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Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
141–150 of 274 posts
Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#142The hing about trains in general though is the pricing around it. In Sweden a flight from the northern parts to the southern is about $100 and takes an hour. The train cost $100-200 and takes about 16h depending on where you depart from. I believe a requirement for people choosing to take the train is that they add some facilities (you feel pretty nasty after 16h on a train) and reduce the price. Raising the price on…
Another point (not in Sweden) is that the rail operators are government-owned companies which often operate like the government does. Couple of months back, I tried to buy a ticket to the car-train to Lapland (I can take the car with me to train in the evening, sleep in a cabin, wake up in the morning and set off for the remainder of the journey with my car). When booking the car slot, the booking system required me…
The rail infrastructure is government operated, but train companies that are responsible for all customer interaction is not. SJ is just as government-owned as SAS. The rail is basically like the airport, and the train companies are like airlines.
The general problem is the lack of competition. Between two destinations you usually have the choice between multiple airlines, but for trains there is usually only one. Between malmö-göteborg-stockholm there is the fast train alternative but it is arguable if that actually serve as competition. With air-travel you got multiple airlines and multiple resellers.
Swedish rail operate like a monopoly, which is in my view the main reason why its both expensive and terrible at the same time.
Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#143The invaluable Seat61 has loads on information on how and where to take sleeper trains at https://www.seat61.com/sleepers.htm
Thanks, I'm planning a trip to Europe later this year and this site looks like a fantastic resource.
Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
You write "_ferry_" like it's something weird, but it's a completely normal transport option for a huge number of Europeans -- usually for longer journeys, but sometimes to cover a short distance in 20-30 minutes. There are many ferry connections across the Irish, North, Baltic and Mediterranean seas. Ignoring the price, I'd choose an overnight ferry over an overnight train. The worst room on a ferry is probably as l…
Interestingly enough in Europe there are places [1] where you can take a train which goes on a ferry, so you can take the ferry while you take the train [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogelfluglinie
It's fun once then mostly just annoying (unless you are a smoker I guess). There is, or at least used to be, another train ferry between Trelleborg and Sassnitz as well.
Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#145Western Europe is very different from Eastern Europe in this case. In Western Europe, low-cost flights and buses essentially won the market. But there are not as many direct flights between Central and Eastern European cities, and the roads are often not that good, either. Therefore, in any direction from Budapest overnight trains are still very popular, and in countries like Ukraine it's probably the single most imp…
The rise of Wizzair is reducing the appeal of long-distance train travel in Central and Eastern Europe. You can now fly from Budapest to certain destinations in surrounding countries for equal to or less than the price of the train if you book early or have little luggage. Also, the launch of Polski Bus (a localized Megacoach) a few years ago means you can get between Poland and various Central European destinations…
And the national train operators are being challenged on their own turf by open-access operators. The days of sleepers are probably numbered in this part of the Europe. Wagons with convertible benches are uncomfortable both for sitting and sleeping. They're utterly uncompetitive vis-a-vis reclinable seats deployed by operators like Leo Express. Perhaps one day they'll start putting lie-flat recliners used in airliners on trains one day. That's more economical--and flexible--than having separate rooms.
P.S. Polski Bus has been absorbed into Flixbus.
Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#146So back in Russia a trip from my home town to Moscow on a plane takes about 6 hours in total.
- get to the airport about 1 hour in advance - about 1.5 hour drive - The flight with all the procedures takes about 2 hours - All the exit procedures can take up to 0.5 hours easily if no longer - Wait for a train and ride to the city on the train - about 1 hour. - Once in the city get on subway and ride to destination - usually 1 hours as well.
Compare it to the train, the fastest one is 14 hours:
- 0.5 hours to get to the trains station in the middle of my hometown. (or less than 0.5 hours if you live near by) - 14 hours laying down on a relatively ok bed with clean sheets - BOOM! you're in the middle of Moscow
No check-ins, luggage management, no nothing.
6pm you lay down on a bed, have a much, read a book, go to sleep and next morning you wake up at 7 am, do your morning rooting and at 8 am you're almost in the middle of the city.
I take this train over a plane any day. The only problem with that is that it twice or more as expensive compared to plane tickets.
Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#147One issue night trains face when being reintroduced/introduced upon routes would be Urban sprawl and development.
In many Major towns and along those routes can and do become developed upon. You then face noise factors that you did not have before in reintroducing night trains and for introduction upon new routes - more so potentially an issue.
Whilst night trains don't need to go full speed and for many, more viable for comfort and running costs to run them slower. But in area's of urban sprawl, and noise regulations can and will prove an issue in such usage. Which is a shame but a major consideration today.
But equally, many transport avenues are under utilised and overlooked. Canals for one were a big thing decades ago and all but now abandoned in many parts as a means of transporting goods. Which is a shame as sometimes you just don't need it moved as quick as possible.
Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
You write "_ferry_" like it's something weird, but it's a completely normal transport option for a huge number of Europeans -- usually for longer journeys, but sometimes to cover a short distance in 20-30 minutes. There are many ferry connections across the Irish, North, Baltic and Mediterranean seas. Ignoring the price, I'd choose an overnight ferry over an overnight train. The worst room on a ferry is probably as l…
Interestingly enough in Europe there are places [1] where you can take a train which goes on a ferry, so you can take the ferry while you take the train [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogelfluglinie
I've taken this train from Hamburg to Coppenhagen. It's fascinating to watch the train be put on the ferry and then you got a nice ferry ride and can marvel at the size of the wind farms off the coast. I would highly recommend it if you have the time.
Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#149Excited about this idea. I wanted to do an overnight train in a Europe trip I did last year, but the timing and quality never quite worked out. A lot of the time, trains between cities in western Europe are annoyingly long for a day trip, but slightly _too short_ for overnight trips - almost like an NYC->London red-eye, where you arrive just after you fall asleep. The couple of overnight trains I saw that seemed like…
That Venice train is great. Living near Paris, we can do a weekend in Venice with two full days on the ground but only one night in a hotel (which is handy since rooms start at around $400/night there.) It’s a shame that they killed off the dozen other night train destinations from here over the years. If Sweden and Norway open up as possibilities, I’ll be dragging the family up there the first sunny weekend.
Sorry which train is that from Paris to Venice? How long does it take?
Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#150It's just like a year ago that SJ tried to kill off the Malmö-Stockholm sleeper. I believe that this will work out when I see it.
I traveled from Stockholm to Malmö almost 5 years ago. I had a sit instead of a sleeping coach. It was a good experience. I got really early to Malmö without the stress of flying.