Europe Train Travel Boosted By New London To Paris Hopefuls

Anyone looking for the best train trips in Europe to rival flying was given a boost by the reopening of the Paris-Berlin night train this month. Likewise, it's good news for travelers passing under the English Channel, as many new train startups are throwing their hat in the ring to operate this route.

This month, the Biden administration announced more than $8 billion in investment to improve U.S. train routes, notably high speed legs across California and Nevada—the biggest investment since Amtrak was created over 50 years ago. Across the Atlantic, after nine years out of action, the Paris-Berlin night train made a heralded return.

It might not be the most luxurious train route across Europe—that prize arguably goes to the three-night Venice Simplon-Orient-Express journey which from summer 2024 will also stop at the Italian Riviera gem of Portofino—but fortunately many of the new services starting in Europe don't have the $8,500 price tag to match.

The train is an obvious choice for people who value the economics of travelling in a sleeping car overnight across Europe, leaving Berlin at 8.18pm in the evening and arriving just after ten the following morning, in time for a fresh croissant. If required, there's still time to head onto a Eurostar service and be in London for lunch. Run by the Austrian rail operator ÖBB, which also runs follow-on trains from Berlin to Vienna, the new night train offers three services per week but this will rise to a daily service by Autumn of next year.

Early tickets sold out almost immediately—demand is high and increasing across Europe, as the ecological tide is turning in favor of trains. Every EU country has to find its own way to meet stricter environmental objectives to reduce carbon emissions and the EU has an ambitious plan to double high-speed train travel by 2030. This week, the EU signed preliminary legislation to implement a Trans-European transport network (TEN-T) that works seamlessly from country to country without interruptions or missing links. Many countries such as France are implementing individual measures, such as banning air routes where there are train routes of under 2.5 hours.

The biggest issues are price and bottlenecks. While new airline flights can be added relatively easily, train lines (particularly new ones) need billions of investment and lots of time. Then there's the issue of different track sizes and in the U.K.'s case, the need to process passengers through immigration at a faster rate than is currently the case.

The Eurostar, the company running high-speed trains from London to Paris, currently cannot process travelers fast enough through terminals or border control—there is a lack of staff to get 900 people on each train in time to leave and many of the stations such as Kings Cross St Pancras don't have enough space to expand to house a bigger fleet, as reported by CNN. Eurostar will halt its London—Amsterdam service for 6 months from June 2024 while it upgrades its Netherlands hub.

However, a new Dutch startup is planning to compete with Eurostar from 2028 launching new Amsterdam—Paris—London routes that will undercut costs to make it cheaper. Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Trains, is reported to have said he wants to compete with Eurostar connecting London and Paris. Plus, Spanish startup Evolyn also plans to compete with Eurostar as early as 2025 on the same lines.

A lot of work is needed to get trains approved to meet regulations to operate in the Channel Tunnel; there are very exacting standards to meet fire regulations inside and out and the trains have to meet safety and power supply regulations in sometimes multiple countries. Startups are also often constrained by the booking backlog that train constructors such as Siemens and Alstom have, as well as finding the paths for trains to move through packed cities such as Paris.

The U.K. has half as much train track (10,000 miles) versus its European neighbors France (18,500) and Germany (nearly 21,000) meaning that it will be inevitably easier to expand the open the rail network across Europe. Italian Railways’ subsidiary QBuzz is another company planning to expand and operate new Amsterdam-Brussels-Paris and Amsterdam-Cologne-Frankfurt routes.

If you're planning train travel in Europe, the U.K's Times has an interactive map of where it is possible to travel by train from London according to the number of hours you want to spend onboard.

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