# DB to withdraw all remaining sleeper trains



## CHamilton

DB to withdraw all remaining sleeper trains


> GERMAN Rail (DB) has confirmed that as part of its planned cost reductions for next year it will cease operating all overnight trains with sleeper, couchette and specially-equipped overnight seating coaches from December 15 2016.
> 
> DB says it has tried to "rescue" the night train network in recent years but it remains stubbornly unprofitable. DB has released figures showing its night trains were used by 1.3 million passengers over the last year (around 1% of all long distance passengers). The trains made a loss of €32m on a turnover of €90m and DB predicts similar numbers for 2016.
> 
> From December 2016 DB says it will offer a new concept for overnight travel. The company is clear that this will not include any traditional overnight trains but there will be more overnight ICE services. DB suggests that these services, together with new DB-operated international IC Bus links could maintain some of the international connections currently available through the sleeper network.


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## Anderson

Considering that a large part of this was a knock-on effect of the EU's forced privatization directive, I'd like to see [CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED] Angela Merkel [CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED] EU [CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED] Germany [CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED].


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## Just-Thinking-51

Ok this is a big negative event.

However the French cut there sleepers after the TGV network came on-line. Today you can still ride sleeping cars in France. Just not everywhere.

Time to check my passport expiration date.


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## jis

Even in France most of the remaining ones have been progressively lost over the years.


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## MikefromCrete

Only 1 percent of the long distance passengers use the night trains. Why did you think was going to happen?


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## Just-Thinking-51

That 1% generated 90 million euro of business.


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## jis

And it cost over 130 million euros to run according to some reports. That is without including the upcoming needs for rolling stock upgrade/replacement that is due. They are cutting and running to avoid that cost since there is no expectation of the service performing significantly better even after those changes.

And 90 million is what percentage of 40 billion, which roughly is the annual revenue of DB?

Actually I believe that if the Germans saw any real utility in the running the service they would have continued to run them. As it is they have to coax and cajole people to use those trains.Apparently predominantly people like to get to their destination the previous evening and sleep in a bed on terra ferma than bounce along all night, even on Europe's smooth tracks. What can I say?


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## trainviews

The one percent must be of all Intercity travel, probably excluding regionals, but not very "long distance" seen from the US.

But anyway, in Europe you have a more and more clear partition of the market. Train travel has been ballooning for short and medium distance travel - or more precisely medium travel time. At the same time the airline market is growing briskly too, but mostly on a bit longer distances or where no decent train connection is available.

RZD and ÖBB are hanging on, but everywhere else sleepers seem to be slowly disappearing. As for City Night Line it clearly lacked investment, has had serious OTP issues and the concept of tying all the lines together and shuffling cars in the middle of the night in Hannover, waking everyone up, was flat out annoying. Generelly their only market has been holiday makers, selling out in the summer but running almost empty in low season.

I'm sorry to see them go, but I can't say I'm surprised...


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## iggy

Seems obvious at least one commenter did not read further down.

_Keith Fender, Germany regional editor seemed to show that several companies went out of their way to reduce service levels making services less attractive. When your efforts are to kill off services - not much can be done. Not sure a true effort to market / save routes was put forth. _


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## Bob Dylan

iggy said:


> Seems obvious at least one commenter did not read further down.
> 
> _Keith Fender, Germany regional editor seemed to show that several companies went out of their way to reduce service levels making services less attractive. When your efforts are to kill off services - not much can be done. Not sure a true effort to market / save routes was put forth. _


Right out of the SP Playbook in the 60s!!!


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## jis

Bob Dylan said:


> iggy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Seems obvious at least one commenter did not read further down.
> 
> _Keith Fender, Germany regional editor seemed to show that several companies went out of their way to reduce service levels making services less attractive. When your efforts are to kill off services - not much can be done. Not sure a true effort to market / save routes was put forth. _
> 
> 
> 
> Right out of the SP Playbook in the 60s!!!
Click to expand...

Yup, the same song and dance. It is not as if they were making money or even coming close before the service reductions started happening either. That was the core problem. Whereas the newer tech high speed trains were starting to pull out of red and make money the overnight trains were not. And of course there will always be railfans who will moan about any change whatsoever negative or positive too, as has always been the case.

More than making money or losing money on specific trains, the issue as always is of setting priorities on how best to spend money to provide the most effective infrastructure for transportation. For decades now, in Europe it has not been clear that the best way to spend the money is on overnight trains, given the travel patterns that have developed with the rise of low cost airlines and high speed trains. As always some overnight trains will still get retained for economic or sentimental or other reasons. But the time for overnight trains in most of western Europe is more or less gone, unfortunately. I enjoyed them much while they lasted. Trains going into and beyond Eastern Europe will continue to have sleeper service in some form or the other.


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## Just-Thinking-51

Not quite out of SP playbook. The very new comfortline sleeping cars are recent built in early 2000.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/30006269/trainseatplans/Comfortline-sleeper.pdf

Other issues was how the train service was managed. Seem they never had full management control over all aspect of the trains. So more like Amtrak LD than SP.

Our future if we're not careful.


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## WoodyinNYC

Where do you want overnight trains to run in Germany?

