Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder.

Today I am delighted to be joined by Bernhard Riga.

He is the spokesperson for Austrian Railways night jets.

And Bernard, you're very welcome.

Tell us what night jets are, please.

Yeah, night jet is the alternative travelling through Europe by train and not using the plane.

Especially when you talk about long distance train in Europe, it takes a day during the daytime.

So we have the alternative going by a night train. And the night chat

is the leading brand for these night travels in Europe, operating 21 lines traveling for Europe.

Give us an idea of where those lines go.

We are operating 21 lines. So Europe is the focus of Austria, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.

And in addition, we are running lines to the Netherlands, Belgium and France.

Just recently we introduced a new service from Berlin to Paris and from Berlin to Brussels,

so also very international services we offering.

How come Austrian Railways is doing this and not, for example, German Railways,

Deutsche Bahn or French Railways, SNCF?

What is the magic that Austrian Railways has?

Most of the state operators reduced the service in the 90s and the latest in 2010, most of them skipped the international nitrogen service. So only some domestic lines were remaining in France or in Italy.

And for us it was very important that we step into this market, 2016, introducing a brand nightshut.

And at the moment, we run 21 lines and are the leader in this business.

But what's very important is we need partners.

And nowadays, we're working together with

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