SNCF’s half hearted effort to support international night trains in danger of hitting the buffers

In December 2023 the Paris-Berlin night train re-started after a 9 year hiatus. Operated as a Nighjet service by ÖBB, SNCF provided motive power for the train from Mannheim to Paris. They even put SNCF stickers on some of the carriages, and ÖBB lauded the launch of the service as an example of how state railways working together could provide services like this.

But now – according to BFM TV today – the service might end in December this year, and I have checked with my own sources to confirm this is seriously being considered within SNCF. The train departs from Paris and splits – one part to Berlin, one part to Vienna – and both would be axed. This would leave France without any international night train at all.

The problem, ultimately, is SNCF has never really wanted to bother with this train from the start. The service runs only three times a week, making it hard to ever plan to use it, and the idea to run it every day never materialised. Most absurd of all is that for the past 15 months you have not been able to buy tickets for the train on SNCF Connect or at any SNCF ticket office. Great that SNCF cannot sell tickets for a train service in which it is notionally a partner! And despite that – according to BFM TV – the service was still running 70% full.

SNCF is of course trying to point to the likely end of the launch subsidy for the service that was offered by the French government to start the service. That is in danger of being cut as a result of the current French budgetary crisis, but a SNCF that was keen on this service would itself be lobbying hard to keep the subsidy. However given SNCF’s half hearted commitment to the service I seriously doubt they are doing that. Point the finger at the government – it’s easier.

ÖBB uses a leased Siemens Vectron locomotive for the Nightjet to Brussels, but that option is not open here – France is pretty much the only standard gauge European country where Vectron is not approved to run. Turning to someone else – a company like Train Charter for example – is unlikely as ÖBB’s approach has always been to partner with other state owned railways for services like this. But when SNCF does not really want to partner with you, ÖBB finds itself in a complicated situation.

In the end – as I outlined earlier this summer in this article for The Guardian – this is just the latest in a series of false dawns for European night trains. Passengers like them, there is obvious demand, but railway operators are mostly ambivalent, and the European Commission just pays lip service to solving the problems of overnight services.

It’s as if those in the management of SNCF are not interested in anything that doesn’t go 300km/h and doesn’t get you to Paris in a maximum of three hours. And we, the passengers who do want something else, are the victims of that narrow minded approach.

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