(On board the Vienna-Paris night train) Deserted due to COVID-19, but in search of a great future. In the footsteps of the mythical Orient-Express, the night train is reborn between Paris and Vienna, a pan-European symbol of the fight against global warming.
Apart from a few guests from the Austrian railways ÖBB and the SNCF – including the French Minister for Transport Jean-Baptiste Djebbari and an AFP journalist -, the first Vienna-Paris train, which left the Austrian capital on Monday evening, is empty.
“There must have been a lot of people,” laments Ibrahim Wade, a multilingual Senegalese responsible for a sleeper car. He shows his roadmap, full of names of absent passengers. “It’s because of the health situation. ”
In the compartments prepared for nothing, water bottles will be waiting as far as Paris Gare de l’Est.
The ÖBB night trains, marketed under the name Nightjet, include seating compartments, fairly rustic classic berths and above all much more comfortable sleeping cars.
You can spend the night there under the duvet and the cabins have a water point. Some of them even have a shower – the others share common showers at the ends of the cars.
The towel is provided and breakfast is included, but there is no wifi, and the heating is sometimes faulty.
“The night train is clearly targeting business trips,” explains Kurt Bauer, responsible for long-distance trains at ÖBB.
And also tourists who like to take their time. Salzburg, the city of Mozart, is on the way, as well as Strasbourg and Munich.
“Our customers are more and more sensitive to the ecological factor. Especially young people, but not only ”, also notes Jean-Baptiste Guenot, European director of Voyages SNCF.
The enemy is obviously the plane, against which the train is competitive for those who book (very) early. A train journey also emits much less greenhouse gases: around 20 kilograms of CO2, against around 200 kg for a flight.
“Arriving in a night train Gare de l’Est, it’s a dream,” testifies Antoine, a young railwayman from Lorraine, employee of a German railway company.
“I am passionate about trains, and I wanted to make the first trip. It’s a legendary train, in the footsteps of the Orient-Express! ”
New lines
His passion is costing him dearly, since he paid 109 euros to sit in Karlsruhe-Paris… while he has several compartments all to himself. According to ÖBB, tickets start at 29.90 euros.
Antoine will return Tuesday evening from Paris to Munich, a berth at 159 euros.
Vienna has become the capital of European night trains since the ÖBB undertook to invest in this niche neglected by other companies in 2016.
“The capital of love” that is Paris was an obvious destination. No direct train had run between the two capitals since 2007 (when the TGV Est opened).
Between the two capitals, 1400 km traveled in fourteen hours, three times a week for the moment. The shift and locomotive change between ÖBB and SNCF takes place in Karlsruhe, Germany, a little before 4 a.m.
“The next stop is Berlin,” enthuses Kurt Bauer.
In December 2023, the Paris-Vienna and Paris-Berlin coaches should join the Brussels-Vienna and Brussels-Berlin to make an “X”, after redesigning the trains in southwestern Germany.
The Paris-Vienne, which is not subsidized, is not profitable in its current configuration. “The X should be in equilibrium,” said the head of the ÖBB.
In the meantime, “we are convinced that Paris-Vienne is the right link to carry out a test, to see if Europeans are ready for night trains”, notes Christophe Fanichet, CEO of SNCF Voyageurs.
The French group is sharing the costs, and is awaiting delivery of the new cars that ÖBB has ordered from the German railway manufacturer Siemens, for some 500 million euros.
After Berlin, the following Nightjet service will connect Zurich to Barcelona at the end of 2024, stopping in particular in Geneva, Lyon and Avignon.
The French government then wants to connect Paris to Madrid, Rome, Copenhagen and perhaps Stockholm and also Strasbourg and Metz to Barcelona. At the same time as the (re) development of lines in France itself, including Paris-Nice, already reopened, and since Sunday, Paris-Lourdes.