'Hotel-train' from Barcelona to Zürich could be on track by 2024

A NEW 'sleeper train' will link Spain with Switzerland in less than three years, making it the sixth overnight rail connection in the country, unless others launch between now and 2021.

Five long-haul routes which arrive the next day have been in operation in Spain until now, on the speedy Talgo network, which travels at a steady 200 kilometres per hour, although they have all been temporarily cancelled due to the pandemic.

The Lusitania connects Madrid's Chamartín station with Lisbon, Portugal in 10 hours and 47 minutes, whilst the Trenhotel Sud Expreso ('Hotel-Train South Express') links Hendaya station in Irún, in the Basque Country and practically on the French border, to Lisbon in 12 hours and 45 minutes.

Those which do not leave the country run to Galicia and are the Trenhotel Atlántico ('Atlantic Hotel-Train'), which runs from Madrid to Ferrol on Galicia's far north-western coast in 12 hours and 11 minutes; the Trenhotel Galicia, from Barcelona Sants station to Vigo's Guixar station in 15 hours and 21 minutes, and the Trenhotel Rías Gallegas, named after the network of river deltas on the Atlantic coast of Galicia, which connects Madrid to Vigo in 11 hours and 19 minutes (shown in the above picture, by MASM via Wikimedia Commons).

It is not clear whether the services will be revived once the pandemic is declared fully over, given that, according to various media, the five routes collectively had accumulated losses of over €25 million by the time the Covid crisis shut them down.

But sleeper trains on the main continent of Europe have long been a part of the furniture and frequently in use, especially when they work out cheaper and more convenient than a flight, and most European overnight convoy operators are planning on relaunching them once it is safe for everyone to travel freely again.

One Europe-wide 'sustainable' transport project the countries involved are looking at putting into operation is the Nightjet, or 'Midnight Trains', a 'hotel on rails' between various major cities on the continent which could be in use by 2024.

Among its 13 routes planned so far are Paris-Nice, Vienna-Amsterdam, and connections along these trips or separately linking to the Italian cities and towns of Padua, Florence and Verona, the Austrian city of Salzburg and the German metropolitan hubs of Cologne and Hamburg.

They will also include a connection between Barcelona and Zürich in Switzerland, the only one so far planned for Spain, largely because Catalunya is the most convenient gateway to the rest of Europe overland.

But it is possible that in future the connection will be extended south and west, joining up with mainstream rail links from other cities or running an unbroken link to these.

Ticket costs range from €6 to €140, depending upon distance covered, destinations, and level of creature comforts: A luxury carriage with a single bed would be at the upper end of a price range which appears to be very economical and similar to the cost of flights.

Each train would have touch-screen functions for regulating the cabin functions, plus work tables and ambient lighting, and the luxury carriages would have bathrooms with showers and mirror the standards of comfort found in business class seats on planes.

Although it will take another three years before you can travel in a moving hotel room from Spain to Switzerland, the sleeper-train networks in Europe are planning on expanding before then, rather than shrinking as those in Spain are threatening to do.

One of these is the Dutch-run European Sleeper, which is set to launch overnight routes to and from Amsterdam connecting with Brussels, Berlin and Prague (Czech Republic).