New European Sleeper train connects four capitals from Brussels to Prague

“Night trains are now making a comeback all over Europe and I am very glad that the Czech Republic is not left behind.”

Transcript

00:00 People are looking for a more sustainable way to travel and this is of course also

00:06 fueled by the flight shame that we see from Sweden and it's also fueled by the fact that

00:13 people are looking for more logical ways to spend their time which is a result of the Covid pandemic

00:20 and we think the night train can fill in that gap. Now your proposed route goes through several

00:27 countries. Do you think this is the springboard for more routes like this to develop across the

00:32 continent? Yeah definitely because we need the train to be a good alternative for flying and

00:38 for using your own car throughout Europe and that means that there are two ways to achieve that the

00:45 train can be used at longer distances throughout the continent. One of them is building high speed

00:50 lines everywhere but that will take a long time and cost a lot of money and the sleeper train is

00:55 a way to make the train a way to travel longer distances very quickly with smaller investment

01:01 relatively. Now this year is the European year of rail. To what extent is there the political push

01:08 to develop this as an alternative to flying across Europe? I think there's definitely a political

01:16 push from the European Commission and from the European Parliament. There's quite some ambition

01:20 in developing international passenger rail and the problem really is that this ambition should

01:27 also be supported by practical support not only from the European Union but also from the member

01:33 states. Now the practical reality for people of course is that hopping on a plane may still even

01:39 after the pandemic be the overwhelming temptation. Do you really think this will, could this just be

01:46 a peripheral thing night travel or could it really herald a new golden era of rail travel?

01:52 If you look at the total of traveling throughout Europe I think it will never be the major way of

01:59 traveling. There are more and more people that understand that you can spend your time in a

02:03 different way. Traveling by train means you get on the train in the city center and you get off

02:07 the train in the next city center where you want to go to. You don't need to queue up in all kinds

02:11 of queues at an airport. So I think more and more people are discovering that but I'm not thinking

02:17 that we will catch all of the light travelers but we could certainly fill many trains.