

SNCB · SNCB Intercity

Down the oldest railway on the Continent, Brussels to Mechelen in 1835, then the 1843 line south past Nivelles into the Sambre coalfield at Charleroi.

Liège → Namur · 59 km · 46 min

SNCB · SNCB Intercity

Forty-six minutes down the Meuse, Liège to Namur under the cliffs and citadels of the valley, on the line the Namur to Liège company opened along the riverbank in 1850.

Warsaw → Terespol · 212 km · 2 h 11 min

PKP Intercity · PKP Intercity

Warsaw east to the Bug on the 1866 Terespol railway, the third line built in Congress Poland, running through Siedlce and Biała Podlaska to the Belarusian frontier.

Piła → Szczecin · 173 km · 3 h 5 min

Polregio · Polregio regional

Across Pomerania on a railway the Prussians finished in 1895 and Poland gave up on in 2000: through trains came back to Wałcz and Choszczno in 2012, five pairs a day.

Szczecin → Świnoujście · 112 km · 1 h 38 min

Polregio · Polregio regional

Szczecin to the Baltic across Wolin island, over the Dziwna and through Międzyzdroje to the ferry berths at Świnoujście, on rails that reached the Świna in 1900.

Olsztyn → Elbląg · 97 km · 1 h 28 min

PKP Intercity · PKP Intercity

Warmia end to end, Olsztyn through Morąg to Elbląg and the Vistula Lagoon, on a line that reached Olsztyn from Bogaczewo in August 1883.

Inowrocław → Olsztyn · 197 km · 2 h 16 min

Polregio · Polregio regional

Kuyavia to Masuria across the Vistula at Toruń, then Iława and Ostróda to Olsztyn, on the Prussian trunk that joined Poznań to East Prussia in 1873.

Sierpc → Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki · 107 km · 1 h 29 min

Koleje Mazowieckie · Koleje Mazowieckie

A Mazovian branch line: Sierpc down the Wkra valley to Nasielsk, then Modlin and Nowy Dwór, on a First World War military narrow gauge regauged and opened properly in 1924.

Lublin → Zamość · 116 km · 2 h 3 min

Polregio · Polregio regional

Lublin south east to Zamość and its Renaissance old town, through Rejowiec and the Wieprz valley, on the section of the Rejowiec to Hrebenne line opened in 1916.

Dęblin → Łuków · 61 km · 51 min

Polregio · Polregio regional

Dęblin to Łuków across the Lublin plain, on rails that took sixty years to join up: Łuków reached Stawy in 1876 and the last stretch into Dęblin waited until 1935.

Kutno → Płock · 52 km · 44 min

Koleje Mazowieckie · Koleje Mazowieckie

Kutno north to Płock and the Vistula, on a line opened on the last day of 1925, the bridge over the river into the city following in 1938.

Dresden → Hof · 222 km · 2 h 49 min

Mitteldeutsche Regiobahn · RE 3

Saxony corner to corner: out of Dresden up the Tharandt ramp, then Freiberg, Chemnitz, Zwickau and the Vogtland to Hof, on a chain of lines the Freiberg link joined up in 1869.

Chemnitz → Leipzig · 80 km · 1 h 2 min

Mitteldeutsche Regiobahn · RE 6

An hour between Saxony’s two biggest cities, Chemnitz to Leipzig by way of Geithain and Borna, on a line opened in April 1872.

Chemnitz → Elsterwerda · 89 km · 1 h 30 min

Mitteldeutsche Regiobahn · RB 45

North out of Chemnitz down the Zschopau valley to Döbeln and Riesa on the Elbe, then on to Elsterwerda, joining a railway of 1852 to one of 1875.

Zwickau → Kraslice · 73 km · 1 h 45 min

Vogtlandbahn · RB 1

Out of the Zwickau coalfield into the Vogtland hills and over the Czech border above Klingenthal to Kraslice, on rails a coal railway company opened in November 1875.

Gammertingen → Schelklingen · 62 km · 1 h 55 min

Schwäbische Alb-Bahn · RB 59

Across the Swabian Alb at sixty kilometres an hour: Gammertingen to Engstingen and Münsingen, then down to Schelklingen and the Danube, on branch lines opened in 1901.

Madrid → Ávila · 130 km · 2 h 25 min

Renfe · Renfe Media Distancia

Out of Madrid past El Escorial and over the Guadarrama to Ávila and its complete medieval walls, on the main line to the French border built between 1860 and 1864.

Oradea → Püspökladány · 68 km · 1 h 32 min

CFR Călători · CFR Călători regional

Over the Hungarian border on rails the Tisza Railway Company put into service on 22 April 1858, still the way out of Oradea onto the Great Plain at Püspökladány.

Karjaa → Hanko · 49 km · 40 min

VR · VR commuter

Finland’s first private railway, opened in 1873 and paid for by St Petersburg merchants who wanted an ice free winter port: forty minutes down the branch from Karjaa to Hanko.

Liberec → Dresden · 131 km · 2 h 4 min

Die Länderbahn · RE 2 trilex

Bohemia into Saxony on the Lusatian branches: Liberec down the Neisse to Zittau, then Ebersbach and Bischofswerda, on a chain the Oberoderwitz link completed in October 1879.

Lienz → Villach · 104 km · 1 h 38 min

ÖBB · ÖBB Talent · Cityjet

Down the Drau from East Tyrol into Carinthia, Lienz past Oberdrauburg and Spittal to Villach, on the original Drautalbahn of 20 November 1871: an S-Bahn since 2015, renumbered S6 in December 2025.

Villach → Hermagor · 48 km · 1 h

ÖBB · ÖBB Talent · Cityjet

South out of Villach to Arnoldstein, then west up the Gail valley to Hermagor, on a branch opened on 11 August 1894 and ridden by 310 people on its first train.

Pitești → Craiova · 142 km · 2 h 50 min

CFR Călători · CFR Călători regional

Opened on 9 May 1878, six years after the line from Bucharest had reached Pitești, and still an unelectrified single track running west across the Olt to Craiova.

Varna → Shumen · 107 km · 1 h 51 min

BDŽ · BDŽ regional

The last 24 km into Shumen opened on 20 June 1895; everything east of Kaspichan is the first railway built in what is now Bulgaria, the Ruse to Varna line of 1866.

Zaječar → Niš · 111 km · 2 h 48 min

Srbija Voz · Srbija Voz regional

The Timok valley line, finished in 1922 by Russian emigre labour through nineteen tunnels in the Svrljig gorge, and still the only rail link between Niš and the eastern border country.

Chop → Košice · 103 km · 3 h 19 min

Železničná spoločnosť Slovensko · ZSSK regional

The daily crossing out of Transcarpathia into the European gauge, over the Tisza at Cierna nad Tisou on a line whose last section opened on 22 October 1873.

Kraljevo → Rudnica · 77 km · 2 h 1 min

Srbija Voz · Srbija Voz regional

Up the Ibar valley past Mataruska Banja and Josanicka Banja, on rails completed in 1931 to carry ore north out of the Ibar mines, and the only atlas line for a hundred kilometres in any direction.

London Marylebone → Birmingham Snow Hill · 179 km · 2 h 5 min

Chiltern Railways · Class 168 Clubman

The other main line from London to Birmingham: finished in 1910, when the Bicester cut-off shortened it by thirty kilometres and let the Great Western match its rival on two hours.

Brighton → Portsmouth Harbour · 73 km · 1 h 38 min

Southern · Southern Class 377 Electrostar

Five companies built this coast road in rails between 1840 and 1889; the last of it runs out over the water on piles into Portsmouth Harbour, opened on 2 October 1876.

Hatvan → Somoskőújfalu · 64 km · 1 h 32 min

MÁV SZESZA · R 5827

Coal from Salgótarján is why it exists: Hatvan to the pits opened on 9 May 1867, and the single track on through Somoskőújfalu to Losonc followed in 1871.

Děčín → Liberec · 90 km · 2 h 7 min

Die Länderbahn · TL L2

Four companies laid it in pieces from 1869 onwards; the last link opened on 16 September 1900, climbing to Liberec through five tunnels and over the 30 m viaduct at Novina.

Monforte de Lemos → A Coruña · 184 km · 2 h 38 min

Renfe · IR 12641

For seventy years the only railway between Galicia and the meseta: Lugo to A Coruña opened on 10 October 1875, and the last stretch east of Monforte on 4 September 1883.

Baja → Kiskunhalas · 76 km · 1 h 6 min

MÁV SZESZA · IR 7802

Trianon cut two branch lines in half and Hungary joined the stumps: the Baja end opened on 8 January 1885, the Kiskunhalas end on 31 October 1903.

Skövde → Nässjö · 142 km · 1 h 44 min

SJ · R 7209

The Jönköpingsbanan was the Southern main line’s own way north, finished on 1 December 1864; ten years later a shorter line through Katrineholm took its traffic away.

Sierpc → Toruń · 80 km · 1 h 41 min

Arriva RP · Arriva regional

One of the last railways the Second Republic built: eighty kilometres laid between 1935 and 1937, and the Drwęca bridge at Lubicz was the first in Poland to carry welded girders.

Varna → Burgas · 212 km · 4 h 30 min

BDŽ · R 30150

Begun in 1916, abandoned, and finished in the war: Karnobat to Komunari opened in 1942 and the last stretch down the Kamchia valley in 1943, joining Bulgaria’s two Black Sea cities directly.

Valladolid → Puebla de Sanabria · 238 km · 2 h 58 min

Renfe · R 18322

Thirty years of building, some of it by Republican prisoners at forced labour: the climb from Zamora to Puebla de Sanabria opened on 23 September 1952.

Fossano → San Giuseppe di Cairo · 63 km · 1 h 7 min

Trenitalia · R 11113

The 1874 road to Savona ran the long way round through Bra; this double track shortcut by way of Mondovì and Ceva replaced it in 1933.

Békéscsaba → Salonta · 49 km · 1 h 8 min

MÁV-START · R 37630

The Alföld to Fiume company opened it on 14 September 1871 and then went broke; Trianon cut the line in two, but nobody lifted the rails and the crossing still works.

Évora → Beja · 89 km · 1 h 17 min

Comboios de Portugal · IC 682

Two railways of the 1860s meet at Casa Branca: the branch up to Évora opened on 14 September 1863, and the main line reached Beja on 15 February 1864.

Wels → Grünau im Almtal · 42 km · 1 h 5 min

ÖBB-Personenverkehr AG · R 53

Wels built it to keep the Almtal from Lambach: the branch from Sattledt opened in 1901, owned by a local company until 1942 and run by the state railway from the first day.

Neusiedl am See → Fertőszentmiklós · 49 km · 47 min

GYSEV · REX 63

It opened on 19 December 1897 with all 109 km of it inside Hungary; Trianon moved the northern part into Austria in 1921, and trains have crossed the border at Pamhagen ever since.

