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 […]
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So there will not be a Basel – Malmö night train from the spring of 2026. Switzerland’s parliament did not approve the subsidy to allow it to run. Without the 10 million CHF the parliament refused to grant to get this going (from a wider fund of 47 million CHF […]
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In December 2023 the Paris-Berlin night train re-started after a 9 year hiatus. Operated as a Nighjet service by ÖBB, SNCF provided motive power for the train from Mannheim to Paris. They even put SNCF stickers on some of the carriages, and ÖBB lauded the launch of the service as […]
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From the start of this 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 […]
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The governments of France, Italy and Sweden are actively thinking about how they can renew night train networks in those countries. Austrian Railways ÖBB, notably in partnership with Swiss Railways SBB, is investing heavily in new night train carriages and proposing to open new routes – and is backed by […]
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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 It’s a new year and it’s time to look forward. Here at Trains for Europe we’ve looked into the crystal ball and in this post are going to have a look at what’s coming up in the next 12 months in the world of night trains in Europe. What the […]
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Back in September 2020, Swedish transport authority Trafikverket sought to award contracts to run two international night trains from summer 2022 – Stockholm-Hamburg and Malmö-Bruxelles. Sweden’s state owned railway firm SJ won the contract to run Stockholm-Hamburg (with rolling stock provided by RDC), but no bids were received for Malmö-Bruxelles, so […]
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