2023-09-07 14:15:14
The news has been awaited for three years by travelers who want to limit the climate impact of their travels. Or who like to take their time. The Berlin-Paris night train, canceled at the end of 2014 and whose revival was announced in 2020, will be relaunched on December 11, 2023 in the Germany-France direction and the next day in the other direction.
The service will start with three connections per week, “before becoming daily from October 2024”, declared a spokesperson for the Austrian company ÖBB, which will operate this connection. Stops are planned in Strasbourg and, in Germany, in Mannheim, Erfurt and Halle.
13 hours of travel
Departure is scheduled at 7:12 p.m. from Paris-Est, for arrival at Berlin central station (Hauptbahnhof) the next morning at 8:26 a.m. In the other direction, departure from Berlin at 8:18 p.m., arrival the next day in Paris at 10:24 a.m. The trip will therefore last more than thirteen hours in one direction, more than fourteen hours in the other.
Concretely, trains departing from Paris will have 12 cars, 6 for Berlin and 6 for Vienna, with seats, berths and sleeping cars. According to the German press, the cheapest seats will be offered at €34.90, berths at €49.90 and beds at €79.90. Tickets are not yet on sale.
ÖBB at the forefront
The return of Paris-Berlin at night is part of a general movement to relaunch in Europe this mode of night transport, much less polluting than the plane, in a context of the fight against global warming. After buying back in 2016 the equipment that its German counterpart Deutsche Bahn wanted to get rid of, the ÖBB company is at the forefront of this trend.
There are already multiple lines: Paris-Vienna, Brussels-Vienna, Stockholm-Berlin, Prague-Warsaw, Budapest-Bucharest, Budapest-Zurich, Budapest-Munich, Zagreb-Munich, Zagreb-Zurich, Rijeka-Munich, Split- Bratislava, Prague-Budapest, Belgrade-Thessaloniki, Vienna-Rome, Munich-Venice, Innsbruck-Hamburg, Stockholm-Narvik, Sofia-Istanbul, Bucharest-Istanbul…
This night train map is awesome!
And unfortunately shows that France is not up to par. Without a low-carbon alternative, users will continue to take the plane or the car. pic.twitter.com/TZI6801jQ6— Bon Pote (@BonPote) February 23, 2023
The same movement has affected France, with the night Intercités, some of which only operate in the summer: Paris-Toulouse, Paris-Latour-de-Carol, Paris-Cerbère, Paris-Lourdes, Paris-Rodez, Paris-Nice , Paris-Briançon and Paris-Hendaye.
Towards a Paris-Berlin by day
Furthermore, SNCF and Deutsche Bahn announced last year their desire to operate a Paris-Berlin daytime route, at high speed, from the end of 2024.
Today, you have to change once or twice between the two capitals. The future seven-hour connection will initially be operated with German ICE high-speed trains.
#symbolic #relaunch #ParisBerlin