After yesterday’s news that Basel-Malmö will not happen, today there’s news that a new night train route will open up – European Sleeper is proposing to run from Bruxelles and Amsterdam to Switzerland and Milano from June 2026. Their press release about it is here (PDF).
A few of relevant parts from the statement to the press: “In Switzerland, the train will follow the historic Simplon route via Bern, Brig, and Domodossola into Italy, stopping in Stresa on the shores of Lago Maggiore before arriving in Milan.” Well that one is going to pose a conundrum for a start – as you can’t enter Bern from Basel and exit towards Simplon without reversing, and Bern station is currently being rebuilt and is congested anyway, so no way that’s going to work. And the Simplon route is going to be closed at multiple times in 2026 as well.
“To offer suitable departure and arrival times from both Amsterdam, Brussels, as well as Cologne, European Sleeper decided to split and combine separate train parts to/from Amsterdam and Brussels in Western Germany. The company strongly believes all three city trip destinations are important for a viable business case , also because of their large populations and travel potential.” This is, in principle, not a bad idea. But it complicates the operations and increases the costs.
And then “Departures from Amsterdam and Brussels are scheduled for Monday, Thursday, and Saturday evenings, arriving in Switzerland and Milan the following morning. The return
service from Milan will operate on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday nights.” – so like all of European Sleeper’s other routes it is going to be 3x a week, so there will be Bruxelles-Amsterdam-Berlin-Praha 3x a week, Paris-Bruxelles-(Hamburg?)-Berlin 3x a week, and Bruxelles/Amsterdam-Köln-Bern-Milano 3x a week. This looks quite a mess to me, but maybe there is some logic to it that I otherwise do not see.
Then there is my usual objection to things like this: where are the carriages going to come from to operate this train?
This time I am a bit more reassured than I am normally, as a source I cannot reveal has confirmed to me that European Sleeper has managed to find some extra carriages for this service – from a source different to those used for their other services. But how many carriages, and of what quality, I have no idea. Finding suitable locomotives should also be no major headache as the train does not go through France.
So is this going to work? It might, just about. In the coming weeks and months we will be able to fill in some of the pieces of the jigsaw. And, as ever, give European Sleeper their due – they try things, and are not beholden to subsidies before having a go. That is to be commended.