Yesterday there was a joint press conference involving four of Europe’s biggest train operators: DB (Germany), ÖBB (Austria), SBB (Switzerland) and SNCF (France).
Four new night train routes have been proposed, all to be added to the Nightjet network run by the Austrians’ ÖBB, the main western Europe night train network at the moment. Here are the new routes:
December 2021: Vienna —> Munich —> Paris
December 2021: Zurich —> Cologne —> Amsterdam
December 2023: Vienna/Berlin —> Brussels/Paris
December 2024 Zurich —> Barcelona
Here’s the map:
it looks like when they say Vienna/Berlin —> Brussels/Paris, they might be doing a split-in-two train swapsies somewhere in Western Germany so that you can start in either Vienna or Berlin, and finish in either Paris or Brussels (and vice versa) without having to get out of bed to change trains.
They’re still going to have heaps to work out before any of these see the light of day. To start with, the European railway timetables change basically once a year in December, so that’s why we won’t see the new Paris —> Vienna for another year yet. They also have to work out cross-border track charges, which sounds like a lot of fun (not).
And last but not least, they need the actual train stock, and it seems that a herculean task is going to be required to build new and in particular pleasant train compartments that people will actually be motivated to use by choice rather than necessity. The Austrians are way out in front on this one with their new and awesome night train cabins being built as we speak, including individual sleeping pods! Here are some pictures of these new and revolutionary interiors:
Let’s hope they can scale up!
Also, 2024 is a long time to wait for a Zurich —> Barcelona night train. Come on!
What is especially cool though is how each new night train connection means another way to get from one side of Europe to the other more efficiently, especially if you start to join up such night trains with a connecting day train before or after!
For instance, a Paris —> Vienna night train means that someone in London will be able to hop on the Eurostar at around say 4pm, be in Paris at 7pm and on the night train to Vienna at something like 8pm. If this train arrived in Vienna say at 8am, you could then take an onward train to Budapest and be there in time for lunch! Right now, you can in fact do this trip during the day (Paris to Budapest) in about 15 hours from 7am to 10:30pm, involving two train changes, which if the scenery is the number one thing for you, would actually be pretty epic in summer. But if you’ve done the trip already or many times, a night train and a short 2 1/2 hour train onwards from Vienna to Budapest the next morning would be fab. Around 15 hours in all. You can’t get from the UK to Budapest in less than 21 hours currently, so the Paris night train to the east would shave a good three hours off that trip.
Furthermore, having the Paris —> Vienna night train will mean cutting half a day off the epic Paris —> Istanbul route described over at Seat61. You’ll be able to do it in three nights and only two days now! And only four trains in total to get there, which is not bad for 2253 kilometres. Covid-19 just has to stop first, that’s all.
Have a nice day.