Three years after cancelling them, DB considers relaunching night trains

jamesontheroad · 13 Sep 2019

From Wirtschafts Woche today, a well placed source says that DB is exploring how to reintroduce night trains.

Link: https://www.wiwo.de/unternehmen/dienstleister/kooperation-mit-oebb-deutsche-bahn-prueft-comeback-der-nachtzuege/25010634.html

Roughly translated...

Deutsche Bahn is considering collaborating with ÖBB on night trains. Passenger numbers have increased and the demand in the market is there.
...
Three years after the end of the CityNightLine, DB is considering whether to reintroduce its night trains. There are considerations, says a familiar with the process corporate manager. However, Bahn does not want to run the business this time alone, but with partners abroad. The board is in "first talks" with the Austrian (ÖBB) and Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), it says in group circles. Bahn boss Richard Lutz himself drives the idea forward.

(This is three years after DB discontinued all their CityNightLine routes, indeed selling some of its remaining rolling stock to other operators, including ÖBB and more recently Snälltåget.

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Bletchleyite · 13 Sep 2019

Interestingly, CityNightLine was originally a collaboration between DB, OeBB and SBB...

WesternLancer · 13 Sep 2019

jamesontheroad said:
From Wirtschafts Woche today, a well placed source says that DB is exploring how to reintroduce night trains.

Link: https://www.wiwo.de/unternehmen/dienstleister/kooperation-mit-oebb-deutsche-bahn-prueft-comeback-der-nachtzuege/25010634.html

Roughly translated...

Deutsche Bahn is considering collaborating with ÖBB on night trains. Passenger numbers have increased and the demand in the market is there.
...
Three years after the end of the CityNightLine, DB is considering whether to reintroduce its night trains. There are considerations, says a familiar with the process corporate manager. However, Bahn does not want to run the business this time alone, but with partners abroad. The board is in "first talks" with the Austrian (ÖBB) and Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), it says in group circles. Bahn boss Richard Lutz himself drives the idea forward.

(This is three years after DB discontinued all their CityNightLine routes, indeed selling some of its remaining rolling stock to other operators, including ÖBB and more recently Snälltåget.

Would be good - the absence of a east west night train Brussels into Germany and Berlin is a great shame.

Struner · 13 Sep 2019

Brussel-Berlijn is about eight hours. So it would have to leave not much before 11? Very well if you get to Brussel on the €*. But otherwise? & how many potential passengers after brexit?

WesternLancer · 13 Sep 2019

Struner said:
Brussel-Berlijn is about eight hours. So it would have to leave not much before 11? Very well if you get to Brussel on the €*. But otherwise? & how many potential passengers after brexit?

well, assume the Uk - Brussels market will not dissolve post Brexit, tho I guess it will decline! I need to go east of Berlin and no night train means I lose a day of leave just to get that far.

Presumably there is a Germany - Brussels market without ref to UK!

ooo · 13 Sep 2019

Struner said:
Brussel-Berlijn is about eight hours. So it would have to leave not much before 11? Very well if you get to Brussel on the €*. But otherwise? & how many potential passengers after brexit?

That's on the ICE though - a night train would probably take quite a bit longer so would give you a good night's sleep

Struner · 13 Sep 2019

I’m not so sure about a good night’s sleep though, given the habit of bumping Kurswagen in Germany :frown:

WesternLancer · 13 Sep 2019

Quick glance at a 2015 Thomas Cook shows no City Night Line east of Koln by that date (that's a Koln, Berlin, Prague train by the look of it). Maybe Paris - Berlin had a better market?

