Thread by @jonworth

This tweet about night trains in 🇫🇷 gained quite some traction this morning

And sure, night trains are *good*

But we need to be a little more clear headed than that

A 🧵

https://twitter.com/sleeping_train/status/1359933250660089857

First of all, night trains only really make sense for routes that most people would not try to accomplish in the daytime by 🚅

Paris-Brive, Paris-Clermont F, Lyon-Toulouse are all under 5 hours by daytime train. These will not work as night train connections

Second, that you *could* theoretically run a train at night does not necessarily mean you should

Paris-Albi for example is 7 hours daytime train, because the infra is lousy. And you can drive it faster

Third, speed is not so important at night, but it doesn't not matter

Paris-Perpignan is 5 hours by TGV, would be 10 hours by night train (if night train uses only non-highspeed lines)

That means running night trains on high speed lines needs to be discussed... especially in France and Spain, to a lesser extent in Germany, Belgium, Italy where partial use (at 200 to possibly 230km/h) is already possible

Fourth, for the comfort of night train passengers you need to operate on the 3 + 6 + 3 hours system (roughly) - essentially 3 hours to pick up passengers, 6 hours in the middle of the night with no stops, and 3 hours in the morning to drop of passengers

Yes, some night trains (esp. in Russia!) stop everywhere at any hour, but if night trains are to be a comfortable alternative to flying, that's no good - 6 hours of calm to allow people to sleep is the minimum

That's why this sort of map - via @Koelschlenny - is so good. It has 6 hour core routes, with regional additions

By all means quibble with whether these are the right routes for the French context, but the way of thinking is right I think

Fifth, pretty much any thinking about night trains in the European Union... inevitably means international routes.

There are a few routes in 🇫🇷🇩🇪🇸🇪🇫🇮🇷🇴 that are purely national, but most are not

That then leads us to the biggest headache of all: who can actually *run* these routes? Sure, the French state can give a bit of a bung to SNCF, but that's not going to sort Marseille-Madrid or Zürich-Barcelona for you

And there's a limit to what 🇦🇹's ÖBB can do

I'd argue that 🇪🇺 needs to step in to procure some night trains
jonworth.eu/how-could-the-…

And they'd be run as part of a wider plan of EU-wide rail that I've called #Europatakt jonworth.eu/europatakt-a-v…

We've perhaps now got to a level of public acceptance for the need for more night trains in 🇪🇺

Now we need to think more sensibly about *how* to do it

/ends