Non-governmental night train operator European Sleeper fears that it will have to stop the night train from Brussels in Belgium to Berlin in Germany and Prague in Czechia from the summer of 2025. In a press release reported by Treinreizeiger.nl, European Sleeper says that there are gaps in the timetable that will make it impossible to run the train.

European Sleeper is sounding the alarm because the carrier is experiencing problems on the German railways from June 2025 and is running into a wall with the German infrastructure manager Deutsche Bahn. 

Works on the track, a complicated timetable process and a lack of coordination between Germany and other countries are threatening to create gaps in the timetable of the train that runs from Brussels to Rotterdam and Amsterdam in the Netherlands and then continues to Germany.

Timetables?

Although the new timetable will start in December, European Sleeper has not yet received any clarity about the new timetable from the German infrastructure manager Deutsche Bahn. 

General manager Elmer van Buuren does not expect to know what European Sleeper is up to until the timetable comes into effect. “We are trying to enter into discussions with the infrastructure manager, but there are strict rules attached to this”, Van Buuren confides to Treinreiziger.nl.

With only a timetable in Germany, European Sleeper is not there. According to Van Buuren, the problem is that there is a lack of coordination between the German infrastructure manager and the other countries. “If Germany has created a correct timetable, they cannot say here is our timetable, good luck with it.”

Effort needed

European Sleeper still hopes to find support from other parties, such as politicians, to turn the tide. 

“We are trying to make it clear that if you start a connection, you want to continue with it,” says Van Buuren. In the press release, the carrier states that an effort is needed ‘to optimize the total supply of trains, so that passengers can combine different day and night services to cross the continent’.

Those politicians are now heading to train travel fair InnoTrans in Berlin. The international gathering for railway companies has unfortunately closed its doors to the general public a few years ago. 

European Sleeper started with the train to Prague in May 2023. Next winter, the carrier will run a night train from Brussels to Venice in Italy. And there is also a night train planned from Amsterdam to Barcelona in Spain that could probably start in 2026.

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