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Overnight train service to be cut in Europe
Actually, part of the problem here has been declining service. We have noticed the absence of dining cars where there were previously on evening departures, plus dingy and substandard accomodations where previously they were first class.
Paris - Hamburg by day train: about 8h by Thalys + IC/ICE with connection at Cologne. Not bad but still half a day. By overnight “City Night Line”, 12h30min (Paris Est ca 8:00pm - Hamburg Hbf ca 8:30 am), and it was 2h shorter in past years, from Paris Nord. Civilized and finally saving time. As a regular user, I do regret the demise of this sleeper. Same cuts recently on Paris - Barcelona / Madrid and other services. Night train are vanishing in Western Europe, with the exception of planned investment on London - Scotland sleepers.
Sad. The sleeper often saved me a night in a hotel. Cost was about the same but the sleeper was more comfotable and saved a day of travel. But not all is lost; the Brits are buying new equipment for th London-Scotland traffic.
High speed overnight sleeping car trains on longer routes would be ideal. Piping hot fluffy pancakes with pure maple syrup would be breakfast to look forward to the next morning.
Having worked as agent for passenger rail in Europe, I found some other drawbacks of overnight European sleepers: passengers having to pay high rate for single or have “roomie” (of same gender), no place to sit down on early-evening departures or later-in-morning arrivals. I addition, on north to south trains, overnight made many miss Alpine scenery. Cheap couchettes did have very grubby reputation.
Having worked as agent for passenger rail in Europe, I found some other drawbacks of overnight European sleepers: passengers having to pay high rate for single or have “roomie” (of same gender), no place to sit down on early-evening departures or later-in-morning arrivals. I addition, on north to south trains, overnight made many miss Alpine scenery. Cheap couchettes did have very grubby reputation.
Having worked as agent for passenger rail in Europe, I found some other drawbacks of overnight European sleepers: passengers having to pay high rate for single or have “roomie” (of same gender), no place to sit down on early-evening departures or later-in-morning arrivals. I addition, on north to south trains, overnight made many miss Alpine scenery. Cheap couchettes did have very grubby reputation.
Having worked as agent for passenger rail in Europe, I found some other drawbacks of overnight European sleepers: passengers having to pay high rate for single or have “roomie” (of same gender), no place to sit down on early-evening departures or later-in-morning arrivals. I addition, on north to south trains, overnight made many miss Alpine scenery. Cheap couchettes did have very grubby reputation.
Having worked as agent for passenger rail in Europe, I found some other drawbacks of overnight European sleepers: passengers having to pay high rate for single or have “roomie” (of same gender), no place to sit down on early-evening departures or later-in-morning arrivals. I addition, on north to south trains, overnight made many miss Alpine scenery. Cheap couchettes did have very grubby reputation.
Having worked as agent for passenger rail in Europe, I found some other drawbacks of overnight European sleepers: passengers having to pay high rate for single or have “roomie” (of same gender), no place to sit down on early-evening departures or later-in-morning arrivals. I addition, on north to south trains, overnight made many miss Alpine scenery. Cheap couchettes did have very grubby reputation.
Having worked as agent for passenger rail in Europe, I found some other drawbacks of overnight European sleepers: passengers having to pay high rate for single or have “roomie” (of same gender), no place to sit down on early-evening departures or later-in-morning arrivals. I addition, on north to south trains, overnight made many miss Alpine scenery. Cheap couchettes did have very grubby reputation.
Having worked as agent for passenger rail in Europe, I found some other drawbacks of overnight European sleepers: passengers having to pay high rate for single or have “roomie” (of same gender), no place to sit down on early-evening departures or later-in-morning arrivals. I addition, on north to south trains, overnight made many miss Alpine scenery. Cheap couchettes did have very grubby reputation.
I’d like to know all the lines that are surviving. With some private operators getting into the passenger business in Europe and EU rules causing big changes in the first place, maybe a private operator could come forward to run one or more sleeper trains. We could sure use more night trains here in the US as well as in Canada.
I wonder if this was being used to keep Scotland from leaving the United Kingdom? I’m sure that this isn’t the only thing that England offered.
My wife had used the night trains quite frequently when visiting her parents in Essen/Germany. But the equipment was really old, the trip took long (14 hrs for about 1000 km), fares became expensive over time, flight tickets came cheaper because of subsidies and operators like Ryan air. For business people who want to accomplish a speedy return the trains are no alternative. So sadly, they will be phased out.
The only winners will be the airlines, in the UK our sleeper network has been reduced to two trains each way every night.