Europe Train Travel Boosted By New London To Paris Hopefuls

20.12.2023 - 00:39 / forbes.com / London

Anyone looking for the best train trips in Europe to rival flying was given a boost by the reopening of the Paris-Berlin night train this month. Likewise, it's good news for travelers passing under the English Channel, as many new train startups are throwing their hat in the ring to operate this route.

This month, the Biden administration announced more than $8 billion in investment to improve U.S. train routes, notably high speed legs across California and Nevada—the biggest investment since Amtrak was created over 50 years ago. Across the Atlantic, after nine years out of action, the Paris-Berlin night train made a heralded return.

It might not be the most luxurious train route across Europe—that prize arguably goes to the three-night Venice Simplon-Orient-Express journey which from summer 2024 will also stop at the Italian Riviera gem of Portofino—but fortunately many of the new services starting in Europe don't have the $8,500 price tag to match.

The train is an obvious choice for people who value the economics of travelling in a sleeping car overnight across Europe, leaving Berlin at 8.18pm in the evening and arriving just after ten the following morning, in time for a fresh croissant. If required, there's still time to head onto a Eurostar service and be in London for lunch. Run by the Austrian rail operator ÖBB, which also runs follow-on trains from Berlin to Vienna, the new night train offers three services per week but this will rise to a daily service by Autumn of next year.

Early tickets sold out almost immediately—demand is high and increasing across Europe, as the ecological tide is turning in favor of trains. Every EU country has to find its own way to meet stricter environmental objectives to reduce carbon emissions and the EU has an ambitious plan to double high-speed train travel by 2030. This week, the EU signed preliminary legislation to implement a Trans-European transport network (TEN-T) that works seamlessly from country to country without interruptions or missing links. Many countries such as France are implementing individual measures, such as banning air routes where there are train routes of under 2.5 hours.

The biggest issues are price and bottlenecks. While new airline flights can be added relatively easily, train lines (particularly new ones) need billions of investment and lots of time. Then there's the issue of different track sizes and in the U.K.'s case, the need to process passengers through immigration at a faster rate than is currently the case.

The Eurostar, the company running high-speed trains from London to Paris, currently cannot process travelers fast enough through terminals or border control—there is a lack of staff to get 900 people on each train in time to