MISC | International Night Trains

K_ said:

The problem are indeed the access charges, which, just like in France, make it prohibitively expensive for non-incumbents. The EU should do something about that.

But Brussels would be a good market. Especially if they time the train to have good connections with Eurostar and sell through tickets.

Changing in Köln and using Thalys has currently a few disadvantages. DB is no longer selling Thalys tickets for example, and in the last Thalys from Brussel is to early, meaning that you have to hang around Köln Hbf for over two hours late at night...

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Access charges are the same for all operators in Belgium, SNCB and others pay the same. So arguing about that un court wont be easy.

In addition to Thalys there are also 4 ICE trains each way.

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MarcVD said:

Access charges are the same for all operators in Belgium, SNCB and others pay the same. So arguing about that un court wont be easy.

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I'm aware. The issue is that in Belgium the infrastructure is indirectly subsidised via the incumbent operator through high access charges.
The result is that a) the marginal cost of a train is high, and thus many lines that would have half hourly service in NL or CH only have hourly (or sometimes even worse) service, and b) open access operators have it hard.

In addition to Thalys there are also 4 ICE trains each way.

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The last ICE is at 18:25. So that means that you'll be spending three hours in Köln waiting for the night train. DB really should consider at least a 20:25 departure...

Every time that you need to spend more than 30 minutes on a layover in a station is a big fail.

K_ said:

The last ICE is at 18:25. So that means that you'll be spending three hours in Köln waiting for the night train. DB really should consider at least a 20:25 departure...

Every time that you need to spend more than 30 minutes on a layover in a station is a big fail.

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Hi K, the word is out that DB is decisively increasing its number of ICEs to Brussels as of this December, but no intended departure times are out yet, as there are some timetable conflicts around Brussels still to be negotiated: http://www.drehscheibe-online.de/foren/read.php?30,7806769,7808151#msg-7808151

K_ said:

1m90 in the sleepers. Couchettes are a bit shorter. I do not fit in the middle couchette for example. (And with my 1m83 I'm exactly average...)

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1m90 seems ok, anything shorter in the 21st century is unacceptable. I'm taller than average and would have 3 cm of wiggle room in the 1,90m bed.

What could be done to improve the length? You can't change the loading gauge so I guess you have to make weird skewed rooms with beds not at right angles to the outer wall. Or even beds parallel to the outer wall. But then there would be problems with entering and exiting the compartments.

Baron Hirsch said:

ÖBB announced that it will go ahead with an international expansion of its night train sector. As had been reported, ÖBB wants to move into the night train sector in Germany which DB is set to abandon at the end of this year. Switzerland and Italy are the other two countries where ÖBB aims to fill the gap left behind by the disappearance of several night time connections. Initially ÖBB aims to use leased rolling stock before ordering new sleepers and couchettes. Nothing is known about their targeted routes except that they will probably start with Hamburg (or elsewhere in northern Germany)-Zürich. A train to Brussels is being debated. 8 trains for the connections to Italy alone are apparently planned. Acclaimedly an investment of 500 million Euros will be necessary, but night trains are apparently experiencing a 4 % growth rate, which ÖBB believes will increase with more restrictions on night flights and airport expansion.
http://www.drehscheibe-online.de/foren/list.php?30 (source in German)

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This is the direct source (in German), for those that are interested:
http://www.drehscheibe-online.de/foren/read.php?30,7803008

Regarding my post about the possibility to make longer beds by putting them diagonally – it seems that some narrow gauge trains have had such arrangements:

http://www.railjournal.com/index.ph...-up-overnight-train-services.html?channel=524

THE supervisory board of Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) has approved plans to significantly increase the number of overnight trains it operates and the railway has been negotiating with German Rail (DB) to take over some of its overnight services, which are due to be withdrawn in December.

Within the next few weeks ÖBB will launch a tender for up to 60 second-hand sleeping cars and couchettes together with 15 car-transporter wagons. The vehicles are likely to be purchased from DB and ÖBB estimates the deal will have a total value of around €31m.

