called for jail time for those responsible for an it scandal in which hundreds of workers were falsely accused of theft. now on bbc news, the travel show. europe by train — for generations of backpackers interrailers, as well as for me, it is what travel is all about. and in germany, the railways are booming, partly because of this. it's called the deutschlandticket. it costs me a0 euros a month, and it allows me almost unlimited use of the country's regional public transport network. it was a cost—of—living

measure introduced in 2023, initially atjust 9 euros each. i do love a train — who doesn't? so i'm planning to take them to criss—cross the country and get a better look at the close relationship between germans and their railways. from berlin's iconic u—bahn, to the incredible hanging overhead railway of the industrial west, to the makeshift island trains of the northern coast... the water, the lights — this is stunning. i'm here to see how engineering and a bit of imagination have led to a network like no other. with almost 40,000 km of track, germany's rail network is the longest in europe, which makes it the perfect place to explore by train.

but from berlin's vast central station, i'm taking an even cheaper form of transport for a spot of sightseeing. all right, we're doing it. we are crossing the tramway. fabulous. oh, it's beautiful. i can see the tv tower on my left, and it's so cloudy, the tip of it is just about unseen. alexanderplatz is these days the touristic heart of the capital. until 1989, it was the main public square in communist east berlin. i was born in 1990, which is a year after the berlin wall came down, so for myself and i'm sure for a generation younger, there is no recollection of those news events, so being able to be here and just get a sense

of what it might have been like is still quite special. by 1989, the berlin wall had forcibly divided the city for 28 years, with the communists controlling the eastern part of the city while the capitalist west controlled the west of berlin. travel between the two was strictly controlled, and in most cases forbidden. but i'm heading down into the u—bahn, berlin's underground rail network, which i can access with the deutschlandticket. 0k, u8 this way. now, alexanderplatz was in the east, so anybody getting on the u—bahn, three stops in that direction, had to wait on board while they got safely four stops down that way. this was effectively a ghost station.

they were manned, guarded — you definitely could not just get off. athena kerins leads tours for a group called berlin underworld, which explores the tunnels and passageways underneath the city. so alexanderplatz would have been a ghost station — pretty eerie. what would that have been like? for the west berliners coming through, it would have been dark, a little bit eerie, with just the glowing emergency exit signs, maybe a bit of light creeping in from the tunnel itself. for the east berliners, it would have been completely different, because they weren't allowed to know about this at all. if they knew that it was coming through here then they might be tempted to get into the train station or the tunnels and use them to escape. but even before those 28 years of division, the tunnels down here harboured secrets. athena is taking me to one of the world war ii bomb shelters built into

the u—bahn network. oh, wow. welcome to pankstrasse. welcome to our bunker. when and how long would they have stayed down here? as the war progressed, and especially as the americans joined the war, the americans bombed by day, the british bombed by night, and towards the battle of berlin there was also street fighting. people were down here days on end. it's quite interesting because you can hear rumbling going past. you get that big rumbling, passing noise all the time. would they have been aware that this bunker was here? you mean the... the passengers, yes. yes, because this was used primarily by people who were in the transport system and had to come somewhere. the people in here were lucky. as we go a few stops up the u8 line, athena takes me forward in time to a later shelter,

a symptom of berlin's position on the fault line of the historic tensions between east and west. so this is the bunker, or there is a bunker nearby? there's actually — we're in the bunker already, because this entire station is the bunker. it was originally opened in 1977 to a multipurpose facility. so it's both a train station, as you just saw, but also, in a 48—hour preparation period, it can be turned into an atomic fallout shelter. so this is some of our many, many dormitories. a big luxury here is that we actually all get our own bed, which is not standard for bunkers like this. we have several dormitories, but on top of that, about 2,000 people would have to be sleeping on the train platform itself. this is the pillow. that's the blanket

and the pillow. they are quite literally paper. oh, wow. so this is a kitchen, essentially for everybody. this is not a kitchen, this is the kitchen. this place is going to feed 3,339 people two meals a day. thankfully we're not eating anything too glamorous. it's mostly going to be soups, assorted soups out of the cans. in this can is actually a dehydrated, jellified soup concentrate, rather than normal soup. this is giving me sort of 1970s lab. yes, already a step above the last one. there is in fact a ventilation system here. so this place isn't going to protect us from a direct hit from a bomb, but in theory, if the rest of the world goes to war, this place can protect us from the radioactive fallout. 0k. while this now looks like a relic of a bygone era,

the german government has recently been investigating the possibility of restoring bunkers like these for use in the future. i know immediately following the russian invasion of ukraine, the topic came up a lot in germany. and the ministry for the interior did do a preliminary survey, because in the height of the cold war, there were quite literally thousands of these places around all of germany. most of the experts in the areas of civil defence have agreed that it's not really a productive use of money. it costs an insane amount of money to even just repair the ones that they've let fall into disrepair. i'm surfacing for some fresh air now, and back to the capital's modern main station, hauptbahnhof, in search of trains bound for germany's industrial west. so i've been able to use my

deutschlandticket for this, but the big restriction is that you can't use it on the high—speed trains, so it's going to take probably twice the amount of time to actually travel around. you do need a bit of patience for this. you can buy a more expensive ticket and travel direct, but the cut—price method means changing trains five times. so i may have missed this one. wait, it's also late, so that means that i'll be fine? add to that the uncharacteristic delays and disruption that have dogged the german railway network in recent times, and you'll need to leave plenty of time to make your connections. five—minute delay — that means we're good, right? oh, so i have missed it. we've missed it. it's also quite fiddly to buy.

