Post
Despite SJ not running the Berlin-Hamburg-Stockholm night train any more from August 2026, the German company that owns the carriages - RDC - intends to continue on its own https://www.rdc-deutschland.de/de/presse/pressemitteilungen/rdc-deutschland-gruppe-wird-nachtzug-berlin-hamburg-stockholm-fortfuehren/
Still some open questions, but this is good news! #CrossBorderRail
@jon Would the service run efficiently enough if it weren’t daily, but had longer trains? It’s far from optimal, but if daily operations with the available amount of rolling stock doesn’t seem to work…
@sampe You'd ideally have a bigger fleet that you could use partially in off season, and fully at peak season. That'd be the way to do it.
@jon Damn, I didn't know they'll also gonna stop this one. I took it like six times last year. Every time with delay. Once we had 9:30 hours delay. At least refunds are simple and in Sweden they attach a nice bistro car with a little playground for the kids so it was quality times spent. And I still prefer that over that one time when we had to take a bus to Malmö over night. That was rough🥱
@jon i welcome my new private night train company friends 💕
@bovine3dom @maartje @jon I realize you're (hopefully) being sarcastic, but for all those other folks who need to hear it... #Trains are a public service, they shouldn't need to turn a profit. The economic benefit they provide back to the state that subsidizes them, when they are affordable to be used by all, is way larger than an extra few dollars per ticket will provide. It should be glaringly obvious that this #neoliberal mental illness that insists all public services need to be profitable or privatized creates the affordability crisises we are currently seeing in the #uk and #usa which is pushing people further into poverty and towards embracing facist ideologies. Of course if you are part of the ownership class this is exactly what you designed (to whomever is reading this, no you're not in that class and you never well be).
@psoutham @bovine3dom @maartje @jon Stockholm-Germany night train wasn’t exactly available to the lower classes, since even with the state subsidy ticket prices were a few hundred euros one way, and the daily capacity has also been tiny (these two facts are likely related). I’m not generally disagreeing with the importance of subsidising trains, but the Euronight is not a great example of the general importance of trains.
@jon
And the other operator, Snälltåget, is going to keep running their Stockholm-Berlin night trains. Will be interesting to see how RDC ends up doing this. Fully under their own flag, or find another partner? Would be fun to see a DB train in Stockholm, or a VR train in Berlin! (no, I don't find those at all likely options, sadly).
(snälltåg is not a funny miss-translation of the German Scnhellzug btw, snäll ment fast in Swedish too back in the 1800s. Now it's used for nice/kind).
@jon Interesting!
I'm still hoping for one of the night trains operators passing Denmark to acknowledge that 50% of the DK population lives on Jutland, and without a stop there (instead of Odense) have no sensible way to reach these trains.
Maybe this will be the time :-)
@jon we rode that train in the summer. In theory it’s an awesome way to get to Stockholm. I want more of this. And more reliable.
@jon Hope they make a fortune and SJ looks on regretfully.
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