Sleepers trains from London to Europe.

[StephenHunter]

One big issue railway carriage construction has been having is microchip shortage, so that will impact delivery.

 

[Austriantrain]

From an Austrian rail forum:

- Italy NJ services are planned to switch to the new sets between September and December 2023; from the timetable change in December, all services to Italy should run with the new sets;
- Between December 2023 and February 2024, the Brenner day trains should change over to RJ2;
- the second series of new NJ sets will be delivered from June 2024 and certain trains (among these Vienna/Innsbruck- Hamburg and Vienna - Bregenz) will change over between June and December 2024.

 

[popeter45]

with the new sets any idea what the plans are for some of the more niche rolling stock like the double deck units?

 

[DanielB]

the second series of new NJ sets will be delivered from June 2024 and certain trains (among these Vienna/Innsbruck- Hamburg and Vienna - Bregenz) will change over between June and December 2024.

The Hamburg NJ is now running combined with the Amsterdam NJ when I'm not mistaken. Will those then be converted to new stock simultaneously, or would some hybrid form with old and new stock combined exist for a while?

 

[daodao]

150+ posts on this thread, whose premise is a complete non-starter, for loads of reasons - Schengen/UK border security, Channel tunnel safety concerns, and the ease/speed/low cost of air travel, being the principal ones.

 

[Austriantrain]

with the new sets any idea what the plans are for some of the more niche rolling stock like the double deck units?

The double deck stock will go. It‘s very expensive to maintain, old, not very comfortable ans, as you say, niche.

The Hamburg NJ is now running combined with the Amsterdam NJ when I'm not mistaken. Will those then be converted to new stock simultaneously, or would some hybrid form with old and new stock combined exist for a while?

I don‘t have more details, sorry. Both should be possible technically.

 

[43096]

I don‘t have more details, sorry. Both should be possible technically.

If they put the new stock on the Amsterdam, it would be interesting to see what the traction is. ÖBB have said they will use their existing Taurus locos, but none of those are cleared for Netherlands - perhaps one of NS's leased Vectrons would be used?

 

[StephenHunter]

If they put the new stock on the Amsterdam, it would be interesting to see what the traction is. ÖBB have said they will use their existing Taurus locos, but none of those are cleared for Netherlands - perhaps one of NS's leased Vectrons would be used?

Those already run all the way to Vienna, FWIW.

 

[DanielB]

Those already run all the way to Vienna, FWIW.

Nope, the NS Vectrons only run as far as Köln West (for the Vienna/Innsbruck NJ) or Frankfurt Hbf (for the Zürich NJ). They will get more of them which will run all the way to Berlin as of the 2024 timetable however, but that's off topic here.

 

[43096]

Nope, the NS Vectrons only run as far as Köln West (for the Vienna/Innsbruck NJ) or Frankfurt Hbf (for the Zürich NJ). They will get more of them which will run all the way to Berlin as of the 2024 timetable however, but that's off topic here.

They’ve leased a fifth loco so that the Amsterdam-Wien now runs through with a Vectron on the days there’s no Brussel portion.

 

[StephenHunter]

Nope, the NS Vectrons only run as far as Köln West (for the Vienna/Innsbruck NJ) or Frankfurt Hbf (for the Zürich NJ). They will get more of them which will run all the way to Berlin as of the 2024 timetable however, but that's off topic here.

They go all the way to Vienna when there is no Brussels portion, or are supposed to:

vagonWEB » Řazení vlaků

www.vagonweb.cz

At Frankfurt Hbf, you need to reverse anyway.