Biella → Novara · 51 km · 1 h 4 min

Trenitalia · R 11607

Mussolini opened it on 18 May 1939 and no train ran for fourteen months, because the rolling stock was not ready; promised electric in 1925, it never was, and the state took it over in 1961.

Casale Monferrato → Chivasso · 48 km · 1 h 1 min

Trenitalia · R 11152

A third class line under the Baccarini law of 1879, built to reach the Monferrato from the main line at Chivasso: the stretch from Castelrosso to Casale Popolo opened on 30 April 1887.

Hässleholm → Markaryd · 37 km · 26 min

Arriva · 1902

The Southern main line nearly came this way in the 1850s and went east instead; two small companies built it anyway, Hässleholm to Vittsjö in 1890 and on to Markaryd in 1892.

Balassagyarmat → Vác · 68 km · 2 h 5 min

MÁV-Start · R 32249

Two railways meet at Drégelypalánk: the Ipoly valley line reached Balassagyarmat on 15 August 1891, and the line south through the Börzsöny to Vác carried its first train on 11 July 1909.

Schärding → Attnang-Puchheim · 66 km · 1 h 21 min

ÖBB · R 71

The northern half of the Salzkammergutbahn, opened on 23 October 1877 by the Crown Prince Rudolf company to bring Hausruck coal down to the salt pans of Ebensee and Ischl.

Simbach am Inn → Neumarkt-Kallham · 60 km · 1 h 1 min

ÖBB · R 51

Neumarkt-Kallham to Braunau opened on 20 December 1870 and the bridge over the Inn to Simbach on 1 June 1871; from 1883 to 1897 the Orient Express took this way between Vienna and Munich.

Peuerbach → Eferding · 25 km · 42 min

Stern & Hafferl · R 8010

Electric from the start: Waizenkirchen to Peuerbach opened in 1908, the link on to Eferding and Linz on 16 December 1912, and Stern & Hafferl have run it since 1 January 1913.

Wien Franz-Josefs-Bahnhof → St. Andrä-Wördern · 22 km · 29 min

ÖBB · S 40

The first 22 km of the line to Gmünd and Prague: the Vienna end opened in 1870, once the delayed stretch in from Eggenburg was finished, and ran as part of the Stadtbahn from 1898 to 1925.

Ulzburg Süd → Elmshorn · 27 km · 37 min

AKN · A3

Elmshorn to Barmstedt opened as a light railway on 15 July 1896; the Barmstedt to Oldesloe company carried it on to Ulzburg on 9 June 1907, and the AKN has run it since 1981.

Biel/Bienne → Bern · 34 km · 29 min

BLS · S 31

Bern to Zollikofen opened on 16 June 1857 as part of the Centralbahn line to Olten; the Bernese state railway carried it on over Lyss to Biel in 1864.

Holbæk → Nykøbing Sjælland · 49 km · 53 min

Lokaltog · R 510R

Point one of the great railway act of 1894: Holbæk county took the concession on 6 May 1896, and the line up the peninsula to Nykøbing opened on 18 May 1899.

Køge → Faxe Ladeplads · 30 km · 32 min

Lokaltog · R 110R

The East Zealand line began service on 1 July 1879, Køge through Hårlev to the sea at Faxe Ladeplads; the trains from Køge still divide at Hårlev, one half for the coast and the other for Rødvig.

Hillerød → Gilleleje · 26 km · 31 min

Lokaltog · R 950R

Built in 1880 to carry timber out of the Gribskov forest as far as Græsted; the line reached the sea at Gilleleje on 14 May 1896, and its passengers have called it the Pig ever since.

Parikkala → Savonlinna · 32 km · 32 min

VR · R 741

The Savonlinna line was built from Elisenvaara on the Karelian railway: Punkaharju was reached in November 1906 and the whole line on 1 February 1908; the junction it started from is now in Russia.

Linköping → Västervik · 115 km · 1 h 38 min

SJ · Krösatågen

Västervik to Åtvidaberg was laid in 1879 as an 891 mm narrow gauge line; the link to Bjärka-Säby in 1906 joined it to Linköping, and the whole of it was widened to standard gauge in 1964.

Laskowice Pomorskie → Czersk · 55 km · 1 h

Arriva · Arriva regional

A Prussian act of 20 July 1902 ordered it, and the 55 km from Laskowice to Czersk opened on 2 October 1906; the stretch beyond to Bąk came in 1928 to feed the building of the coal trunk line.

Czersk → Tuchola · 53 km · 1 h 14 min

Arriva · Arriva regional

A piece of the coal trunk line built to reach the new port at Gdynia without crossing the Free City of Danzig: the whole Bydgoszcz to Gdynia stretch opened on 9 November 1930.

Catania → Caltagirone · 88 km · 1 h 53 min

Trenitalia · R 21903

Valsavoia to Scordia opened in November 1889 and the whole climb to Caltagirone on 31 October 1892; the 1979 extension to Gela has been shut since a viaduct collapsed, reopening promised for 2026.

Prievidza → Bratislava · 156 km · 2 h 44 min

ZSSK · R 742

Down the Nitra valley on the StEG line of 1876 to 1896 and across to the Váh at Leopoldov on the link of 1898 that first gave Prievidza a fast train to Bratislava.

Zaragoza → Barcelona · 346 km · 6 h 3 min

Renfe · R 17050

MZA’s second way from Zaragoza to the sea, built to cut out Lleida: Reus to Móra opened in 1891, Caspe was reached in 1893, the line was complete in 1894 and carried its first trains in 1895.

Tulcea → Medgidia · 143 km · 3 h 14 min

CFR Călători · R 8654

Begun in 1911, stopped by the war, opened to Babadag on 1 October 1925 and finished on 25 March 1938, when Tulcea, the last county town in Romania without a railway, got its first train.

České Budějovice → Brno · 233 km · 4 h 12 min

České dráhy · R 653

Three railways end to end: the Franz Josef line to Veselí from 1871, the Bohemian transversal on to Jihlava from 1887, and the line through Třebíč to Brno, whose middle section opened in June 1886.

Strakonice → Tábor · 81 km · 1 h 30 min

České dráhy · ČD Sp 2065

Opened in 1889 across South Bohemia: out of the Otava valley at Strakonice, through Písek, over the Vltava at Červená and past the stone viaducts above Milevsko to Tábor.

Târgu Jiu → Craiova · 106 km · 2 h 54 min

CFR Călători · R 2080

Filiași to Craiova is the 1878 line; the branch up the Jiu opened in two pieces in 1888, to Cărbunești and then to Târgu Jiu, which stayed the end of the railway for another 27 years.

Palermo Centrale → Trapani · 193 km · 3 h 8 min

Trenitalia · R 21871

The long way round the west of Sicily, by Castelvetrano, Mazara and Marsala: the through line was finished on 5 June 1881, and since the short route by Milo closed in 2013 it is the only one.

Maubeuge → Charleroi · 40 km · 56 min

SNCB · R 19809

Charleroi to the French frontier at Erquelinnes opened on 6 November 1852, and the Nord company’s line from Saint-Quentin met it there on 11 August 1855, on the old main road from Paris to Brussels.

Shoeburyness → London Fenchurch Street · 63 km · 1 h 7 min

c2c · Class 357 Electrostar

The Tilbury company reached Shoeburyness in 1884 and finished its direct line through Upminster to a re-sited Pitsea in 1886, the way the stopping trains from the sea to Fenchurch Street run today.

London Marylebone → Aylesbury Vale Parkway · 64 km · 1 h 7 min

Chiltern Railways · Class 168 Clubman

Marylebone opened on 15 March 1899, the last main line terminus London built for a century; the train runs out over the old Metropolitan and Great Central road to a station opened on 14 December 2008.

Helsingør → Gilleleje · 24 km · 49 min

Lokaltog · Lokaltog 940R

North Zealand’s coast line: Elsinore out past the Øresund bathing towns to Hornbæk from 1906, and on to Gilleleje from July 1916.

Køge → Rødvig · 30 km · 36 min

Lokaltog · Lokaltog 210R

Every station on it was drawn by Heinrich Wenck: the East Zealand line of 1879 across Stevns to the chalk cliffs at Rødvig, rebuilt and reopened in October 2024.

Hillerød → Tisvildeleje · 25 km · 35 min

Lokaltog · Lokaltog 960R

The Gribskovbanen’s western arm: built in 1880 to bring timber out of the Gribskov forest, on to Helsinge in 1897 and to the Kattegat dunes at Tisvildeleje in 1924.

Rotterdam → Utrecht · 56 km · 37 min

Nederlandse Spoorwegen · IC 2800

The Rhenish Railway Company built it between 1855 and 1858; after the Maas station was bombed out of Rotterdam in 1940 the city end was rebuilt on an embankment and reopened in 1953.

Biella → Santhià · 27 km · 26 min

Trenitalia · R 11704

Inaugurated on 8 September 1856 with the public works minister aboard the special from Turin: 27 km down from the Biellese wool towns to the Turin–Milan main line at Santhià.

Stratford-upon-Avon → Leamington Spa · 24 km · 35 min

Chiltern Railways · Chiltern Railways

The Stratford-on-Avon Railway opened its branch from Hatton on 9 October 1860; Chiltern trains still use it to reach Shakespeare’s town off the Birmingham–Oxford main line.

Charleroi → Leuven · 65 km · 1 h 2 min

SNCB · IC-24

The Louvain-to-Charleroi company opened its whole route in 1855, Leuven to Wavre in February and the last stretch into the Sambre coalfield that August; the IC-24 still runs it end to end.

Hoofddorp → Hoorn Kersenboogerd · 59 km · 59 min

Nederlandse Spoorwegen · Sprinter 4100

Schiphol and Amsterdam at one end, then the Hollandsche IJzeren’s branch of 1884 north through Purmerend into West Friesland, extended past Hoorn in 1885.

Forst (Lausitz) → Wrocław · 189 km · 2 h 59 min

Koleje Dolnośląskie · D25 Sprinter

Most of the old Breslau–Berlin trunk, in its 1875 alignment through Żagań: a single Lower Silesian sprinter crosses the Nysa at Zasieki and runs 189 km to Wrocław.

Leipzig → Wrocław · 352 km · 3 h 35 min

DB Fernverkehr · PKP Intercity · EC 133

Named for the medieval road it shadows: the EuroCity takes the Oberlausitz company’s line of 1874 and crosses at Horka, a border that carried no scheduled passenger trains for decades.

Šilutė → Kretinga · 72 km · 1 h 29 min

LTG Link · R 504

The old Tilsit–Memel line of 1875 along the edge of the Nemunas delta, joined at Klaipėda to the German military railway of 1915 up to Kretinga; trains came back to the Šilutė stretch in 2018.

Banja Luka → Doboj · 90 km · 2 h 6 min

Željeznice Republike Srpske · ŽRS regional train

One of the last lines built by Yugoslavia’s youth work brigades, opened in 1951, from Banja Luka up the Vrbanja valley to Doboj. Rebuilt for 120 km/h in 2018; a daily train since December 2025.

