Friday, September 25th Guest speaker(s) (i) Jon Worth, European Rail Passengers’ Union
(ii) Chantal Pastoors, Trade Manager, The Hague Tourism
Thursday, Nov. 26th by Zoom Guest speaker(s) t.b.a.
The Annual General Meeting, which will be in late January, 2027, possibly over two days, is customarily held at a venue in Continental Europe.
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Please click on the links for more details, and for a copy of the Manifesto which was signed at the meeting.
EPF Manifesto signed in Maastricht
EUROPEAN PASSENGER FEDERATION 2026 CONFERENCE
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AERA’s Annual General Meetings traditionally take place somewhere on the near Continent, and we are hoping – based upon our Chairman’s experiences in the Netherlands – that our next AGM in January 2027 could well take place in Den Haag!
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AERA’s members like to keep up to date first-hand knowledge of international rail developments and services and so for a number of years they have made visits together to the Near Continent by train.
In 2025 the association held its Annual General Meeting for the first time on the European mainland – at Ghent in Belgium – and this year the venue was Brussels at the end of January.
Members took the 09.01 Eurostar service from London St Pancras on January 28th, returning the following day on the 15.42 from Brussels Midi – both trains well filled but not overcrowded.
They sampled the Brussels metro (which in its current form dates from the 1970s) for the northern part of the city for their large modern hotel.
Most then took an afternoon walk in the historic heart of Brussels, exploring the pedestrianised streets, the Stock Exchange converted to a Beer Museum, the magnificent late mediaeval Grand Place and, down a side street the famous (or notorious) statue of Mannekin Pis.
There was time then for some gift shopping before the group made their way to the Restaurant Bouillon Bruxelles for a hearty three-course dinner, joined by two colleagues from Vlaams Reizigersbond – one of the Belgian pro-public transport associations.
The Annual General Meeting took place in the board room of Eurostar’s headquarters. We are grateful to the train operator for providing complimentary tickets and for allowing us to meet in their office just across the street from Brussels South Station. Four members unable to come to Brussels also joined the meeting by zoom, reviewing our progress over the past year (including the launch of our new website) and making plans for the rest of 2026.
Our General Meetings take place six times a year, with the next one due in London on March 26th and focussing on rail/sea/rail
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EPF representatives from the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany recently met senior managers of Eurostar and Thalys in Brussels. These two operators are in the process of merging and are sometimes currently referred to as “New Eurostar”.
For more than a decade, AERA has been an associate member of the European Passengers’ Federation (EPF) which brings together public transport users’ organisations and related bodies in 20 different European countries. EPF is widely recognised as a well-informed independent voice of rail customers, which has regular dialogue with political and transport professionals and decision-makers. In this context we are pleased that AERA took part in EPF’s Conference this year, which took place in the Steam Museum, Swindon – the old main workshops of the Great Western Railway, one of the “big four” railway companies, which connected London with the West Country and the West Midlands, and was nationalised in 1948.
The Conference, which was attended by consumers and providers from 9 European countries, covered many topics, including “Women & Transport”, “EU Transport Policy”, “The experiences of the private and public sectors”, “Community involvement”, and Issues of Information & Ticketing”.
AERA Member Alex Nelson gave a presentation on the last of these, and the illustrations are courtesy of Simon Hodge, depicting the AERA Banner; Alex on stage; and one of Swindon Steam Museum’s prize exhibits, No. 6000 “King George V”, the Great Western’s largest and most powerful express passenger steam locomotive, built in 1927, retired in the mid 1960’s, but preserved in working order to work occasional special trains.