 

[DanielB]

They go all the way to Vienna when there is no Brussels portion, or are supposed to:

vagonWEB » Řazení vlaků

www.vagonweb.cz

Not yet, as is mentioned below the whole composition

 

[Flavio Bassi]

Yes. Until its withdrawal due to the pandemic, the Thello overnight service from Paris to Venezia could be conveniently connected into from our house in the North of England by LNER and Eurostar....although it was even more convenient for our house in Italy when it - or its Trenitalia predecessor - also ran from Paris to Firenze and Roma. My hope is that, at some stage, a sleeper service from Northern Europe to Italy may be introduced by a private open-access operator (or even by OeBB) but, given that Brussels seems to be becoming the new Northern European sleeper hub, it may run from there instead of Paris. From the point of view of travellers coming from the UK, that may be more convenient, as it would involve a simple change of trains in the same station, instead of having to cross Paris on the crowded RER from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon.

As we are seeing in this thread, there is a good chance that the North-Italian connections will resume (in a few years' time). I too am waiting.
However, I have a personal fixation: in an ideal situation, I would prefer a series of direct services throughout Europe, without changes. Departure as close to home as possible, boarding the train, accommodation in a private room, travel time with restaurant, lounge area and other activities, and arrival after the night, and even the day or more in some cases, directly at the destination. This would be a new, truly comfortable way of travelling that could significantly increase passenger numbers.
While the world of the night train needs to be reinvented, it would be possible to move towards new systems that allow for similar possibilities...
----
But about the technical problems around the Channel Tunnel: it is often written that Midnight Trains was thinking about the Paris-Edinburgh night line; had it not considered these problems, or did it have any solutions?

 

[AlbertBeale]

Yes. Until its withdrawal due to the pandemic, the Thello overnight service from Paris to Venezia could be conveniently connected into from our house in the North of England by LNER and Eurostar....although it was even more convenient for our house in Italy when it - or its Trenitalia predecessor - also ran from Paris to Firenze and Roma. My hope is that, at some stage, a sleeper service from Northern Europe to Italy may be introduced by a private open-access operator (or even by OeBB) but, given that Brussels seems to be becoming the new Northern European sleeper hub, it may run from there instead of Paris. From the point of view of travellers coming from the UK, that may be more convenient, as it would involve a simple change of trains in the same station, instead of having to cross Paris on the crowded RER from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon.

Agreed - though with sleepers from Paris Est, more or less next door to Nord, that's not too much of a problem. And if I do need to change from GdNord to GdLyon I often prefer the bus. (Route 91 is the direct Nord-Lyon route now, I think, since the shuffling and renumbering of routes a while back.) I find it a more placid journey than the Metro or RER; it's a bit slower of course, but I'd never plan a tight connection when linking into a once-a-night sleeper service anyway.

I've also used the Paris-Italy sleeper in the past (to Trieste in fact). And long ago, there were the through overnight carriages from the channel ports, shuffling round the ceinture in Paris, linking up with coaches starting in Paris to go to all sort of destinations...

150+ posts on this thread, whose premise is a complete non-starter, for loads of reasons - Schengen/UK border security, Channel tunnel safety concerns, and the ease/speed/low cost of air travel, being the principal ones.

Well yes, but the thread has morphed into how to make useful overnight connections from London to Europe even if the first leg is via a day/evening train from London to connect with the sleeper. If sleepers actually starting in London are, as you suggest, not currently feasible, then the discussion that's happening is within the sprit of the thread, I'd have thought.

The border/security issues are indeed such as to make a sleeper running directly between London and overseas destinations a non-starter in the foreseeable future. But I don't follow your "low cost air travel" point - that would apply to sleepers in general, and doesn't relate specifically to whether or not a sleeper could or couldn't serve London; and in any case, it's also irrelevant for many of us (including, I hope, lots of people on this forum) for the simple reason that lots of us would never dream of doing anything as destructive and anti-social as flying around Europe in the first place; the ticket price is completely irrelevant.

