Climate-friendly train travel
BERLIN — People venturing between countries are not only interested in comfort and convenience, but they’re choosing climate-friendly train travel to help reduce their carbon footprint.
After a 9-year hiatus, a night train from Berlin to Paris will be returning to service. Deutsche Bahn (DB) and Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) are anticipating about 40% more passengers than 5 years ago with their new joint efforts to expand cross-border, long-distance transportation options.
New day and night train times will be available, along with new trains — Railjet high-speed trains branded as Nightjet — for overnight service — that travel up to 230 km per hour (143 mph). Through this partnership, DB and ÖBB hope to double the overall number of passengers traveling on sleeper service, as stated in a recent press release on ÖBB’s website.
The two companies will offer Nightjet connections from Berlin and Vienna to Paris and Brussels beginning on Dec. 11, 2023. The connections will run three times per week to start and be converted to a daily schedule in fall 2024 — which ultimately doubles the number of Nightjet connections available in Berlin.
The Nightjet train includes individual cabins or “Mini Cabins” in the couchette car, and level boarding for people with restricted mobility. Passengers leaving from Brussels and Paris for Berlin and Vienna will board different carriages on the same train. The carriages will be rearranged at Mannheim in order for each to reach its destination. The same goes for traveling on the reverse route. Additional connections in Austria, Germany, and Italy are expected to be announced in 2024.
For more background information, read “Europe plans a new network of international high speed trains.”
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