you need to subscribe to a deutschlandticket, which means a monthly direct debit. so if you're only here for a couple of weeks, you'll need to remember to cancel that as soon as your trip is over. otherwise you continue paying after you've headed home. my next stop is in the west of the country, not far from the industrial giants that have made this part of the world such an economic force. so this is wuppertal, sandwiched between cologne and dortmund. it is much smaller in comparison, but it has one thing going for it that has made it world—famous, and it's right there. the schwebebahn is a suspended monorail, the carriages hanging from a track about 12 metres above the streets and the rivers of wuppertal.

hello. i'm meeting inge, who grew up riding the schwebebahn and even got married on it back in 2006. it was built in 1893 01’1894, but only in 1901 it was ready. and then you could go from one town to the other. that's over 120 years that this has been standing here. yes. what do you think was the impression of the residents when they first saw this? they were impressed, i think. they said, what is this? excited. they feared it, because they thought they could come and take them away. they didn't want the schwebebahn.

shall we stand? i kind of want to feel it move. yes, hold on. it's going to move a lot? ok, you hold on as well. it does feel like it's sort of hovering, levitating. a little bit bumpy, but it's ok, it's pretty smooth. so what are some of your memories of being on here? it was very funny, my grandma — she came to wuppertal for the first time in 1953. she stood at the street and looked up and said, how can you come into the schwebebahn? because you can't see that there was a platform. what do you think it represents for the people here? i think they like it, because it's the only one in the world. but i think they like to go

from one place to the other in a short time. i think about 85,000 people a day take it. given all that history, it's a bit of a surprise there's been no proper museum to the schwebebahn. but, just as i arrived, all that is about to change. tomorrow the schwebedrome opens, and i'm here to meet its managing director as he makes the final few preparations. come in. hello, tom. how are you doing? fine. it's great that you are coming here. do you have anything left that you need to do today before tomorrow? we have to clean up a little bit, but 95—98% we are ready, and it's great you are coming here to our schwebebahn experience. please enter the first projection room. here we tell the story of mobility — why it was necessary to build the schwebebahn, because the population

increased massively in the middle of the 19th century as industrialisation came. as well as the projection, there are reminders of what the carriages looked like through the ages. and then, of course, this is like this, but you can't lean back. a diorama, but the piece de resistance is at the end. emily, let'sjust enter carriage number 11. here you see that you can still open the windows, for example. just put them on. the brain really — after five seconds, you are in the world of 1929, and you really think you're making a left or right turn. a lot of people thought that it was against god, that it is too speedy, that it is too much metal over the river, that it looks ugly — other people who didn't

have the vision that this will change the mobility in the valley completely. the next day, and the grand opening attracts quite a crowd. applause. singing. how was that for you? how are you feeling? it was very emotional. and i am really happy that it is now open. all of your hard work! i can feel the emotion! i think people that come here and they will see what a history wuppertal has to tell and what a lovely town it is. to go back to their home town and we had a really good

day in wuppertal. i am using the deutschlandticket to head north out of germany's cities and to its coast. in the summer, the trains up here get busy with beach lovers. but the sunshine and crowds have thinned a little by the time i arrived. oh, wow, very windy! this is schleswig holstein, in the north—west of germany, any further north and i'd be arriving in denmark.

from here i'm heading out over the sea. but it is not a boat i'll be taking. this is amazing! fabulous! pleasure to meet you! hello! this is the lorenbahn? the lorenbahn trains service the hallig islands, which are cut off by the mainland from flooding, up to 50 times a year. people living here use the little trains to get around. each family has its own, and every one is unique. claudia has offered to give me a ride on hers. you have to be very physically fit to do this, don't you? she's changing the rails across! right!

got the birds flying, the water, the light. this is stunning! when did the lorenbahn start? but there is a catch. as a tourist, you are not really supposed to be

using these, unless you are staying over on the island. did someone show you how to do this? luckily for me, claudia runs a bed—and—breakfast. do you feel that it is a shame that people cannot come to use it unless they come and stay here? would you want to have more tourists coming?

the lorenbahn was not actually built for the residents to get around. it belongs to and is run by germany's state department, for coastal defence. wow! well, this is definitely a lot bigger than claudia's! nice! how does it start? you can give power. can i try it? yes. wow, claudia did not let me do any of this! then you have to accelerate. the wheel is the accelerator? yes. did you have to learn how to ride this for the job?

