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CityNightLine - THE DACH HOTEL TRAINS IN SERVICE

no rose without a thorn...

a translation by Gerhard Urban of the article by M Oswald, published in SVA 7/9S, p.10-I1

"Our product's intention is not to compete plainly with air traffic - instead we aim to give a completely new experience in night travelling", was the core assertion at the press conference of DACH Hotelzug AG's top management held at Wien Westbahnhof just before the first CityNightLine-trains started their revenue-earning service on the evening of 28 May. Primary target of the marketing campaign is the leisure time traveller, not the business clientele, although they could find it useful, too, to arrive in the heart of the cities. In the eyes of the management, a "comparison with air traffic fares would have to include costs for transfer and overnight accommodation". Travellers who can stay overnight with friends are likely to calculate in a different way.

The fares are the same for all destinations (that is: Zurich and all Swiss destinations, Feldkirch; Dortmund, Cologne and other German destinations). The following examples include a return trip (as everyone likes to go home as well); there is no reduction available for booking the return trip in advance. DACH Hotelzug AG refers to the following target customer groups priority listed:

Cultural tourists; city travellers who visit friends and events, who like the "experience" of riding on (or in?) the hotel train. This group, together with the occasional business man, is earmarked for the De-luxe-categoiy. Fare is ATS 7.840,- for a single person, two travelling in the same compartment save some quids, as the fare is ATS 4.980,- each. This has to be compared with the weekend tariff Vienna-Zurich and return, which is at less than ATS 5.000,- (this has to include a Saturday and/or Sunday; cheapest tariff was ATS 4.490,- in early June).

Recreational travellers: people aged 45 or over, who are in need of a few days off work and who like to have a leisurely journey abroad. If the typical couple books a Confort-categoiy double, fare is ATS 3.700,- each, a single user is charged ATS 5.400,-.

Small groups: There are compartments hoisting four at the end of the coaches, or two B-category compartments combined into one; the fare charged is 2.680,-. Groups more than 10 receive special tariffs on request.

As is shown, the hotel train is competitive to air travel only from two or better four travelling in the same compartment, if they need not stay in a hotel overnight. DACH sell only compartments, not berths. if one wants to travel cheaper he must look for a partner travelling the same route. Booking upper or lower deck specifically is not possible.

The reclining seats in Tourist-category are on sale for ATS 1.660,- Independent from route chosen.

All categories include (continental) breakfast. Disabled persons can book into one of the Common special compartments near the coaches' ends, but their WC is situated "over the corridor" and the compartment is not fined to take a wheelchair (!).

When a train is fully booked there could arise problems as the combined restaurant, bar and service coach holds only 18 in the restaurant section, while the desk in the bar looks oversized.

"Club travellers" (people who travel quite often) will be allowed some benefits, but which ones you get, is not mentioned in the glossy DACH marketing folders. These reductions are ranged from ATS 400,- (Deluxe single), ATS 130,- (Comfort - 4) to ATS 80,- (C-category reclining seats), each on a single trip. Owners of Savers Umweltticket, bahncard) and railway employees also are "allowed" to some reductions not stated in the brochure (the OBB timetable states a mere 10 per cent deducted from the fare).

Let us look at the journey times: the hotel train takes 11 hours to Zurich, by aeroplane (transfer and waiting times included) one could do it in four hours. The night train arrives in Zurich (RB) at 8.26, the morning plane arrives at Zurich-Kloten airport ten minutes later. Unlike Vienna, Zurich airport has superior connections to the Swiss national rail network. One going by plane has to leave home early, while the rail traveller has to sleep in a foreign bed - the customer is called to decide which way to go. In general, it is getting more and more laborious, to find a fitting tender from the numerous ones on offer - a fact we have to perceive as an inconvenience of actual developments in the travel market.

DACH management expects high loadings, ranging from 65 to 90 per cent¹depending on category (the latter for Deluxe category). The sleeper categories are somewhat expensive, while the so-called "sleeperettes" cast a shadow on the hotel train concept: the name looks inappropriate - what kind of hotel offers reclining seats only for the weary journey man? Improvements like the air-conditioned OBB couchette coaches (Bcmz 59-91) partially incorporated could have been an adequate mode of night travel for the not-so~well-to-do. The argument "more space has to be more expensive" could be dropped as with 6 per compartment (54/Bcmz against 62/sleeperette coach Bpm) there is only a slight advance in capacity. Another argument states stupidly that "Sleeperette" reclining seats are more comfortable than those in a plane - compare journey times of Ii hours and 1 hour!

The concept relies on short time spans. for return on investment (just to cater for a failure?): the rolling stock is planned to have a service life of 20 instead of (more common) 30 years, reason is "to allow for greater flexibility in reaction to market demand and developments". First ideas for a "new begin" in night travel were mooted in 1989, resulting in the formation of the "DACH Hotelzug AG" established in 1992. The new company should part with the tainted image of the railways in general, and, if the concept should fail - expectedly resulting in the demise of night travel in a "Europe without frontiers" in the medium term -, the owning railways DB, OBB and SBB surely would not hesitate (in which manner whatsoever) to put the blame on the joint venture.

