Night Trains Archives

Stadler’s new day-night trains for Norway – I have some questions

A few days ago it was announced that Stadler has won the contract to supply new long distance trains to Norway. The official press release from Norske Tog in Norwegian is here, and there are articles from IRJ and Global Railway Review in English as well. While this tender only[Read More…]

20.02.2023 11 comments

European Sleeper Bruxelles-Amsterdam-Berlin – you better know it exists!

In rail nerd circles we’ve had our eye on the launch of the European Sleeper service for some time – the new privately operated night train that will run Bruxelles-Amsterdam-Berlin, and eventually will be extended to Prague. As was announced recently in the company’s newsletter, tickets starting with the inaugural[Read More…]

20.02.2023 0 comments

Autumn press coverage of the #CrossBorderRail project

Guest on #RailNatter with Gareth Dennis – 4 Jan 2023 Han har krydset alle EU’s grænser i tog i 2022. Nu er han mest af alt bare sur Information – 3 Jan 2023 – Mathias Sonne Aktivisten Jon Worth har i 2022 kørt Europa tyndt og krydset alle europæiske[Read More…]

15.12.2022 0 comments

Analysis

A different solution for night trains – a flexible leasing and operations company?

From the start of my Trains for Europe campaign I have argued that the absence of enough couchette cars and sleeping cars is the main constraint on the expansion of night train services. You cannot run more trains unless you literally have more carriages. I do not deny there are[Read More…]

12.10.2022 5 comments

Analysis

Europe’s railways: unable to play the role they should in the climate transition

Two interesting pieces of information about transport and the climate transition crossed my timeline yesterday. This tweet from TUMI: Transport: Save money, protect the climate ?‍♀️?‍♂️????@IPCC_CH pic.twitter.com/M04fFglFmN — ?‍♀️?‍♂️??⚡ (@TUMInitiative) April 5, 2022 And this New York Times story entitled In Europe, It’s Planes vs. Trains. For Many Travelers, Rail[Read More…]

06.04.2022 2 comments

Night trains, scale and standardisation

I listened in to the Back on Track Belgium conference last week, and the founder of a startup night train company said something interesting. “The reason we are against things like night train rolling stock pools,” he stated, “is that means we cannot configure the trains the way we want[Read More…]

01.04.2022 3 comments

Where we stand with the need to order new night trains: the EU, every government, every operator assessed

When I started Trains for Europe in mid-2021, the demand was that the European Union organises the procurement of a fleet of new night trains. Now – 8 months on – it is time to take stock of what has(n’t) happened in the interim. We started with the assumption that[Read More…]

26.01.2022 0 comments

Night trains to/from Berlin

We’ve been invited to present at an event in February about night train services to and from Berlin, the city where our campaign is based. That has led to some interesting reflections – rather than seeing the complete picture of night trains in Europe, what would work from one city[Read More…]

17.01.2022 2 comments

How to book a Stockholm-Hamburg train ticket, using the Stockholm-Malmö night train

*** WARNING: I have never done this personally! Attempt this at your own risk! *** Anders Peterson, Associate Professor in traffic systems at Linköping University in Sweden, posed an interesting question on Twitter: An attractive train route from Sweden to continental Europe is train 3 (night train Stockholm-Malmö), Ø-train (shuttle[Read More…]

14.10.2021 0 comments

Analysis

An annual cross-border rail index – a means to assess what’s going on with EU wide rail?

So goodbye Thello. A strange open access rail operator, providing night trains on the Paris – Milano – Venezia route, and daytime trains on the Marseille – Nice – Genova – Milano route, suspended thanks to COVID, and, now we know, never to return. Cue activists writing disgruntled letters, and[Read More…]

12.07.2021 1 comment