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Night train WLAB2 cars awaiting departure from Trondheim Central Station. Previously Norwegian NSB offered night train services also from Oslo to Åndalsnes on Raumabanen and to Trondheim on Rørosbanen, but these services have been terminated. Photo: Wikiphoto: Credit: Alasdair McLellan

End of the night trains?

Published: Tue, 2014-12-09 15:00

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“Outdated, like crossing the Atlantic by sea”.

Economic and environmental magazine Terra Eco notes that several companies have recently decided to end their overnight services, including Elipsos, which decided last December to “cancel its route between France and Spain, then the one between Switzerland, Spain and Italy.”

Night trains, which helped a generation of young Europeans travel across the continent with or without Interrail pass, can soon be a nostalgic reminiscence.

At the start of October, International Railway Journal reported that German operator Deutsche Bahn, one of the biggest operators of overnight trains, would also remove its nightly services to France, Switzerland and Denmark.

European Commission has ploughed billions of euros into developing cross-border rail infrastructure; international links are being quietly curtailed because there is no common vision for their continued operation. - EU policy on modal shift and carbon reduction, are effectively forcing rail passengers onto short-haul flights, writes net magazine VOXeurop.

For the moment, résumés Terra Eco, only Thello appears to be developing, having expanded annual passengers on its Paris-Milan-Venice route from 200,000 in 2010 to “at least” 340,000 estimated for 2014. However, economist Yves Crozet tells the magazine that “Thello’s night line between Paris and Venice is a particular service where romanticism is obliged and a sign that night trains are becoming a luxury niche market: “they belong to the past, like crossing the Atlantic by sea.”

Source: VOXeurop

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