First trip for Berlin-Paris by night

(Paris) A little over 14 hours of travel, emergency braking at the start of the evening – without consequences – for an arrival with great fanfare fifteen minutes late: the night train between Berlin and Paris has completed its first journey successful.

“It’s great to get on a train and wake up in Paris!” »: Annika Volz, one of the 15 ambassadors of the Franco-German Youth Office invited for this inaugural trip, is delighted.

The narrowness of the six-berth compartments? “Space is limited on planes too,” she replies straight away. The train, which left Berlin on Monday evening at 8:28 p.m. ten minutes late, arrived Tuesday morning in Paris at 10:39 a.m., 15 minutes after the scheduled time.

Between the two, more than 1000 km traveled in six cars, still a little in their juice despite the renovation carried out by the Austrian company ÖBB, which owns these trains.

“The seats were redone in 1991, the berths between 1991 and 2000 and the sleeping cars around 2004,” explains Alain Krakovitch, director of TGV-Intercités and member of the delegation of officials accredited for the trip.

“The Minister-President of Thuringia Bodo Ramelow – who boarded at the Halle stopover – told us that he took the exact same train in his youth,” laughs Erwan Lucas, another ambassador of the Ofaj.

Attractive price

The sleeper cars remain spartan, with three bunk beds on each side in the compartments and a narrow, hard berth.

“I’m used to giving up comfort and I think that’s also part of the trip and the collective experience,” smiles Erwan Lucas, a 20-year-old French student at the Free University of Berlin, who says he slept “extremely well » even if it was short.

In sleeping cars, where private rooms for one, two or three people are available, comfort goes up a few notches. The place is sold from 79.90 euros ($117), provided you book well in advance.

Erwan Lucas has already taken his place to return to Paris at Christmas by night train. “In a bunk, it cost me 69 euros ($101), non-refundable and non-exchangeable,” he explains. “But it’s a bit of a borderline. If it starts to go higher…,” he said, referring to the option of less expensive plane travel for students caught between their restricted budgets and their awareness of ecological issues.

The night train is of course intended for young people and students, but the SNCF, Deutsche Bahn and the German and French governments who worked to revive this line, which was interrupted for nine years, also want to attract families, even professionals. on a business trip.

“Complicated maneuver”

The arrival time of the train in Paris, 10:24 a.m., constitutes a barrier for this type of clientele, however admit the passengers of this first train, which only transported guests, but no “classic” customers who had paid for their ticket.

The absence of a bar car to stretch your legs outside your cabin was also deplored by an SNCF executive.

Restarting this line required significant coordination between the French, German, Belgian and Austrian companies, underlines the SNCF. At Mannheim station, trains make a technical stop in the middle of the night to pick up cars coming from Vienna and finish the route to Paris. Another part of the train takes the route to Brussels.

“We carry out a complicated maneuver in the middle of the night, but we get there, and the traveler doesn’t even realize this internal kitchen,” said SNCF CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou in wonder upon arrival in Paris.

It is also necessary to change locomotives to go from Germany to France since only five engines are authorized to do so for reasons of divergent national standards. The train therefore runs more slowly in France – 140 km/h compared to 200 km/h in Germany.

An opportunity for travelers to better admire the countryside on the banks of the Marne under the early morning mist as they approach Paris.