No night trains in the Balkans
No night trains in the Balkans
Interactive version: https://back-on-track.eu/night-train-map/ [https://back-on-track.eu/night-train-map/]
Sad but true...
But that map ( last year's ) shows the headline is not true - there are still night trains across Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, and from Belgrade to Bar. Hopefully in summer optima-tours will return on the route to turkey. Of course, we used to have more - nothing to Greece, no more Orient Express, but as i understand TEN is funding track improvements from Serbia to Bulgaria after which such routes may become viable again ?
My problem is I'm Bulgarian and even though the few night lines are the best of BDZ (Bulgarian rail) they are still appalling.
We have 5 countries with no night rail whatsoever and Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro with worse networks than in the 20th century.
I agree it's bad now, but it seems to me there is hope.
At least BDZ has a well electrified network - better than some neighbours. The old balkan 'main-line' went via Serbia, whose railways indeed got worse, but Belgrade recently completed a new central station and they expect to open a 2h40 service from Budapest soon - this spring, iirc. They also got plenty of EU money to finance the line to Nis, and (slower) from there to Dmitrovgrad (i.e. to Sofia), maybe by 2027. When all this is complete, you could realistically imagine a one-night (9h) train Sofia-Wien. Is BDZ anticipating this, or wil ÖBB run it? Also I suppose night trains to Istanbul were cut back while they fixed new tracks beyond Halkali, but there is huge demand potential.