Night trains are not a priority

According to Vincent Kaufmann, professor at the Urban Sociology Laboratory, night trains experienced their golden age from the early 1970s to the late 1980s. Their decline can be explained by the democratization of air travel with the rise of low-cost carriers, but also by the lack of interest from railway companies, which prioritized high-speed rail. Added to this was a gradual decline in customer demand. The result: a complex service to operate, costly, relying on aging equipment and difficult to make profitable.