As we are seeing in this thread, there is a good chance that the North-Italian connections will resume (in a few years' time). I too am waiting.
However, I have a personal fixation: in an ideal situation, I would prefer a series of direct services throughout Europe, without changes. Departure as close to home as possible, boarding the train, accommodation in a private room, travel time with restaurant, lounge area and other activities, and arrival after the night, and even the day or more in some cases, directly at the destination. This would be a new, truly comfortable way of travelling that could significantly increase passenger numbers.
While the world of the night train needs to be reinvented, it would be possible to move towards new systems that allow for similar possibilities...
----
But about the technical problems around the Channel Tunnel: it is often written that Midnight Trains was thinking about the Paris-Edinburgh night line; had it not considered these problems, or did it have any solutions?

Yes - direct point-to-point services linking all sort of combinations of places would be ideal. To some extent that has always happened (and continues to - viz the plans for swapping carriages between the Paris and Brussels to Berlin and Vienna trains en route, when the new nightly Austrian night trains doing these routes start later this year, so that all four combinations can be run with two trains). And the sleepers currently running east from Zurich every night mix and match destinations, with interchanges of rolling stock en route, to provide more point-to-point combinations.

A problem of course is that fixed-formation trains are more common these days; if such stock was used on sleeper routes, that would reduce this flexibility (and hence make overnight services less useful and less popular).

(And re Midnight trains - I suspect from their publicity that there are many things they haven't yet stopped to consider!)

 

[daodao]

But I don't follow your "low cost air travel" point - that would apply to sleepers in general, and doesn't relate specifically to whether or not a sleeper could or couldn't serve London; and in any case, it's also irrelevant for many of us (including, I hope, lots of people on this forum) for the simple reason that lots of us would never dream of doing anything as destructive and anti-social as flying around Europe in the first place; the ticket price is completely irrelevant.

The time and money saved by flying between places more than 500 miles apart makes low cost air travel the mode of choice for most people, hence the success of Ryanair, Wizzair et al. Outside South-East England, very few people consider using surface transit even to the near Continent (Amsterdam/Paris/Brussels).

 

[AlbertBeale]

The time and money saved by flying between places more than 500 miles apart makes low cost air travel the mode of choice for most people, hence the success of Ryanair, Wizzair et al. Outside South-East England, very few people consider using surface transit even to the near Continent (Amsterdam/Paris/Brussels).

Yes - I of course realise that is the case for many people; the point I was making is that such a choice is dangerous and selfish and we need to quickly move to a world where people make a different decision. If the only way to encourage responsibility is a tax of many hundreds of percent on plane travel within Europe, so be it.

 

[zwk500]

Yes - I of course realise that is the case for many people; the point I was making is that such a choice is dangerous and selfish and we need to quickly move to a world where people make a different decision. If the only way to encourage responsibility is a tax of many hundreds of percent on plane travel within Europe, so be it.

Easy to say, hard to do. Taxes like this would be politically impossible. Arguably it'd be easier for the UK to join Schengen than for a several-hundred-pound tax to be introduced on short-haul travel.

 

[AlbertBeale]

Easy to say, hard to do. Taxes like this would be politically impossible. Arguably it'd be easier for the UK to join Schengen than for a several-hundred-pound tax to be introduced on short-haul travel.

I don't see Schengen as relevant to this point. Whether or not the UK has more or fewer border formalities with other European countries, they apply irrespective of the mode of transport. The point at issue here is surely that surface transport is commonly seen as slower and less convenient than air travel, and combined with it often being more expensive, this encourages people to make the choice to fly. For all our sakes, this has to stop. Is putting a realistic (in planetary terms) tax on intra-continental flying really more politically difficult than politicians admitting that the alternative is a planet which is soon inimical to human life of the sort we're used to?

 

[StephenHunter]

There are two words that might illuminate this conversation: Night Ferry. That managed to operate very successfully for nearly four decades until BR lost interest in it. In an era before the Treaty of Rome too.

 

[zwk500]

I don't see Schengen as relevant to this point. Whether or not the UK has more or fewer border formalities with other European countries, they apply irrespective of the mode of transport. The point at issue here is surely that surface transport is commonly seen as slower and less convenient than air travel, and combined with it often being more expensive, this encourages people to make the choice to fly. For all our sakes, this has to stop.