Nuoro → Macomer · 57 km · ≈ 1 h 30 min

ARST · ARST narrow-gauge railcar

Nuoro’s only railway: the narrow-gauge line reached the town in February 1889, and ARST railcars still run down it to the main line at Macomer several times each weekday.

Dobrich → Varna · 90 km · 1 h 45 min

BDŽ · BDŽ regional

Built to carry Dobruja’s harvest to the sea: the branch from Devnya reached Dobrich in 1910, and five BDŽ trains a day still link the town with the port of Varna.

Lublin → Wrocław · 492 km · 5 h 38 min

PKP Intercity · PKP Intercity

Lublin to Wrocław the long way round, through Radom, Kielce and Częstochowa, then west across Silesia to Opole and the Oder; the Częstochowa to Kielce link, opened in 1911, was the last piece of the route.

Kraków → Hrubieszów · 367 km · 5 h 17 min

PKP Intercity · PKP Intercity

Kraków to Hrubieszów near the Ukrainian border, by Tarnów, Mielec and Stalowa Wola, then east through Biłgoraj and Zwierzyniec to Zamość and its Renaissance old town; the line from Stalowa Wola to Biłgoraj was only completed in 1976.

Poperinge → Antwerp · 149 km · 2 h 16 min

SNCB · IC-04

From Poperinge’s hop fields through Ypres, then along the French border by Wervik and Menen to Kortrijk, Ghent and Antwerp; the last link, the rail tunnel under the Scheldt, opened in 1970.

Catania → Palermo · 239 km · 2 h 57 min

Trenitalia · Regionale Veloce

Across the middle of Sicily from Catania, up by Enna and the old sulphur country of Caltanissetta and down to the Tyrrhenian coast at Palermo; the line was complete only when the Marianopoli tunnel opened in 1885.

Erfurt → Würzburg · 199 km · 2 h 20 min

DB Regio · RE 7

From Erfurt over the Thuringian Forest through the 3 km Brandleite tunnel under the Rennsteig, down by Suhl and Grimmenthal into Franconia and on by Schweinfurt to Würzburg; the climb and the tunnel opened in 1884.

Carlisle → Glasgow · 185 km · 2 h 28 min

ScotRail · ScotRail

The other line from Carlisle to Glasgow: over the border at Gretna, by Annan and Dumfries, up Nithsdale to Kilmarnock, and in by Barrhead on the joint line opened in 1873.

Vienna → České Velenice · 163 km · 2 h 21 min

ÖBB · REX 41

Vienna’s line to the Waldviertel: from the Franz-Josefs-Bahnhof along the Danube to Tulln, up by Eggenburg and across the forest plateau to Gmünd and over the Czech border to České Velenice; the Vienna end opened in 1870.

London → Exeter · 276 km · 3 h 56 min

South Western Railway · South Western Railway

The other way to Exeter: from Waterloo by Woking and Basingstoke, then west by Andover, Salisbury, Sherborne and Yeovil Junction, much of it on single track, to Exeter Central and down to St Davids, reached in 1862.

Stranraer → Kilmarnock · 120 km · 1 h 49 min

ScotRail · ScotRail

From Stranraer on Loch Ryan over the moors by Barrhill, the only station left between there and Girvan, then along the Firth of Clyde by Ayr and Troon to Kilmarnock; the line through the hills opened in 1877.

Padua → Belluno · 111 km · 2 h 8 min

Trenitalia · Regionale

From Padua across the Venetian plain by Castelfranco and Montebelluna into the Piave valley at Feltre and on to Belluno beneath the Dolomites; the line that gave Belluno its railway opened on 10 November 1886.

Saarbrücken → Frankfurt · 205 km · 3 h

vlexx · RE 3

From Saarbrücken by Neunkirchen and St. Wendel down the Nahe valley past Idar-Oberstein and Kirn to Bad Kreuznach, then along the Rhine to Mainz and over to Frankfurt; the Nahe valley railway was complete in 1860.

Hull → Scarborough · 86 km · 1 h 30 min

Northern · Northern

From Hull by Beverley and Driffield to Bridlington, then along the Yorkshire coast by Filey to Scarborough; the last link, from Bridlington to Filey, opened on 20 October 1847.

London → Hastings · 100 km · 1 h 48 min

Southeastern · Southeastern

From Charing Cross through the North Downs by the Sevenoaks tunnel to Tonbridge, then over the High Weald by Tunbridge Wells and Battle to the sea at Hastings; London trains have run this way since the Sevenoaks line opened in 1868.

Limoges → Ussel · 111 km · 1 h 52 min

SNCF · TER Nouvelle-Aquitaine

From Limoges up the Vienne valley by Eymoutiers onto the Plateau de Millevaches, the high moorland of the Limousin, and down by Meymac to Ussel; the stretch from Eymoutiers to Meymac, opened on 8 October 1883, completed the line.

Cuxhaven → Hamburg · 115 km · 1 h 47 min

start Unterelbe · RE 5

Along the lower Elbe from the North Sea port of Cuxhaven by Otterndorf, Stade and Buxtehude to Harburg and over the river into Hamburg; the railway reached Cuxhaven in 1881.

Svendborg → Odense · 48 km · 43 min

DSB · Regionaltog

Across Funen from Svendborg, the harbour for the ferries to Ærø and the small islands of the South Funen archipelago, by Kværndrup and Ringe to Odense; the line opened in July 1876.

Hereford → London · 240 km · 3 h 2 min

Great Western Railway · GWR Class 800

Hereford under the Malvern Hills to Worcester, then along the Cotswold Line by Evesham and Charlbury to Oxford and Paddington; the final stretch, through Colwall Tunnel, opened in 1861.

Ely → London · 113 km · ≈ 1 h 50 min

Greater Anglia · Greater Anglia Class 720

From Ely through Cambridge and down the Lea Valley by Bishop’s Stortford, Broxbourne and Tottenham Hale; the line reached Ely in 1845 and its trains have run into Liverpool Street since 1874.

London → King’s Lynn · 160 km · 1 h 45 min

Great Northern · Great Northern Class 387

From King’s Cross over the Cambridge line, complete in 1852, to Cambridge, then north across the fens by Ely, Downham Market and Watlington to King’s Lynn.

Blackpool → York · 168 km · 2 h 38 min

Northern · Northern

From Blackpool across Lancashire by Preston and Blackburn, over the Pennines through Burnley, Hebden Bridge and Halifax, reversing at Bradford Interchange on the way to Leeds and York.

Ostend → Eupen · 261 km · ≈ 3 h

SNCB · IC 01

From the coast to the German-speaking east in one train: Ostend, Bruges and Ghent, the three Brussels stations, Leuven and Liège, then up the Vesdre valley by Verviers to Eupen.

Esbjerg → Tønder · 80 km · 1 h 27 min

GoCollective · Regional train

From Esbjerg by Bramming to Ribe, Denmark’s oldest town, and on across the marsh to Tønder; the line south of Ribe was opened from the German side in 1887, when the border lay just beyond the town.

Nørre Nebel → Esbjerg · 55 km · 1 h 7 min

GoCollective · Regional train

The Nebelbanen, a private railway opened in 1903, from Nørre Nebel by Outrup and Oksbøl to Varde, where its trains carry on to Esbjerg.

Skjern → Holstebro · 71 km · 1 h 6 min

Midtjyske Jernbaner · Regional train

North along the West Jutland line from Skjern past Ringkøbing Fjord to Holstebro, a stretch finished in 1875 when the line through Ringkøbing opened.

Dortmund → Warburg · 152 km · 2 h 26 min

DB Regio NRW · RE 57 · Regional-Express

From Dortmund up the Ruhr into the Sauerland by Arnsberg, Meschede and Bestwig, over the hills at Brilon Wald and down to Warburg; the last section opened on 6 January 1873.

Cologne → Lüdenscheid · 96 km · 2 h 2 min

DB Regio NRW · RB 25 · Regionalbahn

Cologne into the Bergisches Land through the Hoffnungsthal tunnel of 1910 and up the Agger valley to Gummersbach and Marienheide; trains came back to Meinerzhagen in late 2013 and to Lüdenscheid in 2017.

Częstochowa → Łódź · 146 km · 2 h 25 min

Łódzka Kolej Aglomeracyjna · ŁKA regional

From Częstochowa over the line to Chorzew Siemkowice, built in 1939 and used only by freight from 2012 until passenger trains came back in December 2024, then by Zduńska Wola, Łask and Pabianice to Łódź Kaliska.

Siedlce → Białystok · 195 km · 3 h 15 min

Polregio · Polregio regional

Through the woods of Podlasie: from Siedlce by Siemiatycze to the junction at Czeremcha and on to Hajnówka at the edge of the Białowieża Forest, then north by Bielsk Podlaski to Białystok; the Siedlce line opened in 1906.

Lichkov → Wrocław · 138 km · 1 h 44 min

PKP Intercity · Leo Express · EuroCity · Leo Express

From Lichkov on the Czech border by Międzylesie and the Długopole tunnel down the Nysa Kłodzka valley to Kłodzko, then north by Ziębice and Strzelin to Wrocław; the line through the tunnel opened in 1875.

Verviers → Hasselt · 78 km · 1 h 38 min

SNCB · SNCB S-train

From Verviers down the Vesdre valley to Liège, north by Herstal and Liers, then over the curve at Glons, laid in 1973 to join the line the German army built in 1917, for Tongeren and Hasselt.

Zwolle → Emmen · 75 km · 52 min

Arriva · RE 20 · RS 20

Arriva’s Vechtdal line from Zwolle up the Vecht by Dalfsen and Ommen to Hardenberg, then north by Coevorden to Emmen: the part still open of a line to Stadskanaal built from 1903 to 1905.

Épinal → Strasbourg · 145 km · 2 h 27 min

SNCF · TER Grand Est

Across the Vosges from Épinal by Arches to Saint-Dié, over the Col de Saales and down the Bruche valley by Schirmeck and Molsheim to Strasbourg; the link over the col opened in 1929, and trains came back to Arches–Saint-Dié in 2021 after three years of buses.

Daruvar → Banova Jaruga · 53 km · 1 h 43 min

HŽ Putnički prijevoz · HŽPP regional

From the spa town of Daruvar by Pakrac and Lipik down to the main line at Banova Jaruga. The line is being rebuilt: until 12 December 2026 buses replace the trains, and Pakrac–Daruvar is due to be finished in 2028.

Hamburg → Vienna · 1,100 km · 13 h

ÖBB · Nightjet new generation

First route to get ÖBB’s new-generation Nightjets in 2023. Mini Cabin pods for solo travellers and 230 km/h sleeper stock.

Kyiv → Warsaw · 780 km · 14 h

Ukrzaliznytsia · UZ sleeping cars

Wartime lifeline to the EU: at the Bug border every carriage is jacked up and its bogies swapped from 1,520 to 1,435 mm gauge while passengers doze.

