The launch of the Brussels-Prague night train in summer 2025 looks bleak.
Railway works, a complex timetable procedure in Germany and a lack of coordination between Germany and its neighbouring countries are casting doubt on the future of the overnight connection.
The route's operating company European Sleeper has yet to receive German data necessary for next year's timetable, which is not expected to be confirmed until just before the annual timetable change. This makes creating a schedule for the sleeper train challenging.
Without an overall view of the timetable, European Sleeper would be forced to discontinue its service, and passengers would lose the benefit of a direct connection linking Brussels to the Czech capital via Berlin.
From February 2025, a new sleeper train service will also link Brussels to Venice. The train will travel through the Netherlands, Germany and Austria, calling at Rotterdam, Utrecht, Cologne, Munich, Innsbruck, Bolzano and Verona.
"Due to a lack of investment, work on the railway is severely backlogged," said European Sleeper co-founder and CEO Elmer van Buuren. "The growing difficulties in finding timetable capacity, combined with the lack of coordination make adding even a single train to the network very challenging."
