Analysis Midnight Trains - we wish them well, but where are the carriages needed going to come from? A new night train company has launched today. Paris-based Midnight Trains has launched with a very slick website, and promises a deluxe night train experience - private compartments with showers. The renderings are all soft furnishings and are akin to a smart hotel. RTL news has a report about the
Austria Rolling stock for a new night train: even SBB and ÖBB have plenty of difficulties As we reported yesterday, Swiss railways SBB are keen to increase their night train offer. But they, like every other player in this market, have the same rolling stock problems to overcome as anyone else. In this post we are going to look at the new NightJet service due to
Austria SBB boss Vincent Ducrot talks about the future of night trains to/from Switzerland Tagesanzeiger Sonntagszeitung features a long interview with boss of Swiss Railways SBB Vincent Ducrot - you can read the whole interview here (free registration required). The headline strikes us as slightly off. "Nachtzüge werden nie profitabel sein" "Night trains will never be profitable" he says. Perhaps
Analysis BaWü Transport Minister Hermann is right - "rail isn't always a viable alternative" - not yet anyway How Germany makes the transition to a carbon neutral economy is becoming a major topic in the election campaign for September's Bundestag election. The extent to which banning or stopping certain behaviours is legitimate, or whether persuading people to change their behaviour is a better route, is a
Analysis Von der Leyen promises €85bn for sustainable transport - night train rolling stock would be an ideal use for it! Speaking in the European Parliament earlier this week, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen set out some details of European Union Member States' post-COVID national recovery and resilience plans, and gave some details of the scale of the budget for transport: Let me give you some
Analysis More innovation in fast freight than in fast night trains in Italy, and new night trains with seats only in Germany Back in 2018, Trenitalia began an experiment called "Mercitalia Fast" - using a converted ETR-500 300km/h high speed train to convey light freight at high speed. You can read more about the project here. Now Trenitalia has announced a new overnight service, likewise using a ETR-500, connecting
Analysis Revival of the Trans Europ Express (TEE) - these plans are going to need some new trains Nostalgia is important in railways. Families and enthusiasts alike visit heritage railways, and railway companies across Europe try to motivate passengers to take trains today using symbolism of the past. And there is no symbolism stronger in cross-border rail in Europe than the Trans Europ Express (TEE), probably because more
Analysis Thank you MEPs Delli and Cuffe for thinking of night trains as part of smart mobility in the EU The European Parliament is currently debating an own-initiative report about a Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy for the EU - the whole legislative dossier is here, and German S&D MEP Ismail Ertug is the Rapporteur. MEPs - perhaps all of them stuck at home and suffering from the
Analysis "Rail at the forefront of smart and sustainable mobility" - Council of the EU conclusions offer scope for night train investment The Council of the European Union today adopted Council Conclusions on railways, entitled "Rail at the forefront of smart and sustainable mobility" - you can read the press story about this, quoting Portugal's transport minister here. The full conclusions are here (PDF). As I see it
Analysis It's a night train, but not as we know it - Arriva has plans A night train? In the Netherlands? Not the news we had expected to read. But here is the boss of Arriva Netherlands Anne Hettinga arguing for exactly that in an interview with NRC Handelsblad. The story was likewise covered by Railway Gazette International. As you might imagine this is not
Analysis France's PM Castex takes the re-introduced night train Paris-Nice, but it's hardly comfortable! After a three year absence, the Paris-Nice Night Train is back. The first service ran last night with an important passenger on board - French Prime Minister Jean Castex. He even made the welcome on board announcement to passengers: https://twitter.com/JeanCASTEX/status/1395460907728257029 The problem though - as
Analysis Germany's Transport Ministry makes the case for a European rolling stock pool On 17 May Germany's Ministry of for Transport and Digital Infrastructure held its Schienengipfel (Rail Summit) in Berlin. The centre piece of the event was a renewed commitment to speeding up Berlin - Dresden - Prague - Vienna connections, but an eagle-eyed Josh Posaner of Politico spotted an