Prague → Košice · 700 km · 10 h

RegioJet · RegioJet couchette & sleeper cars

Open-access yellow night train since 2015: cheap couchettes out of Prague, over the Jablunkov Pass and under the dark High Tatras to Košice.

Paris → Briançon · 860 km · ≈ 11 h 30 min

SNCF Voyageurs · Corail couchette cars

France’s southern-Alps sleeper: lights out at Austerlitz, blinds up in the Durance valley, arrival under the Vauban walls of France’s highest city.

Munich → Rome · 1,100 km · 13 h 58 min

ÖBB · New-generation Nightjet

Board after dinner in Bavaria, wake to Tuscan hills: mini-cabins and wireless charging on ÖBB’s newest sleepers, crossing the Tauern by night. From Villach south it runs coupled with the Vienna portion as one train into Rome.

Zurich → Amsterdam · 840 km · 11 h 15 min

ÖBB · NS · Nightjet sleeper

Asleep along the Rhine, awake on the IJ: the 2021 revival that re-linked the Alps to the canals, sliding past Cologne’s floodlit cathedral at midnight.

Kyiv → Mykolaiv · 525 km · 9 h 10 min

Ukrainian Railways · UZ locomotive-hauled coaches

The named train to the Black Sea shipyards, out of Kyiv in the evening and into a station the Russian Empire opened in 1908 at six in the morning. It has run daily right through the war.

Kyiv → Kovel · 525 km · 10 h

Ukrainian Railways · UZ sleeping cars

The overnight named train to Volhynia, out of Kyiv at 22:50 and into Kovel at first light, over a junction the Russian Empire built in 1873 and the gateway to the Shatskyi lakes it is named after.

Chișinău → Bucharest · 592 km · 13 h

CFM · CFR Călători · CFM/CFR sleeper coaches

Overnight Friendship sleeper whose coaches are jacked up for a bogie swap at Ungheni. Soviet 1,520 mm broad gauge to European standard.

Stockholm → Åre · 630 km · 9 h

SJ · WL sleeping cars

SJ’s sleeper rolls out of Stockholm at night and wakes among the snow-clad fells of Jämtland at the Åre ski resort.

Helsinki → Kolari · 989 km · 14 h 30 min

VR · double-deck sleeper

Finland’s northernmost railhead: an overnight car-carrier sleeper above the Arctic Circle to the fells of Ylläs and Levi.

Vienna → Warsaw · 690 km · ≈ 9 h 30 min

PKP Intercity · ÖBB · PKP sleeper · couchettes

The Chopin sleeper has linked Vienna and Warsaw since at least the 1980s, slipping through the Moravian Gate by night and finishing down Poland’s CMK fast line into the capital before six.

Rome → Palermo · 920 km · 12 h 30 min

Trenitalia · Intercity Notte sleeper

Europe’s last train on a ship: the sleeper is split at Villa San Giovanni and floated across the Strait of Messina before breakfast.

Stockholm → Berlin · 1,290 km · 16 h 30 min

Snälltåget · Refurbished couchette & sleeping cars

A private summer sleeper down through Sweden, over the Öresund bridge past Copenhagen and across Denmark to Berlin, outlasting the state night trains.

Istanbul → Sofia · 585 km · 12 h

TCDD · BDŽ · TCDD & BDŽ sleeping cars

The overnight heir to the Orient Express, crossing the Thracian plain from Istanbul over the Bulgarian border to Sofia as the berths are made up.

Vienna → Rome · 1,180 km · 14 h

ÖBB · ÖBB Nightjet sleepers & couchettes

Board in Vienna after dinner, cross the Carinthian Alps and the Venetian plain by night, and wake rolling into Rome, a sleeper between two imperial capitals. From Villach south it runs coupled with the Munich portion as one train.

Bucharest → Satu Mare · 684 km · ≈ 14 h

CFR Călători · CFR sleeper

Romania’s classic night loop: asleep through Székely Land and the Maramureș foothills, waking at the far northwestern corner of the country.

Prague → Zurich · 1,050 km · ≈ 15 h

ČD · SBB · ČD sleeper · couchettes

The Czech–Swiss night link revived in 2023: the Elbe sandstone gorge at dusk, the Rhine plain at dawn, Zurich by breakfast.

Paris → Berlin · 1,100 km · ≈ 13 h 30 min

European Sleeper · Sleeper · couchettes

The night train that replaced the lost Nightjet: Paris to Berlin via Brussels three times a week since March 2026, the open-access sleeper’s boldest route yet.

Paris → Lourdes · 830 km · ≈ 10 h 30 min

SNCF Voyageurs · ICN couchettes

The Pyrenean pilgrim night train: out of Austerlitz every evening on the classic line through Poitiers and Dax, waking beneath the mountains at Lourdes.

Paris → Cerbère · 1,000 km · ~12 h 15 min

SNCF Voyageurs · ICN couchettes

Asleep out of Austerlitz, awake on the Côte Vermeille: the sleeper threads Collioure, Port-Vendres and Banyuls to the last stop before Spain.

Paris → Rodez · 640 km · ~10 h 30 min

SNCF Voyageurs · ICN couchettes

The Aveyron sleeper: off the Limoges main line at Brive, then Rocamadour, the Lot valley and Rodez by breakfast, with Albi through-cars on weekends.

Kyiv → Uzhhorod · 853 km · ~11 h 30 min

Ukrzaliznytsia · UZ sleeper № 29/30

Ukraine’s overnight hop across the Carpathians: asleep through Lviv, awake for the climb past Skole into the 2018 twin-bore Beskyd tunnel, then down the valley to Uzhhorod.

Kyiv → Rakhiv · 845 km · ~12 h

Ukrzaliznytsia · Flagship sleeper № 95/96

Ukraine’s flagship sleeper into Hutsul country: dusk in Kyiv, dawn above the Prut gorge at Yaremche, then Vorokhta’s stone viaduct and the Yablunytsia pass down to Rakhiv.

Moscow → Kaliningrad · 1,285 km · ~20 h

RZD · Firmenny № 29/30

Running since 1964, the Yantar threads Moscow to Russia’s Baltic exclave via Minsk and Vilnius, the last corridor where Russian passenger trains still cross the EU.

Prague → Warsaw · 747 km · ≈ 9 h 59 min

ČD · PKP Intercity · Sleeping and couchette cars

Overnight between two capitals: out of Prague past Pardubice and Olomouc, over the border to Katowice, then the fast Central Trunk line into Warsaw by breakfast.

Montreux → Lucerne · 191 km · ≈ 5 h 15 min · 2 trains

MOB · BLS · zb · GPX panorama + Luzern–Interlaken Express

Lake Geneva’s riviera to Lucerne over the Brünig Pass, on two trains: the gauge-changing GPX to Interlaken Ost, then zb’s Luzern–Interlaken Express.

Leeds → Carlisle · 181 km · ≈ 2 h 40 min

Northern · Class 158 Sprinter

England’s highest main line crests Ais Gill at 356 m after striding across the 24-arch Ribblehead Viaduct, built by navvies camped on Batty Moss.

Trondheim → Bodø · 729 km · 9 h 50 min

SJ Norge · Di 4 diesel-hauled

Norway’s longest railway: 729 km of fjordside, forest and bare Saltfjellet plateau, and the country’s only line across the Arctic Circle.

Dombås → Åndalsnes · 114 km · 1 h 40 min

SJ Norge · Class 93 Talent DMU

Corkscrews down Romsdalen past the 1,100 m Trollveggen, Europe’s tallest vertical cliff, via the Stavem spiral tunnel and stone Kylling Bridge.

Porto → Pocinho · 170 km · 3 h 20 min

CP Comboios de Portugal · Série 592 railcar

Clings to the Douro’s waterline for some 100 km on ledges blasted out in the 1880s, passing UNESCO-listed port-wine terraces at Régua and Pinhão.

Offenburg → Konstanz · 179 km · 2 h 30 min

DB Regio · Class 146 double-decker

Robert Gerwig’s 1873 blueprint for mountain railways climbs about 650 m through 39 tunnels and two sweeping double loops high above Triberg.

St. Pölten → Mariazell · 84 km · 2 h 30 min

Niederösterreich Bahnen · Himmelstreppe (Stadler)

Opened in 1907 and electrified with its own rare 6.5 kV 25 Hz current in 1911, Austria’s grandest narrow-gauge line crests at 892 m in the Gösing Tunnel.

Zagreb → Split · 424 km · 7 h

HŽPP · RegioSwinger tilting DMU

Tilting railcars lean through the bare karst of the Lika plateau below Velebit, then swoop down to the palm-fringed Adriatic at Split.

Jesenice → Nova Gorica · 89 km · 1 h 50 min

Slovenske železnice · Diesel railcar

Habsburg Transalpina of 1906: the 6.3 km Bohinj tunnel, the emerald Soča, and Solkan’s 85 m arch, the world’s longest stone rail span.

Wernigerode → Brocken · 34 km · ≈ 1 h 45 min

Harzer Schmalspurbahnen · Class 99 2-10-2T steam

Metre-gauge steam still storms year-round to the 1,141 m Brocken. Goethe’s witches’ mountain, sealed off as a Soviet listening post until 1989.

Domodossola → Locarno · 52 km · ≈ 2 h

SSIF · FART · Panoramic railcars

Fifty-two km, 83 bridges and 31 tunnels between Piedmont and Ticino: chestnut forests, waterfalls and stone villages a hundred valleys deep.

Freiburg → Donaueschingen · 75 km · ≈ 1 h 30 min

DB Regio · Breisgau S-Bahn EMU

Germany’s steepest main line climbs Hell’s Valley at 55 ‰: through the Hirschsprung gorge and over the Ravenna viaduct into the high Black Forest.

Villefranche-de-Conflent → Latour-de-Carol · 63 km · ≈ 3 h

SNCF Voyageurs · Z 100 yellow railcars

The canary-yellow metre gauge of the Pyrenees: open-air cars over the Séjourné and Gisclard bridges to France’s highest station at 1,593 m.

Clermont-Ferrand → Nîmes · 303 km · ≈ 5 h

SNCF Voyageurs · TER railcar

Down the Allier gorges on viaducts stacked over a river with no road: the Massif Central crossing the TGV era forgot, kept alive by sheer beauty.

Dole → Saint-Claude · 123 km · ≈ 3 h

SNCF Voyageurs · TER Mobigo railcar

36 tunnels and 18 viaducts swooping like its namesake swallows through the high Jura: stacked stone arches right above the rooftops of Morez.

Levanto → La Spezia · 20 km · ≈ 30 min

Trenitalia · Rock double-deck EMU

Village-hopping between tunnels where Liguria’s cliffs meet the sea. Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore in half an hour.

Hamar → Trondheim · 431 km · ≈ 6 h

SJ Norge · Type 93 Talent DMU

The original 1877 inland route to Trondheim: diesel country through Østerdalen’s forests to Røros, the UNESCO copper town still timber-built and soot-dark.

