Editor's note: Sign up for CNN Travel's weekly newsletter, “Unlocking the World,” to get the latest news on aviation, food and drink, accommodation and other travel trends.
CNN —
“It is with great sadness that we must announce the end of a dream. Midnight Trains passed away today surrounded by family and friends.”
This was the epitaph left by Midnight Trains founder Adrien Aumont on May 31, signalling the failure of the company's vision to build a new network of luxury night trains connecting Europe's major cities.
Before the company's collapse, Europe was on the cusp of a night-train revolution, with overnight train travel making a comeback across the continent as travelers seek more sustainable ways to travel between cities.
The concept of going to sleep in one city centre and waking up in another, hundreds of miles away, is an increasingly attractive alternative to short-haul flights at a time of growing environmental concerns and air travel uncertainty.
Despite this demand, there remain insurmountable hurdles for startups like Midnight Train to enter the market to meet this demand.
Initially, it seemed that new “open access” rules allowing new operators to share Europe's rail networks with existing national rail companies would spark a flood of exciting new ideas and routes.
And indeed, this has spurred the emergence of several new airlines promising new routes, cheaper fares and more luxurious accommodations to appeal to different segments of the travel market.
However, only a handful were able to ride the train.
Sweden's Sneltorget links Stockholm with Denmark and Germany. Czech travel company Regiojet runs several overnight routes to cities in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and western Ukraine, as well as a popular holiday train from Prague to Croatia's Adriatic coast during peak summer months. Both companies built their night services on proven daytime operations.
So far there is only one new entrant focused solely on night travel: European Sleeper, which will operate its first trains between Brussels, Amsterdam and Berlin in 2023 and now also runs three times a week to Prague.
European Sleeper's difficulties in securing suitable trains and schedules provide a harsh lesson for other open-access operators hoping to tap into growing demand for night travel. Originally scheduled to start services in 2022, the launch has been postponed due to a severe shortage of available carriages.
ES eventually managed to put together a collection that included 1970s seating coaches, sleeper cars, and even a vintage 1950s sleeper car built for the legendary Co. International Warehouse Company (CIWL), which once operated the iconic Orient Express. This is enough to operate one train, three times a week, every other day in each direction, with plans to increase the frequency to a daily service once more carriages become available.
Its ambitions to open a new line every year are hampered by a serious shortage of suitable carriages and major obstacles placed in its path by national rail authorities, especially in France. Its next challenge is the Brussels-Barcelona train, which would have to cross France at night, a time when many French lines are traditionally closed for maintenance.
As if that weren't enough, filling out the extensive paperwork required to obtain a license to operate is extremely time-consuming and expensive. Much of it is essential to prove that a prospective operator has the necessary capabilities, security arrangements and financial backing to deliver on their promises, but it can take years and millions of dollars to overcome different country requirements and slow-moving bureaucracy.
Sadly, Midnight Trains never quite got that far.
Despite a compelling argument that “clean” air travel is unlikely to become a reality until the end of the 21st century and that night trains were the best way to encourage a shift to medium-distance rail travel, the company was unable to secure the financial backing it needed to get an operational foothold.
He also stressed that while the European Union rail market is in theory open to competition, in reality as of 2024 it will be mainly open to competition within the European Union itself.
The fast-growing international Nightjet network is run by the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) in cooperation with other national railways, but the continent's high-speed rail networks are facing increasing competition, with national rail operators – mainly in France, Italy and Spain – trying to capture new markets on each other's lines.
Without the government support enjoyed by the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) and other former state railways, it would be extremely difficult to obtain the funding needed to purchase and approve special new night trains.
Nick Brooks, executive director of ALLRAIL, a pressure group that represents non-state-owned rail operators, told CNN that state-owned rail companies have an unfair advantage over new entrants.
“Politicians need to be clear that the night train market will effectively be closed for a long period of time,” he said. “This goes against the goal of a single EU rail market. It's madness when a clear and efficient alternative model already exists.”
“The channel is open, but in reality the market has been organised by public authorities to serve their own historic operators, not to create new ones,” Adrien Aumont of Midnight Trains lamented in a statement on May 31.
He said he recognised that state-owned companies' stranglehold on Europe's rail sector and rolling stock was a major obstacle but believed that would change, and called on European lawmakers to open up appropriately to innovators.
“We hope this move will attract investment funds to rail and encourage other entrepreneurs to create new uses and improve the rail travel experience,” he added. “We hope to see this mode of transportation become a beloved and significant alternative to air and car travel.”
Increasing demand
Midnight Trains wants to offer a luxury “hotel on a move” experience between Paris and Barcelona from 2025.
In the longer term, the plan was to serve 10 destinations including Paris to Milan/Venice, Florence/Rome, Hamburg, Berlin, Copenhagen and via the Channel Tunnel from Paris to Madrid, Porto and Paris to Edinburgh.
Despite negotiating with a range of suppliers, Midnight Trains was unable to secure suitable overnight carriages or begin the process of building or refurbishing them to its proposed specifications. Midnight Trains is not alone in this respect – all companies looking to operate open access trains face major challenges in sourcing suitable 'second-hand' carriages.
Proponents of open-access night trains have called for the European Union to step in and create a more fertile environment for new services to emerge. One option would be for European authorities to help fund the procurement of new dedicated night-train cars and lease them to rail companies. That would help eliminate one of the biggest challenges facing new entrants to the market.
“European Sleeper demonstrates that demand for long-distance cross-border passenger rail services, including night trains, is growing rapidly, and that such services can be operated on a commercially viable open access basis,” Brooks explains.
But as Midnight Trains discovered, the challenges go beyond the trains themselves: Traditional venture capitalists and infrastructure funds are not well positioned to invest in risky, complex, long-term projects, and railcar leasing companies are reluctant to invest in rolling stock without the guarantee of long-term operating contracts.
Wherever they operate, night train operations are complex, labour intensive and expensive, which is one of the main reasons for their decline since the 1970s.
“No one should underestimate the effort required to run a new sleeper train,” adds rail expert Mark Smith, known as the online rail travel guru The Man in Seat 61. “But start-ups such as ÖBB and European Sleeper are proving it can be done.”
It's becoming somewhat easier for traditional rail companies to offer better night trains: In cooperation with the Swiss Federal Railways and Germany's Deutsche Bahn, the Austrian Federal Railways has revived night routes connecting its hubs of Vienna and Zurich with cities in Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Its success has prompted other countries, including France, Italy and Sweden, to rethink their night train operations, revive abandoned routes and even propose new rolling stock to improve services.
Italian Railways has ordered 70 new carriages for its night trains, which will feature luxury cabins with toilets and showers, some with double beds.
The first cars will be deployed on the long-distance route from Milan to Sicily, across the Strait of Messina on Europe's last remaining passenger train ferry. The $770 million contract will eventually see the introduction of up to 370 new night coaches, replacing Italy's entire night train fleet.
With the exception of Nightjet, which plans rapid expansion over the next five years, night train services in Europe have yet to live up to expectations: Demand is growing, but the enormous challenges of raising capital and starting up a new business are holding back growth.
The significant operational, political and financial obstacles will not disappear overnight. A truly competitive railroad will require a concerted effort by the EU and its member states. Otherwise, a much-needed revolution in European night trains may be stifled before it has a chance to flourish.
