In 2016, Deutsche Bahn put all its sleeping and couchette cars on the sidings. The neighboring countries in the Alps are different. The Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) recognized the potential earlier than other companies and developed into the market leader for night trains in Europe. In addition to several connections from Vienna to Italy, Germany, Eastern Europe and Brussels, they have also filled the gap in Germany that was created by the withdrawal of Deutsche Bahn. They also operate the routes from Hamburg to Munich and Zurich and from Berlin to Zurich with their Nightjet.
The discussion and flight shame and the Corona crisis have changed our travel behavior. Sustainability plays a much greater role in the choice of means of transport than it did a few years ago. Instead of queuing in long queues at airport security checks, more and more travelers are discovering sleeping cars as an alternative: slow down and enjoy rolling through the night and reach the center of a metropolis relaxed the next morning, that is the motto.
“Nowhere in the world is the rail network denser than in Europe. Between Portugal and Russia, between Norway and Greece, there are around 300,000 kilometers of rails,” write Veronika Wengert and Jörg Dauscher in their travel photo book “Night train journeys – the most beautiful routes in Europe”who is now im Conbook publisher has appeared. This infrastructure has also been used by sleeping cars for 150 years.
Subsidy for night trains instead of low-cost airlines
The pair of authors, who present 20 night train connections in Europe in detail with words, maps and pictures, do not speak of a boom in night trains either, but “rather of a cautious reopening of individual routes”. They plead for a higher authority that coordinates the European network of night trains and appeals to politicians for connections to be subsidized by the state, as is already the case in Sweden. A night train is now running again between Hamburg and Stockholm.
In addition to the sensuous route descriptions that make you want to travel in a sleeping car, there are also many tips for travelers and a “Brief ABC of night train travel”, from which we have selected some terms with explanations for the photo series.
You might also be interested in:
– Trans-Europ-Express TEE 2.0: Back to the future with the night train
– Sleepers instead of planes: travel more sustainably by train overnight
– Europe starts night train offensive: These German cities play an important role
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