The steady addition of high-speed segments keeps cutting trip times between major cities, so how many city pairs are left where the trip takes at least 7 hours? C'mon. Get a map. LOL.

Buried deep in a recent _*Railway Gazette*_ article *Erfurt – Leipzig opening will cut journey times *

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/passenger/single-view/view/erfurt-leipzig-opening-will-cut-journey-times.html

were these nuggets: Leipzig-Frankfurt now down to 3 hours. Berlin-Munich will soon be 4 hours, not 6.

I'm just not seeing where overnight sleeper service is needed within Germany at all. And I'm not concerned because the relevance of that fact to US routes like Chicago-West Coast or NYC-Florida is _*zilch*_.



> Completion of the new line will allow DB to shorten journey times ... *Frankfurt – Leipzig timings will be cut by 50 min to just 3 h.* After the opening of the Erfurt – Ebensfeld section in 2017 will ... *cut the fastest Berlin – München timing from 6 h to 3 h 55 min.*


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## Bob Dylan

But what if you want to go from say Italy or Switzerland to say, Denmark.

This used to be an excellent way to save money on hotels when traveling around Europe!

Glad that Jolly ole England still has the overnight Trains to Scotland even if they are pricey as jis said!


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## jis

Bob Dylan said:


> But what if you want to go from say Italy or Switzerland to say, Denmark.
> 
> This used to be an excellent way to save money on hotels when traveling around Europe!
> 
> Glad that Jolly ole England still has the overnight Trains to Scotland even if they are pricey as jis said!


There are both daytime and overnight ICE services all over the place now for such distances. It is a 17 hour journey from Zurich to Copenhagen. There are two daytime connections and one overnight, all connecting through Hamburg and all ICE.However, none of them are as cheap as the cheap flights that take a couple of hours. Incidentally Zurich - Hamburg is one the last remaining City night Line services.

It literally is the case that the operating cost of standard ICE trains is so much less than that of individual cars being shuffled around from train to train that there is no contest. And unfortunately, when you have really cheap flight from Zurich to Copenhagen leaving after office hours and of course all through the day too, it is highly unlikely that anyone will bother riding a train except for the true dyed in the wool. I am sure at least eh business travelers are not really concerned about saving money on hotels, and a cheap flight plus a cheap hotel is usually cheaper than a overnight sleeper. The whole economics of the thing has changed drastically making overnight sleepers not work all that well in terms of what it costs everyone.


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## Anderson

I think part of the problem was the [CENSORED] EU rail directive basically forcing everyone to "rationalise" and "liberalise" services. From what I can tell, in a previous era the 40m Euro deficit could easily have been covered by the government; now, it would probably amount to "illegal state aid" (especially if doing so might detract from some franchisee or another) or somesuch. While this is resulting in _more_ trains being available, I think it's fair to say that this has also induced an airline-style decline in quality. Of course, I say this as an observer with a limited education on the topic rather than someone who has ridden any train in Europe other than the Paris Metro.

Edit: To be clear, regulation 1370/2007 seems to be at issue (though I believe it succeeded some other regulations...EU law is such a soup of crap that I have trouble wading through it, and their page formatting makes the laws even harder to read since some idiot thought that putting two columns on a single page was a good idea...and I'm kind of stuck trying to find which laws or regulations actually deal with this area).

Suffice it to say that 20-25 years ago I know there was a mentality that a lot of things could/should be subsidized which has vanished steadily.

One other point: I know DB has a _lot_ of riders but there's no mention of how much of that is short-hop ridership (either commuter-length runs or otherwise <2 hour trips).


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## jis

I don't know exactly how DB shows the accounts for the S-Bahns these days, which are all becoming separate franchises that DB has to bid and win. It has been winning some and losing some in spite of the German Government trying to overtly or covertly favor DB. It should be interesting to see what the German Railway network looks like five years from now.

As far as the so called LD trains go, at issue their replacement by ICE service - day or overnight.


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## Anderson

Hmmm...is DB distinct from ICE? I had thought ICE was a brand of DB.


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## jis

Who said anything about ICE not being a DB service?

Open Access is giving access to other companies to run services on the German rail network. The point is that some other company might decide that overnight trains with sleepers are worthwhile after all. Just because DB decides it does not want to do something does not mean it won't be done by someone else.


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## Just-Thinking-51

Anderson only trains that cross borders can not be subsidies per the EU.

The big issue is there so many connecting trains. Most CNL trains have to be split at some point, cars add on, or dropped off. This dropping of CNL will have major impacts on several other system trains.

Marketing seem to be the down fall. Last time I travel on CNL there cars were blue. Now with the changes to DB only, it hard to find a single point of access. Case in point two maps on the DB web site. Nether show all the night trains route available from the different providers. Why?

http://www.citynightline.de/p_en/view/mdb/bahnintern/international/p_en/city_night_line/mdb_209252_final_sk_cnl_partnerbahnen_fuer_online_2.pdf

http://www.citynightline.de/p_en/view/mdb/bahnintern/international/p_en/city_night_line/mdb_209249_final_cnl_streckenkarte_a4_deutsch_2015_fuer_online.pdf

Try to book a night train and you have to click past so many ICE to get to a CNL.