Analysis French Ministry of the Ecological Transition report on night trains - focus on both French and international routes The Ministère de la Transition écologique (Ministry of the Ecological Transition) in France has released a new report entitled ÉTUDE DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DE NOUVELLES LIGNES DE TRAINS D’ÉQUILIBRE DU TERRITOIRE (TET) (STUDY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW TERRITORY BALANCE TRAIN LINES (TET)) - this assesses the way train connections
Analysis RailPro diagnoses the challenges for new operators trying to enter the long distance rail market Dutch Publication RailPro has written an interesting piece entitled What are the biggest barriers for new entrants on the international train market? There is also a version of the same post in Dutch here. The piece does not distinguish between daytime and night-time trains, but focuses on the challenges common
Analysis Detailed night train research from Oui au train de nuit The French campaign group Oui au train de nuit has produced some of the most detailed research about the opportunities for night trains - understandably with the focus on routes within France, and between France and its neighbours. Its first report from January 2020 (PDF here) sets the scene. There
Analysis EIB electric buses funding model the way forward to finance night train stock? In January 2021, the European Investment Bank and Banque des Territoires launched a Clean Buses Platform - a mechanism through which public transport operators in France have access to up to €100 million to procure electric buses. A similar mechanism might be the way to allow rolling stock leasing companies
Analysis Tough times ahead for German rail supply industry? Procure some night trains! International Railway Journal reports that the rail industry in Germany is facing tough times. So that makes now surely is an ideal time for new night train rolling stock to be procured! Photos used in this post Richard MatthewsBombardierJuly 7, 2011 License: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
European Union Bloomberg publishes new interactive website about night trains in Europe Entitled "Europe Asks Travelers to Ditch Planes for Night Trains", Bloomberg has published a sort of interactive guide to night trains in Europe, and what the European Union is trying to do to solve the night train conundrum. It's not all quite right in the technical
Analysis Germanwatch report on European trains travel Berlin-based NGO Germanwatch has published a new report about train travel in Europe, in German - you can read the report here. The focus is heavily on what Germany should do, with an eye on the 26th September Bundestag election. The report has 6 key messages: 1. Develop a "
Analysis If there's demand for a night train on a route, and a night train could be profitable, how can it be that no-one runs it? One of the questions I am often asked when discussing rail travel in the European Union is why there is no night train on a given route. "People would take it!" I am told, and I do not doubt that. It is not the demand side that is
Analysis The EU should place a blanket ban on trains being scrapped This week we learned that part of Europe's night train renaissance is going to be built on... some couchette carriages that date from 1965. Yes you read that right - some 56 year old carriages are going to be deployed by ÖBB for its new Wien-Paris night train.
Analysis Night trains are excellent, but marginal. How can their provision be scaled up in Europe? Earlier this month European Sleeper announced its first route - Brussels-Amsterdam-Berlin-Prague - and the news was gushing. Euronews covered the story, saying how it was driven by flight shame, TimeOut talked of a "a ton of cool new sleeper trains", and Travel+Leisure talked about a "major
Analysis Sage of the suburbs? When New York Times makes a kind of political GeoGuessr A friend alerted me to this tweet earlier today, knowing full well a combination of political nerdiness and geographic geekery would appeal to me. And since then I have been playing the New York Times "Can you guess how these neighbourhoods voted?" game and wondering about... the political
Guides Why you should buy a bike trailer for cargo In 2009 I asked my parents to buy me a bicycle trailer as a birthday present. It was a Croozer Cargo, original 2003-2013 model (no longer manufactured, but you can find the manual for it as a PDF here), and cost £160 back then (about €200). Looking back little could
Guides The weird and wonderful world of Eiffel Tower replicas and derivatives - Geoguessr Work to update this post is ongoing. More than 470 Eiffel Towers are now mapped on umap here. The map is generated from a .ods Spreadsheet that you can find on Nextcloud here - if there are errors or omissions in either the map or the table please let me
