Were the Trains for Europe project to be successful, a contract would have to be placed with one or more manufacturers of night train carriages. Here nine possible manufacturers, and their locations and portfolios, are listed. This is to illustrate what would be possible and in no way commends any particular manufacturer.
Astra Vagoane Călători
Arad 🇷🇴
Corporate website | Wikipedia (translated from Romanian)
Has manufactured 200km/h carriages for RegioJet and CFR and even has night train carriages in its portfolio already. Here’s a carriage from RegioJet’s fleet they manufactured:
FPS Poznań (H. Cegielski)
Poznan 🇵🇱
Corporate Website | Wikipedia (translated from Polish)
FPS / H. Cegielski has manufactured (and renovated) carriages for Poland’s national long distance operator PKP IC for the past two decades, including producing night train carriages like these (more detail on all H. Cegielski production for PKP here). This is a typical H. Cegielski carriage in service with PKP IC:
PESA Bydgoszcz SA
Bydgoszcz 🇵🇱
Corporate Website | Wikipedia
PESA has manufactured and renovated carriages for Poland’s national long distance operator PKP IC for the past two decades, including producing sleeping cars like these. This is one such carriage:
MÁV-GÉPÉSZET
Szolnok 🇭🇺
The maintenance branch of Hungarian national rail company MÁV has in recent years begun to also manufacture 200km/h passenger coaches – called IC+. Wikipedia (translated from Hungarian) has more about the project, background is here, and production is being stepped up. Here is an example carriage:
Dunakeszi Járműjavító Kft. – TMH Hungary
Dunakeszi 🇭🇺
Corporate Website | Wikipedia (translated from Hungarian)
Hungarian subsidiary of Russian company Transmashholding (TMH) has taken over the plant in Dunakeszi previously owned by Bombardier. It is currently completing a contract to manufacture 1300 carriages for Egyptian railways. TVZ that is part of the TMH Group has many different night train carriages in its portfolio, and was part of a joint venture with Siemens for the construction of RZD’s carriages to operate to western Europe – like this one:
Siemens Mobility
Numerous sites, carriages mostly manufactured in Maribor 🇸🇮
Corporate Website | Wikipedia
Siemens is the manufacturer of all of the daytime RailJet carriages for ÖBB and ČD, the forthcoming new NightJet stock for ÖBB, new passenger carriages for Czechia (together with Škoda) and night train carriages for RZD in cooperation with TVZ. Siemens calls its 230km/h carriages Viaggio Comfort, the 200km/h ones Viaggio Classic. This is a 200km/h Siemens carriage for Greek Railways OSE:
Škoda Transportation – Škoda Vagonka
Plzeň 🇨🇿
Corporate Website | Wikipedia
Škoda has been delivering single deck carriages to ČD, in collaboration with Siemens Mobility (more about that project here), and will in the future supply double deck carriages too. Škoda subsidiary Transtech has delivered double deck sleeping cars to Finnish railways, but these are for a loading gauge much larger than on standard gauge lines in central Europe. These are carriages similar to those being supplied to ČD:
KVSZ
Kremenchuk 🇺🇦
Corporate Website | Wikipedia
Ukrainian Railways has just placed an order for 100 broad gauge sleeping cars from KVSZ, and the company also has a 200km/h standard gauge sleeping car in its portfolio. Cars of this type were rumoured in 2017 to be used on Kiev-Vienna services, but that never came to pass. This is one such KVSZ car:
TÜRASAŞ
Adapazarı 🇹🇷
Corporate Website | Wikipedia
TÜVASAŞ (currently merging into TÜRASAŞ) built the couchette cars and sleeping cars for Turkish Railways in the 1990s and 2000s, as well as seating cars and dining cars. They still have the manufacture of carriages in their portfolio. This is one such car in service with TCDD:
Alstom
Numerous sites Europe-wide, including ex-Bombardier plants
Corporate Website | Wikipedia
One of Europe’s major rolling stock manufacturers, Alstom has recently won the contract to build night train carriages for Mexico for the Tren Maya project – you can read more about it here. Alstom’s ex-Bombardier plants in Görlitz and Bautzen in Germany also have experience manufacturing passenger carriages.
Stadler
Numerous sites, notably in St. Margrethen 🇨🇭 for passenger coaches
Corporate Website | Wikipedia
Manufacture of passenger carriages is not central to Stadler’s business, but in 2019 it delivered a fleet of night train carriages to Georgia (that even had gauge changing capability) – details of those carriages here, and this is what they look like:
Talgo
Madrid 🇪🇸
Corporate Website | Wikipedia
Talgo manufactures locomotive hauled stock – that it calls Talgo 230 – that has recently been ordered by Deutsche Bahn and DSB. Previously it has manufactured the night train stock for RZD’s Berlin-Moscow Strizh train, and night trains for Renfe in Spain. Talgo’s technology is very different to any other locomotive-hauled carriages, given it has a fixed number of carriages and has gauge changing technology. This is the Strizh train:
CAF
Beasain 🇪🇸
Corporate Website | Wikipedia
CAF has won three recent contracts – for the new Caledonian Sleeper night train stock in the UK, daytime trains for Transpennine Express in the UK, and daytime and night train stock for MÁV. This is a Caledonian Sleeper carriage:
Other players in the rolling stock market in Europe do not have suitable carriages available currently: Alstom (InterCity portfolio here), Bombardier (InterCity portfolio here, in the 1990s they manufactured I11 coaches for Belgium), Hitachi Rail (InterCity portfolio here), Pesa (portfolio here), Newag (portfolio here).
Photos used on this page
PetrS.
Regiojet Astra Bmpz 013 Praha Smichov 01
7 July 2018
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International
Lutek
Wagon sypialny typu 306Ab oznaczony WLABbmnouz
13 January 2006
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
B’Tian Denizcan P. Dorsam
A set of TVS2000 railcars at Alsancak station.
12 September 2011
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
Falk2
Bahnhof Thessaloníki, »Viaggio«-Bm
22 May 2016
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International
ADY Stadler night train by Nicholas Brooke (3 pics)
@NicholasNCE on Twitter
Used with permission – See original pictures on Onedrive
Krzysztof D.
B11mnouz (1)
January 6, 2019
License: Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0)
unci_narynin
CH-FPC 62 85 78-90 030-8 WLABmz
August 16, 2014
License: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Albert Koch
Taurus CD Railjet
June 24, 2015
License: Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Sebastian Rittau
Russischer Talgo im Werk Warschauer Straße
February 24, 2015
License: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
R~P~M
15306
July 16, 2019
License: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Kecko
Stadler – MÄLAB Transitio
May 20, 2017
License: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
Bence Petrás
IC+ kocsi Budapest-Déli pu., 2019. 04. 25.
April 25, 2019
License: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Vlad398
032-02025 model 61-7034.jpg
8 March 2021
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International
Tren Maya rendering used with the written permission of Alstom – image source