yes. was it a lot of fun? much fun. much fun! engineer fabien agreed to let me see their work, and he is picking me up on his lorenbahn. you have to look there. oh yes, of course. so, there are times when all of this is flooded? yes. the climate change means the flood goes up every year, three to five millimetres a year. and we have a change in the timeslot of the floods. the floods stay

longer at times. fabien�*s team has a job on its hands. notjust to defend the land, but also to keep the lorenbahn above the encroaching seas. you can see the old railway, before we build up the new railway you could not ride there. because everything was underwater. 0riginally that was the railway down there and in the last couple of years you have raised it? yes. in a country better known for its cars and autobahns, people's affection for the trains has been a real eye—opener. now, germans are known for their engineering, but what has surprised me is seeing some of their creativity and flair. engineering and a bit of imagination have led to a network like no other.

and if the deutschlandticket brings more people here to see it for themselves, that can only be a good thing. fabien! hello. it's been a much drier week this week, but much colder as well. so no surprise that there are some snow showers still in the forecast for the weekend. but as we get to sunday and beyond, it looks much colder once again. so this is the weather front which will actually bring us a little bit of rain as we start the day on saturday.

it's behind that weather front where once again we open the gates to some really cold arctic air which will push its way right the way across the uk as we go through saturday into sunday. and it'll stay around into next week as well. so for saturday, there may well be a few splashes of rain on our weather front, a few icy patches, because it will be a cold start, not a harsh frost, but temperatures around freezing, perhaps one or two fog patches here and there as well. and still quite a lot of cloud drifting around in the south with showers starting to pep up in the north. but temperatures around about five in the south, up to seven or eight in the north. but then as we go through saturday night, we do see those showers pepping up and turning to snow and pushing further southward. so a colder night, i think, as we head into sunday morning. frosty, one or two ice patches where we've seen the showers, of course, a little bit of fog potentially still in the south. but by sunday, the risk of impactful snow rises, particularly for scotland. there are already warnings in force for sunday for scotland.

and you can see those coming through thick and fast on this brisk northerly wind which will blow the weatherfront, the remains of the weather front, even a few spots of rain and drizzle further south out of the way. and it'll be brighter, brighter skies, more sunshine around as we get that arctic blast in. but notably, temperatures lower. now, by the time we get to monday, we include northern ireland in our chance of disruptive snow. now, those are the areas that are most likely to see the disruptive snow. it doesn't mean that that's the only area where we will see snow because it's a showery situation. so they could occurjust about anywhere, but most likely across northern and eastern areas in that really brisk wind, at times gales in the north, which will make that wind chill really noticeable. very penetrating wind and it will feel bitterly cold. now, by the time we get to tuesday, there's the chance of this area of low pressure pushing more general snowfall across perhaps northern ireland into northern england, scotland. so that area that we think for impactful, disruptive snowfall is growing and it's certainly

going to be cold enough and widely frosty first thing tuesday morning, some really cold nights to come and as i say, that harsh frost because of the strong wind and that potentially disruptive snowfall as well. and look towards the south, by the time we get to the end of tuesday, notice the temperatures they've fallen lower again. yes, for the south, there's a risk that this area of low pressure willjust bump into that cold air and bring some impactful snow across southern parts of england and possibly wales, as well as the snow showers thatjust keep coming down in the north as well. so it is likely that we'll see more snow as we go through the coming week. it'll certainly be colder, the coldest snap we think of the winter so far and the greater risk of that snow causing some problems, travel disruption and some severe nighttime frosts. and itjust keeps going into thursday and friday. but then by the time we get to friday, we may see a ridge of high pressure starting to cut off that cold air. and by the end of next weekend, not this weekend, we might well start to see the atlantic influence again.

but between now and then, it looks colder with a greater chance of some impactful snow. the warnings are on the website.

live from london, this is bbc news. in taiwan, william lai from the ruling party wins the presidential election after the main opposition party conceded defeat. the ruling party's candidate william lai has extended the party's grip on power. lai has extended the party's grip on ower. ~ ., ., , ., ., lai has extended the party's grip on ower. ., ., , ., ., power. what does it mean for cross state relations? _ the us military launches a fresh strike against a houthi target

in yemen, a day afterjoint us—british air strikes across the country and in the uk, the minister responsible for the post office has called for jail time for those responsible for an it scandal — in which hundreds of workers were falsely accused of theft. welcome to the programme. let's start in taiwan, where william lai has won the elections and is set to become taiwan's president. lai is representing the governing dpp — and is set to succeed to the current president tsai ing—wen. lai has been labelled a troublemaker by china, as beijing warned people against voting for him. in his acceptance speech, he said he is "determined to safeguard taiwan from continuing threat and intimidation from china" and will maintain the cross—strait status quo. around 19 million voters were called to elect a new president. my colleague steve lai is in taipei and joins me now.