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Which night train routes are being added and what should they bring?
From December 2021, new night trains will operate between Vienna, Munich and Paris as well as Zurich, Cologne and Amsterdam.
From December 2023, Deutsche Bahn, the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB), the French SNCF and the Swiss Federal Railways also want to connect Vienna and Berlin with Brussels and Paris, and then Zurich with Barcelona at the end of 2024.
This means that trains travel between densely populated metropolises and indirectly open up tourist regions such as the Alps and the Spanish Mediterranean coast.
London could also be better reached by rail from further distances via Brussels and Paris.
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There is a strong belief that night trains will play a key role in European mobility, said French Minister of State for Transport, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari.
"They are environmentally friendly and will increase our citizens' interest in train travel." Allianz pro Schiene also welcomed the initiative.
The demand for an alternative to intra-European flights is great, explained managing director Dirk Flege.
"It is good that consumers are now getting what they have wanted for a long time."
Deutsche Bahn has long claimed that night trains are not worthwhile. Why is she taking part anyway?
In view of the political pressure for more climate protection in transport, Deutsche Bahn does not want to be sidelined, but its involvement is apparently more in the background.
When asked, the group said that it would use locomotives and railroad cars and invest in personnel and sales systems.
The purchase of additional sleeping and couchette cars is carried out as part of the cooperation, however, by the ÖBB.
The trains will also be operated under their Nightjet brand, as the Austrian rail company announced.
In 2019, Deutsche Bahn announced that night trains were a niche business and that they would rather put the money into new long-distance trains that run daily.
"Night train traffic is loved politically, but it is an extremely arduous business," says Maria Leenen from the consultancy SCI Verkehr.
"The organization is complex, the demand and the number of routes are limited and you can hardly convert it into a modern business model," says Leenen.
In addition, the vehicles are hardly universally applicable - those who travel for winter sports need more space for luggage than city tourists.
In addition, many night trains are unsuitable for day trips.
Nevertheless, ÖBB stepped into the breach and got involved in night train services.
Austria's railways have ordered 13 new trains with sleeping and couchette cars, which will be delivered in 2022, and 20 more are to be added at the end of 2023.
"You can only take off your hat to the ÖBB, which manages to operate, albeit with political support," said advisor Leenen.
The current expansion is therefore primarily a pilot project that is intended to emphasize the political will.
"You have to wait and see whether there is real demand here," warns Leenen.
Can night trains really compete with airplanes?
Express trains are serious competition for airlines on many routes.
However, this only applies to a limited extent to night train connections, warns SCI consultant Leenen.
"Night trains are a niche market and cannot be compared with classic long-distance connections." Because a night train only replaces flights on the edge of the day and, unlike the express train, can therefore only take market share to a limited extent from air traffic.
"Business travelers in particular hardly ever take night trains, they tend to take the express train in the evening and then go to the hotel," says Leenen.
Because only a few night train connections offer passengers advantages compared to other options.
They are typically suitable for vacation trips where the journey becomes an additional experience, for example on a skiing vacation or to the sea.
Naturally, not all routes are suitable.
"You need a distance where the departure is between 8pm and 11pm and you arrive around 9am," explains Leenen.
Because it is difficult to travel comfortably on these trains while sitting.
How much CO₂ does a night train journey save compared to a flight?
The new night train connections are primarily intended to offer travelers a climate-friendly alternative to air travel.
However, it is difficult to quantify this advantage precisely.
A trip by train, for example, produces significantly less CO₂ than a flight.
While rail traffic in Germany only generates 32 grams of CO₂ equivalent per passenger kilometer, it is significantly more in air traffic at 230 grams.
The climate balance of a night train journey is likely to be a little worse, however, as fewer passengers can fit into the sleeping and couchette cars.
In addition to the smaller number of passengers, the different electricity mix must also be taken into account on the international routes.
According to information from ÖBB, 100 percent of traction electricity in Austria comes from renewable energies, in Germany it is only 61 percent, and 20 percent is still covered by coal-fired electricity.
The exact savings therefore depend on the load and route.
However, the night train can indirectly compensate for the disadvantage of the lower number of passengers by replacing an overnight stay in a hotel - but here, too, the exact CO2 emissions vary greatly depending on the hotel and room.
A larger offer of night trains has been discussed for some time. Why won't the new trains start rolling in a year?
The fact that it won't start until the end of 2021 is also due to the difficult business model.
The margins in night train traffic are small, so hardly any leasing companies are entering this area, explains consultant Maria Leenen.
"So there are only a limited number of sleeping and couchette cars, around 1500 across Europe." Over 90 percent of these are owned by the state railways, but there are also a few private providers such as Regiojet or Snallenaget.
“At the same time, the cars are comparatively old, and you have to wait around 18 months for new trains,” says Leenen.
That is why it takes a relatively long time before the new lines are used for the first time.
What plans do other European train companies have for night trains?
Not only the four countries participating in the current cooperation want to expand the offer.
In the future, for example, Malmö and Brussels as well as Stockholm and Hamburg are to be connected, the Pro Schiene Alliance said on request.
From March 2021, the private provider Snallenaget wants to connect Berlin with Malmö and Stockholm - and get along without subsidies.
Against this background, the competitors of the state railways rate the new cooperation as rather counterproductive.
The President of the Alliance for Fair Competition in Rail Passenger Transport Mofair, Christian Schreyer, described the planned network as the “night train cartel” of the state railways.
It must be ensured that the initiative does not crush the self-sustaining activities of private companies, said Schreyer.
Numerous other European cities are already connected to international night train routes, for example Prague and Warsaw, Budapest and Bucharest or Zagreb and Munich.
A spokesman for the Verkehrsclub Deutschland therefore warned that new activities should not be limited to Central Europe.
It is high time to connect all major European cities from Moscow to Lisbon and from Naples to Stockholm with fast train connections around the clock, the spokesman said.
"Here we see all European countries and their railway companies as having an obligation to create attractive offers."
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