Night train Brussels -Venice : una commedia dell'arte veneziana ?

In the end, the first Brussels-Venice night train operated by private operator European Sleeper did not make it past Innsbruck in the Austrian Alps. Unfortunately, this comes as no surprise.

'Last-minute cancellation'

Various stories initially circulated about the cause of this setback. At the inauguration ceremony held just before departure, in the prestigious Pullman hotel above Bruxelles-Midi, the organisers reluctantly had to mention that they had received a phone call the night before, stating that their train had not been authorised to enter Italy by the Italian railways.

There were rumours in the room that the journey had been cancelled at the last minute for some unknown reason. The Italians in the room were unhappy and the Europeans had to admit that things could and should be improved overall.

Never a definite contract for an Italian locomotive

First we made it to Verona, then maybe Bolzano, but in the end we only got two-thirds of the way to Innsbruck. Half an hour before departure, the departure board on the platform still showed ‘Venice’, but for an hour the screen kept flashing, until it indicated that passengers had to change trains in Innsbruck. Not a good start to a holiday.

But other information quickly circulated, shedding a different light, later confirmed to Treinreiziger.nl by co-founder Chris Engelsman. European Sleeper does not appear to have found an operator to provide train traction in Italy. There were talks with Arenaways which, by mid-January 2025, appeared to have been definitively abandoned, but no final contract has ever been signed for a locomotive and driver licensed in Italy.

Night trains are more complex than day trains

Night trains are therefore a very complicated product, and this is one of the reasons why they are not being added: it takes a lot of capital and organisation to launch a train, and on top of that the chances of making a profit are very slim. Their intrinsically more limited capacity and staffing requirements make them an even more arduous task, requiring a great deal of perseverance.

This external locomotive was necessary because, although European Sleeper organises the night train, it hires out the wagons and depends on certain private operators for the locomotives and drivers it needs. Due to the small car market and the small number of cars available from a few companies that all (new) night train companies are looking for, it is almost impossible to get decent cars. European Sleeper is also dependent on another company for in-car catering. As a result, all these carriages can no longer be described as second-hand, but, despite some newer carriages in the composition, as very obsolete carriages with their own faults. In addition, this resulted in a 40-minute departure delay due to problems with the doors in one car and the lack of heating in the dining car.

What's more, night trains are often placed at the end of the night-time priority list by track work ‘at the least inconvenient times’, such as in the morning, when they arrive at the height of the morning rush hour in urban areas where even commuter traffic is already difficult. As a result, a slight delay in departure can result in the night train being immobilised at all the other difficult points because the reserved track has not been respected.

Tickets sold without certainty about the locomotive

The fact that European Sleeper is selling this route as a direct connection from Innotrans to Berlin at the end of September 2024 and right up to the day before departure is therefore raising eyebrows. Even today (8/2 editor's note), when you book a ticket, you don't get any indication or pop-up with a warning. It was only on 8/2 that a message appeared on ‘Disruptions’ giving a - still exclusive - view of the facts.

However, the website of private rail lobbying organisation Allrail, of which European Sleeper co-founder Elmer Van Buuren also recently became president, refers to the new night train between Brussels and the Alps, not Venice. Further ambiguities that create further obstacles.

A touristic route

The route itself is also designed purely for tourism: to attract as many passengers as possible. The journey time between Brussels and Venice is 21 hours, which is a very long journey on an old night train and loses any competitive advantage over air travel or even other types of (fast) train. The route should therefore be Amsterdam/Brussels - Cologne - Munich - Bolzano - Venice or Amsterdam - Brussels - Luxembourg - Basel - Milan (- Verona - Venice in high season). It's no coincidence that this strongly coincides with our #hub4brussels proposal and the former winter and summer night train between the Ruhr region and the Alps, as well as Brussels-Milan and Brussels-Rome. The summer train even went as far as Ancona, where passengers could take a boat to Greece.

Route of European Sleeper

Our proposal in #hub4Brussels to Venice

Our proposal in #hub4Brussels to Rome

Positive feedback from the train

Passengers on the train were, indeed, satisfied in unison - from what we heard: European Sleeper had booked tickets for a regular Austrian express train to Verona, and then an Italian train to Venice. Staff assisted passengers without interruption and offered coffee cakes on the Austrian train. We did not hear a single negative reaction.

Further proof that the current free market framework does not work and never will!

So there are positives and negatives. For us at Back on Track Belgium, this failure is further proof of our assertion: the current economic framework, set by the EU, which is based on night trains that would spontaneously start running to make a profit and form a net, does not work!

2 fewer night trains in a year

On the very day of the European sleeping car fiasco, we learned that the night train linking Stuttgart (Germany) to Rijeka (Croatia) would be cancelled, just two months after the night trains to Gothenburg (Sweden). All in all, the number of night trains has fallen by two this year. The ‘plus’ comes from the new Budapest-Kiev ‘war train’, which was launched at the end of 2024.

Bringing the night train out of the doghouse is more than necessary!

Yes, the passengers on the train were happy, but it's a safe bet that most of them were night train enthusiasts, who enjoy travelling by night train anyway and are used to getting the best out of the European rail network, but how representative are they?

Back on Track Belgium believes that night trains must break out of the niche of train lovers. It must once again become the first mode of transport that travellers think of when they want to make a journey of around a thousand kilometres. To achieve this, we need reliable services, modern sleeping cars and carriages that are harmonised in every respect with other trains in Europe.

This requires capital and a pan-European organisation, and for that we need government intervention. The free market can play a role, but on its own it will never get us there. If the railways work properly in most European countries and people can buy tickets fairly easily, it's because there's a government overseeing them and covering their excess costs if necessary.

A failed stunt that should give the European Union pause for thought!

This train was a stunt, and a stunt that failed. We hope that the European Union, a representative of which was present at the launch event, will wake up and think about a better framework for international trains in Europe!