A new project plans to create four international train lines, that will be known as Nightjet, and will link Barcelona and Zurich from 2024.
The railway companies of France (SNCF), Germany (DB), Austria (ÖBB) and Switzerland (CFF) have come together to develop a project that plans to create several lines of night trains, which will connect 13 European cities, including Barcelona.
In the next four years, new routes will be created and they will be known as Nightjet; which is the name already given to the night trains of the Austrian railway company ÖBB that currently operate in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.
The first two lines of this new project will open in December this year and will link Vienna and Munich, on the one hand, and Zurich, Cologne and Amsterdam, on the other. In 2022, Zurich and Rome will be connected, with a stop in Milan. By the end of 2023, Vienna and Berlin are also expected to be linked with Brussels and Paris. And, finally, direct trains between Barcelona and Zurich will start working in December 2024, the last line planned for now.
The rise of Europe’s night trains
This ambitious project responds to the increased demand for night trains in Europe. A means of transport that seemed doomed to disappear a few years ago but that has managed to re-emerge thanks to the awareness of many users, who understand the need to move towards sustainable mobility. In fact, the creation of these routes starts on the European Year of Rail (2021), which aims to promote the use of the train, as it is an eco-friendly and safe transport.
This goal also meets the guidelines that the European Commission presented last December in terms of mobility, and whose aim is to reduce CO2 emissions from the transport sector by 90% by 2050. Also, according to the studies made for the Nightjet project, a train trip generates ten times less carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per passenger than the same trip by plane.