Schengen is relevant because you are more likely to change behaviour by offering a positive alternative than simply penalising travel. If people can get Manchester-Paris or London-Cologne direct trains with competitive fares they are more likely to switch their mode of travel. If you just tax it people will complain until either a company finds a way around it (Politicians are never as good at closing loopholes as companies are at finding them) or the tax is repealed.

Is putting a realistic (in planetary terms) tax on intra-continental flying really more politically difficult than politicians admitting that the alternative is a planet which is soon inimical to human life of the sort we're used to?

Given the past 7 years of governance, do I really have to answer that question? Politicians would say their nan's a man if they thought they'd get a few votes out of it.

There are two words that might illuminate this conversation: Night Ferry. That managed to operate very successfully for nearly four decades until BR lost interest in it. In an era before the Treaty of Rome too.

Unfortunately, one other word make it irrelevant: Time. The Night Ferry belonged to it's era. That era has now gone. It remains only in Pathe newsreels, and long may they survive!

 

[Bald Rick]

But I don't follow your "low cost air travel" point - that would apply to sleepers in general, and doesn't relate specifically to whether or not a sleeper could or couldn't serve London; and in any case, it's also irrelevant for many of us (including, I hope, lots of people on this forum) for the simple reason that lots of us would never dream of doing anything as destructive and anti-social as flying around Europe in the first place; the ticket price is completely irrelevant.

I accept your view point on this, but a fabulous network of European wide sleeper services is not going to be particularly environmentally friendly.

Firstly, it would take a lot more carbon emissions to build the vehicles necessary - 40 metres of aluminium tube, fittings etc configured as an A320 can carry upwards of 1000 passengers a day across Europe, the same length of aluminium tube configured as sleepers will carry perhaps 50. So you get much more productivity from the ‘carbon capital’ with an airliner than a sleeper.

Secondly, even if the overnight trains are hauled exclusively by electric traction, it will still generate carbon emissions, even in France with all its nuclear power, it still produces 10% of its electricity from coal and gas. Italy’s electricity is around 70% fossil fuels (mostly oil and gas), in Germany nearly a third is from coal, which as you know is the most carbon intensive method of generation. Even Austria, with all its hydro power, generates 30% of its electricity from non renewable thermal power stations. A long, slow, heavy sleeper is going to use a lot of power, and a decent proportion of that power is going to be generated by fossil fuels. On another thread I did some back of the envelope calculations comparing the carbon emissions of the Caledonian sleeper to Inverness vs easy jet on a passenger km basis - from memory the sleeper won but not by much. (The average easyJet flight causes around 70g CO2 per passenger km, and that is reducing as they deploy newer, more efficient aircraft).

In terms of overall efficiency, taking into account time, cost and environmental considerations, I suspect that flying is better than sleepers, as the time and cost savings (the latter through much better productivity) generate significantly more socio-economic benefit which could be used to ‘buy’ better environmental results more effectively than a extensive Europe wide sleeper network.

 

[rvdborgt]

In terms of overall efficiency, taking into account time, cost and environmental considerations, I suspect that flying is better than sleepers

I've seen calculations to the contrary. Unfortunately, I don't know anymore where.

 

[Bald Rick]

I've seen calculations to the contrary. Unfortunately, I don't know anymore where.

It would certainly make an interesting PhD thesis for someone.

 

[zwk500]

I've seen calculations to the contrary. Unfortunately, I don't know anymore where.

It will depend on which journeys are being compared. UK-Europe business travel to Benelux, France, Germany and Switzerland I would expect sleepers compare quite favourably. British holiday makers to the south of Spain or Canary islands, less so.

If we are talking about decarbonising travel to Europe it is worth pointing out that the busiest single UK-European air route is to Dublin. I doubt anybody will be able to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation for the carbon offset on a Spur from HS2 w/Car shuttle terminal for a Holyhead-Dublin Irish sea tunnel against new generation aircraft.

