From The Business Times Transport; March 4, 2019
IT LOOKS like a scene from the halcyon days of the railways: travellers finding their sleeper berth, turning on the reading light and stowing their cases under the bed.
But it’s still a common nightly ritual at Vienna’s main station, where overnight train routes have endured in the age of low-cost flights – and are even expanding. From early evening onwards, the departures board at Vienna’s “Hauptbahnhof” station becomes a roll call of destinations to whet the appetite of any globetrotter: Venice, Rome, Zurich, Berlin, Warsaw… It’s an unusual sight in a continent where budget airlines and faster trains have become the norm and led to the closure of many slower overnight routes. But Austria’s state railway company OeBB is looking to expand its network.