There's a reason Europe is the throbbing heart of global tourism, the wealth of landscapes and cultures are the envy of the rest of the world and attract millions of visitors each year to the fount of Western civilisation.
For us who call the continent home, the hunger to discover the region has been fed by the ease of getting there. Whether on weekend trips to the seaside or city breaks, our wanderlust has been indulged by airlines eager to cater to an increasingly mobile clientele. But as the impetus to clean up our climate act grows, attention is shifting from where we go to how we get there.
In this context, the kerosene-guzzling machines that have become the people’s choice to zip through European airspace are losing their vogue. The carbon-neutral promise of SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) falls apart under scrutiny and could hardly be cultivated at the necessary scale. And despite some intrepid endeavours, hydrogen is years away from being viable for commercial jets. Besides, electrolysing water to pull the flammable gas apart from its molecular partners requires about four times more energy than burning it produces.
All of which has strengthened the case for international trains; given the choice who wouldn't prefer a convenient rail link to the emissions-heavy planes that have brought the further reaches of Europe within tantalising reach? Whilst high-speed trains can deliver us to distant destinations astoundingly quickly, the lines they operate on are prohibitively expensive.
If one wants to be time-efficient and eco-friendly in how they travel the continent, night trains provide the answer, at least in theory. The reality is rather more complex, with dated rolling stock limiting passenger comfort and potentially spoiling a good night's sleep (which undermines the concept altogether). Throw in the tax breaks that keep us hooked on cheap flights, a lack of harmonisation between national rail networks, and unequal competition stacking the odds against newcomers like the European Sleeper, and the future of night trains looks less certain than it really should be.
It's a sector brimming with promise and impediments, which I explore in detail here. Can night trains make the leap from a more niche transport mode to an airline-beating everyman’s option?
Let @Orlando_tbt know.
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