It would certainly make an interesting PhD thesis for someone.

For the right person, maybe! Sounds incredibly frustrating, although I would be interested to hear the results of it.

 

[paul1609]

4 5z cc,, nc

I accept your view point on this, but a fabulous network of European wide sleeper services is not going to be particularly environmentally friendly.

Firstly, it would take a lot more carbon emissions to build the vehicles necessary - 40 metres of aluminium tube, fittings etc configured as an A320 can carry upwards of 1000 passengers a day across Europe, the same length of aluminium tube configured as sleepers will carry perhaps 50. So you get much more productivity from the ‘carbon capital’ with an airliner than a sleeper.

Secondly, even if the overnight trains are hauled exclusively by electric traction, it will still generate carbon emissions, even in France with all its nuclear power, it still produces 10% of its electricity from coal and gas. Italy’s electricity is around 70% fossil fuels (mostly oil and gas), in Germany nearly a third is from coal, which as you know is the most carbon intensive method of generation. Even Austria, with all its hydro power, generates 30% of its electricity from non renewable thermal power stations. A long, slow, heavy sleeper is going to use a lot of power, and a decent proportion of that power is going to be generated by fossil fuels. On another thread I did some back of the envelope calculations comparing the carbon emissions of the Caledonian sleeper to Inverness vs easy jet on a passenger km basis - from memory the sleeper won but not by much. (The average easyJet flight causes around 70g CO2 per passenger km, and that is reducing as they deploy newer, more efficient aircraft).

In terms of overall efficiency, taking into account time, cost and environmental considerations, I suspect that flying is better than sleepers, as the time and cost savings (the latter through much better productivity) generate significantly more socio-economic benefit which could be used to ‘buy’ better environmental results more effectively than a extensive Europe wide sleeper network.

I suspect that the train is only winning on carbon emissions because you are only considering the vehicle emissions. If you were to compare the carbon costs of maintaining two airports and some radio transmissions with the same rail cost of maintaining 20 stations plus 600 miles of pernament way, signalling electrificationetc, etc. I suspect the outcome would not be favourable to rail.

 

[30907]

I've seen calculations to the contrary. Unfortunately, I don't know anymore where.

A quick Google produced this link, which suggests a base figure of 90g CO2

https://www.carbonindependent.org/22.html

This CO2 is generally emitted into the high atmosphere, and this is thought to have a greater greenhouse effect than CO2 released at sea level. The emissions are therefore adjusted by multiplication by a factor of 2.00 (see 'Radiative forcing' below) to give 180 kg CO2 equivalent per passenger per hour.....

(For EasyJet whose load factor is high that would be 140 kg/pax/h)

I have no idea whether the multiplier used is reasonable, but I think the premise is generally accepted.

....Further allowance is needed for fossil fuel energy used in :

• extraction and transport of crude oil
• inefficiencies in refineries (around 7% [30])
• aircraft manufacture and maintenance, and staff training
• airport construction, maintenance, heating, lighting etc.

The CO2 emissions are therefore rounded up and the Carbon Independent calculator takes a values of 250 kg i.e. 1/4 tonne CO2 equivalent per passenger per hour flying.

TBH an extra 70kg seems on the high side, but it doesn't matter in a comparison with rail as similar issues apply.

 

[Route115?]

Several points come to mind:

Sleepers by their nature have a very low occupancy per vehicle hence a high energy consumption per head. As yet we do not have surplus electricity.

An effective sleeper service would require a series of marshalling yards in order to offer a selection of point to point journeys. The cost would be astonomical.

Even travelling overnight you would not be able to reach all of Europe in an overnight journey from the north of England or Scotland so a weekend break would not be possible. I wonder what the reaction in places such a sthis would be.

If you want to make rail effectively the monoploly supplier it would ned to become a service offering a guarantted service at a standard price. (This of course is the case in some countries - look at Switzerland & Germany) but would it be true for operators of sleepers?

