Which European country has the best railways?

[Sorcerer]

Not much to elaborate on this question, it is quite simply a case of asking you the reader which European country has the best railways? Criteria could include it's efficiency of services, the maintenance of it's infrastructure, it's rolling stock, and the services themselves including ease of access, buying a ticket, value for money, punctuality, connectivity with other transport options, and the quality of customer service such as on-board catering and staff attitudes and behaviour. It might be easy to say that the British network doesn't particularly excel in any of these areas, and to an extent that is true, but I think to the UK's credit we have started picking up on the rolling stock side of things. I cannot think of many trains running on the network that are over 20 years old, especially in the south, and some major cities have good levels of connectivity. Notable examples for me include London, Liverpool and Newcastle where you can easily find taxi ranks or bus terminals outside major terminus stations.

I haven't travelled a lot on Italy's rail network, but I did experience a similar kind of delay that you might in Britain, which kind of gave me some perspective seeing as a lot of people might find it easy to compare the flaws of the UK network to those on the continent when they might also do things worse than we do. I can't quite say which European country has the best railways, but based on what I know about a lot of them as well as hearing the experiences of other people, it seems that Switzerland and quite possibly even the Czech Republic tend to perform the best in most areas. Switzerland in particular is known for it's density, punctuality and integration with other transport networks, and even if it may be somewhat expensive at first there are several travel passes that make it more affordable to travellers.

However, I can't quite be so confident in giving an answer, so I want to hear your ones. For anyone whose travelled on different European networks, which ones do you find to be the best? If you know anyone who has travelled on them, which ones did they find to be the best? I'm very interested to hear some of the opinions here and look forward to reading your posts.

 

[30907]

Switzerland is hard to beat from an ordinary traveller's perspective, though SBB has had rolling stock issues lately.
For the enthusiast (able-bodied anyway) I would probably agree with Czechia - it scores on the extent of rail coverage (rural buses are much more variable) if not on speed or frequency.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Difficult to beat the Swiss. Yes Czechia is good for what it is, ie rather a lot of low frequency operation but does fit together well. Prior to Covid I would have rated the Netherlands above Czechia but these days it has problems with staffing levels which degrade the operation rather more than you would expect. Belgium is pretty good especially as they have gradually modernised the fleet. And arguably Denmark could be described as a more modern version of Czechia with better bus services.

As for GB despite all the issues that regulars here are only too well aware of it still compares reasonably well with the other "big" countries, ie France, Germany, Italy, Spain. We certainly attempt to wring the most out of available capacity, both track and train.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Austria scores highly for me, a well-integrated system which is a pleasure to travel on.

Always difficult to judge foreign railways as an outsider.
We might find Switzerland and Norway "expensive" as tourists, but high-income residents, with significant local discounts, won't have the same problem.
Luxembourg has free rail travel for residents.

 

[A S Leib]

I don't (currently) have tonnes of experience with rail travel abroad; my impression from others' comments, maps and timetables is that France and Spain do quite well at high-profile high-speed services and, especially France, for medium-sized and relatively small cities having tram / metro systems. What I think they do less well is services without compulsory reservations (I think sometimes in Brittany they're mandatory for TERs?) and frequency of regional services. Some of that's probably partly down to geography – e.g. 200 km between Montpellier and Toulouse without many people in between – but it seems strange that, for example, from Angers to Tours, with 150,000 people in each settlement and a distance of less than sixty miles apart, there's no direct services between 08:00 and 10:00 and only one service between 10:35 and 16:58. Even including changing at Le Mans or Sainte-Pierre-des-Corps there's still some hours with one or no services.

 

[CS2447]

Switzerland is hard to beat from an ordinary traveller's perspective, though SBB has had rolling stock issues lately.
For the enthusiast (able-bodied anyway) I would probably agree with Czechia - it scores on the extent of rail coverage (rural buses are much more variable) if not on speed or frequency.