Let's just make it hard to book the train, so only us foamers can find them. A Winning approach .


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## caravanman

It is a shame that the City Night Line trains are being withdrawn. I have been lucky to ride a few of these overnight trains in the last 10 years. I believe that the publicity and promotion of these services was above average, even a specific ticket promoting "visit the city by day, sleep overnight on the train, visit next city next day...".

Although I love the slightly sepia image of rail coaches being added and subtracted from trains to arrive at multiple destinations next day, I can see that the ever cheaper budget air fares within Europe are a huge attraction for most people.

Sadly, I missed the chance to travel from Amsterdam to Warsaw via sleeper at only 49 Euro. That service seems no longer available.

Many good daytime international trains operate, Amsterdam to Berlin, Berlin to Budapest, Budapest to Belgrade, etc.

I think this is the latest CNL map Nov. 2015. :http://www.bahn.com/i/view/mdb/bahnintern/international/p_en/city_night_line/mdb_209249_final_cnl_streckenkarte_a4_deutsch_2015_fuer_online.pdf

Bon Voyage!

Ed.


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## Anderson

Just-Thinking-51 said:


> Anderson only trains that cross borders can not be subsidies per the EU.
> 
> The big issue is there so many connecting trains. Most CNL trains have to be split at some point, cars add on, or dropped off. This dropping of CNL will have major impacts on several other system trains.
> 
> Marketing seem to be the down fall. Last time I travel on CNL there cars were blue. Now with the changes to DB only, it hard to find a single point of access. Case in point two maps on the DB web site. Nether show all the night trains route available from the different providers. Why?
> 
> http://www.citynightline.de/p_en/view/mdb/bahnintern/international/p_en/city_night_line/mdb_209252_final_sk_cnl_partnerbahnen_fuer_online_2.pdf
> 
> http://www.citynightline.de/p_en/view/mdb/bahnintern/international/p_en/city_night_line/mdb_209249_final_cnl_streckenkarte_a4_deutsch_2015_fuer_online.pdf
> 
> Try to book a night train and you have to click past so many ICE to get to a CNL.
> 
> Let's just make it hard to book the train, so only us foamers can find them. A Winning approach .


Ok, _there_ is the issue (the bar on subsidizing cross-border trains...I knew I remembered there being a bar on something that was royally messing things up). The problem there becomes, of course, that while Hamburg-Berlin might be a quick run, I think some runs like Amsterdam/Brussels-Berlin (or Paris-insert destination here) are still going to fall in that 8+ hour window. Yes, I know, that's a "more logical" airline market but I'd point out that New York-Florida and New York-Chicago both have overnight trains in the US that more or less cover their operating costs. Not solely aimed at those markets, but nothing stops an overnight train from making intermediate stops.


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## Just-Thinking-51

US and Western Europe are two different markets. If you can get a 8 hour spread, than a overnight run is possible. However your pax load is limited to one city and there needs to get to the next city.

Do you think Pittsburgh PA to Philadelphia can support a night train? Sure we got Boston to Washington but can it support itself or is a clean up train? Has a purpose in the timetable, but I don't think it can be self supporting.

Slivers train are over 24 hours with lots of stops, that what makes it. Auto Train with out the auto carriers, how would the numbers look.

I also feel DB is focus on ICE, something like Amtrak is focus on Acela. Sure you have a built in market and you make money. But why is there bit players sneaking into your lanes of traffic? In US we have buses eating Amtrak NEC traffic. In Europe we have open access trains.

https://locomore.com/en/index.html

I do wonder if Amtrak were to run a single 18 car train on the NEC and charge a super low fare, just how successful it would be. Make a run for the bus crowds? Running out of slots on the NEC, so let's max out the train lengths. Oh sorry we are buying more Acela type of trains. Acela and only Acela.


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## railbuck

Just-Thinking-51 said:


> The big issue is there so many connecting trains. Most CNL trains have to be split at some point, cars add on, or dropped off. This dropping of CNL will have major impacts on several other system trains.


This is a consideration worth noting. Not all CNL trains are "pure" CNL; many of them have IC coaches as well that are shuffled along with the sleeper cars.

Case in point with a random date of 16 January, traveling from Munich to Düsseldorf (8 hours with no change of trains), one can ticket CNL 418 for 49€ (sparpreis couchette) or IC 60418 for 51€ (second class saver fare). Why anyone would choose the latter option I cannot imagine. However, the restriction on the CNL ticket is that you must board south of Frankfurt and your destination must be north of Frankfurt. If your origin or destination is Frankfurt, or your travel does not cross Frankfurt, only the IC is available.

The above example is part of the Munich-Amsterdam route, which interchanges with Munich-Hamburg (CNL 40418/IC 61418), Zurich-Hamburg (CNL 478/IC 60478), and Zurich-Amsterdam (CNL 40478/IC 61478).

So I'm curious what they will do. Continue to run the same trains but with the IC cars only (discontinue the CNL cars and service but not the trains)? Run similar IC trains but without the shuffling, requiring long distance pax to transfer in the middle of the night? Convert everything to ICE and split/join train units? ICE with transfers?

