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.
The give-away, surely, is the announcement of the loss of the Basel-Malmo train using RDC cars at the same time ES suddenly finds rolling stock for a Brussels/Amsterdam-Milan train, resurrecting my old favourite ‘299’. That’s that fixed then! MUn sleeping-cars on ES, anyone? The Simplon has become a part-time railway over the last year or two, I’ve given up and am sending everyone via the Gotthard if I can, even if longer you know it’ll run. I guess ES will also divert that way, over the top if their cars aren’t allowed in the GBT.
Hi Jon, thanks for your analysis as always. Regarding the reversal in Bern, I see a route from Bern to Thun through Belp, rejoining the main line right before Thun. Does it make sense for European Sleeper to use these tracks to avoid reversing in Bern? They are lower speed though, and parts are single track, so it might not be viable. Do you know?
” as you can’t enter Bern from Basel and exit towards Simplon without reversing”
i dont think this is correct?
not the main route but possible unless im missing somthing?
https://signal.eu.org/osm/#locs=50.835981,4.334847;50.943098,6.958734;46.949124,7.438184;45.486044,9.204719
There is the single track line through Belp. But there is no capacity on it, and the passing loops are too short. So no. And yes, I did think of that!
What if the they count the suburb Zollikofen as Bern? There is a direct connection from Zollikofen to Ostermundigen without reversing in Bern. (These tracks are mainly used for freight trains. As far as I know, there is only one scheduled passenger train on workdays on these tracks (S46)).
Zollikofen has frequent and fast connections to Bern.
Before the remodeling of the station in Ostermundigen started, the station was sometimes used for special trains instead of Bern or when Bern was not reachable due to interruptions.
you would have to run it via the Gotthard anyway, as the Simplon is always out of order when you need it…
So a good route could be to stop in Basel Bad (no capacity constraints there), then take a freight path to the Gotthard, stopping maybe in Arth Goldau and Lugano.
Via Bern would only be feasible once the Italians are finished with there slow upgrade of the Simplon, hopefully somewhere in 2028.
But then I would run it as one train, and run Amsterdam – Maastricht – Liege – Luxembourg – Basel – Bern – Brig – Stresa – Milano. And yes, you can send a long train via Belp. SBB themselves occasionally do that. Or otherwise stop in Ostermundigen. Platform 3 should be back in service by 2028.
I used to travel Bern – Brussel by night train when that is possible, in those same roomy AB30 cars ES uses.. I would certainly use them again.
re Bern, could they pull a Ryanair and call at “Ostermundigen for Bern”?