I'm Voting for Switzerland as well

 

[CarrotPie]

In terms of rolling stock, definitely Finland. High-quality, homegrown double-decker coaches hauled by powerful 210km/h locos form the long-distance fleet, complemented by 17 Pendolino sets (which don't work in the winter). Regional services (max. 2/day/direction) are run by a diminishing fleet of 12 Czech railcars, which ke catching fire and having fun at level crossings. Rural commuter services are run by very high-quality domestic units from the 80s and capital-Region commuter services are run by first-generation FLIRTs and some Alstom sets.

That's the good bit. We have fewer than 200 stations, despite being 50% bigger than the UK (although 1/12 of the population). Most lines are single-track and most places (even some lf the biggest cities in Finland) are lucky to get even a dozen trains a day. When something goes wrong (say, a train failure), good luck getting a replacement bus. On a recent day, almost 20% of long-distance trains reached their destination more than half an hour late. The ability to serve customers, meanwhile, is gifted only to conductors and restaurant car staff.

All in all:
Rail network: 4/10
Rolling stock: 9/10
Reliability: 7/10
Train service: 7/10 (infinitely better in the South)
Customer service: 5/10

We do, however, have the safest railway in the world (go us!), with the last passenger fatality being more than 25 years ago.

 

[stuu]

For overall services, integration and general excellence it's impossible to consider anywhere but Switzerland, with a distant second place for the Netherlands.

Of the larger countries, I would say there was a case for Italy, certainly north of Rome. Proper high speed network, decent, frequent and cheap regional and local services, with a fair amount of good urban transport too. And they have electrified most of their lines and continue to invest across the country.

France has decent high speed and urban transport but everything in between is often terrible, as already mentioned. Spain has amazing high speed infrastructure but Renfe has no idea how to run a railway. Germany's issues with congestion and punctuality are frequent subjects on this forum and I'm sure lots of us have had that pleasure

 

[Gaelan]

A niche point, but the UK's open data is the best I've seen in Europe - I'm not aware of anywhere on the continent with as rich an ecosystem as Railboard, brtimes, brfares, RTT, OTT, etc.

 

[A S Leib]

A niche point, but Great Britain's (E, W, S) open data is the best I've seen in Europe - I'm not aware of anywhere on the continent with as rich an ecosystem as Railboard, brtimes, brfares, RTT, OTT, etc.

The last time I checked the Interrail and ÖBB planners don't know non-Enterprise Translink stations exist, let alone having real-time information for Northern Ireland trains.

 

[railfan99]

As a Eurailpass user who's been to Europe (and UK) several times including twice in the past two years, Italy, Germany and England (in any order) are the best.

Austria is also very enjoyable but it's a smaller nation.

I exclude France on account of poorly timed connections to and from branch lines, something in which UK often does very well. (I hear the moans re 'cancellations' but perhaps I was lucky: hardly any of my itineraries' trains suffered).

I similarly exclude Switzerland because it is a very small nation, so despite terrain, arguably easier to serve than larger entities. Similarly while having visited Belgium within the last three months, it's so small I wouldn't give it a serious rating.

Czechia was good when I was there more than a decade ago but frequencies weren't always terrific.

In Spain, I've not travelled on enough non-high speed rail lines to casually assess.

I hope to much more in depth visit Poland this year: a previous visit to Krakow wasn't enough to consider rating its entire rail network.

 

[DanielB]

A niche point, but the UK's open data is the best I've seen in Europe - I'm not aware of anywhere on the continent with as rich an ecosystem as Railboard, brtimes, brfares, RTT, OTT, etc.

Depends on what information you want. The open data in The Netherlands may be somewhat less extensive than in the UK (data only for stations, not for intermediate route points), but other information is more extensive.
The Dutch open data for example includes exact train compositions for NS and some (not all) regional operators, complete with unit numbers and GPS locations.
Similar countrywide open data is available for buses, trams and metros as well. Nicely visualised on websites making used of the open data like https://ovzoeker.nl/; busposities.nl and treinposities.nl.

 

[zero]

If you're going to exclude countries like Belgium and Switzerland then you aren't really comparing anything at all.

Italy is not bad but the compulsory reservation thing puts me off.

