Interrail B.V. will no longer have two different brands for the same rail Pass. Eurail, intended for travellers outside Europe, is becoming Interrail, bringing the company’s global community of travellers together under one name. The change comes after the company itself changed its name from Eurail B.V. to Interrail B.V. earlier this year.
The new name is also accompanied by a broader shift in the brand’s communication. Instead of putting the number of destinations and places that can be visited in the foreground, Interrail is building its new global platform The Interrail Effect around the impact that the journey itself can have on people.
The platform was jointly developed by creative agency WE ARE Pi and social agency Butterfly Effect, and it is WE ARE Pi’s first work for Interrail since being appointed its brand and creative agency in April.
The platform is based on the specific nature of train travel, including what at first glance may seem like its less practical side. Longer routes, encounters with strangers, changes of plan or missed connections are not treated in this idea as obstacles that should be removed from the experience, but as part of what makes the journey memorable.
This positioning is also supported by the results of research conducted by Interrail this year among 3,000 European Interrail customers and 1,000 Eurail customers outside Europe who travelled from mid-April 2026. Around 70 percent of respondents said the trip changed the way they see the world, a similar proportion considered the experience more impactful than other types of holidays, while roughly a quarter rated it as significantly more impactful.
Rather than tourism based on the longest possible list of places to visit, Interrail is therefore trying to emphasise what happens between departure and arrival.
That idea took practical form through The Interrail Diaries campaign. During the summer, 30 creators of different generations, backgrounds and travel styles travelled by train across Europe, from solo travellers and groups to families, including both first-time and experienced travellers from the US, Canada, Australia and Europe.
The material was not created as a set of classic travel postcards. Their footage and personal reflections became the basis for short films and social media content. They feature conversations with strangers, new friendships, landscapes that might otherwise have gone unnoticed through a different form of travel, as well as missed connections that later become part of the travel story.
The central film Between here & there uses the well-known song Funiculì, Funiculà, composed in 1880 by Luigi Denza, with lyrics by Peppino Turco, to mark the opening of the first funicular on Mount Vesuvius.
For Interrail, however, The Interrail Effect is not conceived as a single campaign. The platform is intended to guide future campaigns, partnerships, content, community initiatives and customer experiences, while creators will continue to be part of its development through new cultural moments and personal travel stories.
“The Interrail Effect isn’t something we invented. It’s something travellers have described to us for decades, in their own words, after every journey. What’s changing is that we’re finally building the brand around it. Not around where people travel, but around what travelling like this does to them,” said Özlem Birkalan, Chief Brand and Commercial Officer at Interrail.
The campaign launched globally on September 10, with initial activations in the UK, Australia and the US. It spans paid, owned and earned channels, organic social media content, email communication, partnerships and PR, as well as Instagram, TikTok and other channels of the participating creators.
Interrail Global Pass enables travel by train across up to 33 European countries, while the new platform is attempting to shift its value from freedom of movement itself towards what happens as travellers cover those distances.
