2023-09-30 18:25:00
Austrian rail company OBB unveiled Europe’s latest generation of night trains on Saturday as the slower but far less polluting mode of transport than airplanes begins to make a comeback, AFP reports.
Austrian Nightjet trainFoto: IMAGO / imago stock&people / Profimedia
Compared to the old trains and their “so dark” berths, “it is a great luxury. It’s crazy,” said Rosemarie, a 69-year-old retiree who did not want to give her full name.
These new night trains were presented in Vienna on the occasion of commemorating 100 years of existence of the Austrian company.
“Every kilometer by train is a kilometer for climate protection” and “a contribution to a better future,” Austrian Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler told AFP.
These new trains offer passengers more comfort than the previous ones, including showers.
When will the first state-of-the-art trains be put into service
The first of them are scheduled to enter service on December 10 on the Vienna-Hamburg and Innsbruck-Hamburg lines.
These trains, which can reach speeds of 230 km/h, will be rolled out gradually in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and the Netherlands.
For France, the national railway authority must give the green light, according to ÖBB.
“Unfortunately, we are not yet a unified Europe in the rail sector,” ÖBB CEO Andreas Matthae told AFP.
These trains were ordered from German manufacturer Siemens in 2018.
ÖBB has invested EUR 720 million in a fleet of 33 night trains to be delivered gradually by 2028.
ÖBB claims to have Europe’s first fleet of night trains, including sleeping cars, used by 1.5 million passengers.
The Austrian company plans to double the number of passengers on night trains by 2030.
In early September, ÖBB announced the resumption of Berlin-Paris night trains on December 11, nine years following their cancellation.
So many European companies are participating in the revival of night trains, which almost disappeared in the 2010s.
But this desire comes up once morest the price of the equipment needed to replace the wagons that are often several decades old, the many night works on the network that disrupt night traffic and the very low profitability of this type of connection.
At the opposite pole are the night trains in Romania, which have slow speeds, very old carriages, poor conditions and high prices.
Romania has always had many night trains, but the degree of comfort was not excellent and the problem was not that passengers would go with them happily, but out of necessity, because the plane cost too much or there were no flights in the destination city.
Read widely Why Romanian night trains remained “in the dark”, while the rest of Europe invests a lot and always launches new routes
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