Mora → Gällivare · 1,070 km · 2 days

Inlandståg · Y1 diesel railcars

Two summer days up Sweden’s green spine: moose at the window and a trackside stop at the Arctic Circle, where everyone piles out for photographs.

Kraków → Zakopane · 147 km · 2 h 45 min

PKP Intercity · Koleje Małopolskie · EN76 Elf / IC coaches

Climbs from Kraków into the Tatra Mountains on the rebuilt line to Zakopane, Poland’s highest town and winter-sports capital.

Poprad → Štrbské Pleso · 29 km · 1 h 5 min

ZSSK · ŽSSK Class 425.95

Metre-gauge electric cars climb to the High Tatra resort of Štrbské Pleso at 1,320 m, Slovakia’s highest railway station.

Septemvri → Dobrinishte · 125 km · 5 h

BDŽ · 760 mm diesel railcar

Bulgaria’s last 760 mm line threads 35 tunnels up to Avramovo, the highest railway station in the Balkans at 1,267 m.

Trento → Bassano del Grappa · 95 km · 2 h 11 min

Trenitalia · Trenitalia regionale

Out of Trento past the vineyards, along Lake Caldonazzo and down the gorge of the Brenta to the foot of Monte Grappa, twenty three stops in a bit over two hours on a line begun in 1896.

Wiener Neustadt → Fehring · 132 km · 2 h 34 min

ÖBB · ÖBB diesel railcar

Planned in 1873 as the Vienna to Thessaloniki railway and killed by the crash that spring, then built in pieces anyway and joined up only in 1910. Wiener Neustadt over the Wechsel to Fehring.

Amstetten → Selzthal · 119 km · 2 h 05 min

ÖBB · ÖBB regional

Through the Gesäuse on the old Kronprinz Rudolf line, Amstetten to Selzthal in two hours and five by Waidhofen and Hieflau. One train on Saturdays and two on Sundays; on weekdays you change.

Bleiburg → Maribor · 87 km · 2 h 01 min

SŽ · SŽ regional

Over the border at Holmec and down the Drava through the old ironworks valleys, Prevalje, Ravne and Dravograd, on a single track built between 1857 and 1863 to carry Carinthian steel out to the world.

Linz → Aigen-Schlägl · 58 km · 1 h 29 min

ÖBB · ÖBB regional

Out of Linz on the north bank of the Danube and up into the Mühlviertel towards the Bohemian border, an hour and a half on a branch opened in November 1900.

Bad Gleichenberg → Feldbach · 21 km · 38 min

Steiermarkbahn · Steiermarkbahn railcar

Twenty one kilometres of Styrian light railway from the spa at Bad Gleichenberg down to the main line at Feldbach, opened in the presence of the President of Austria in June 1931.

Pula → Buzet · 86 km · 2 h 30 min

HŽ Putnički prijevoz · HŽ regional

The length of Istria at a walking pace, Pula to Buzet in two and a half hours through the red earth and the karst, on the state railway Austria opened to its naval port in September 1876.

Middlesbrough → Whitby · 56 km · 1 h 33 min

Northern · Class 156 / 158

An hour and a half from Teesside across the North York Moors and down the river to the sea, on rails that reached Whitby in 1835 and were worked by horses for the first ten years.

Koblenz → Trier · 113 km · 1 h 30 min

DB Regio Südwest · RE 1 · IC

Follows the wine-terraced Moselle past Cochem, crossing the river on the historic two-tier Alf–Bullay bridge below Germany’s steepest vineyards.

Bad Doberan → Kühlungsborn · 15 km · 40 min

Mecklenburgische Bäderbahn Molli · Steam · 900 mm

A rare 900 mm-gauge steam line running since 1886, Molli puffs right down the middle of Bad Doberan’s tree-lined avenue on its way to the Baltic shore.

Putbus → Göhren · 24 km · 1 h 6 min

Rügensche BäderBahn · Steam · 750 mm

Nicknamed the Racing Roland, this 750 mm-gauge steam railway has linked Rügen’s white-sand Baltic resorts of Binz, Sellin and Göhren since 1895.

De Panne → Knokke · 67 km · 2 h 20 min

De Lijn · Coast tram

The world’s longest tram line: 67 km of metre-gauge track hugging the entire Belgian coast from De Panne to Knokke, calling at 68 stops.

Luxembourg → Liège · 156 km · 2 h 39 min

CFL / SNCB · CFL · SNCB EMU

A cross-border Intercity through the wooded Éislek and the Ourthe and Amblève valleys, one of the prettiest rail rides in the Ardennes.

Nice → Digne-les-Bains · 151 km · 3 h 20 min

Chemins de fer de Provence · Autorail AMP 800

Metre-gauge “pine-cone train” climbing 151 km from Nice to Digne over some 25 tunnels and 16 viaducts, inaugurated in 1911.

Nice → Tende · 70 km · 2 h

SNCF (TER Sud PACA) · X 76500 AGC

Spirals up the wild Roya valley past the Bronze-Age rock carvings of the Vallée des Merveilles, looping through helicoidal tunnels to Tende at 1,040 m.

Saint-Gervais → Martigny · 55 km · 1 h 50 min

SNCF / TMR · Z 800

A metre-gauge mountain line under Mont Blanc, using third-rail power and a rack section to climb the Chamonix valley from Saint-Gervais into Switzerland.

Ajaccio → Bastia · 158 km · 3 h 45 min

CFC · AMG 800

Corsica’s beloved “U Trinichellu” crosses the island’s granite spine, piercing the 3.9 km Vizzavona tunnel at 906 m altitude.

Lleida → La Pobla de Segur · 89 km · 2 h 30 min

FGC · Vintage “yeyé” railcar + coaches

A heritage “train of the lakes” climbing beside the Noguera Pallaresa past reservoirs and tunnels to the Pyrenean foothills.

Catania → Riposto · 110 km · 3 h 30 min

Ferrovia Circumetnea · Vulcano DMU

A 950 mm narrow-gauge line almost encircling Mount Etna, Europe’s most active volcano, crossing black lava fields around Bronte and Randazzo.

Mandas → Arbatax · 159 km · 5 h

ARST · ADe railcar

At 159 km the longest tourist railway in Italy, this narrow-gauge line climbs to 868 m through the wild Ogliastra mountains to the sea at Arbatax.

Soprabolzano → Collalbo · 7 km · 18 min

SAD · Esslingen tramcar

A metre-gauge survivor of a 1907 rack railway, its vintage tramcars glide across the sunny Renon plateau above Bolzano, the Dolomites on the horizon.

Naples → Sorrento · 42 km · 1 h 10 min

EAV · ETR 211 Metrostar

The narrow-gauge line to Sorrento, opened in 1948, carries travellers past the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum under the shadow of Vesuvius.

Sarajevo → Ploče · 194 km · 3 h 25 min

ŽFBiH · HŽPP · Talgo trainset

Threads the plunging Neretva canyon between the Prenj and Čvrsnica massifs, then follows the river down to the Adriatic at Ploče through 106 tunnels.

Cuneo → Ventimiglia · 96 km · 2 h 40 min

Trenitalia · SNCF · Alstom Minuetto

The “Railway of Wonders” spirals up the Alps through helical tunnels and viaducts into France; wrecked in WWII, it reopened only in 1979.

Merano → Malles · 60 km · 1 h 10 min

STA · suedtirolmobil · Coradia Stream EMU

Closed to passengers in 1990, this South Tyrol branch reopened in 2005 as a rural-rail success story and went fully electric in 2026.

Prague → Železná Ruda · 203 km · ≈ 3 h 35 min

České dráhy · ČD rychlík

Prague to the edge of the Bohemian Forest, ending at a station shared with Bavaria across the border; the 1877 climb to it bored the Špičák tunnel, longest in the Czech lands for 130 years.

České Budějovice → Volary · 93 km · ≈ 2 h 10 min

České dráhy · ČD RegioNova

The Šumava forest railway: out of Budějovice, past Český Krumlov’s castle bend, along Lake Lipno and up into the Bohemian Forest at Volary.

Marseille → Briançon · 299 km · ≈ 4 h 45 min

SNCF · SNCF TER

The Durance valley all the way up: Aix, Sisteron’s citadel, Gap, Embrun above the lake, and the highest town in France at the buffer stops.

Cologne → Trier · 160 km · ≈ 3 h 05 min

DB Regio · DB RE22

Rebuilt after the 2021 flood tore it out: Cologne into the volcanic Eifel over Gerolstein’s crags and down the Kyll gorge to Trier.

Zaragoza → Valencia · 355 km · ≈ 5 h 30 min

Renfe · Renfe MD

The emptiest main line in Spain: five hours via Teruel, a provincial capital with no direct Madrid train, through ochre gorges to the Mediterranean.

Birmingham → Aberystwyth · 200 km · ≈ 3 h

Transport for Wales · TfW Class 197

Birmingham to the Irish Sea over the Cambrian Mountains: Welshpool, the Talerddig summit cutting, Machynlleth and the estuary into Aberystwyth.

Dublin → Rosslare Europort · 165 km · ≈ 3 h

Iarnród Éireann · IE InterCity

DART territory then the wild bit: Killiney bay, Wicklow’s cliff ledge above the sea, Wexford’s quays, and the Europort at the end.

Stockholm → Kårsta · 43 km · 1 h

SL · SL X10p (891 mm)

Sweden’s last commercial narrow-gauge railway (891 mm), still running through Stockholm’s leafy northern suburbs out to rural Kårsta.

Inverness → Kyle of Lochalsh · 132 km · 2 h 38 min

ScotRail · Class 158

One of the world’s great scenic railways, blasted through Torridonian rock for 82 miles from Inverness to the Skye ferry pier at Kyle of Lochalsh.

Inverness → Wick · 259 km · 4 h 21 min

ScotRail · Class 158

Britain’s most northerly line, a lonely 4-hour run to Wick that swings far inland on the Lairg Loop to dodge the deep Highland sea firths.

Swansea → Shrewsbury · 195 km · 4 h

Transport for Wales · Class 153 (150 as cover)

A 121-mile request-stop ramble through empty Mid Wales, crossing the castle-like 13-arch Knucklas Viaduct where trains halt only if you flag them down.

Machynlleth → Pwllheli · 93 km · 2 h 24 min

Transport for Wales · Class 158

Clings to the Mid-Wales shore on mostly single track, rumbling across the half-mile timber Barmouth Viaduct over the Mawddach estuary.

Belfast → Derry · 154 km · 2 h 10 min

NI Railways · Class 4000 DMU

Michael Palin called the Coleraine–Derry run one of the world’s most beautiful; the train skims the Atlantic strand below cliff-top Mussenden Temple.

Messina → Siracusa · 175 km · 3 h 34 min

Trenitalia · Regionale Veloce coastal EMU

Sicily’s east coast end to end: out of Messina along the Ionian shore below Taormina, past Etna at Giarre and Acireale into Catania, then the salt flats and Augusta’s bay to Siracusa. Complete.

