Somebody in France has to want to run night trains

In the Newsletter this week
Analysis: Lessons from an event at the Assemblée Nationale in Paris about night trains
Bullshit Meter this week: Norway launches panoramic glass roof train
Good week: Poland and Germany sign a bit of paper (with a major omission)
Bad week: Stadler's complex delivery of Linz's tram-trains
Very bad week: Deutsche Bahn's works on Berlin-Hamburg delayed
In the media this week: The Europeans Podcast
Photo of the week: Kyrgyzstan's train to the sea
Calendar: Innotrans 2026

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Lessons from an event at the Assemblée Nationale in Paris about night trains

At one level it was a privilege: to address a meeting at the French Assemblée Nationale about night trains (organised by Destination Trains de Nuit). At another level it was a difficult experience, one I am still processing as I write this week's newsletter en board a TGV towards Switzerland. And the frustration was clear to anyone following the Mastodon thread (the relevant part starts here). Everything happened in French, and I am translating here.

The most insightful moment came right at the end. As I was about to make my exit from the room, an elderly French gentleman said to me "Well done with your lobby for the [German built] Siemens Vectron, we will build in France!"

"OK," I retorted, "then you are going to be waiting a decade for your new night trains!"

And within that exchange is the crux of the problem.

What is the debate about the future of night trains in France for?

Is it about getting passengers to their destinations in an environmentally friendly and time-efficient manner?

Or is it about French industrial policy? Keeping jobs at struggling Alstom works?

And that then brings me back to my main intervention, curtailed as it was because the event was running late and I had a train to catch.

"Honestly I am shocked" were the words I used to start. "I am the only non-French person presenting here. And here is your booklet for this event and you're saying there will be a Quimper - Lyon - Genève night train, while your international page is almost empty."

"And I hear you all say it will take 10 years to get new night trains running in France. But have you not woken up to the fact that everything you think you want you could get from other European countries - that are confronted with the very same problems you are?" (earlier on the bogeyman of Chinese trains featured prominently, but I am left wondering if a German or Polish train is just as unpalatable)

You complain about the absence of locomotives for your night trains in France (there are too few diesel ones, and SNCF's electric ones are old and unreliable) I went on, but the Siemens Vectron is approved to run in twenty countries, but not in France. There is your solution, right there! (Alpha Trains and Siemens might have finally cracked this non-approval by next year I am reliably told - but can you imagine SNCF leasing those locomotives?)

It is not too different when it comes to carriages I continued. The Swedes and the Italians and of course the Austrians are already ahead of France in terms of ordering new carriages and there are a dozen works in Europe where those carriages could be built.

And what about operations?

This is where it really hurt.

"All of you in the room here are furious at SNCF but you cannot say it" I said. "I have been sitting here and listening to your comments about the problems of delays and cancellations. But sorry to tell you, in Aurillac or in Briançon, SNCF does not care about your night train. Because if it does not go at 300km/h SNCF is not interested." Sharp intakes of breath, and a few claps.

"But the problem, ultimately, is you cannot decide. Because you do not trust anyone else either, but this is not really an issue of state versus private. And if you doubt me, just look at Austria - ÖBB, a state owned operator, is keen on night trains. Or European Sleeper, that is willing to run Paris-Berlin without a subsidy."

"And don't just tell me the cancellation of Paris - Vienna was only the government cutting the subsidy. Did SNCF lobby to keep the subsidy? I doubt it, because they would not understand why anyone would have taken the train anyway. And had the Vectron been approved in France, ÖBB could have tried to run to Paris on its own. But as it isn't it had to rely on SNCF."

So I am sorry, France and your night train campaigners. Your problems are not that much different from anyone else's in terms of the practicalities. But you have the additional problem of a hefty dose of exceptionalism, with distinct overtones of narrow economic nationalism. You've got to work out how you want to run night trains, and find someone who wants to run them, and I mean really wants to, not just doing it under duress because the subsidy is too good to turn down.

I am done with hearing night trains are good. I want to hear solutions. I want some action. Some will. And I am not expecting an invite back to the Assemblée Nationale, because - based on this event - that is not what they are about.

