European rail is starting to recover from the pandemic, and should pick up passengers who may previously have flown for short journeys.
Never before during peacetime has rail experienced such a steep decline in passenger traffic. Networks both in the UK and mainland Europe have been devastated during the pandemic, with travellers unable to travel either by rail or air.
The good news, at the time of writing in early August, is that mainland rail is recovering, although in the UK, the continuing level of infection is perhaps leading to a slower return. When rail does finally get back on its feet, things will not be quite the same as pre-Covid-19. And, across the Channel, one can expect the changes to be noticeable with the implementation of the European Green Deal, which will aid the rail industry by encouraging more travellers to take the train. It will lead to a transfer from air to rail for shorter journeys.
Some readers might think they have heard it all before. But this time the EU governments are serious. In recent months, we have seen examples from France and Austria. These countries have led Europe, if not the world, by making their national airlines abandon some domestic routes as a condition of receiving state aid.
Take France, for instance. For Air France to receive €7 billion in aid, the French government specified that it must not compete with the high-speed TGV on solely domestic point-to-point trips taking up to two and a half hours (by TGV). Austrian Airlines had to sacrifice its Salzburg-Vienna flights for OEBB’s rail service. The latter now runs direct from Salzburg to Vienna airport, with its trains carrying the carrier’s flight codes. As a result, Austria’s national airline received its €600 million in aid.
Elsewhere, some national airlines were already providing rail-air initiatives well before Covid-19. These will be strengthened in the years ahead. Lufthansa has long operated rail-air links in conjunction with Deutsche Bahn. These have been extended to offer more cities and will include Basel in Switzerland.
Swiss is cutting a number of domestic flights, with passengers transferred to SBB rail. The Netherlands’ KLM had started this process on short-haul routes before Covid-19 as a means of reducing flight movements at Amsterdam Schiphol. It seems there will be no going back, even though Schiphol now has room as a result of the pandemic.
Still, this situation may not be a perfect one. Austrian Airlines and Vienna will worry that it will lose some Salzburg customers to Munich, which is closer by rail and road. Lufthansa can offer rail-air at Frankfurt (with its mainline station) but not at Munich (because it lacks a mainline station), yet the latter has become an increasingly important hub to Germany’s national airline.
KLM is taking a diplomatic approach with Brussels-Amsterdam, which it cut slightly in terms of frequency pre-Covid but is continuing to run. It’s a very short flight and one that environmentalists say the airline ought to abandon, but KLM wants to cater for the many corporate travellers located in and around Brussels. Swiss is taking a risk by axing Lugano-Zurich because rival Milan Malpensa is a short distance from Lugano by road.
From dusk until dawn
A few years ago, the future for night trains looked bleak. Germany’s Deutsche Bahn axed all of its sleeper trains while France’s SNCF stopped all but a few. But today it’s expected that night trains will make a comeback. They are considered a greener alternative to flying, with the bonus of saving on accommodation.
Currently, OEBB is the only serious operator of these trains, running services from Vienna across mainland Europe every night. OEBB has commissioned a new fleet of night trains, to enter service in a few years’ time. In August it was reported that the Austrian government would provide the operator with about €500 million to acquire 20 new Nightjet trains plus locomotives.
Still, operating such trains is a challenge. Rolling stock is expensive, utilisation is low, servicing costs are high, more staff are required, and there may be higher network charges as night trains might be operating at less convenient times for the rail networks. These facts were brought home to me by Youtube user doc7austin, who in July made a video of a recent Vienna-Berlin trip (view by searching for doc7austin on youtube.com).
Taking OEBB’s Nightjet, what would have been a simple trip by air becomes an 11-hour marathon involving travel through several countries and even requiring en route shunting manoeuvres to attach and detach coaches. One would imagine Nightjet taking the more logical route from Austria and into Germany, but to save money on infrastructure costs it routes from Austria to Germany via Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland.
Infrastructure costs are a barrier to night trains and new market entrants. Germany’s Flixtrain wanted to expand into France and to compete with SNCF, but the cost of using France’s rail network has dissuaded it. For that reason, OEBB wants to extend Nightjet to Paris, which its chief executive, Andreas Mattha, referred to as “a dream” in a recent interview with Austrian public broadcaster ORF.
One development we are likely to see is a new night train linking Stockholm and Malmo with Hamburg and Brussels. Sweden’s government wants the new train to launch in 2022, although I believe that is overly optimistic given the conservative rail industry, unless second-hand rolling stock can be located. Look, for example, at the time taken by Caledonian Sleeper to introduce its new rolling stock, or OEBB’s delay in acquiring new Nightjet stock.
Such a service would mean travellers could take a night train from Sweden to much of mainland Europe with a change in Hamburg or Brussels. London could be reached with a simple change to Eurostar at Brussels.
Daylight savings
What about developments for daytime rail? Particularly noteworthy is the launch by Italy’s Trenitalia and Italo of possibly Europe’s longest high-speed train ride – an 11-hour journey from Turin to Reggio Calabria.
Then there’s the Franco-Swiss TGV Lyria, which capitalised on last year’s wave of “flight shame” by increasing capacity by 30 per cent. Although schedules were cut back during lockdown, most have now been restored, along with onboard catering.
Trenitalia had planned to operate high-speed Milan-Paris services from June this year. It is still planned but Trenitalia cannot proceed until Arafer – France’s rail regulator – gives the green light.
The EU wants to encourage rail competition, and nowhere will this be more evident than in Spain. From December, France’s SNCF will be competing against Spain’s Renfe over selected high-speed domestic routes. SNCF plans to offer a Ouigo-style product (Ouigo being its low-cost subsidiary).
Renfe’s existing AVE trains receive criticism for being pricey. SNCF’s arrival has prompted Renfe to introduce a budget high-speed alternative called Avlo. These two will face further competition a year or so later when Trenitalia enters the Spanish domestic market with high-speed services.
Despite possible setbacks caused by Covid-19, all of these developments should be able to proceed, although timescales are subject to change.