Zaragoza → Canfranc · 224 km · ≈ 3 h 20 min

Renfe · Renfe Media Distancia diesel railcar

Reopened in June 2025 after two years of works, the line climbs to Europe’s grandest abandoned border station, shut since a 1970 bridge collapse.

Barcelona → Portbou · 172 km · 2 h 21 min

Rodalies de Catalunya · Renfe Class 447/449 EMU

Regional trains skirt Costa Brava cliffs near the French border before Portbou, terminus of the line completed in 1878.

Aveiro → Sernada do Vouga · 37 km · ≈ 1 h

CP – Comboios de Portugal · Metre-gauge diesel railcar · heritage wooden-carriage train (summer Sat.)

Portugal’s last surviving metre-gauge line still carries commuters, and a vintage wooden-carriage special every summer Saturday.

Toulouse → Latour-de-Carol · 155 km · 2 h 40 min

SNCF TER Occitanie · SNCF TER Occitanie railcar

Four daily trains climb past Foix’s castle and Ax-les-Thermes to Latour-de-Carol, where three different rail gauges meet.

Chur → Arosa · 25.7 km · ≈ 1 h

Rhaetian Railway (RhB) · RhB Ge 4/4 II electric multiple unit

Seventy curves and the record-setting 1914 Langwieser Viaduct carry hourly trains from Chur up into the ski resort of Arosa.

Zell am See → Krimml · 53 km · ≈ 1 h 45 min

Pinzgauer Lokalbahn (Salzburg AG) · Narrow-gauge diesel railcar · steam train (Wed/Thu)

A 760 mm-gauge valley line follows the Salzach past Hohe Tauern peaks to Krimml, ending beneath Austria’s highest waterfall.

Jenbach → Mayrhofen · 31.7 km · ≈ 1 h

Zillertaler Verkehrsbetriebe (ZVB) · Modern diesel railcar · steam-hauled heritage train

A working 760 mm-gauge valley railway that still runs steam trains alongside its half-hourly regular service to Mayrhofen.

Gernrode → Hasselfelde · 35 km · ≈ 1 h 45 min

Harzer Schmalspurbahnen · Class 99.7 Mallet steam locomotive · heritage coaches

Metre-gauge Mallet steam locomotives still double-head trains out of Alexisbad on this Harz valley line, opened for timber and ore in 1887.

Zurich → Vienna · 811 km · 9 h 00 min

ÖBB · SBB · ÖBB Railjet

Eight hours Zurich to Vienna on Austria’s only east–west mountain mainline: the Trisanna gorge, Wiesberg Castle and a 1,310 m summit in the 10.2 km Arlberg tunnel.

Bern → Brig · 110 km · 1 h 55 min

BLS · BLS RABe 535 Lötschberger

The 1913 mountain line the base tunnel made optional. Felsenburg spirals, a 14.6 km summit tunnel, then the Bietschtal bridge on a ledge above the Rhône.

Salzburg → Villach · 183 km · 2 h 40 min

ÖBB · ÖBB Railjet / EuroCity

Franz Joseph’s 1909 crossing of the Hohe Tauern: stone viaducts up the Gastein spa valley to an 8.4 km tunnel at 1,226 m.

Oberbarmen → Vohwinkel · 13 km · 30 min

WSW mobil · Generation 15 suspended electric units

The world’s oldest electric suspension railway, hanging from a steel frame above the Wupper river since 1901, a monorail that never stopped commuting.

St. Gallen → Lucerne · 126 km · 2 h 15 min

Südostbahn · Stadler SOB “Traverso” Flirt

Hourly cross-country trains link the abbey city of St. Gallen with lakeside Lucerne across the pre-Alps, taking in the Wattwil moorland, the Rapperswil lake dam and the Rothenthurm high bog.

Palaiofarsalos → Kalambaka · 80 km · ≈ 2 h

Hellenic Train · Kalambaka railcar (change from Athens ICs)

The branch to the monasteries in the sky: from the junction at Palaiofarsalos across the Thessalian plain to Kalambaka, beneath the sandstone pillars of Meteora. Storm Daniel damaged the line in September 2023, and until it is repaired buses replace the trains from Palaiofarsalos.

Lucerne → Lugano · 180 km · 5 h 30 min

SBB · SBB panorama coaches & lake paddle steamer

A paddle steamer up Lake Lucerne, then the 1882 Gotthard line’s spirals and the Wassen church seen thrice. Summer only, once daily, seat surcharge.

Chur → St. Moritz · 89 km · 2 h

Rhaetian Railway (RhB) · RhB Allegra & panorama cars

The UNESCO Albula line spirals through helical tunnels and sweeps over the six-arch Landwasser Viaduct, a curved stone bridge running straight into a cliff, on its climb to St. Moritz.

Genoa → Casella · 25 km · 55 min

AMT Genova · Narrow-gauge electric railcars

A metre-gauge mountain tram that climbs straight out of central Genoa over three Apennine valleys to the village of Casella, sea views at its back.

Munich → Innsbruck · 165 km · 2 h 55 min

ÖBB · DB · ÖBB 4024 · DB 442

Munich to the Tyrol over the Karwendel: the electrified 1912 Mittenwaldbahn climbs from Garmisch through Alpine meadows and horseshoe curves to the Seefeld saddle before dropping into Innsbruck.

Oravița → Anina · 34 km · 2 h

CFR Călători · Sulzer diesel · vintage coaches

The “Banat Semmering” of 1863. Romania’s first mountain railway spirals through 14 tunnels and over 10 viaducts up the Aninei gorges, a masterwork of Habsburg engineering.

Fortezza → Lienz · 105 km · 2 h

SAD · ÖBB · SAD Stadler Flirt · ÖBB

Follows the Puster Valley below the Dolomites from the Brenner line at Fortezza past Bruneck and the Three Peaks, crossing into Austria at Innichen to run on to Lienz in East Tyrol.

Attnang-Puchheim → Stainach-Irdning · 107 km · 2 h 30 min

ÖBB · ÖBB Cityjet · railcar

Austria’s lake district by rail: from Attnang-Puchheim along the Traunsee past the imperial spa of Bad Ischl to the shore opposite Hallstatt, the picture-postcard village mirrored in its emerald lake.

Zürich → Locarno · 200 km · ≈ 3 h 50 min

SOB · SOB Traverso (IR46)

The everyday Gotthard panorama train: hourly IRs over the 1882 mountain line’s spiral tunnels, no surcharge, from Basel or Zürich to Locarno’s palms.

Clermont-Ferrand → Béziers · 380 km · ≈ 6 h 15 min · change at Neussargues

SNCF · Intercités + TER

One daily train across the empty heart of France: over Garabit’s red Eiffel viaduct, the Truyère gorges and the Causses down to the Med. Six hours, change at Neussargues.

Bastia → Calvi · 119 km · ≈ 3 h

CFC · AMG 800 railcar

The Trinighellu’s Balagne arm: inland from Bastia to Ponte-Leccia, then down to a beach-hugging crawl from Île-Rousse to Calvi’s citadel.

Edinburgh → Inverness · 300 km · ≈ 3 h 30 min

ScotRail · ScotRail Inter7City HST

Over Druimuachdar Pass at 452 m, the highest main line in Britain, threading the Cairngorms from the capital to the Highland capital.

Glasgow → Oban · 162 km · ≈ 3 h 10 min

ScotRail · ScotRail Class 156

The West Highland Line’s other arm: splitting at Crianlarich for Loch Awe, Kilchurn Castle’s ruin and the Hebrides ferry port of Oban.

Sheffield → Manchester · 68 km · ≈ 50 min

Northern · Northern · TPE Nova

Straight through the Peak District: Edale, Kinder Scout and the Hope valley between England’s steel and cotton cities. The hikers’ line.

Carlisle → Barrow-in-Furness · 137 km · ≈ 2 h 40 min

Northern · Northern Class 156

England’s forgotten coastal railway: the Irish Sea one side, the Lakeland fells the other, all the way round from Hadrian’s city to shipbuilding Barrow.

Llandudno → Blaenau Ffestiniog · 44 km · ≈ 1 h 5 min

Transport for Wales · TfW Class 197

From the pier at Llandudno up the Conwy gorge into Snowdonia’s slate mountains, meeting the Ffestiniog steam trains at Blaenau: coast to crag in an hour.

Newcastle → Carlisle · 98 km · ≈ 1 h 25 min

Northern · Northern Class 158

One of the world’s first cross-country railways (1838), shadowing Hadrian’s Wall from the Tyne to the Solway, the Roman frontier out the window.

Zurich → Graz · 697 km · ≈ 9 h 50 min

ÖBB · SBB · EuroCity with SBB panorama car

One train, one panorama car, half the Alps: Zurich to Graz over the Arlberg, past Zell am See, the Ennstal and the Gesäuse gates. The day-long EuroCity people ride for the window.

Milan → Tirano · 157 km · ≈ 2 h 30 min

Trenord · Trenord RE

Lake Como’s eastern shore from the train window: Varenna, then the vineyard terraces of the Valtellina to Tirano, where the Bernina Express waits.

Algeciras → Antequera Santa Ana · 180 km · ≈ 3 h

Renfe · Media Distancia · Alvia

Up the Serranía de Ronda from Gibraltar bay: the British-built 1892 line that is Mr Henderson’s railway proper, Algeciras to the Bobadilla plain, ending today at Antequera Santa Ana’s high-speed interchange.

Barcelona → Latour-de-Carol · 160 km · ≈ 3 h 15 min

Renfe · Rodalies EMU

Climbs from Barcelona to 1,494 m at Toses, the roof of the Spanish network, to meet the Yellow Train across the platform at Latour-de-Carol.

Katakolo → Ancient Olympia · 33 km · ~45 min

Hellenic Train · Stadler GTW 2/6 railcar (4500)

Greece’s first provincial railway (1882–83) reborn as a cruise shuttle: a metre-gauge railcar links Katakolo’s quay with the sanctuary of Ancient Olympia.

Prague → Čerčany · 60 km · ~1 h 55 min

České dráhy · ČD 814 RegioNova railcars

Prague’s “Pacific”, the tramps’ weekend railway of the 1920s: ledges above the Vltava and Sázava canyons and the 41 m Žampach viaduct on the way to Čerčany.

Nordhausen → Drei Annen Hohne · 46 km · 2 h

Harzer Schmalspurbahnen · Class 99 2-10-2T steam

HSB’s metre-gauge trunk across the Harz: 2-10-2 tank engines storm out of Nordhausen up the Zorge valley to Drei Annen Hohne, the junction where the Brocken steam begins.

Interlaken Ost → Grindelwald · 19 km · 35 min

Berner Oberland-Bahn · Stadler ABeh 4/8 EMU · rack sections

Jungfrau gateway since 1890: from Interlaken Ost the BOB splits at Zweilütschinen. One arm goes to Lauterbrunnen; this one climbs to Grindelwald under the Eiger’s north face.

