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Between romanticism and the climate struggle, night trains gain weight in Europe

2022-03-28T06:23:29.216Z


Brussels promotes a plan to improve and increase high-speed traffic so that the railway is more competitive against the car and the plane


Francine V. and Jiri K. wait on the platform of Vienna Central Station for the arrival of the night train that will take them to Rome.

They are retired and in no hurry.

To her, traveling at night seems something "beautifully nostalgic", she likes to fall asleep "with the rattle of the train".

“It's calmer.

On the plane I feel cramped”, says this 64-year-old woman.

Her 75-year-old traveling companion is included in "a generation that loves trains."

On the other hand, what seduced Kathi K., a 31-year-old pharmacist, was an offer of a ticket at a good price for a getaway to Amsterdam: “I am going to try traveling by night train instead of the plane for the first time”.

Due to romanticism, a taste for quiet travel or ecological awareness, night trains are once again gaining popularity.

After the disappearance of lines in recent decades due to low profitability compared to low-cost flights and the increase in high speed, these services have experienced a resurgence in recent years welcomed by Brussels within a broad plan to promote the railway as much less polluting means of transport than the road or the plane.

According to data from the European Commission, transport contributes 20% of greenhouse gas emissions in the community territory.

Road trips accounted for 71.8% of the sector's emissions in 2018;

civil aviation, 13.2%;

and maritime transport, 14.1%.

By contrast, rail traffic only generated 0.4%.

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Night trains make a comeback in Europe

The plans to combat climate change favor the recovery of night trains for long-distance travel, a business niche in which the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB, in its acronym in German) are at the forefront.

“In 2016 we created the Nightjet brand and since then we have been expanding to expand the network.

We have added destinations such as Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris.

And in the coming years we will receive new night train units.

The ÖBB will invest 790 million euros (over the next few years) in new night trains”, explains Kurt Bauer, responsible for long-distance lines and new business at the ÖBB, at the Vienna Central Station, on a trip to this newspaper in the middle of the March financed by the European Parliament.

Other railway companies follow in its wake.

On the occasion of the start of the year of the railway, celebrated in the EU with various initiatives last year, the state companies of Austria, Germany, France and Switzerland agreed to cooperate to unite 13 European cities with night trains before 2025.

One of the routes plans to link the Swiss city of Zurich with Barcelona in 2024.

The twenty night lines of the ÖBB moved around 1.5 million passengers in 2019, a figure that it hopes to “double in the medium term” after the fall due to the pandemic.

Without going into details, Bauer maintains that his strategy will allow them to profit from this service despite competition from road and air travel.

Luca Ferraro, 42, travels from Vienna to Milan with his wife and young son to visit family and has decided at the last minute on a compartment for three on the night train (between 200 and 270 euros) .

“We actually had plane tickets booked, but we changed them at the last minute.

We decided to take it easy.

So we pay a little more, ”he says.

To achieve competitive prices, Bauer stresses that "political intervention" is needed.

“A flight from Vienna to Madrid is free of VAT, while the train does.

The same goes for energy.

Kerosene (from airplanes) is duty-free.

There the transport policy clearly still has to keep its promises.

So the rail network in general will be more competitive and especially the night train”, he points out.

The train also pays for each kilometer of track used, compared to the low imposition of tolls on the roads, points out the German Greens MEP Anna Deparnay-Grunenberg.

“We say that we want to promote the railway because it is the most attractive means of transport in terms of climate,

The German Greens included in their electoral program measures to discourage the offer of very cheap plane tickets, and countries such as France or Belgium promote regulations to tax, reduce or even ban short-duration flights to favor the use of the train.

Along these lines, Christian Gratzer, spokesman for VCÖ, a Vienna-based NGO dedicated to promoting sustainable mobility, stresses that a firm commitment to the railway also requires an end to “subsidies for regional airports”.

In a recent study, the organization Greenpeace concludes that for 30% of short-haul flights in Europe "there are train connections of less than six hours, and there are direct night train connections for another 15%".

