Tuesday, May 11, 2021

The Night Trains of Europe

Over the last decade there has been a dramatic reduction in Europe's night-train services. Bloomberg says that this is a trend that is set to end. Because of the huge ecological cost of flying Europe is once again encouraging people to replace plane journeys with the train. To support these rail journeys new night-train routes are once again being opened in Europe.

A train journey from Paris to Vienna produces one tenth of the emissions of the same journey by plane. Countries such as France and Austria have introduced financial penalties for short-haul flights in order to make flying less attractive to customers. In order to encourage passengers to take the train instead of the plane new night-time train routes are also being opened across Europe.

Bloomberg's Europe Asks Travelers to Ditch Planes for Night Trains looks at some of the new night-train routes being developed. As you scroll through the article an interactive map updates to show some of the planned and existing night-train routes across Europe. 

While Bloomberg's article provides an interesting overview of some of the new night-train routes being planned in Europe it doesn't provide information on the existing night-train coverage across the continent. The formidable Night Train's website is a useful resource if you want to plan a night-train journey anywhere across the globe.

Night Train's Europe page includes an interactive map of Europe's Night-Train routes in 2020. You can use this map to plan a train journey from Lisbon to Moscow or from Edinburgh to Rome (although some of these journeys may take you more than one night of travel).

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