Unzmarkt → Tamsweg · 64 km · 1 h 45 min

Steiermarkbahn · Diesel railcars + summer steam · 760 mm

Austria’s second-longest narrow gauge (1894) follows the young Mur 64 km from Unzmarkt to Tamsweg: 70 km/h diesels on weekdays, steam specials all summer.

La Chaux-de-Fonds → Glovelier · 51 km · 1 h 10 min

Chemins de fer du Jura · CJ metre-gauge railcars

Metre gauge across the Franches-Montagnes plateau: horse pastures and firs at 1,000 m from watch-town La Chaux-de-Fonds to Saignelégier, then a wooded ravine descent to Glovelier.

Borkum Reede → Borkum · 7.4 km · 15 min

Borkumer Kleinbahn (AG EMS) · Island diesel · 900 mm

Timed to the tide: Borkum’s 900 mm railway (1888) meets every ferry at the Reede pier and rolls 7 km along the dike into the North Sea island’s town.

Wangerooge Westanleger → Wangerooge · 3.4 km · 20 min

DB Fernverkehr · Island diesel · 1000 mm

Deutsche Bahn’s only narrow gauge: the tide writes the timetable as diesels haul ferry passengers across the salt marsh from Westanleger pier to car-free Wangerooge village.

Rivesaltes → Axat · 60 km · ~2 h

TPCF · X 4500 autorails · open panoramic cars

France’s longest tourist railway: 60 km from Rivesaltes’ vineyards into the Fenouillèdes gorges beneath the Cathar castles of Quéribus and Puilaurens.

Marseille → Miramas · 69 km · 1 h 15 min

SNCF (TER Sud PACA) · B 81500 AGC

An everyday TER on a corniche of 23 tunnels and 18 viaducts: calanque after calanque between L’Estaque and Martigues for a few euros.

Bilbao → Santander · 119 km · 3 h

Renfe · Renfe 2700-series metre-gauge DMU

Three metre-gauge trains a day still thread all 119 km of the 1898 Santander–Bilbao railway, winding through green Basque and Cantabrian valleys.

Ferrol → Oviedo · 314 km · 7 h 15 min

Renfe · Renfe 2700-series metre-gauge DMU

Europe’s longest narrow-gauge ride: two trains a day take seven hours to weave around Galicia’s rias and along the Asturian cliffs from Ferrol to Oviedo.

Florence → Ravenna · 136 km · 3 h 30 min

Il Treno di Dante · Fondazione FS · D445 + Centoporte coaches

Vintage Centoporte coaches link Dante’s Florence with his tomb in Ravenna over the Apennine Faentina line, joined by new direct Sunday trains since July 2026.

Trento → Mezzana · 65 km · 1 h 50 min

Trentino Trasporti · Alstom ETi 400 EMU

A metre-gauge electric line out of Trento: through the Rocchetta gorge into apple-carpeted Val di Non and Val di Sole, ending at Mezzana beneath the Brenta Dolomites.

Selzthal → Linz · 102 km · ≈ 1 h 50 min

ÖBB · REX · Regional-Express

Climbs from Linz over the Pyhrn Pass to Selzthal, tying the Westbahn to the Enns valley through the northern limestone Alps.

Edolo → Brescia · 101 km · ≈ 2 h 27 min

Trenord · RE 3 · Regional-Express

Runs the length of Lake Iseo and up the Valcamonica to Edolo under the Adamello: standard gauge, single track, unelectrified, built in stages from 1885.

Zvolen → Vrútky · 95 km · ≈ 1 h 44 min

ZSSK · R · Regional

Slovak line 170 through the mountains north of Zvolen: the Banská Bystrica–Dolná Štubňa section alone, built 1936–40, has 22 tunnels totalling 12.2 km.

Margecany → Telgárt · 82 km · ≈ 2 h 06 min

ZSSK · REX · Regional-Express

Single track through the Slovak Ore Mountains and along the south-east flank of the Low Tatras, climbing to the spiral and viaduct at Telgárt.

Davos Platz → Landquart · 49 km · ≈ 1 h 11 min

Rhätische Bahn · RE · Rhaetian Railway

Metre-gauge Rhaetian track climbing the Prättigau from the Rhine valley at Landquart to the high spa town of Davos, open since 1890.

Bever → Scuol-Tarasp · 49 km · ≈ 1 h 13 min

Rhätische Bahn · R · Rhaetian Railway

Metre gauge down the Lower Engadine from the Albula line at Bever to the spa at Scuol-Tarasp, opened in 1913 and never joined to Austria.

La Chaux-de-Fonds → Biel/Bienne · 43 km · ≈ 40 min

SBB · RE 4 · RegioExpress

Single track up out of Biel through the Jura gorges to the watchmaking city of La Chaux-de-Fonds at 1,000 m, worked since 1874.

Veszprém → Győr · 77 km · ≈ 2 h 12 min

MÁV · MÁV regional

The Bakonyvasút: a slow single track that leaves the Győr–Szentgotthárd line and climbs through the wooded Bakony hills to Veszprém.

Biel/Bienne → Basel · 73 km · ≈ 1 h 22 min

SBB · BLS · IC 51 · InterCity

The Jurabahn of 1857 follows the Birs out of Basel into the French-speaking Jura, through Delémont and the Moutier gorges down to Biel.

Cadenazzo → Luino · 31 km · ≈ 36 min

SBB · RE · Regional-Express

Hugs the north-eastern shore of Lake Maggiore, crossing from Ticino into Italy on the way to Luino.

Saint-Gingolph → Saint-Maurice · 27 km · ≈ 46 min

RegionAlps · R 91 · Regional

Opened in 1859 by the Ligne d'Italie, running from the Rhône at Saint-Maurice out to Lake Geneva at Le Bouveret and the French border.

Linthal → Ziegelbrücke · 27 km · ≈ 43 min

SBB · S 25

The Glarnerlinie of 1859, single track up the Linth valley under the Glärnisch and the Tödi to the road-head at Linthal.

Bourg-en-Bresse → Mouchard · 112 km · ≈ 1 h 20 min

SNCF · TER

Part of the Mulhouse–Besançon–Lyon route: a demanding northern section of climbs and falls through the Jura before it runs out onto the Bresse plain.

Kil → Torsby · 81 km · ≈ 1 h 30 min

Värmlandstrafik · Y31 railcar

Single track, no wires, up the Fryken lakes of Värmland from Kil to Torsby: railcars for people, timber and pulpwood for the mills.

Villefranche-de-Conflent → Perpignan · 46 km · ≈ 55 min

SNCF · TER Occitanie

Up the Têt from the Mediterranean at Perpignan into the Pyrenean foothills, ending where the metre-gauge Train Jaune takes over at Villefranche.

Kochel → Tutzing · 35 km · ≈ 41 min

DB Regio · RB 66 · Regionalbahn

Bavarian lakes branch of 1865: from Tutzing on the Starnberger See south to the Kochelsee under the first peaks of the Alps.

Schaffhausen → Winterthur · 29 km · ≈ 27 min

SBB · S 24

Named for what it passes: the 1857 line from Winterthur to Schaffhausen runs along the Rhine Falls, Europe's widest waterfall.

Metzeral → Colmar · 24 km · ≈ 38 min

SNCF · TER Grand Est

Alsace's valley branch of 1868, from Colmar and its vineyards up the Fecht into the high Vosges at Metzeral.

Siena → Grosseto · 100 km · ≈ 1 h 58 min

Trenitalia · Regionale

Southern Tuscany at walking pace: 100 km through the Crete Senesi and the Maremma from Siena down to Grosseto, open since 1864.

Mering → Weilheim · 54 km · ≈ 59 min

Bayerische Regiobahn · RB 67 · Regionalbahn

The Ammerseebahn, single track from Mering near Augsburg past Geltendorf and the Ammersee to Weilheim under the Bavarian Alps.

Bielefeld → Osnabrück · 53 km · ≈ 1 h 21 min

NordWestBahn · RB 75 · Regionalbahn

The Haller Willem climbs the Teutoburg Forest on a gradient built in 1886; the tunnel that would have eased it was left out to save money.

Dinant → Bertrix · 72 km · ≈ 1 h 09 min

SNCB · L · Omnibus

Up the Meuse and over the Ardennes from Dinant to Bertrix: passenger trains on the Athus–Meuse freight road between Antwerp and Basel.

Alcoi → Xàtiva · 63 km · ≈ 1 h 47 min

Renfe · Regional

Iberian-gauge single track opened in 1904, climbing 64 km of viaducts and tunnels from the Xàtiva plain into the mountains at Alcoi.

Lauterecken → Kaiserslautern · 33 km · ≈ 51 min

DB Regio · RB 66 · Regionalbahn

The Lautertalbahn follows its river out of Kaiserslautern to Lauterecken, a branch the Bundesbahn planned to close in the 1980s and never did.

Lutterbach → Kruth · 32 km · ≈ 54 min

SNCF · TER · Tram-train

Up the Thur valley from Mulhouse through Thann to Kruth in the high Vosges, worked by SNCF trains and the Mulhouse tram-train together.

Wasserauen → Gossau · 31 km · ≈ 55 min

Appenzeller Bahnen · S 23

Metre-gauge adhesion track from Gossau up through Appenzell to Wasserauen under the Alpstein, running continuously since 1949.

Marktoberdorf → Füssen · 30 km · ≈ 44 min

Bayerische Regiobahn · RB 77 · Regionalbahn

The Allgäu branch to Füssen, opened by a private local railway in 1889 and now the train that delivers visitors below Neuschwanstein.

Zărnești → Brașov · 27 km · ≈ 51 min

Regio Călători · Regio Călători

A Transylvanian branch across the Burzenland from Brașov to Zărnești, under the limestone wall of the Piatra Craiului.

Málaga → Seville · 220 km · 3 h 42 min

Renfe · Media Distancia

The slow way between Andalucía’s two great cities: up the Guadalhorce past El Chorro’s gorge, beneath the Caminito del Rey walkway, then across the campiña by Osuna and Marchena.

Sofia → Vidin · 266 km · 5 h 16 min

BDŽ · BDŽ InterCity

Up the Iskar gorge, which is the reason to take it: the river cuts a canyon north out of Sofia through Svoge and Lakatnik to Mezdra, then Vratsa and the plain to the Danube at Vidin.

Zvolen → Košice · 229 km · ≈ 3 h 14 min

ZSSK · ZSSK rychlík

The southern trans-Slovak line: three hours through the karst country via Lučenec, Plešivec and Rožňava beneath medieval mining towns.

Wrocław → Szklarska Poręba · 157 km · ≈ 2 h 43 min

PKP Intercity · Koleje Dolnośląskie · IC Karkonosze · KD

The 1867 Silesian Mountain Railway: through Wałbrzych’s coal valleys and Jelenia Góra, climbing to nearly 700 m at Szklarska Poręba under the Karkonosze.