Switzerland may be expensive for single journeys but if you can get and make use of a day pass it's extraordinarily good value, particularly as you can generally assume all other public transport is automatically included too.

 

[Gaelan]

The last time I checked the Interrail and ÖBB planners don't know non-Enterprise Translink stations exist, let alone having real-time information for Northern Ireland trains.

Good catch, thanks - I do think NIR publish some open data, but it’s certainly not as extensive as what Network Rail and RDG make available.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Austria always impresses - extensive electrification, high-quality rolling stock, well maintained track and stations and a decent timetable even on the branch lines. Cheery and motivated staff too. Lots of investment in the pipeline - the base tunnels / lines and international night services.

The ever expanding Spanish high-speed network is fantastic, but one fears for the classic lines. RENFE used COVID as an excuse to chop services, many of which have still to be restored. Almeria and Algerciras still haven't got their full compliment of IC services, and even on the Mediterranean Corridor (Barcelona to Alicante) the timetable is still decidely thin.

 

[WestCoast]

Switzerland isn’t always perfect and if you go looking for issues you will find them but it is still very much in a league of its own as a dense, integrated network. I particularly enjoy the non-SBB services like the Zentralbahn services out of Lucerne. The service levels provided to such relatively small places and the high levels of patronage across Swiss society is just fascinating to me. Rail is a key part of the culture and you can tell there is a huge amount of pride in the delivery of that service that doesn’t exist elsewhere. I was on a EuroCity from Milan to Geneva last year and after crossing the border the Swiss crew just seemed that bit sharper than the Italian one with detailed progress announcements in multiple languages, ticket checks, cleaning etc.

As for high-speed rail travelling only between major cities, ignoring the classic lines entirely, then I find Spain really hard to beat nowadays. Services are really high quality and competition has sunk fares. The service on Iryo in particular is outstanding value. The big stations I find are clean and safe and nice enough places to spend a bit of time, give me Atocha or Sants over Paris Nord or Rome Termini anyday. Obviously outside of the high speed services and the metro network in the big cities, Spain isn’t generally that good but those core services are the best in Europe in my view.

 

[rvdborgt]

The last time I checked the Interrail and ÖBB planners don't know non-Enterprise Translink stations exist, let alone having real-time information for Northern Ireland trains.

That's probably because they don't send their data to the European Timetable Centre (MERITS).

 

[Austriantrain]

I tend to rate those countries highest that do a lot with little investment (well, in railway world, „little“ is relative, since even small things cost a fortune), so that would put a country like the Czech republic top of the list. And the UK too, doing a very good job while politicians are busy spending elsewhere (but where?).

Also those that while investing much are aware that public transport in general and railways in particular are a public service and if so much money is spent, it should profit as much of the population as possible and not only large cities. This is where Switzerland excels. Once Germany gets its act together again (and it will surely do so), it will be very high up my ranking too.

What I can’t go along with is spending huge amounts of money and then using the infrastructure sparingly. So Spain is really down on my list - they built their way into having an excellent service on a few lines - not difficult if you build an entirely new, largely segregated network for billions, in large part not out of your own pocket - but in the rest of the country, it is a shame - even on HSL. France is better of course, but really only decent if you travel from and to Paris or happen to travel along a line that starts from there - or in the very few regions that take public transport seriously, like Grand Est.

In the group of large countries, UK and Italy would come first in my opinion, with Germany somewhat behind.

 

[dutchflyer]

Have used 2 half price InterRails-for 2 and 3 monthes in the last 1,5 yr and visited nearly all systems covered by it. Have travelled through the years on any EUR railway-even a few KMs into the country in Byelorus. And also Moldova, Georgia and Armenija (but not Azeri).
MY 1st nomination does not go to the Swss-fares too high, though of course its a well run system as combination of dozens of national and local railways.
Rather I nominate LUXemburg-free, integrated too with its tramline and local buses, well set up fixed timetable.
And the poodle prize for a country that has really fallen very deep from previous standard: Germany, DEutschland. After having used 6 months of that cheap DE-Ticket last year all around.

