Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

How far you can travel in Europe by rail in 5 hours

Here is a neat tool (created by Benjamin Td) that allows you to quickly see how far you can travel in Europe by rail in 5 hours. The way it works is that you just hover over a train station and then the relevant isochrone will show up. Above is what that looks like for Paris’ Gare de Lyon, which has one of if not the largest catchment areas from what I can tell after playing around with the tool for a few minutes. The data being used to power this map is from Deutsche Bahn. And if there’s a transfer on any of the routes, the tool assumes you can make that happen within 20 minutes, which may or may not be realistic. Regardless, it’s fascinating to see just how connected (or disconnected) some cities are. It’s also a shameful reminder that a North American version wouldn’t be nearly as impressive.

One response to “How far you can travel in Europe by rail in 5 hours”

  1. doug pollard Avatar
    doug pollard

    It also hints at how fast the trains are …… the one going to Marseille for instance

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