Sweden is planning to open an overnight train service to both Hamburg in Germany and Brussels in Belgium. The country hopes to open these routes by 2022.
The new routes are expected to open by 2022.
‘The Swedish government has approved plans to operate overnight services on the Malmö – Brussels and Stockholm – Hamburg routes, instructing national transport administrator Trafikverket to procure the services by August 1 2022,’ said International Railway Journal (IRJ) in a statement.
The service will operate for four years with an option to extend for a further two, according to IRJ.
In a statement, the Swedish government said: ‘The authority made the assessment that there are no conditions to procure night train traffic through Germany. On the other hand, it is possible through Sweden and Denmark and operators can run night train traffic on commercial grounds from the German border. The government has therefore instructed Trafikverket to procure night train traffic to the border between Denmark and Germany.’
‘Flygskam’ in Swedish means ‘the feeling of climate guilt associated with airline travel’ according to Financial Times. Sweden has championed train travel over flying due to the negative impact that the latter has on the environment.
Overnight trains were once very popular in Europe but the emergence of low-cost airlines saw a decline in demand, according to Lonely Planet.
An overnight train between Prague and Croatia opened this year in time for summer and was reportedly extremely successful. The transport minister of Paris also announced that a once dormant line between the City of Love and Nice would be reintroduced, according to Lonely Planet.
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