 

[CarrotPie]

A niche point, but the UK's open data is the best I've seen in Europe - I'm not aware of anywhere on the continent with as rich an ecosystem as Railboard, brtimes, brfares, RTT, OTT, etc.

I would argue Finland's is also of high quality, with one open-data site doing the jobs of RTT, OTT and Railboard, plus full (and virtually realtime) delay attribution and a country-wide spotting system that allows you to save your spots and share them to help others. Fare-wise, we only have two types of fares, so there's no need for sites on the matter.

 

[JonasB]

Yet another vote for Switzerland.

But I'm not sure which country comes 2nd. Austria and the Netherlands have been mentioned, Belgium is also pretty good.

And while Finland and Denmark have been mentioned, sorry Finns and Danes, but none of those countries are even close to having the best railways in Europe. Although a lot is happening in Denmark and the Danish railways will be much better in a couple of years.

 

[30907]

Austria always impresses - extensive electrification, high-quality rolling stock, well maintained track and stations and a decent timetable even on the branch lines. Cheery and motivated staff too. Lots of investment in the pipeline - the base tunnels / lines and international night services.

It's pretty impressive provided you are content with the core 2- hourly IC frequency. The big problem ATM is the shortage of stock - but that's a spinoff from the Klimaticket and should ease in a year or two. A niggle is the 4-hourly frequency on Linz-Selzthal-Graz.

 

[Austriantrain]

It's pretty impressive provided you are content with the core 2- hourly IC frequency.

Although I am not neutral (see my nickname...), I agree. At least, hourly services have been introduced on the Westbahn and between Vienna and Graz in the last decade and it will get better once the Koralm and Semmering are done. But really, we should go towards half-hourly on West- and Südbahn and hourly everywhere else. Passenger numbers surely would justify it; indeed, many trains are more than full.

Also, unfortunately, reliability has been bad in 2023. Hopefully it will get better again.

 

[Jamesrob637]

Spain for the high-speed services, Germany and Switzerland for frequencies even if the former is suffering from issues. The South of France services between Cannes and Ventimiglia are pretty decent, as is the TGV and some other Intercités lines, but France can be patchy in places. We're middle of the table in my view: far from the Swiss, but far from the worst too.

 

[Watershed]

I would have said there can be little question that Switzerland has the best railway overall.

A national Takt that combines all modes of transport is an incredible achievement, and it results in ubiquitously good connections (and thus quick journeys) even though some of the frequencies are perhaps lower than one might expect. Fares are integrated across all operators and modes of transport so there is none of the "10p price war" nonsense you see in the UK. Trains and stations are incredibly clean. Even fairly minor stations usually have refreshment facilities, and changes are often cross-platform. The SBB app has to be the best that any railway has come up with, and it allows PAYG travel (easyRide) throughout the entire country across all modes of transport.

Trains are well designed, with seats usually well aligned to the windows, plug sockets even on a lot of local stock, and door release usually being pre-selectable before the train comes to a stop which helps reduce dwell times (and none of the British nonsense of a guard stepping out to check the platform hasn't been swallowed by a sinkhole since the last train...). There's first class on virtually every train and even some tram-trains. And dispatch only starts after the scheduled departure time, so you can't miss a train due to not turning up 40 seconds early!

For a system of such high quality, one really can't complain about the price. Sure, it's not exactly cheap, but for local residents a Halbtax makes fares broadly equivalent to UK levels, and for visitors there are plenty of passes available that make travel affordable.

Spain has such ambition, political will and funding for high-speed infrastructure as countries like the UK could only dream of, but RENFE excel at shooting themselves in the foot. Compulsory reservations on virtually all trains other than S-Bahn-type (Cercanías) services around cities. A lack of through ticketing for journeys involving changes, unless RENFE deem them important enough to manually set up a through fare and connection in their journey planner. And fares that are often not that cheap - only moderated on some key corridors by the recent introduction of open access competition.

Using their website is an exercise in frustration: you set it to English but still get random bits in Spanish, and constantly get error messages that throw you back to the homepage. There's no proper PDF timetables for most regions, and their journey planner seems to have been designed by a practical joker - major stations are listed separately to minor stations but there's no clear dividing line between the two! But the worst part has to be the incredibly poor frequencies, even on many key routes, and complete lack of any clockface timetable.

