ÖBB night train at Hamburg-Altona station (archive image)
Photo: Bodo Marks / dpa
The railway companies from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France want to offer new cross-border night train connections in Europe from 2021.
This emerges from a letter from the Federal Ministry of Transport and Deutsche Bahn.
This cooperation is to be presented on Tuesday on the fringes of the EU Council of Transport Ministers, headed by Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU).
According to the Ministry of Transport, the planned cooperation is an important step on the way to the Trans-Europ-Express.
The aim is to make Europe more climate and environmentally friendly with attractive, continuous long-distance rail transport.
In October, the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) announced that they would be expanding their night train offer across Europe.
Deutsche Bahn discontinued its night train network in 2016 and handed it over to ÖBB.
Scheuer wants to revive Trans-Europ-Express
Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) presented a concept in September to revive the Trans-Europ-Express (TEE).
With a combination of high-speed and night trains, the minister initially intends to offer trans-European routes for which no major infrastructure measures are necessary.
These include, for example, continuous connections between Amsterdam and Rome, Paris and Warsaw or Berlin and Barcelona.
With travel times of around 13 hours, these cities should be accessible from one another.
From the 1950s to the 1980s there were Trans-Europ-Express (TEE) trains in Europe.
Since then, Eurocity trains have been running cross-border long-distance connections.
Icon: The mirror
bah / dpa