Regardless, looks like I'd better book at least one more CNL trip next year before they disappear.


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## Just-Thinking-51

http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/europe/db-seeks-to-renew-itself-after-strategic-review.html?channel=537

"GERMAN Rail (DB) has announced the outcome of months of strategic review, assisted by consulting firm McKinsey, confirming a programme of measures to tackle the company's worsening financial performance.

CEO Dr Rüdiger Grube set out the process that DB will implement to "renew itself," by first "cleaning" the company of unnecessary management and business structures and from 2016 focussing on both train punctuality and service quality."

Seem that DB has some issues to address. City Night Line did not cover the full allocated cost. Overhead and capital of course.

Of interest is the 350 new passenger station over the next 15 years. 55bn euro of capital investment next 5 years.

Oh to have issues like these


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## jis

Indeed. DB is trying to fulfill its charter the best it can. It is unfortunate that overnight sleepers have just become more irrelevant over time in the overall mix of transport modes available for typical journeys of its customers. The amount of money they plan to spend overall in facilities improvements is impressive. I wish we had such problems (er solutions) on the other side of the pond.


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## Anderson

Just-Thinking-51 said:


> http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/europe/db-seeks-to-renew-itself-after-strategic-review.html?channel=537
> 
> "GERMAN Rail (DB) has announced the outcome of months of strategic review, assisted by consulting firm McKinsey, confirming a programme of measures to tackle the company's worsening financial performance.
> 
> CEO Dr Rüdiger Grube set out the process that DB will implement to "renew itself," by first "cleaning" the company of unnecessary management and business structures and from 2016 focussing on both train punctuality and service quality."
> 
> Seem that DB has some issues to address. City Night Line did not cover the full allocated cost. Overhead and capital of course.
> 
> Of interest is the 350 new passenger station over the next 15 years. 55bn euro of capital investment next 5 years.
> 
> Oh to have issues like these


I have to wonder what the situation was on direct cost (e.g. at _least_ notwithstanding overhead, possibly also notwithstanding capital).


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## neroden

This is a case of idiocy by Deutsche Bahn -- but the main reason for it is a parochial attitude. The "costs" line is a phony, a lie.

All of the CityNightLine trains were profitable; DB has admitted as much. It looks like they even covered depreciation, which is a real cost of operation. They didn't cover "assigned overhead", which was used as an excuse for not running them -- but we all know that's just an excuse, because "assigned overhead" is not a real cost of operation.

The real issue is that distances within Germany are too short for sleeper service. The successful and popular sleeper services of CityNightLine all extended across the borders to other countries, and those countries were the main beneficiaries. And DB doesn't want to help people from other countries; this has been an ongoing trend in Europe, with cross-border services being eliminated.

The result is that the Paris-Berlin sleeper market is now being grabbed by *Russian Railways* (really!) as part of its Paris-Moscow route, while Austrian Railways is grabbing the services which go to Austria. Denmark's railways are a basketcase and have many other priorities so unfortunately the Danish services will probably not be replaced. There are decent odds that the Swiss Railways will replace the services to Switzerland.

Worth noting that "no subsidies of cross border services" rules (with idiotic overhead-inclusive definitions of subsidies) do not apply to countries outside the EU. So Russian Railways can operate any service which makes a real profit, regardless of overhead. And apparently they intend to.


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## neroden

jis said:


> And it cost over 130 million euros to run according to some reports.


Those are what we call "fake numbers". DB has admitted that the City Night Line services were profitable. That's just another case of assigning overhead to specific trains, which is always and everywhere a mistake.




WoodyinNYC said:


> I'm just not seeing where overnight sleeper service is needed within Germany at all.





Bob Dylan said:


> But what if you want to go from say Italy or Switzerland to say, Denmark.


You're both right! And this is exactly the issue which is ending the services. I honestly would not be surprised if we see an expansion of international sleeper services pushed by countries on the fringe of Europe, who are the ones who benefit. Unfortunately Denmark-specific issues are likely to prevent the resumption of Danish services for a long time, but Switzerland and Italy are another matter.


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## WoodyinNYC

Bob Dylan said:


> But what if you want to go from say Italy or Switzerland to say, Denmark.


When I went on my first trip abroad with a EurailPass -- what more could I need? -- I was very young. World War II and the assorted war crimes had not faded from memory. So I arranged my life to travel from Innsbruck in Austria to Copenhagen without setting foot on German soil. Then Copenhagen-Amsterdam I misread the timetable, and had to change trains in Hannover. I'm not forgetting the war crimes, but I have forgiven Germany. After all, on a DNA basis I'm 37.5% German. So a week in Berlin, half a week in Hannover for their little World's Fair. Several train trips, but the first one was *overnight thru* Germany.