30907 · 13 Sep 2019

Paris Berlin was diverted via Strasbourg years back as Belgian track access charges were too high. The last sleeper serving Berlin from the West (apart from the weekly Russian one) was the Jan Kiepura which was IIRC Amsterdam-Cologne-Warsaw with a Prague portion, and was through Berlin in the small hours.

rick9525 · 13 Sep 2019

I loved my trips on CNL, back in the day. I always found them a very strong brand and the trains were loverly inside. The evening evening trip down the Rhine whilst eating loverly food was a delight whilst travelling to Vienna. Never had any trouble sleeping after a glass of red. Given how well Austrian railways are doing I am not surprised DB want in on the action again.

M28361M · 13 Sep 2019

WesternLancer said:
Quick glance at a 2015 Thomas Cook shows no City Night Line east of Koln by that date (that's a Koln, Berlin, Prague train by the look of it). Maybe Paris - Berlin had a better market?

I rode the Berlin-Paris sleeper in September 2014. I think the service was withdrawn (or at least cut back so it no longer served Paris) in December that year.

Still have my PDF ticket which shows departure from Berlin Hbf at 20.06 and arrival at Paris Est at 09.24 the next morning. I think at some point in the middle of the night we were shunted and connected up with portions from other parts of Germany, continuing on to France as one long train. Treated myself to solo occupancy of an en suite room, was a great experience.

I think the Russian Railways Paris-Moscow sleeper runs in the former path of this train between Paris and Berlin, but would be great to have DB/ÖBB bring back the CNL services.

MarcVD · 13 Sep 2019

M28361M said:
I think the Russian Railways Paris-Moscow sleeper runs in the former path of this train between Paris and Berlin, but would be great to have DB/ÖBB bring back the CNL services.

Yeah but it only runs once per week, and SNCF only gets a small allocation, so most often, you need to reserve from the RZD web site.

WesternLancer · 13 Sep 2019

M28361M said:
I rode the Berlin-Paris sleeper in September 2014. I think the service was withdrawn (or at least cut back so it no longer served Paris) in December that year.

Still have my PDF ticket which shows departure from Berlin Hbf at 20.06 and arrival at Paris Est at 09.24 the next morning. I think at some point in the middle of the night we were shunted and connected up with portions from other parts of Germany, continuing on to France as one long train. Treated myself to solo occupancy of an en suite room, was a great experience.

I think the Russian Railways Paris-Moscow sleeper runs in the former path of this train between Paris and Berlin, but would be great to have DB/ÖBB bring back the CNL services.

Thanks - I'd use the Russian one but the days don't work well for me on this occasion, sadly.

Ianno87 · 13 Sep 2019

I do wonder with night trains whether just rethinking the network from first principles/blank sheet of paper would help, rather than just carrying on with trains that have run for years. May be a good opportunity, especially as people become climate-aware against flying.

30907 said:
Paris Berlin was diverted via Strasbourg years back as Belgian track access charges were too high. The last sleeper serving Berlin from the West (apart from the weekly Russian one) was the Jan Kiepura which was IIRC Amsterdam-Cologne-Warsaw with a Prague portion, and was through Berlin in the small hours.

That was chopped back to just Cologne-Warsaw, then withdrawn entirely in Dec 2016 (I rode it in May/June 2016)

M28361M said:
I rode the Berlin-Paris sleeper in September 2014. I think the service was withdrawn (or at least cut back so it no longer served Paris) in December that year.

Still have my PDF ticket which shows departure from Berlin Hbf at 20.06 and arrival at Paris Est at 09.24 the next morning. I think at some point in the middle of the night we were shunted and connected up with portions from other parts of Germany, continuing on to France as one long train. Treated myself to solo occupancy of an en suite room, was a great experience.

We did Berlin-Paris* on it in October 2014, just before withdrawal in December. The big coupling up (with some elaborate propelling and shunting) was at Hannover (we lost a portion for Zurich, gained one from Hamburg, IIRC).

*Well, we booked to Paris, but train was truncated to Strasbourg at a week's notice, due to SNCF trackwork at Metz instead. So instead of a relaxing arrival in Paris at 09-something, we were kicked off bleary-eyed at Strasbourg at 05-something (with much traincrew grumpiness) and stuck on a TGV instead. No wonder the loading was light...

duesselmartin · 13 Sep 2019

A re intro of a Ruhr to Milan service would be great.

