As London St Pancras High Speed are keen to see more use of their rail services to the channel tunnel, we are hoping that they will give us permission to hold such a party.

If you want to get involved or just find out more, please contact our UK member Howard Osborne for further information at: thecuriologist@gmail.com

Friday 25th October >>>> 7.30pm (till approx 8.30pm) >>>> St Pancras International station (Eurostar exit)

Meet us at 7.30pm at the Eurostar exit inside St Pancras station
– Wear pyjamas and bring whatever other nighttime paraphernalia you like e.g. teddy bears.
– Bring a fully-charged smartphone and headphones.
– Download the Zeno Radio app (or you can access this in your browser) to get the playlist.
– Plug in, dance and enjoy!

You can look here for some useful stopover hints: https://www.youtube.com/@low-carbon-travel/videos.

IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS: – Various campaigns are now taking shape with the aim of making further improvements to cross-border services. We can expect the start of 2 new night train services: – one from Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris to Barcelona and another from Zurich to Barcelona. We are hoping that a regular service of up to 8-9 daily regional trains can run from Barcelona to Perpignan in the next few years. Finally, on the Atlantic coast, we have the possibility of a completely new regular interval regional service between San Sebastian and Bayonne, once modernisation work on the line in Spain has been completed.

You can find out more about the possibilities at: https://www.epf.eu/wp/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Pau-Noy-AIF.pdf.

You can find out more here at: https://www.railtech.com/all/2023/06/09/belgian-minister-gilkinet-talks-rail-challenges-night-trains-and-more/, where he gave a 12-minute interview in English.

This is in marked contrast to the sense of drift in the UK where the Government shows no sense of urgency in dealing with the serious climate change issues. Track access charges on HS1 – our one and only rail link with Europe are among the highest in Europe – yet the Government has no plans to deal with this. Eurostar still cannot run a full service due to limited capacity for post-brexit border controls at London St Pancras, Paris and Amsterdam.

“Eurostar’s shrinking ambitions 7 years after the Brexit vote” were reported recently in The Guardian at : https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/23/eurostar-brexit-cross-channel-tunnel-disneyland-paris-amsterdam

For further details see: https://www.europeansleeper.eu/en

The launch of the new service got a lot of good publicity including this article in The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2023/may/29/berlin-to-brussels-night-train-renaissance-gathers-speed-new-european-sleeper

Rail passengers from the UK will be pleased to find several new connections between Germany, Denmark and Sweden, new day train services between Austria, Germany and Italy and the return of connecting Night Train services to Barcelona, Milan and Venice.

We now call on the UK Government to find a way of reducing the track access charges for both HS1 and the Channel Tunnel, so we can enjoy cheaper, more frequent train services to & from Europe.

Have a look at our recently published leaflet which you can find at https://www.eurorailcampaignuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/NightTrainsLeaflet.pdf . You will find a list of all-year and seasonal services running across West and Central Europe as well as useful daytime connecting links.

Displayed around the room were the winning and shortlisted posters promoting night trains – the result of a competition organised by Back-on-Track Belgium in 2021  which had attracted nearly 90 entrants.

We were welcomed by Georges Gilkinet, Belgian Federal Minister of Mobility,  who expressed confidence that his country would “resume its place as a pioneer of international services.”

Back-on-Track Belgium had produced two reports on the potential for Brussels to become an international hub, situated as it was where an east-west corridor from London to Frankfurt crossed a north-south corridor from Amsterdam to Paris. They had identified five possible routes linking Belgium and the Netherlands to Nice/Barcelona, Venice, Vienna, Berlin and Malmo.

Other speakers focussed on the recent extension of the French night train network to Tarbes and Lourdes (a “great victory” for the region of Occitanie) and the potential for night trains between major cities to cut the numbers of short-haul flights.

A representative of “Visit Brussels” spoke of the need to revive the tourism sector in a sustainable way. 50% of pre-pandemic visitors to the city were coming on business and 50% on leisure trips and, taking day excursions into account, 40% came by train.

A Belgian MP stressed that the airline sector would have to change in the future and it had suffered more than the rail industry over the past two years.

A speaker from Portugal pointed out that his country had suffered a loss of international train services since joining the EU and one key factor in this trend was the policy in Spain to develop a high-speed standard-gauge network and concentrate on domestic daytime rather than international traffic. The Sud Express had traditionally been a natural route between Lisbon and Paris. He suggested that the decline in rail travel to and from Portugal were political rather than technical.

The view was put forward that some national operators, especially if they had invested in new high-speed passenger lines, regarded night trains as unwelcome competition. I made the point that for long-distance travel night trains needed to be integrated with the daytime network, such as for a journey between London and Vienna.

A session on private initiatives was told about plans by The European Sleeper, VSOE and Railcoop. It was suggested that an exclusive night train operator could be more focussed on customer needs than a state operator balancing several different priorities; but the point was also made again that night services should be connected to the daytime network.

Night trains serving lightly populated regions, or important for “national cohesion”, may need to run under a Public Service Obligation, but in more heavily populated areas there was room for competition between operators.

The discussion on of the economic challenges ranged over rolling stock – and whether there should be a pool – a level playing field for new entrants and the role of the European Investment Bank. The need for open data was also considered, as was the key role of infrastructure managers in the production of timetables that met passenger needs. 

 It was pointed out that rising oil and petrol costs provided the rail industry with real marketing opportunities. Member States should formulate a common energy strategy and make more progress towards a fully harmonised EU rail network.  

The achievements of OeBB in becoming the largest night train operator in western Europe were considered, but they needed to build a business case for financing new rolling stock and might need to upgrade existing coaches until new ones became available in 2027.

Issues to be addressed included the competition between freight and  passenger operators for paths at night and the staffing costs of overnight services. It was also pointed out that night trains were allowed on certain stretches of high speed line but for technical reasons could not be used on others.

The role of specialist train caterers, especially on longer journeys, was explained, with changing customer expectations – for example, more fresh local produce. The provision of information for passengers during their journey  was also an expectation.

On ticketing and information it was essential  that prospective passengers knew of the existence of the night train option. The Man in Seat 61 was widely known and respected but not everyone was also aware of the existence of the European Rail Timetable – available on paper and on line.

Incumbents should also sell new entrants’ services and customers needed to be aware of well-known sales channels which they could trust. It was intended that by 2025 there would be seamless ticketing.  There were mixed views on whether customers should provide personal details when buying a ticket – but this was certainly an advantage if the ticket was being booked months in advance.

The ability to catch the next train if a connection could not be held was considered to be a key passenger right.

 The conference concluded with a video message from Karima Delli MEP who stressed EU support for night trains and green investment.

The members of Back-on-Track Belgium are congratulated on organising an excellent  event.

Trevor Garrod  (European Rail Campaign UK)

26/03/2022