Night trains cause frustration and annoyance

Night trains are experiencing a boom as climate-conscious people are increasingly travelling within Europe by train instead of by plane. The problem lies with supply and service which simply cannot keep pace with the sharp rise in demand.

The SRF programme «Kassensturz» has heard from many travellers who have had bad experiences with night trains. They report missing compartments, completely overcrowded carriages and trains that are stopped halfway and do not continue.

Noam Schaulin from the advocacy organisation Pro Bahn Schweiz criticises the fact that some lines to and from Zurich are particularly badly affected. «The fact that we still receive reports of sleeping carriages being cancelled almost every week, in addition to people being downgraded to seated carriages, is simply unacceptable.»

Major problems on the Amsterdam-Zurich route

Robér Bormann, project manager for night trains at SBB, regrets the problems, especially with the sleeping carriages: «There are no other vehicles of this type in operation. If a carriage breaks down, we have a massive problem», he says. Since SBB does not operate the night trains itself but relies on partners such as ÖBB, their hands are often tied. «Because we don't have our own rolling stock, we don't have the opportunity to bring in our own vehicles to replace missing carriages».

Timo Grossenbacher is a data journalist and runs the comparison platform night-ride.ch. Since the beginning of the year, he has analysed all of SBB's app messages to customers for «Kassensturz». The daily Nightjet line Amsterdam-Zurich is the most problematic: 91 sleeping cars were cancelled or downgraded during this time. Grossenbacher registered problems on the route on 100 out of 150 days.

«If a sleeper carriage is cancelled or replaced by a couchette carriage two-thirds of the time, or if a couchette carriage is cancelled, this is absolutely unacceptable from the customer's perspective», says Grossenbacher. «As a customer, I wonder why tickets are still being sold for these services at all.»

SBB does not provide exact figures, and states: «The frequency of disruption reports says nothing about the number of passengers affected.» According to Robér Bormann from SBB, however, the problem has been recognised and the booking system was changed at the end of last year. However, there are still tickets in circulation that could lead to issues.

Kurt Bauer, Head of Long-Distance Transport at ÖBB, admits in an interview with «Kassensturz»: «We currently have an increased number of carriage cancellations and downgrades. This is because we are putting everything with wheels into service to cope with the high demand.» According to Bauer, around one per cent of the wagons that are scheduled to run are currently broken down.

«ÖBB is investing a lot of money to improve the situation - even in the short term», he says. «We ask all travellers to remain loyal to us». Bauer promises that the situation will look very different in a year's time.