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## jis

neroden said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> 
> And it cost over 130 million euros to run according to some reports.
> 
> 
> 
> Those are what we call "fake numbers". DB has admitted that the City Night Line services were profitable. That's just another case of assigning overhead to specific trains, which is always and everywhere a mistake.
> 
> 
> 
> WoodyinNYC said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm just not seeing where overnight sleeper service is needed within Germany at all.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Bob Dylan said:
> 
> 
> 
> But what if you want to go from say Italy or Switzerland to say, Denmark.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> You're both right! And this is exactly the issue which is ending the services. I honestly would not be surprised if we see an expansion of international sleeper services pushed by countries on the fringe of Europe, who are the ones who benefit. Unfortunately Denmark-specific issues are likely to prevent the resumption of Danish services for a long time, but Switzerland and Italy are another matter.
Click to expand...

The neat thing is that the open access rules allows any outfit to enter the market with a service that people are willing to use and pay for. So if Sleeper service is really missed, it will indeed materialize run by someone. It may not be the old familiar outfits that run it, but so what as long as there is service? I am not so sure about fringe of EU pushing too much in all cases. It is Poland that killed most cross border trains into Poland before any core EU countries had a chance. It was basically DB that was funding the remaining Sleeper train to Warsaw from the west.

The French and the Spanish have moaned a lot about the loss of overnight sleepers but have done exactly nothing to actually restore them so far. So we'll see. The whole idea of Sleeper trains through the Channel Tunnel, which at one time seemed to be an absolute no brainer collapsed completely before it turned a single wheel and the entire rolling stock landed up in Canada. So clearly demand for Sleeper service is not as overwhelming as some of us make it out to be.

Now this I believe is a local phenomenon in Western Europe given how their transportation system has developed and what the relative costs of travel by various modes have turned out to be. There are many other countries in the world where Sleeper service is bound to live on for a long long time. So what happens in Western Europe or Japan (where Sleeper service has also been completely withdrawn) dose not portend anything about what will happen anywhere else.


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## Anderson

The Nightstar plan collapsed because cross-channel business simply didn't come within a light-year of projections (I think Eurostar ridership wound up being about 1/3 of what was projected a few years in) and London and Continental (the overseeing company) had to be bailed out. IMHO it _was_ a no-brainer...but the Eurostar got into a major mess first and that scuppered everything.

As a serious question, aside from throwing out some of the damned EU directives, what _could_ France, Spain, etc. _actually_ do to reverse this? It would seem that if they were allowed to directly subsidize some limited sets of trains (even if by way of an open-bid contract) we wouldn't be here, but EU rules seem to prohibit that...which to offer a US analogy makes about as much sense as saying that Illinois can't run a train into St. Louis because that would be interstate commerce.

(Also, if you have an 8-10 hour trip...yes, you may only get one major city pair, but in most of those cases there are substantial feeder networks and connecting services the likes we could only dream of in the US...the best analogy I could think of would be if the Silvers terminated at Orlando...but you had the whole Florida rail plan in place. Yes you lose a reasonable amount of traffic with a connection, but if the feeder connections are reasonably high-frequency and reliable I think that should at least control the damage.)


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## jis

France, Spain etc. first have to come to the conclusion that they want to reverse this. There is zero indication that they are at that point. Actually France started discontinuing its overnight sleeper trains way before there was any European directive, and it is not as if the European directives materialized without the approval of Germany and France. Even Europe does not quite work that way. The reason that the subsidy directive was approved is that each country was deathly scared that the adjacent country's rail operator would be subsidized by said country to undercut the local rail operator. So they settled for no cross border subsidies. It turns out that even in united Europe, within country rail service is way more important for everyone concerned apparently than cross border rail service, at least to the extent that they would not subsidize such. In spite of the non-subsidy rule there are plenty of cross border services and more are getting added by more operators getting involved other than the national ones too - though sometimes partially owned by one or more national operators.

BTW, no one prohibits running trains to adjacent country. it is just that they must pay for themselves using whatever the cost computation method is specified by the Commission. There is a lot of cross border service that operates, as I have mentioned before. The rules that apply to rail in their case is very similar to the rules that apply to airlines, which has been causing no end of problems for the likes of Air France for example.


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## Just-Thinking-51

Don't forget at this time only the sleeping cars and couchettes are getting drop. DB stated the trains themself will continue. Of course that might change at the next timetable release. (PR move anyone?)

My heartache is that the map link I posted came directly from there web site, and it was out of date. That a sure sign of big problem. These trains in the past had many more swapping / dropping of cars. All required a bit of daily management to get done. Too much of a hassle, and not enough returns?

Marketing short falls, operating headache, older equipment. Parent company trying to increase profit.

Boom there goes the whole show.


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## trainviews

I'm not sure the EU rules are quite as tight as you depict them. I know for sure that the City Night Line that was running to Copenhagen until last year was subsidized by the Danish state for the run in Denmark (more specifically it was part of DSB's contract with the state that they pulled the train from Copenhagen to the border partly paid by the state). It might be because the train was grandfathered or running under some sort of transitional rule but never the less...

Likewise the regionals to Sweden are run under contract with both Denmark and the southern region of Sweden, but are probably considered a commuter and could work under different rules. I don't know about the intercity trains between Hamburg and Copenhagen or north into Jutland, but I would be highly surprised if they didn't have som sort of subsidy too.