Would you also tax cars? Some armchair travel planners seem to think that long rail is mostly completing against air but in reality it is competing as much against car. (My sister & hubby dove from Wiltshire to Switzerland in a day - faster than nthe train.) would you end up penalising non motorists who would not have an alternative to the train. (As a rule of thumb a car uses rougly the same amount as fuel as two aircraft seats at normal load factors although it will vary by distance & load factor. For Manchester - Spain it is about 3:1 so it would be more efficient for a famiily of four to drive & a couple to drive.) The danger is that it could encourage people to learn to drive & hire a car for a European journey. (For some reasons some environmentalists have a more of a problem with planes than cars.)

What about long haul plane travel? The CO2 from my round trip flight to Zurich is insignificant a what I save by nor driving & keeping my thermostat at 18c. However I estimated that a round trip that I made to Australia a few years ago emmitted almost 2 tonnes of CO2 which would be about the same as a car driving 10,000km or 6,500 miles - a typical annual mileage. Do we need to encourage more European travel (possibly helped by rejoining the EU & joining Schengen)? Or am I going off topic?

Rail only accounts for 10% of passenger miles - its 15% in Switzerland by the difference is much greater when you exclude journeys to/from London. Creation of a Deutschsland Takt style timetable would save far more CO2 than a series of sleepers and hoipefully could be accomplised by the carrot rather than the stick taht is it would be politically accetable.

Each journey in different, something that advocates for compulsory rail travel forget.

 

[popeter45]

one issue with any UK to EU sleeper would be just how complex loco running would be even for a simple point to point

lets take a glasgow to amsterdam sleeper as a extreme example, first would need a AWS/TPWS loco for the WCML then would need another for the TVM of HS1 (cant realiticly use a 92 for both as i dont belive any still have both and trying to path a 80mph loco during afternoon peak would not be a good idea)

once in france would need yet another loco for KVB lines to Belgian ECTS/TBL lines and finally another for the let between Brussels and Amsterdam as i dont think any single locomotive has both French KVB and Dutch ATB

so in the end this would be a 4 loco trip (BR class 90, BR class 92, SNCB class 18, NS class 186)

and this doesnt even count how complex it would be if you wanted to go ECML-transpenines-WCML for maxamimum population capture (Glasgow-Edinburgh-Newcastle-York-Leeds-Manchester-Birmingham)

 

[Bald Rick]

one issue with any UK to EU sleeper would be just how complex loco running would be even for a simple point to point

lets take a glasgow to amsterdam sleeper as a extreme example, first would need a AWS/TPWS loco for the WCML then would need another for the TVM of HS1 (cant realiticly use a 92 for both as i dont belive any still have both and trying to path a 80mph loco during afternoon peak would not be a good idea)

once in france would need yet another loco for KVB lines to Belgian ECTS/TBL lines and finally another for the let between Brussels and Amsterdam as i dont think any single locomotive has both French KVB and Dutch ATB

so in the end this would be a 4 loco trip (BR class 90, BR class 92, SNCB class 18, NS class 186)

and this doesnt even count how complex it would be if you wanted to go ECML-transpenines-WCML for maxamimum population capture (Glasgow-Edinburgh-Newcastle-York-Leeds-Manchester-Birmingham)

A couple of things here.

1) if the train’s London terminus is St Pancras international, it will need KVB, as that is what is in the St P platforms.

2) whilst everyone is assuming St P would be the terminus (for obvious reasons), there may not be paths at the time of day required, and later in the evening HS1 is shut. Probably able to find a solution, but by no means straight forward.

 

[zwk500]

2) whilst everyone is assuming St P would be the terminus (for obvious reasons), there may not be paths at the time of day required, and later in the evening HS1 is shut. Probably able to find a solution, but by no means straight forward.

On this point - do you know when HS Lines on the continent tend to shut overnight, and what the Tunnel does overnight?