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About CityNightLine

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Stephen Lee

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The article is in Japanese so I have to translate it into English:
● route planning

The departure and arrival stations and their routes in Germany, Austria and Switzerland were planned to be the routes connecting the three cities of Koeln, Wien and Zuerich and two of those departure and arrival stations.
In addition, the expansion of routes was planned. Shown below,

As a confirmed route
Zuerich --Wien
(Dortmund-) Koeln --Wien
Hamburg --Bremen --Zuerich

In addition, the originally planned route expansion plan after the start of business was as follows.
Switzerland-Rome / Southern Italy
Switzerland-Barcelona
Switzerland-Berlin
Switzerland-Benelux / London
Source: http://www.rig-bahn.jp/db-page/j-cnl1.htm
I found out that DACH Hotelzug AG i.e. CityNightLine formerly planned to expand service to Rome / Southern Italy, Barcelona, Benelux and even to London but how come it is not materialised? I hope Nightjet's expansion can surely make up this loss.
 
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StephenHunter

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London runs into problems with border controls; not insurmountable ones with the right political will. Also, rolling stock; while you can fit a Nightjet rake on HS1, you'd need a Class 92 or something to haul it and they're busy on freight.

Interestingly, the planned Midnight Trains operation, which is backed by a French tech billionaire among others, actually wants to run a service to Edinburgh!

DB stopped running night trains in 2016.

ÖBB launched Nightjet in December 2016, immediately after the last City Night Line trains stopped running.
NJ took over CNL's rolling stock.
 

30907

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The article is in Japanese so I have to translate it into English:

Source: http://www.rig-bahn.jp/db-page/j-cnl1.htm
I found out that DACH Hotelzug AG i.e. CityNightLine formerly planned to expand service to Rome / Southern Italy, Barcelona, Benelux and even to London but how come it is not materialised? I hope Nightjet's expansion can surely make up this loss.
When CNL was set up there were certainly sleeper services to the Netherlands and Rome from D/A/CH and the Nightstar sleepers through the Channel Tunnel were at an advanced planning stage.
Zurich-Barcelona would have been a real possibility then and is quite likely to happen in this decade.
Southern Italy (depending exactly where, I wonder if the Adriatic Coast eg Rimini was actually meant?) was probably a non-starter because of journey time, and I have not seen it in current planning.
And then came low-cost airlines.... :(
 

Gloster

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Even ignoring the technical problems, I would doubt if any business would take the commercial risk of starting a service to London in the foreseeable future. The hostile attitude of the current government to Europe and the possibility that it might suddenly bring in restrictions affecting the service for purely political reasons would make the whole thing very chancy. Maybe we will have to wait until Scotland has gone its own way and wants to be joined to other European capitals, but then it might be a Korridorzug with no public stops between Frethun and Reston.
 

XAM2175

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Also, rolling stock; while you can fit a Nightjet rake on HS1, you'd need a Class 92 or something to haul it and they're busy on freight.
Oh, I'm sure Siemens would happily build a fleet of Chunnel Vectrons for the right money :p

Maybe we will have to wait until Scotland has gone its own way and wants to be joined to other European capitals, but then it might be a Korridorzug with no public stops between Frethun and Reston.
With 125 mph stock the timings could actually almost work, hah.
 

30907

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We managed to run the Night Ferry before the EEC even existed.
But nobody considered a train ferry a terrorist target then, and cross Channel migration was less of a political issue (and the sleepers couldn't have conveyed many migrants anyway).
 

Bald Rick

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I would doubt if any business would take the commercial risk of starting a service to London in the foreseeable future.

There won’t be a commercial case for London - Europe sleepers, so It’s not a commercial risk, but commercial suicide!
 

StephenHunter

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London to Europe no. Edinburgh to Europe? Someone at Midnight Trains - several someones it seems - thinks it's a viable idea.
 

Bald Rick

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Edinburgh to Europe? Someone at Midnight Trains - several someones it seems - thinks it's a viable idea.

Someone at Midnight Trains needs to do a little research into the commercial, technical, logistical and legal issues. It’s not viable and not going to happen.
 

StephenHunter

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Looking at their staff, someone possibly has. Also history is full of things that people said weren't viable.
 

Bald Rick

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Looking at their staff, someone possibly has. Also history is full of things that people said weren't viable.

True. This isn’t viable though.

The London - Edinburgh sleeper service isn’t commercially viable (by a long way), Paris - Edinburgh has no chance.
 

StephenHunter

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Let's see how the German elections go, in particular. Strong chance of the Greens re-entering government.
 

TheEdge

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Politics is also moving against low-cost airlines.

Coalition of national operators across the continent to create a full network of sleepers...

Or probably just OBB as they seem to be the only ones who really buy into sleepers.
 
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