The only ones I know are running purely on a commercial basis are the Swedish high speed trains from Copenhagen to Stockholm, which runs only a few miles in Denmark from Copenhagen via the airport and on to the bridge to Sweden. (regrettably to be terminated with the new stupid border controls from after New Years).

As for commercial sleeper operations, Veolia is operating in Sweden and up until last year they too had a sleeper train from Malmö in southern Sweden to Berlin, but it was terminated around the same time as the City Night Line, I think because the ferry company transporting them across the Baltic cancelled the run, and apparently Veolia didn't want to run it through Denmark instead. As far as I know the slot was actually reserved, but they never took up the alternative route and gave up the train instead.


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## Seaboard92

I remember watching the night trains departing München and Berlin the last few years. Back in 2010 they were some of the longest trains in town. And we're frequently assigned track 11 in München which is I believe the longest platform. And the trains were consistently packed. Then 2011 they were still packed but not as predictable as they once were on arriving time. But they had a lot of tourist traffic. In 2013 they were becoming a lot harder to find and ridership from tourists was still high. But I don't recall many Germans. The Germans I ran into went into the IC thru cars. And in 2013 I saw the Praha-Amsterdam train in Berlin originally scheduled around midnight and I saw it at ten am. Most of the cars weren't the standard CNL either most were from the operating railroads. And then 2015 I saw a handful but short consists and not really full at all. I saw a video of a day in the life of a CNL attendant. I'll try to find that for you guys. Tschüss


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## Anderson

Anecdotally, for a collapse _that_ fast to happen it really does scream "sabotage"...*sighs*


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## jis

The Paris - Moscow Sleeper service run by RZD provides one sleeper option from Paris to any enroute station by Sleeper. It runs three times a week this winter. How often it runs varies. It has been known to run as infrequently as once a week and as frequently as five times a week depending on traffic projections. Originally when introduced it ran as a part of the Paris - Berlin City night Line, but then RZD decided to pick up the extra cost of a slot and run it separately. Meanwhile of course the CNL went bye-bye.

In the new timetable it is overnight from Paris to Berlin and then Brest to Moscow. RZD is hoping to pick up some of the clientele of the discontinued CNL. Restaurant service is provided by the Polish Railway Dining and Sleeping Car service outfit WARS between Paris and Brest, and by RZD between Brest and Moscow.

RZD also runs a similar service between Moscow and Nice via Warsaw, Krakow, Vienna, Genoa on ce a week.

This train appears to be pretty nice though not as luxurious as the Helsinki - Moscow Tolstoi which I have traveled on. The Restaurant Car on the Tolstoi is a sight to behold in and of itself.

Clearly the West European Railways are not particularly worried about competitive issues with Russia running the Sleeper service, since they have pretty much decided to exit the sleeper business themselves and leave it to someone else to run as they see fit. If they saw a competitive issues they would have the Commission making rules about regulating funding and such. But they have not and there is no indication that they will.


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## Anderson

Very interesting. There's a strange logic here...honestly, Russia is the only country in Europe (with a few odd exceptions in "long" countries) where even with super-fast trains there's no way they can dump the sleeper trains...and besides, I suspect they have some spare equipment from the ex-Moscow-to-Kiev route if nothing else I'd actually be strangely comfortable if the Russians threw together an Amtrak-style route skeleton (e.g. a dozen or so very-long-distance trains which "happen" to hit a bunch of major cities along the way to Russia, with a cross-connecting train or two in central Europe)...though the idea of RZD becoming the spiritual successor to Wagon-Lits is quite a strange one. Frankly, considering the tangled mess (to say nothing of purposefully bad marketing and so on) that having a bunch of railroads run their own sleeper ops was/is...this would probably be a _massive_ improvement. As far as I can tell, there's no equivalent to Amtrak.com for Europe. Yes, I know a large east-west system is more likely than much of anything north-south...but one can always hope.

Also, FWIW the fact that the Caledonian sleeper was renewed for 15 years with new sets of equipment (what I wouldn't give to get the old stuff over here...*sighs*) stands in stark contrast to this. The key difference IMHO is that the Caledonian (and Night Riviera) get promoted on Network Rail's site rather than being gratuitously hidden. My best guess, adding all of this up, is that DB didn't want to have to renew the equipment (which I suspect they would have been under substantial pressure to do if it were profitable above-the-rails), especially if they're expecting to "drop off" a few more routes in the next decade as travel times keep getting improved...so they sandbagged the living hell out of the operation.

One thing I think this _does_ speak to is the idea of forcing some level of consolidation on the booking end. It would be interesting to see what the effect would be if the EU basically forced all pax operators to put all non-commuter operations into a centralized system which the would-be passenger could then look up...and made it easy to search (e.g. I want an overnight train from Paris to Berlin, I can punch that in and the relevant options...and _all_ the various sorts of services on said train...get listed).


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## neroden

As noted, the CNL trains were patronized mainly by non-Germans. There can be some *very parochial* attitudes in Germany. And I think this drove DB's decision to cancel them.

This is actually why the EU isn't working. They aren't united. Each country is all "my citizens first and to hell with the rest of you". (Germany's economic treatment of Greece is the most extreme example.)


