International sleeper trains - present / potential / priorities

[popeter45]

What would it take to get a Mk 5 through the tunnel? Extensive fireproofing?

basicly an entire rebuild from the ground up, fire spread control such as smoke tightness and fire barriers, breaking performance, ventilation and corresponding power supply backups, etc
look at what they had to do to make mark 4's compatible, so heavy they where unsure a class 92 could pull a full rake of them

 

[MontyP]

Yes, even for seated overnight trains, they seem unsuited for it, much worse than a sleeper seated car where there is usually at least dimmed lighting and reduced annoucements. There seems to be not much written online about them yet. Is it because they are too poor to excite people to write? Is it because they look and sound exactly like the day trains on a dark winter evening?


I think Vienna-Zurich-Paris is about 15 hours by non-ICE/TGV so might be possible. 7pm departure for 10am arrival but it would get cancelled as soon as any part of the route was restricted. Maybe it will run to/from Innsbruck like parts of the Brussels and Hamburg sleepers do.

Personally I’d love to see a Paris-Zurich-Innsbruck sleeper via the Arlberg tunnel to give access to all the ski resorts in Tirol. Not sure what demand there would be year round though!

Rather than proposing sleepers through the Channel Tunnel, a late afternoon or early evening direct service to Cologne would work well to connect with the various current and proposed services starting there.

 

[AlbertBeale]

Rather than proposing sleepers through the Channel Tunnel, a late afternoon or early evening direct service to Cologne would work well to connect with the various current and proposed services starting there.

That (or similar, with sleepers from Brussels/Paris) might be an OK alternative for overnight travel from the London area to central Europe; but for overnight journeys from well away from London to Paris, Brussels, etc, then it does seem that sleepers under the Channel would make sense. As someone else has suggested, recent/existing Eurostar rolling stock that's pensioned off could be refitted as sleepers for this latter use; if one reason it's pensioned off is it's getting too old for continued high speed use, then overnight sleepers wouldn't need to be running quite so fast - so perhaps not a problem?

 

[Aictos]

Using Brussels or Paris would make more sense to start/terminate the sleepers to the rest of Europe which would be more economical then converting former HS rolling stock.

Personally I think extending operations centred on Berlin would give good connections to Paris, Brussels, Prague, Vienna, Warsaw, Copenhagen, Amsterdam etc...

But also keeping the current operations to/from Vienna in place.

 

[EAD]

Personally I’d love to see a Paris-Zurich-Innsbruck sleeper via the Arlberg tunnel to give access to all the ski resorts in Tirol. Not sure what demand there would be year round though!

Rather than proposing sleepers through the Channel Tunnel, a late afternoon or early evening direct service to Cologne would work well to connect with the various current and proposed services starting there.

Resurrecting the original Arlberg Express - not sure there is the demand now and well SNCF are pretty off night trains overall. The NJ via Germany and to Innsbruck is a pretty good alternative though in particular in days it runs from Brussels. Serves the whole Unterland in Tirol so easy to get to those resorts hopping off and changing at Kufstein/Wörgl/Jenbach. There is a ~30 minute change at Innsbruck for the next Railjet through the Arlberg (09:14 - 09:48).

 

[AlbertBeale]

Using Brussels or Paris would make more sense to start/terminate the sleepers to the rest of Europe which would be more economical then converting former HS rolling stock.

Personally I think extending operations centred on Berlin would give good connections to Paris, Brussels, Prague, Vienna, Warsaw, Copenhagen, Amsterdam etc...

But also keeping the current operations to/from Vienna in place.

My mention of converting ex-Eurostar stock was for journeys where most of the distance was on this side of the Channel. Reinstating routes from Paris/Brussels, to the east and south, works if people can connect with them from London during the evening. But that doesn't deal with people in Britain who're well away from London who want to start an overnight journey from hours away from the Channel. Ideally there'd be overnight routes like Scotland-Brussels/Paris, even if my envisaged overlapping London-Berlin (etc) services required an evening change in Brussels. (In an ideal world, all would operate of course; and might need to if people are going to accept the virtual elimination of flying within Europe.)

 

[duesselmartin]

I think the discussion around converting old stock shows the priority night trains have.
I assume that the NightStar stock was Chunnel suitable. So similar new stock could be build and might not even cost that much more than converting old stock.
As to traction, the Class92 is now around 25 years old. A replacement would be needed if freight is going to be any priorty at all in today's enviromental discussions.
A few extra for night stock should be no challenge then.
Its all just political will than technical challenges.
Martin

 

[popeter45]

I think the discussion around converting old stock shows the priority night trains have.
I assume that the NightStar stock was Chunnel suitable. So similar new stock could be build and might not even cost that much more than converting old stock.
As to traction, the Class92 is now around 25 years old. A replacement would be needed if freight is going to be any priorty at all in today's enviromental discussions.
A few extra for night stock should be no challenge then.
Its all just political will than technical challenges.
Martin

Well metro Cammell are defunct so no real way to get same mark 4 design used for Nightstar

Also first generation you want low risk so if it's a economic failure you don't lose as much so using refurbished stock makes sense, once services prove successful and expansion is on the table that's when you invest in a new design