Budapest → Tapolca · 190 km · ≈ 3 h 19 min

MÁV · MÁV InterCity

The Kék Hullám (Blue Wave) IC along Balaton’s vineyard-clad north shore: Balatonfüred, the basalt hills of Badacsony, then inland to Tapolca.

Katowice → Zwardoń · 113 km · 2 h 39 min

Koleje Śląskie · Koleje Śląskie

Out of the Silesian coalfield into the Beskids: Katowice through Tychy and Bielsko-Biała to Żywiec and the Slovak border at Zwardoń, a line completed piece by piece to 1912.

St. Valentin → St. Nikola-Struden · 44 km · 1 h 4 min

ÖBB-Personenverkehr AG · R 33

Mauthausen to Grein opened on 4 July 1898 and the state line on through the Strudengau in 1909; trains now turn at St. Nikola-Struden, where the rest of the Danube line was given up in 2019.

Nové Údolí → Číčenice · 65 km · 2 h 3 min

GW Train Regio · GW 18007

Prachatice was reached in 1893, Volary in 1899 and the Bavarian border in 1910; through trains to Passau stopped in 1951 and the rails past Nové Údolí are now pushed by hand.

Pau → Bedous · 59 km · 1 h 5 min

SNCF · TER Nouvelle-Aquitaine

From Pau by Oloron-Sainte-Marie up the Aspe valley into the Pyrenees to Bedous, the first stretch of the old line to Canfranc and Spain; trains reached Bedous in 1914, stopped in 1980 and came back on 26 June 2016.

Bayonne → Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port · 52 km · 1 h 3 min

SNCF · TER Nouvelle-Aquitaine

Up the Nive valley from Bayonne by Cambo-les-Bains into the Basque hills to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, where pilgrims set out over the Pyrenees to Roncesvalles; the last stretch, from Ossès, opened on 11 December 1898.

Munich → Bayrischzell · 77 km · 1 h 23 min

Bayerische Regiobahn · RB 55

The Bayerische Regiobahn from Munich by Holzkirchen to the shore of the Schliersee and up the Leitzach valley under the Wendelstein to Bayrischzell; the last stretch, from Fischbachau, opened on 1 October 1911.

Givet → Charleville-Mézières · 63 km · 1 h 5 min

SNCF · TER Grand Est

Up the Meuse through the Ardennes from Givet, at the tip of the French salient into Belgium, by Fumay, Revin and Nouzonville to Charleville-Mézières; the line reached Givet on 28 April 1862.

Sulmona → Castel di Sangro · 77 km · 2 h 45 min

Fondazione FS · Heritage ALn 668

Italy’s “Trans-Siberian”: a heritage train over snowbound Apennine plateaus to Rivisondoli-Pescocostanzo, at 1,268 m among the country’s highest stations.

Pickering → Whitby · 39 km · 2 h

North Yorkshire Moors Railway · Heritage steam

One of the world’s busiest steam heritage lines, climbing Stephenson’s 1836 route over the moors to Goathland, Hogsmeade in the Harry Potter films.

Kidderminster → Bridgnorth · 26 km · 1 h 15 min

Severn Valley Railway · Heritage steam

Sixteen miles of preserved Great Western branch line tracing the River Severn, crossing the water on the graceful iron span of Victoria Bridge.

Sheffield Park → East Grinstead · 18 km · 45 min

Bluebell Railway · Heritage steam

The world’s first preserved standard-gauge passenger railway, running vintage steam through the Sussex Weald without a break since 1960.

Bishops Lydeard → Minehead · 37 km · 1 h 20 min

West Somerset Railway · Heritage steam

Britain’s longest standard-gauge independent heritage railway: 22¾ miles of steam from the Quantock Hills down to the Bristol Channel shore at Minehead.

Aberystwyth → Devil’s Bridge · 19 km · 1 h

Vale of Rheidol Railway · Narrow-gauge steam

Narrow-gauge steam grinding 200 m uphill from the sea at Aberystwyth to the wooded gorge of Devil’s Bridge: the last steam line British Rail ever ran.

Mokra Gora → Šargan Vitasi · 15.5 km · ≈ 2 h (round trip)

Srbijavoz · Narrow-gauge heritage railbus “Nostalgia” (Ćira) · Class 83 diesel

A 760 mm loop climbing 300 m through 22 tunnels and 5 bridges in a literal figure-eight to gain height.

Madrid → Aranjuez · 48 km · ≈ 50 min

Fundación de los Ferrocarriles Españoles · Renfe · Vintage 1900s-style carriages, diesel-hauled

Hostesses in 1920s dress hand out strawberries aboard replica carriages on Spain’s second-ever railway, opened in 1851.

Hronec → Dobroč · 17 km · ≈ 1 h 10 min

Čiernohronská železnica · 0-8-0T steam locomotive · Rába diesel railcar

One of Europe’s last steam-worked forestry railways: its branch to Dobroč runs straight through the middle of a village football pitch.

Jokioinen → Humppila · 14 km · ≈ 40 min

Jokioinen Museum Railway · Tubize 2-6-2T · Lovisa–Vesijärvi 2-8-0 steam locomotives

The last stretch of Finland’s once-extensive 750 mm network, run by volunteers with steam engines from Finnish, German, Soviet and Belgian builders, veterans of the country’s vanished narrow-gauge lines.

Helsinki → Porvoo · 62 km · ≈ 1 h 45 min

Porvoon Museorautatie · Dm7 “Lättähattu” railcars

Summer museum trains out of Helsinki: a 1950s Dm7 “flat-hat” railbus leaves the main line at Kerava for the 1874 branch to Porvoo’s wooden old town.

Gulbene → Alūksne · 33 km · ≈ 1 h 30 min

Gulbenes-Alūksnes bānītis · TU10 diesel locomotive · vintage carriages

The only regularly operating narrow-gauge passenger railway left in the Baltic states, rattling twice daily through Vidzeme’s forests.

Anykščiai → Rubikiai · 12 km · ≈ 35 min

Aukštaitijos siaurasis geležinkelis · TU2 diesel locomotive · vintage carriages

Weekend survivor of a 750 mm network that once ran 68 km to Panevėžys, now trundling summer tourists out to Rubikiai lake.

Vyhoda → Dubovyi Kut · 7 km · ≈ 45 min

Vyhoda State Forestry (Karpatskyi Tramvai) · TU8P / TU6D diesel locomotive · open carriages

Ukraine’s last working forest railway, built in 1890 to haul Carpathian timber, now carries tourists up the Mizunka valley past waterfalls.

Zaslonovo → Sosnovy Bor · 3.4 km · ≈ 20 min

Belarusian Railway (Minsk Children’s Railway) · TU2 / TU7 diesel locomotive · narrow-gauge coaches

A working 750 mm railway through Chelyuskintsy Park operated entirely by schoolchildren training as drivers, conductors and dispatchers.

Miskolc → Garadna · 14 km · ≈ 45 min

Lillafüredi Állami Erdei Vasút · Mk48 diesel locomotive · open-sided carriages

Narrow-gauge line through the Bükk mountains via two tunnels and two viaducts, opened for timber and now Hungary’s best-loved forest train.

Szilvásvárad → Szalajka-Fátyolvízesés · 5 km · ≈ 20 min

Egererdő Zrt. · Mk48 diesel locomotive · open-sided carriages

Hungary’s busiest narrow-gauge railway: a steep timber line up the Szalajka valley to a waterfall, now carrying 300,000-plus riders a year.

Jindřichův Hradec → Nová Bystřice · 32.9 km · ≈ 1 h 10 min

Gepard Express (JHMD heritage line) · Steam locomotives · M11 "Tatra" railbuses

South Bohemia’s narrow-gauge survivor, rescued by a new operator in 2026 after the original company’s 2022 bankruptcy nearly ended the line.

Pétange → Fond-de-Gras · 8 km · ≈ 25 min

AMTF (Association des Musées et Tourisme Ferroviaires) · Steam & diesel locomotives (former Prince Henri Railway stock)

Vintage steam trains rattle through Luxembourg’s old iron-mining Minett region on track first laid in 1874 to move ore and miners.

Majdan → Balnica · 9 km · ≈ 45 min

Bieszczadzka Kolejka Leśna Foundation · Px48 steam locomotive · Lyd2 diesel locomotive

Poland’s highest narrow-gauge line, a former logging railway that now carries over 150,000 riders a year into the Bieszczady wilderness.

Kilmeaden → Bilberry · 10 km · ≈ 45 min

Waterford & Suir Valley Railway · Hunslet diesel locomotive · open-sided carriages

Narrow-gauge trains follow the tidal River Suir on the trackbed of an 1878 mainline, running alongside the Waterford Greenway cycle path.

Weizen → Blumberg · 26.5 km · ≈ 1 h 15 min

Sauschwänzlebahn e.V. · Class 52 / 93 steam locomotive · heritage diesel railcars

Germany’s only spiral railway tunnel: a 1,700 m loop at Stockhalde lets the line climb the Black Forest by circling back over itself.

Cayeux-sur-Mer → Le Crotoy · 28 km · ≈ 1 h 30 min

Association du Chemin de Fer de la Baie de Somme · 130T steam locomotive (Cail · Haine-Saint-Pierre) · Belle Époque carriages

Belle-Époque steam trains skirt the Somme estuary’s tidal salt marshes, with locomotives running round their own train at each terminus.

Ciney → Yvoir · 21 km · ≈ 1 h 15 min

Patrimoine Ferroviaire et Tourisme · Vintage SNCB railcar · heritage diesel locomotives

Three tunnels and five stone viaducts pack into the Bocq valley on one of Belgium’s most dramatically engineered branch lines.

Hoorn → Medemblik · 20 km · ≈ 1 h 15 min

Museumstoomtram Hoorn–Medemblik · Preserved steam locomotives (SHM fleet) · vintage carriages

A steam tram dating from 1887 still crosses North Holland’s polders and tulip fields between Hoorn and the old Zuiderzee port of Medemblik.

Tywyn → Nant Gwernol · 11.7 km · ≈ 1 h

Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society · Preserved 0-4-0T / 0-4-2T steam locomotives (Talyllyn, Dolgoch, Edward Thomas)

The world’s first railway saved by volunteers, in 1951: its Victorian steam engines still cross Dolgoch Viaduct into the Fathew valley.

Hythe → Dungeness · 22 km · ≈ 1 h

Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway · 4-6-2 one-third-scale steam locomotives

Marketed as the world’s smallest public railway, its steam expresses still get local schoolchildren to class along Romney Marsh.

La Mure → Monteynard · 15 km · 1 h 30 min

Edeis · Restored electric heritage railcars

Reopened in 2021, this cliffside metre-gauge line hangs on ledges and viaducts high above the turquoise Monteynard reservoir in the Isère.

Tournon-sur-Rhône → Lamastre · 33 km · 2 h

Chemin de fer du Vivarais · 1903 Mallet steam, metre-gauge coaches

A metre-gauge steam survivor climbing the granite gorge of the Doux from the Rhône at Tournon to the chestnut country of Lamastre, hauled by 1903 Mallet engines.