Will Europe’s high-speed ‘Metro-style’ rail network really happen?

“A truly integrated rail system is no longer just a matter of convenience; it’s a strategic necessity for Europe’s resilience in the 21st century,” reads the ‘Starline’ report.

“Designed like a Metro system, Starline changes how Europeans perceive their own continent – not as a collection of distant capitals, but as a single, fast-moving network where every connection, whether for people or goods, is within easy reach.”

Sounds great, and the think-tank has published a map to demonstrate how 39 cities across Europe, from Dublin to Kyiv and Helsinki to Lisbon, could be connected – the map uses a common diagrammatic Metro map style, which is known to sometimes ignore real-world geography in favour of easier understanding for travellers.

So how realistic is this proposal?

Map of the proposed Starline European connections. Map: 21st Europe

Geography

Munich to Milan via Zurich is a straight vertical line on the map, which ignores the existence of Innsbruck and the minor geographical obstacle that is the Alps. 

Advertisement

It also connects Estonia’s capital Tallinn with Finland’s Helsinki via a still-on-the-drawing-board €20 billion tunnel that – if it is completed, with earliest projections setting a date sometime in the 2030s – would be the longest rail tunnel in the world.

The project would also require a tunnel under the Irish Sea, which drops at its deepest point more than 300m below sea level, to connect Liverpool and Dublin.

A possible future direct link between Glasgow and Belfast, meanwhile, would face the same problems as former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s dead cat plan for a bridge or tunnel to connect Scotland and Northern Ireland.

What actually is it?

Starline’s proposal appears to involve being a train operator – the trains would be blue, with ‘quiet carriages’ and family spaces – while also coordinating European ticketing systems and building quite a lot of new infrastructure.

In addition to the new tunnels and tracks required, the proposal specifies: “The trains will arrive at new stations built just outside major cities with connections to existing urban transport systems.”

It would also create an ‘open’ ticketing system, where passengers could buy tickets for anywhere in Europe on a single platform – similar to the British online platform Trainline, which also sells tickets in Europe.

It is not specified exactly how this would fit in with the existing rail operators that already run services around Europe, many of whom are publicly funded, other than to say that national rail operators would be “responsible for specific routes under a common framework”.

They add that “harmonised labour agreements” would be required for rail employees – we’ll let them break that one to the famously militant French rail unions.

Advertisement

Who pays?

Which brings us to the question of funding.

According to its Starline blueprint, 21st Europe proposes “central coordination for trains, passenger experience, and technology while allowing national rail operators to run routes under a franchise model.”

It adds: “Starline should be structured as a publicly funded, privately operated system, designed to maximise efficiency while ensuring strong public oversight”.

Many European countries do, of course, already provide public funding for rail operators – such as France’s SNCF, Spain’s Renfe and Germany’s Deutsche Bahn.

Advertisement

Starline’s proposal would seem to involve the hundreds of billions in infrastructure spending being publicly funded, and operated by national rail companies – all overseen by an as-yet non-existent European Rail Authority (ERA).

“Now, we begin building the network to push for real change, bringing together policymakers, designers, and industry leaders to turn vision into action,” the think tank said.

Reasons for change

Some slight issues of practicality aside, the Starline report does identify many real problems with Europe’s rail network.

Ticketing issues, a lack of co-ordination and integration across borders means travelling between countries in Europe can be “fragmented, slow, and expensive”.

The think tank says unifying design is key to a cross-border travel network. 

“Stations feel disconnected, trains vary wildly in design, and the journey itself is rarely considered as part of the experience,” it says of the current system.

And it is looking to build on an existing EU initiative to unify transport across the bloc, known as the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T).

TEN-T, which Starline lambasts as lacking in speed and ambition, seeks to develop a network of railways, inland waterways, short sea shipping routes and roads linking urban nodes, maritime and inland ports, airports and terminals for the “efficient transportation for people and goods, ensures access to jobs and services, and enables trade and economic growth”.

It seeks to work with European state and private rail operators, offer funding for infrastructure projects and create Europe-wide systems such as a common rail signalling system.

Even with all these problems, cross-border rail travel is rapidly growing in popularity as travellers become more conscious of their environmental impact.

“A bold shift to high-speed rail might be Europe’s best chance to meet its 2050 net-zero goals while ensuring mobility remains both fast and green,” the think tank said. 

In 2022, the transport sector contributed approximately 29 per cent of the EU’s total greenhouse gas emissions, according to the European Environment Agency.

There are good economic reasons for it too – “When China expanded its high-speed rail network, cities with HSR connections experienced a 14.2 percent increase in GDP, and each new HSR line contributed an additional 7.2 percent to urban GDP growth,” the think tank explained in its online brochure.

“A European project of similar scale could drive investment, unlock regional economies, and make the single market feel like a single market – physically, not just economically.”