Bullshit Meter: Norway launches panoramic glass roof train to see northern lights

866000 likes on Instagram, but it is not true. NRK even put out a story about the fact that it is fake.

There is an Arctic Train to/from Narvik in winter time, but it is an old EMU.

Thanks Zugreiseblog for the suggestion to include this one.

All previous Bullshit Meter posts can be found here.

Good week: Poland and Germany sign a bit of paper (with a major omission)

Germany and Poland are cooperating on railway issues. Let's pose in front of some flags, sign some bits of paper, and all is good! Here's the press release from the German Ministry of Transport.

Sure, the politics of this is fine. And Germany-Poland rail services have been improving steadily for some years now, but this has mostly been because Deutsche Bahn and PKP IC seem to get along (and anyway it's PKP IC providing most of the trains on long distance routes). Regionally the progress has been because the Voivodeships on the Polish side of the border see opportunities, especially for tourism, by making cross border rail trips easier.

What is lacking now is serious investment in the infrastructure.

And on that... the agreement between German Minister of Transport Schnieder and his Polish counterpart Klimczak has a major omission.

The Dresden - Görlitz - Zgorzelec - Wrocław corridor doesn't get a mention in the agreement (Leipzig - Wrocław is mentioned, but that goes via Horka and not through Görlitz).

Via Görlitz is the connection - shown in my drone picture above - where Poland has electrified its section of the line (to the right) and Germany has not even started (to the left). And Germany and Poland agreed to electrify that whole route in 2003. And it is now 2026.

So nice words from Schnieder and Klimczak, but when is that whole corridor finally going to be electrified?

Bad week: Stadler's complex delivery of Linz's tram-trains

News this week that Stadler's tram trains for Linz in Austria are being delivered there by truck, boat and rail - with the ship across the Bay of Biscay, as reported by Linza! The vehicles are being built at Stadler's works in Valencia.

Anything strike you about what they are routing around?

Yes, France.

This is how they should do it:

You have to put the tram trains on trucks first, because there is no complete standard gauge line from Valencia to France (there are some parts from Barcelona, but let's forgive them that, and assume you need a truck to Le Boulou just into France). And given that Karlsruhe is also getting some of these trains of the same design and is right on that ideal route to Linz, it would make sense.

I presume that legendary openness and flexibility of the French railway system means it was impossible to get a permission to haul the trains this way through France, hence the ship and the diversion via Belgium.

Very bad week: Deutsche Bahn delayed re-opening Hamburg-Berlin

Turns out it can be snowy and icy in the winter in Germany.

Who knew?

Not Deutsche Bahn it seems. OK, this winter has been the coldest and iciest in north east Germany for 15 years, so maybe we can forgive DB a bit.

But this means that the 30th April planned re-opening of the Hamburg-Berlin line (that has been closed since December for re-building) is now not going to be able to be respected. DB says it will present a new plan as to what will happen by mid-March. You can read the DB press statement here. There are also likely to be knock on impacts into the summer, not least for Hannover-Berlin that was the next line due for upgrades.

In the media this week: The Europeans Podcast

The Europeans is a well known and award winning podcast by Dominic Kraemer and Katy Lee, and they claim it is about Europe and not boring.

But then they invited me on to talk about my railway work! So I hope I did not break their "not boring" promise. Anyway, you can listen to it here!

Photo of the week: Kyrgyzstan's train to the sea

Each week I am going to include a photo from my archive in the newsletter. These are going to be places that remind me of the joy of this railway work, or are simply good picture or beautiful places. But each time there will be a reason.

In 2016 I travelled across central Asia by train, and stumbled across this story about Kyrgyzstan's train to the sea. How, you might be asking, does land locked Kyrgyzstan have a train to the sea? The "sea" they mean is Issyk-Kul, the second largest mountain lake in the world. And a train connects Balykchy on the lake with Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. The photo is from the latter stages of the trip, approaching the Kyrgyz capital.

Calendar: Innotrans 2026

It's the most important trade fair in the industry in Europe, but somehow Innotrans always sort of creeps up on you and preparation for it is then always rather last minute! It's 22-25 September this year in Berlin. More info here.

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Photo Rights

All photos in this edition are taken by Jon Worth. Bullshit Meter images always have photo rights listed directly on the image.