Could Europe’s night trains be on the way out? Maybe it’s pure nostalgia, but the thought makes my heart sink. The teenage trips I spent rattling around on Europe’s overnight trains (in the years before price falls made flying cheaper) were some of the most memorable times of my life. I used to love waking up in a couchette bunk and squeakily rubbing away the window mist to work out which new country the half-lit landscape outside belonged to. I even remember the math of the trains: leave London early in the morning and you could wake up in the Italian Alps just before Milan; taking another route, you could make it to Warsaw by late the next afternoon. Such trips might seem as archaic as a transatlantic zeppelin to a generation just born, but in late 20th century Europe their speed and convenience was evidence enough of progress to inspire tracks by electro-modernists Kraftwerk.
The death knell for night trains may have already been rung, however. Deutsche Bahn has announced that this December it will cut six of its 14 night services, and shorten two more. The changes will see night trains to Paris from Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich scrapped, but it’s not just services to and from Germany that will be affected. Deutsche Bahn is getting rid of services from Copenhagen to Prague, Zurich, and Amsterdam (via Cologne), while the Netherlands will also be frozen out by the two route shortenings. The Prague to Amsterdam service will now terminate at Cologne, while the Warsaw to Amsterdam service will make it no further than the German city of Oberhausen. This may only be the beginning of the end. Documents leaked to Germany’s Stuttgarter Zeitung suggest night routes will be scrapped altogether in 2016. Night trains aren’t the only air and road alternative to be abandoned. Deutsche Bahn is also giving up its motorail service, where passengers could spare themselves long distance drives by having their car shipped with them on the same train. For long distance travelers looking for low emissions alternatives, the choices are shrinking.
