Europe has regained another classic rail route, an express from Berlin to Graz, Austria, with stops between in Dresden, Prague and Vienna, a route that was dropped in 2014. Service began yesterday.
Growing environmental concerns, combined with growing impatience with long trips to and from airports and time allowance for security checks have helped bring back a number of European rail services, among them the growing network of night sleeper trains operated across Europe by the Austrian rail system.
The new route actually joins two existing routes and adds service. The joint project of Austrian, German and Czech railroads will operate under Austria’s Railjet brand name. The new service would have started a month ago, but was postponed by the virus lockdowns.
The previous through service was operated from 1957 on; for its first thirty years it connected two Eastern bloc countries to neutral Austria. Two years ago, the Austrian rail system’s NightJet service restored a historic Berlin-to-Vienna overnight train.
(updated; original report misstated the route)
