DB and Nightjet: Traveling by night train into the Christmas holidays

Travel overnight to your vacation destination in a relaxed manner: Deutsche Bahn (DB) and the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) are expanding their offerings in the European night train network. In the future, a Nightjet will travel daily from Stuttgart via Göppingen and Ulm to Venice, also carrying carriages to Vienna, Budapest, Zagreb, Ljubljana, and seasonally to Rijeka.

"One of the strengths of the railway in past decades was its ability to connect important metropolises overnight," says Minister Hermann. "Unfortunately, this type of travel has been sidetracked for a long time. That makes me all the more pleased that Stuttgart, with the Nightjet, now has a connection to a real night train to the dream destination Venice again. This is an important contribution to climate-friendly travel, and I hope many more night train offers will follow."

Stuttgart-Venice Overnight

Today in Stuttgart, the DB representative for Baden-Württemberg, Thorsten Krenz, along with Winfried Hermann, Minister of Transport for the state of Baden-Württemberg, Michael Theurer, the federal government's commissioner for rail transport, Anna Deparnay-Grunenberg, Member of the European Parliament, Dr. Frank Nopper, Mayor of the state capital Stuttgart, and the board members of ÖBB and DB, Dr. Sabine Stock and Stefanie Berk, presented the new service and saw off the first Nightjet to Venice.

"Night trains are a great climate-friendly alternative to flying for travelers in Europe," Michael Theurer adds. "It is all the more pleasing that with the timetable change this weekend we also have the Venice connection from here in Stuttgart. The route is part of our ‘TransEuropExpress 2.0’ initiative, with which we aim to create more cross-border connections in cooperation with our European neighbors and also expand the night train offerings."

DB discontinued its own night trains in 2016

With the 2016 timetable change, DB Fernverkehr ceased night train services despite strong criticism. The ÖBB took over part of the then City Night Line service, for which they also acquired some of DB's sleeping and couchette cars. And yet, DB is now actively promoting "its" night train service.