Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Night Train to Europe

Last night at 8.18pm the night train to Paris left Berlin Central Station. It was the first Berlin-Paris night train in over 9 years. The new Nightjet service between the German and French capitals is yet more evidence of the resurgence of overnight rail travel in Europe. 

At the beginning of the 21st Century night train services in Europe were being closed at an alarming rate, thanks largely to the competition from budget air travel. Thankfully European governments and travelers have been keen to support greener modes of travel and there has been a concerted effort to re-open night-rail connections between a number of European cities. 

If you fancy catching a romantic sleeper train then you can refer to the Good Morning Europe, Night Train Map to discover which night train routes are currently in operation across Europe. Büro des Präsidenten's interactive map is based on their own renowned night train poster of Europe. Major cities on this map are marked with numbered night train routes. If you hover over these numbers on the interactive map then the selected route is highlighted on the map, allowing you to quickly see where you can travel to in Europe by sleeper train from that city.

Unfortunately the Berlin-Paris night train is so new that this route has not yet been added to the map. It also doesn't seem to have been added to Night Trains' Night-Train Map. Night Train's map is essentially a static image with panning and zooming options. This means that the map can be a little hard to navigate. If you want to see which night train services run from a city it might actually be easier to just select the city from the menu above the Night-Train map.

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