The new European Sleeper Ski Train to Innsbruck in Austria and Bolzano in Italy (and onward to Venice) is a very exciting development for lovers of train travel and skiers looking for new ways to Ski Flight Free this winter.
Iain Martin, host of The Ski Podcast and founder of Ski Flight Free, spoke to c0-founder of European Sleeper, Chris Engelsman before the launch to find out more about the overnight train service to Austria and Italy from Belgium.
How are you today and where are you?
I’m very well, thank you. I’m currently in the European sleeper headquarters in Utrecht.
When did European Sleeper start?
The idea started around 2020 when we my co-founder and me found out that there are so many few night trains and there’s also a huge opportunity. So then the idea started to operate a night train ourselves.
We are funded by the Community. There’s a huge support from the night train community to restart night trains to be able to travel in night trains.
What is the route for the new night train service to Austria and Italy?
This idea comes from the traditional Alp Express with a twist. We start in Brussels instead of Amsterdam because we really believe in the Belgian and UK markets. We also decided to extend to Sud Tirol, where there’s skiing not covered by night trains.
And we combined this with an interesting winter destination, namely Verona and Venice in Italy. It’s a nice mix of destinations.
What are the timings on the new train?
We have the preliminary timetable, which means leaving from Brussels around 19:00. That means taking the Eurostar from London at 15:00. And then travelling through Belgium, Netherlands, Western Germany, stopping at around 23:30 in Cologne and then the next morning there’s a few ski resorts around 08:00/09:00 in Austria before 10:30 in Bolzano.
Have you got the the dates and days of operation confirmed?
We will run seven times up and down to Innsbruck in February and March. We are trying to do two extra trips at the end of March, but we need some more coaches for that. This is actually the first year, so we would run the service the whole winter December next season.
Do you know what days of the week?
In the school holidays we will be running Friday and Saturday up and down with one return trip during the week. Outside the holiday periods, we would run that a short skiing trip: Wednesdays towards the Alps and the return trip on Sunday evening.
What are the costs?
They are not finalised yet [this interview was recorded on 10 September], but we expect a one-way trip to be from around €100 in a couchette.
Ticket sales start on 24 September.
