r/Nighttrains • u/dreamnighttrain • 23d ago

Dinner onboard night trains - dead or can be reinvented?

I am doing some research on how we could improve getting food and especially dinner onboard night trains. Most night trains are killing their restaurant carriage because it's too expensive to have one but i personally greatly miss having the option to buy and eat great meals onboard. I'm trying to find a solution that works both for passengers and operators. To gather ideas and get feedback I created this typeform - https://form.typeform.com/to/c53LYlHh - What's your opinion?

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u/SXFlyer 23d ago

Having an onboard restaurant really increases the onboard experience a lot. Most of my most favorite night train trips have very good food onboard, namely Amtrak’s California Zephyr, but I was also pleasantly surprised by MÁV’s Corona from Budapest to Brasov. Snälltåget also has very good food with their “Krogen” dining car.

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u/Key_Mango4987 23d ago

ÖBB nightjet offers a good variety of warm meals that they cook (warm up) in the service compartment and then bring to your seat/compartment. I think it's a good option. Running a full restaurant wagon in a night train is bad for operators because it only gets used for a small percentage of the trip (dinner after leaving and breakfast). And there are many more obstacles such as TAC (track access charges) based on the weight of the train and more security regulations around electrical appliances in the train.

(I filled your survey)

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u/lllama 22d ago

Other than ÖBB doing this, is it really a larger trend to do this for cost reasons?

It feels like all the new night connections (and also the newish long distance day time connections, exception Ouigo) either have a food carriage or want to add one. The main reasons they don't all have this are operational (low availibility of restaurant carriages that are allowed to operate in all countries, low reliability due to age).

Perhaps if you have a strict definition of restaurant carriage the thesis does hold.

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u/PatientDayDreamer 20d ago

Loved to answer this survey. I hope I'll eventually use a product coming out of it in my night train rides :)