30907 · 14 Sep 2019

Ianno87 said:
I do wonder with night trains whether just rethinking the network from first principles/blank sheet of paper would help, rather than just carrying on with trains that have run for years. May be a good opportunity, especially as people become climate-aware against flying.

That's more or less what OeBB did with Nightjet - or rather the ones they operate solo (the Nuremberg swaps and the Zurich group).
Principle 1: what would work with a 4-night circuit and enough time for servicing?
Principle 2: what are the obvious heavy flows?
So Innsbruck gained and Zurich-Amsterdam lost out.

paddington · 15 Sep 2019

I would like a Brussels to Warsaw via Berlin overnight, obviously branching off to various other cities where appropriate. While hotels are cheap I would still prefer a morning arrival and/or not having to get up at 4am in Berlin in order to make the most of a day in Warsaw

Aictos · 15 Sep 2019

This would be a good idea however some routes that used to exist might not have a good business case to be reintroduced.

A daily Paris to Berlin as well as a daily Berlin to Warsaw would be lovely as Berlin to Warsaw is just over 5 hours so you don’t get much time to enjoy Warsaw unless you fly between the two.

Berlin to Paris if timed with Eurostar connections would suit me very well!

Merseysider · 15 Sep 2019

I took the Russian sleeper from Berlin to Paris only last month and was pleasantly surprised.

I'd love to see a more frequent service overnight between the two capitals - you lose a whole day travelling between the two otherwise.

Aictos · 15 Sep 2019

Merseysider said:
I took the Russian sleeper from Berlin to Paris only last month and was pleasantly surprised.

I'd love to see a more frequent service overnight between the two capitals - you lose a whole day travelling between the two otherwise.

How much was that sleeper then?

And yes while you lose a day travelling you can always fly...

Merseysider · 15 Sep 2019

Aictos said:
How much was that sleeper then?

And yes while you lose a day travelling you can always fly...

It was £125, so not outrageous, but did involve sharing a berth.

True, but flying is so boring

Cloud Strife · 16 Sep 2019

30907 said:
The last sleeper serving Berlin from the West (apart from the weekly Russian one) was the Jan Kiepura which was IIRC Amsterdam-Cologne-Warsaw with a Prague portion, and was through Berlin in the small hours.

Not only that, but DB barely bothered to advertise it. It had terrible problems on the DB side of things too, often turning up hours late because of DB having problems elsewhere.

There's certainly room for some cooperation - for instance, DB sleeper coaches could be taken from Berlin to Kostrzyn to connect with the Szczecin-Warsaw night train. That leaves Kostrzyn about 23:30, so it should be possible to offer a departure at about 21:30 from Berlin.

Aictos · 16 Sep 2019

Merseysider said:
It was £125, so not outrageous, but did involve sharing a berth.

True, but flying is so boring

The other thing with not flying is you get to see the scenery

paddington · 16 Sep 2019

Aictos said:
The other thing with not flying is you get to see the scenery

You can see a lot more scenery from the air...

If I'm not looking out for something specific (e.g. signals, points, stations, or geographical features) I tend to get bored after about 4 hours on a train.

Aictos · 16 Sep 2019

paddington said:
You can see a lot more scenery from the air...

If I'm not looking out for something specific (e.g. signals, points, stations, or geographical features) I tend to get bored after about 4 hours on a train.

True but being closer to the ground you get to enjoy the scenery more, point of order I did the Rhine Valley by rail and flying wouldn’t have given me as much enjoyment as Rail did.

Plus you don’t need to worry about liquid restrictions by rail!

Struner · 17 Sep 2019

paddington said:
You can see a lot more scenery from the air...

Methinks it is like weasel...

Three years after cancelling them, DB considers relaunching night trains

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