No more subsidies for new Swiss night trains

Unfortunately, the Swiss Federal Council is going back on its promise to subsidise night trains. Swiss Federal Railways SBB/CFF/FFS have announced that, as a result, the promised Zurich - Rome and Zurich - Barcelona night trains will not see the light of day.

Back on Track Belgium finds this regrettable: although these links are not really useful for most Belgians, they were an asset for an integrated European rail network, which is Back on Track Belgium's objective.

Both links existed in the past: Zurich-Barcelona was a Talgo, the ‘Pau Casals’ EuroNight, with adjustable wheels to change the track gauge at the Franco-Spanish border and was discontinued in December 2012. The Zurich-Rome EuroNight was withdrawn in 2008, a year after the Zurich-Lecce/Reggio Di Calabria holiday train, on which passengers could also take their cars.

Loss not an option for the EU

All these trains disappeared because they had become loss-making under the then relatively new EU framework, as did quasi all other night trains on our continent. That they were usually well occupied was of no consequence at the time: the spirit of the European framework states that international trains must make a profit or disappear. Making it a public service, through a public service contract, is possible in theory but very difficult in practice.

Planning works!

We at Back on Track Belgium believe that something should also change: if railways within respective European countries generally work well, it is because those networks are planned and are often public services paid for by the government. That system works. We also want such an organisation to plan out and, if necessary, subsidise an international train network at European level. Apart from the gains in CO2 emissions, it also creates good jobs and much of the costs flow directly back into maintaining the railway infrastructure.

The EU should therefore stop subsidising polluting aircraft and bet back on trains!