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## Just-Thinking-51

http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/main-line/obb-evaluates-options-for-new-couchette-coaches.html

Well DB rail is getting out of the sleeper buisness, however OOB is buy new equipment. Interesting the new couchettes are for night time use only. No day time seating. You can sit up in your bed and that it. Of course it's not the final design, but...


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## caravanman

It is rather hard for me to grasp the full design, from the descriptions in the article, but seems like an attempt to give more privacy.

Most uplifting is the news that there _may_ be some future for sleeper trains in Europe, if the Austrian intent is to take over some of the German services being lost.

I don't know much about the in depth economics of train operation, but I hope that new or reinstated night trains will still have fares around the 50-80 Euro level... Just right for this pensioner! 

Ed.


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## Palmetto

Definitely an attempt to achieve more privacy. Convenience, as well, since they will be internet-capable.


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## Palmetto

I read somewhere--don't know where--that the SNCF is looking for a contractor to operate their remaining services.


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## ScouseAndy

Was it here ? http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/main-line/france-to-put-night-train-services-out-to-tender.html

Its all gone quiet since this was announced mind.

Italian overnight sleepers keep getting axed every couple of years but thanks to the strong unions going on strike and bringing the whole rail network to a standstill they keep getting reprieved but I'm sure its only a matter of time that they will lose theirs as well.


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## Just-Thinking-51

http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/main-line/france-seeks-new-operator-for-overnight-trains.html

The deadline for the French Night Service is 31 May 2016.


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## Barciur

I'm seeing something similar happening in Poland. Poland does not have a high-speed rail, but even then, just high*er* speeds are making night trains less favorable. For example, from my hometown, Lublin, there used to be a night-time train to Gdańsk (Danzig). It'd take 9 hours. However, since the fast-speed line between Warsaw and Gdansk was done, regular time with a changover in Warsaw is 5:20. Same is happening to other lines - Kraków to Gdańsk is 6 hours on a new Pendolino train rather than a 10 hour sleeper ride. Unfortunately, international trains are not popular due to costs. You can fly from Budapest to London for €50 round trip many times. Europeans are used to MUCH cheaper air fares than Americans domestically, hence expensive international trains seem completely out of line for them.


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## cirdan

Just-Thinking-51 said:


> Don't forget at this time only the sleeping cars and couchettes are getting drop. DB stated the trains themself will continue. Of course that might change at the next timetable release. (PR move anyone?)


Some of the CNL trains are being replaced by ICE consists.

Some CNL trains are even being replaced by DB-run buses.

So basically people who used to be able to travel in couchettes and sleepers now have to camp out on ICE or bus seats.

And at the same time DB is bemonaing that it is losing traffic to the buses, who offer precisely this: seats.

Surely here is an opportunbity for DB to be brilliant at what it can do better than the buses, rather than scrambling to join them in the race to the bottom.


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## jis

What DB is doing is not unheard of in the industry in general. A company chooses to concentrate on one or two product lines and spins off the rest. happens all the time. One could quibble about the choice of business lines made to keep in house and the choices to be spun off. but the restructuring along those lines comes with the territory of evolving a company in a new competitive environment. We saw this sort of thing unfold in the US when telecommunication was deregulated.


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## Just-Thinking-51

The ÖBB (Austrian Federal Railways) has purchase 60 second-hand sleepers and couchettes. In addition 20 ÖBB passenger coaches, will be converted to a new configuration of Couchette.

ÖBB is step up. Be interesting to see what going to be left after December.


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## Just-Thinking-51

http://seat61.com/news.htm

http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/main-line/obb-reveals-nightjet-brand-for-overnight-trains.html

Two source of what night trains are going to be left after City Night Line drops their sleeper, and couchettes.


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## neroden

The main issue here is that international rail services are still weirdly restricted and overpriced in Western Europe -- and at this point, to be a reasonable length, a sleeper train *has* to be international. There's also an old and bizarre bias where the countries in the west don't think they need connectivity to the east, only to the west.

This is why *Austria* is picking up the train services, because they understand that they benefit heavily from international cross-border rail service from the west.


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## cirdan

jis said:


> What DB is doing is not unheard of in the industry in general. A company chooses to concentrate on one or two product lines and spins off the rest. happens all the time. One could quibble about the choice of business lines made to keep in house and the choices to be spun off. but the restructuring along those lines comes with the territory of evolving a company in a new competitive environment. We saw this sort of thing unfold in the US when telecommunication was deregulated.


In Germany there has been a lot of hoo ha about Stuttgart's new station, Stuttgart 21, which will replace the present surface terminal station (requiring trains to reverse) by an underground thru sttation.

Essentially it is a real estate project as acres of railroad land will become available for development. But it also offers advanatges for trains as removing the need to reverse and straieghtening out the approaches allows valuable time to be shaved off schedules.

The project met with a lot of opposition locally, both due to the costs but also due to disruption and buildings being demolished, trees cut down etc.

Chancellor Merkel defended the project saying, if people want there to be a train from Paris to Prag, they cannot delay it by forcing it to use such an old fashioned arrangement as the old station.