In summary: great high-speed infrastructure but almost everything else is poor.

The UK has high frequencies on a lot of lines compared to most European countries, with most services being clockface. It also has through ticketing for (almost) all National Rail journeys despite the fragmentation into 20-odd operators, and even through ticketing onto some other systems such as the Tube and local metros. Where it falls apart is abysmal reliability, the extortionate cost of walk-up travel, and the almost complete lack of any attempt at timetabling connections between operators or routes. Many routes also suffer from inadequate capacity due to short-sighted government cutbacks.

Practical integration is also a major issue, with TOCs only caring about their own fiefdoms (e.g. in refusing ticket acceptance) and often refusing to hold connections because of the insistence on the punctuality of individual trains over passenger journeys. Having PPM or "right time" as the main metric rather than "on-time passenger journeys" (as is the case in Switzerland) exemplifies this myopic approach.

 

[johnnydoe]

I'd say Switzerland is comfortably first. Austria is probably second.

I think to be positioned as the best you need both extensive passenger and freight services.

Germany and Finland would be somewhere in the top 5.

France's offerings are poor when you remove HSR services. SNCF got badly caught on the receiving end of illegal freight subsidies too.

 

[A S Leib]

. A lack of through ticketing for journeys involving changes, unless RENFE deem them important enough to manually set up a through fare and connection in their journey planner. And fares that are often not that cheap - only moderated on some key corridors by the recent introduction of open access competition.

Using their website is an exercise in frustration: you set it to English but still get random bits in Spanish, and constantly get error messages that throw you back to the homepage. There's no proper PDF timetables for most regions, and their journey planner seems to have been designed by a practical joker - major stations are listed separately to minor stations but there's no clear dividing line between the two! But the worst part has to be the incredibly poor frequencies, even on many key routes, and complete lack of any clockface timetable.

I was looking for FEVE timetables and fares a few days ago but couldn't find anything beyond forum posts from years ago linking to websites which no longer exist; I take it that's a typical approach to providing timetable information for non-Renfe services in that case.

I don't know how much of the blame the Portuguese government and SNCF deserve, but from what I know international connections to / from Spain are far poorer than, say, Austria as well, even accounting for the size of the country and the fact that apart from Portugal and Morocco it isn't really on the way to anywhere.

 

[rvdborgt]

I was looking for FEVE timetables and fares a few days ago but couldn't find anything beyond forum posts from years ago linking to websites which no longer exist;

Googling "renfe feve" gets you here:

Cercanias AM | Renfe

Cercanias AM: Toda la información sobre horarios, tarifas, estaciones (mapas, líneas), viajar con mascotas, bicicletas.

www.renfe.com

Spain has such ambition, political will and funding for high-speed infrastructure as countries like the UK could only dream of, but RENFE excel at shooting themselves in the foot. Compulsory reservations on virtually all trains other than S-Bahn-type (Cercanías) services around cities. A lack of through ticketing for journeys involving changes, unless RENFE deem them important enough to manually set up a through fare and connection in their journey planner.

Renfe doesn't have a journey planner. It's just a train database with a crappy user interface, that doesn't even contain all their trains.

 

[JonasB]

Germany and Finland would be somewhere in the top 5.

I agree about Germany, but Finland would be much lower in my opinion.

 

[A S Leib]

"No hay itinerarios disponibles para el trayecto y fecha seleccionada" (no dispensable itineraries for the selected trajectory?) for Bilbao–Ferrol, although that journey might just be too long as it shows results for Bilbao–Santander. It doesn't seem to work unless "calcular importe" is ticked and no PDF timetable, but the fact that it shows something's a start.

Sticking with Spain, 68% of the network's (I think the Wikipedia list is electrified route miles) electrified. Not brilliant compared to Switzerland, India or Japan, but as Italy and Poland are at 60-65% and Germany, France and Portugal at 50-55% (and the UK at 37%) it's respectable.