There have been reports (see EISENBAHN 6195) from tests over the Arlberg line who stated the poor riding quality in the narrow curves which may result from the stiff adjustment of the damping mechanism tuned for a maximum speed of 200 kph (also shown on the UIC-screen on every carriage, although magnetic brakes are not installed). Nevertheless, the speed limit for the CityNightLine-trains has been set to 100 mph (160 kph; other sources state 140 kph). On severely curved track like the Westbahn mainline over the Wienerwald hills these vehicles may run at speeds 5 kph less than the nominal line speed only (see below).

Due to protests from the federal country of Vorarlberg, the purely operational halt at Feldkirch (EN 467 Zurich-Wien West; 0.24) had to be converted into a boarding stop, allowing the use of the train for national travel as well (although without reductions of the fare). As the complementary service, EN 466, arrives at roughly 5.20 in the morning, the stop is operational only. After the printing of the national (Inlands) time table it was decided to expand the operation of EN 222/223 Wien-KoIn (Cologne)-Wien to Dortmund (arr. 10.27/dep. 18.58) with stops at Bochum, Essen, Duisburg and Dusseldorf The changes have been incorporated into the international (Auslands) timetable. One wonders if there are lots of leisure travellers going from Austria to the Ruhr area!

Note ¹ The difference between dream and reality: during the first days of operation, an average of 50 travellers alighted from the trains arriving at Vienna (as the trains of DACH AG are private sector services there are no official records available), capacity of EN >222/223 and EN 466/467 each is 24A/198B/185C (3 WLABm, 3 WLBm, 1 WRm, 3 Bpm), altogether 407 passengers capacity, which gives some 12,3 per cent loading despite heavy and intensive marketing at least all over Austria! Meanwhile, the Swiss as well as the German trains' rakes consist of 2 WLAB, 2 WLB and WR and 3 Bpm only. On several occasions during first two weeks of July, the above mentioned numbers proved to be slightly optimistic as at Westbahnhof surely less then 50 people arrived at W\en Westbahnhof, respectively!

The press conference at Graz (12th May) held on the occasion of delivery of the first two coaches (WLfBpm) from SGP-works presented the first opportunity for a quick testing on ride to Spielfeld Strass (loco; 1114.018). The double deckers ran quite satisfactory with low tendency to vacillate.

A nice caption is also shown at the end of the original article on page 11 (SVA): it shows the departure board at Wien West (7 June). with 2 faults (a pint for the first to name them correctly.)

To underline the sceptic reception of DACH's new sleeper trains, there is additional stuff to find in the pages of SVA's contemporary, EISENBAHN (issue 7/1995, p.263):

Worse riding quality of the new double deck sleepers caused all CityNightLine-trains to suffer from a 5 km/h decrease in maximum speed (see above) compared to the line speeds of routes with radius less than 300 metres (Hutteldorf~Neulengbach, Haag - St. Valentin and Otztal-Bludenz). As the schedules of the CityNightLine-trains are quite leisurely, surely no one will notice, writes Alfred Horn in the short article.

A few days after the start of the sleeper services troubles with the double deck sleeper coaches sprung to light; on 1 June (1) after the arrival of EN 222 at Dortmund DB ordered four of the "troublesome^"double deckers to be stabled out of service imrnediately because the operations department declared them unsafe for service. The anti-vacillation device of the carriages has been found damaged during a routine check. Information was forwarded to OBB immediately who technically checked all coaches stabled at Vienna at the time. Three coaches off the EN 222 set and one off the EN 466 set had to be removed from their respective rakes.

DB had been able to substitute with four MITROPA sleepers for EN 223 ex-Dormund to Vienna while OBB had no replacement carriages available. Due to low loadings this did not matter a MI as the remaining coaches held all customers disconcerted, although passengers blamed Cab for something they did not deserve - the travelling majority does not discriminate between OBB and private sector services (e.g., in restaurant or sleeping cars). The hotel trains are private sector service trains with their own vehicles and dedicated staff (up to eight per train). The national railways' staff (guard) is seated in a reclining seat on one of the C-category coaches, causing big troubles as the means of communication with other operational railway staff is limited severely.

The cause for the problems with the bogies has been identified as a fault in construction: rubber elements had been originally intended as bearings for the torque-shaft. As a result of test drives they had been replaced by rubber-metal compounds similar to "Silent Blocs". These metal elements were dislocated by 5 centimetres (ca. 2 in) during operation leading to frictional destruction of the guide transmission shafts of the bogie.

A provisional remedy is the replacing by rubber elements (as originally designed) by technicians of the firm of Talbot, Germany. For the definitive reconstruction the affected coaches have to be transferred to Talbot of Aachen, who had been also responsible for the production of this batch of WLABpm-type carriages.

One has to be careful about the subjectivity of the different authors. Mr Oswald seems to be a railway man who might have got used to ride to the West Country in the night train "Wiener Walzer" from his day's duty at Wien Westbahnhof station and who is not allowed to use his employee's free travel allowance for the respective successor of EN466/467. The question raised in connection with rather high fares compared to standard rates ((OBB, DB and SBB) is to be corrected in the way that (at least in the winter timetable 94/95 as from the actual TT on there is no international fare quotation) the Wien-Zurich second class single amounted to ATS 1.056,- plus EC supplement for the Swiss leg of the journey, compared to a mere ATS 830,-f or the reclining seat in the "Tourist "category of DACH. The real problem might be that people hitherto used to travel the country near and far for free (as a part of their -low- income) are now experiencing the new (and cold!!) wind of free enterprise - how many more will fall victim to ugly "competition"?