Gratzer balances the possibilities of using clean energy: “In the war in Ukraine we are experiencing the consequences of becoming dependent on oil.

And the train has the advantage that it works with electricity that we can generate from renewable energies.

There is a lot to be said for more railways in Europe and that includes energy independence.”

Brussels declared 2021 the year of the railway, with a campaign to promote the train and an action plan to give a definitive push to a transport network that often bumps into the internal borders of the EU.

“The Union must work to reactivate the so-called missing links, the sections of track that cross borders that were destroyed or are no longer used.

That makes the entire network very weak,” says Deparnay-Grunenberg.

This weakness translates, for example, into the fact that transnational trips barely account for 7% of the kilometers traveled by train, according to the Commission, which aims to double high-speed traffic by 2030 and triple it by 2050, in addition to increasing the transfer of goods from road to rail and improve the network.

“In the end, it's about building a unique railway space that we don't have right now.

And, either we assume that we have to give it coherence between the national plans to fit them into the European ones and achieve that interconnection, that sustainable mobility among all, or we are going to lag behind” in the climate and network efficiency objectives, The PNV Izaskun Bilbao MEP has an impact, highlighting the “Irun bottleneck” for merchandise or unfinished axes in Spain such as “the Mediterranean and the Atlantic”.

The train also faces a necessary harmonization of security and traffic control measures so as not to be slowed down at the borders by the different legal requirements on one side and the other, digitization and automation that allows the sector to gain speed and capacity, "and a common working language” as road and air traffic have.

"On a train traveling from Italy to the North Sea, via Amsterdam, you need a driver who can speak several languages," criticizes the German MEP.

To attract cross-border passengers, it will also be necessary to avoid a fare salad that forces several railway companies to pay for journeys.

"It has to be as simple as getting a plane ticket," Gratzer abounds.

All these obstacles to achieving a competitive rail network that reduces travel times are addressed in the Commission's action plan presented to the European Parliament last December, and this "must not become a paper tiger and must be accompanied by concrete measures and investments to take advantage of the untapped potential of rail in the EU”, asks Deparnay-Grunenberg.

“The European railway map should be like the metro map of any city: take a ticket here and place yourself in a northern European country without any problem.

We have to build that.

A good supply generates its own demand, that is what will allow it to be attractive”, concludes Bilbao.

This is clear to Stephan Haunold, an anesthetist close to 60 years old, who takes advantage of having an annual public transport pass in Austria, the so-called

Klimaticket

, which costs 1,095 euros (or three euros a day) to move around the country.

And if the vacation is in Italy, his option is a trip on the overnight train to Milan with his wife: "We hardly travel by car anymore."

The commitment to high speed leaves Spain without night trains

Spain no longer has night train lines.

The last ones that remained of a dense network of services until the beginning of the 1990s, which linked Barcelona to the north to Galicia, and two services to Portugal, were suppressed with the pandemic and are not going to recover.

The main reason for the disappearance of these trains "has been the development and implementation of high speed, which has meant that routes that used to take many hours are now done in a short space of time," explains Valentín Alegría, director of Renfe Innovation and Strategy.

The night lines, moreover, imply higher operating costs and "the little use of the specific material they require, since they could only be used at night".

With the development of high speed, the demand shifted to fast and daytime services.

In the case of international supply -there were between Madrid and Paris, and Barcelona to Zurich or Milan-, when "low cost in airplanes broke in, demand fell enormously".

The connection with the French capital is now covered at high speed, which makes it unprofitable to propose a night service.

In the case of Portugal, Renfe hopes that works underway will improve the connection between the capitals.

Alegría also highlights that 80% of Renfe's trains are electric traction from renewable sources, "that is, emissions are zero".

Renfe hopes that works underway will improve the connection between the capitals.

Alegría also highlights that 80% of Renfe's trains are electric traction from renewable sources, "that is, emissions are zero".

Renfe hopes that works underway will improve the connection between the capitals.

Alegría also highlights that 80% of Renfe's trains are electric traction from renewable sources, "that is, emissions are zero".

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-03-28

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