In addition, ÖBB has decided to rebuild 20 intercity coaches as couchettes with interiors based on a concept design unveiled earlier this year. The rebuilt couchettes are expected to enter service by mid-2019.

ÖBB says it will retain all of its existing overnight services and the network will be expanded significantly from December, with details of the additional services to be announced later this year.

In 2015 ÖBB carried around 1 million passengers on night trains which generated 17% of long-distance passenger revenues.



Already in april the plans to start tenders for a 230m EUR investment into NEW trainsets for overnight trains to Italy (as well as for a 160m EUR investment into new trainset for daytime trains via Brenner) were approved, according to http://derstandart.at/2000035560013/Brutales-Jahr-fuer-OeBB-Gueterverkehr


Nachalnik

Yes, it is happening. ÖBB launched the official tariff for its new night trains today. Trains can be booked as off Sept 15 and will start running as of Dec 11. German rail fans have shown some disappointment that the ÖBB night trains will, after a transitional period, apparently only accept tickets from their own ticketing system, which is a bummer for people who have discount cards or even flat rate tickets for the German railway system. Apparently not even Austrian discount cards are of any advantage, but it is not entirely clear yet.

List of new ÖBB night trains that will be operated primarily for the German market -

Liste der ÖBB Nachtreisezüge in Deutschland
E.2.1.1.1.EN 470/471 (Zürich) – Basel Bad – Berlin – Hamburg

E.2.1.1.2.EN 490/491 (Wien) – Passau – Hamburg

E.2.1.1.3.EN 40490/40421 (Wien) – Passau – Düsseldorf

E.2.1.1.4.EN 40420/40491 (Innsbruck) – Kufstein – Hamburg

E.2.1.1.5.EN 420/421 (Innsbruck) – Kufstein – Düsseldorf

E.2.1.1.6.EN 294/295, EN 40463/40236, EN 40295/40235 München – Salzburg – (Italien)

I think so but they were never talking about anything else, where they? In my opinion this is already way more than one could hope for. It will be very interesting to see how this will play out with an actor who is actually interested in it and not doing everything to kill it. I guess, merely taking over those trains above will be a massive expansion of the ÖBB night rail services. Let's let them handle that first before thinking about going even beyond.

Agreed. It is not too bad to come up with this with just a few months' time to prepare. The exact schedule will be another issue. The Innsbruck leg is an innovation though, giving people from the Alpine region much better connections to central and northern Germany. Although it will primarily serve to get the rolling stock from Munich back into Austria for servicing and will not have too many passengers, this is new. Otherwise we will have to wait and see the schedule, which could be complicated as all trains except the Basel one and the one headed for Italy will have to connect around Nuremberg for shunting. I wonder if Munich departure/arrival times can actually be attractive under the circumstances.
There are however also losses. No more night train from Berlin to Cologne and the Ruhr, although with the few hours' traveling time, a night ICE may be more in order here. With the coming of HSR Berlin-Munich by late 2017, I suppose there was no point to reanimate this formerly very popular line either. Especially there are no more night trains beyond Germany (except for Austria and Italy): Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Prague drop off the grid. Amsterdam could be a later extension from Düsseldorf and Copenhagen from Hamburg, but such services would take until the very late morning if not midday and would thus lose both in customer potential and logistic turnover, so I do not believe they will be back. There had been talk of a night train Basel-Prague via Linz. As that does not concern Germany, it does not show here, but I wonder whether that is still in the cards.

Theijs said:

It's a pity there are no night train connections anymore with Poland. Wasn't PKP interested to run Rhein/Rhur - Wwa/Wroclaw/Kraków, or too much competition from Wizzair and Ryanair?

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Poland still has the Paris-Moscow link 3 times a week plus other trains to the east.

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Berlin Night Express

Bladerunner said:

Copenhagen may have lost its night trains but neighboring Malmo still has this

http://www.snalltaget.se/en/destinations/berlin

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According to their website all trains Malmö-Berlin are cancelled from August 15th to 28th due to problems with locos och infrastructure in Germany.

Those who already have bought a ticket can get 100 % refund or a trip with replacement bus.


Snälltåget at Prenzlauer Allee in Berlin.