As Paris to Prague is clearly outside the league of any high speed train, one can only infer that she was referring to a night train. I don't think there has been a night train between paris and Prague in a while, but by suggesting that people opposing the project were preventing that train, and with DB being 100% owned by the German government, i would think there is a real case for demanding they actually run the train or make Merkel apologize for selling the project on a false premise.


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## jis

I am sure Merkel's utterances about trains is so far down in the list of concerns of people, considering the whole refugee issue and since trains are associated with transportation of aliens, it is a safe bet that in the current environment, hardly anyone will be in a mood to call for Merkel to apologize or feel particularly enthusiastic to run a night train from Prague to France through Germany at night. At least that is what most of my German friends tell me when I ask them about it. I spend about 10 hours in teleconferences each week with folks who live around Stuttgart and work in Beoblingen. Merkel would actually be lucky to retain her position if an election were held today. All sad but very true AFAICT.


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## railbuck

cirdan said:


> Chancellor Merkel defended the project saying, if people want there to be a train from Paris to Prag, they cannot delay it by forcing it to use such an old fashioned arrangement as the old station.
> 
> As Paris to Prague is clearly outside the league of any high speed train, one can only infer that she was referring to a night train. I don't think there has been a night train between paris and Prague in a while, but by suggesting that people opposing the project were preventing that train, and with DB being 100% owned by the German government, i would think there is a real case for demanding they actually run the train or make Merkel apologize for selling the project on a false premise.


I remember informational displays in Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof from 10 years ago; apparently it's now scheduled for completion in 2023.

Merkel's mention of Paris to Prague could be considered alliterative advertising; Mannheim to Munich might have mitigated the assumption that she was referring to a night train. However, consider that Stuttgart is on the Magistrale from Paris to Budapest, one of seven high-speed rail corridors in the Trans-European network. Completed and planned improvements including LGV Est will shave 5 hours off the route (roughly 10:30 compared to 15:30 before 2007), making a night train even less necessary than when the EuroNight Orient Express was truncated in 2001 and 2007 and discontinued in 2009. Stuttgart 21 appears to contribute about half an hour of this.


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## Anderson

jis said:


> I am sure Merkel's utterances about trains is so far down in the list of concerns of people, considering the whole refugee issue and since trains are associated with transportation of aliens, it is a safe bet that in the current environment, hardly anyone will be in a mood to call for Merkel to apologize or feel particularly enthusiastic to run a night train from Prague to France through Germany at night. At least that is what most of my German friends tell me when I ask them about it. I spend about 10 hours in teleconferences each week with folks who live around Stuttgart and work in Beoblingen. Merkel would actually be lucky to retain her position if an election were held today. All sad but very true AFAICT.


If the election were held today, a lot of people would be very surprised. Jokes aside, she'd likely hold on due to the nature of the PR situation in Germany right now: The CDU/CSU-SPD coalition is still (barely) above 50% in all polls (ranging from about 51-57% for the most part). Now, her party might decide to throw her out the window ASAP after that result, but it's not like there's an opposition coalition in a position to depose those two (you'd basically have to shove the SPD, Left, Greens, and FDP together to try and make something work, and even then it would be tight and trying to get the FDP and Left into a government would be something of an ideological "clown car" situation). And you'd need all of them onboard since even if they wouldn't coopeate, the CDU/CSU and AfD would likely have more votes than all but the FDP in that list (and convincing either the largest party in the Bundestag or the nobody-will-play-with-you party in the Bundestag to "tolerate" the government and not vote against them would be an interesting exercise).

I will say that IMHO a 10:30 train ride is a good length for an overnight trip (it falls in that 8-14 hour range that lets a trip happen without infringing upon most business hours while also taking long enough to make the overnight trip worthwhile). This isn't far off the case I've made for a NYP-timed train from parts of Virginia to New York: The ride is long enough (8-9 hours for NFK/ROA-NYP even with some improvements and removing the engine swap) and a bunch of airports don't have direct flights (e.g. PHF-NYC requires a connection; on DL, that connection is in ATL) and it is a significant pair.


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## Just-Thinking-51

DB is thinking about restarting some Night Trains. The talk is about DB working with OOB NightJet.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/germanrailfr/nightjet-t6701.html

Page 2 is current, however the link to the latest story is in Germany.


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## Thogo

There is also an interesting sleeper train that runs just once per week: the Paris-Moscow express. It leaves Paris around 7 pm on Thursdays, arriving in Moscow Saturday around noon. Back on Tuesday around 7 pm, arriving in Paris Thursday morning. It crosses Germany, and stops in various cities (and it's AFAIK the only train with which you can go from Frankfurt/Oder to Frankfurt/Main without changing trains  ).


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## Seaboard92

Actually there are three direct trains a week from Berlin to Mockba. The one Thogo is referring to is a direct descendent to the Ost-West Express and a partial descendent of the Nord Express of the Compaigne red Wagon Lits whom also ran the Orient Express. 

The train running from Paris once a week takes 26 hours and 19 minutes to make the run from Berlin to Mockba. 

While the other two trains a week take 22 hours and 44 minutes. 

The reason for the difference is because the Berlin-Mockba trains are using a Talgo built sleeper train which are able to change gauge without changing out trucks in Belarus. Which significantly helps the run time.


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