“Night trains are now making a comeback all over Europe and I am very glad that the Czech Republic is not left behind.”
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00:00 People are looking for a more sustainable way to travel and this is of course also
00:06 fueled by the flight shame that we see from Sweden and it's also fueled by the fact that
00:13 people are looking for more logical ways to spend their time which is a result of the Covid pandemic
00:20 and we think the night train can fill in that gap. Now your proposed route goes through several
00:27 countries. Do you think this is the springboard for more routes like this to develop across the
00:32 continent? Yeah definitely because we need the train to be a good alternative for flying and
00:38 for using your own car throughout Europe and that means that there are two ways to achieve that the
00:45 train can be used at longer distances throughout the continent. One of them is building high speed
00:50 lines everywhere but that will take a long time and cost a lot of money and the sleeper train is
00:55 a way to make the train a way to travel longer distances very quickly with smaller investment
01:01 relatively. Now this year is the European year of rail. To what extent is there the political push
01:08 to develop this as an alternative to flying across Europe? I think there's definitely a political
01:16 push from the European Commission and from the European Parliament. There's quite some ambition
01:20 in developing international passenger rail and the problem really is that this ambition should
01:27 also be supported by practical support not only from the European Union but also from the member
01:33 states. Now the practical reality for people of course is that hopping on a plane may still even
01:39 after the pandemic be the overwhelming temptation. Do you really think this will, could this just be
01:46 a peripheral thing night travel or could it really herald a new golden era of rail travel?
01:52 If you look at the total of traveling throughout Europe I think it will never be the major way of
01:59 traveling. There are more and more people that understand that you can spend your time in a
02:03 different way. Traveling by train means you get on the train in the city center and you get off
02:07 the train in the next city center where you want to go to. You don't need to queue up in all kinds
02:11 of queues at an airport. So I think more and more people are discovering that but I'm not thinking
02:17 that we will catch all of the light travelers but we could certainly fill many trains.