End of the Line for France's Night Trains?

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A bit more detail from the Railway Gazette here.

The sleepers fall under the remit of the Trains d’Equilibre du Territoire (TET) programme. TET doesn't really translate ("regional balancing trains") but covers all non-high-speed inter-regional long distance trains. This is basically everything using the venerable Corail carriages hauled by a locomotive that isn't devolved down to the regional TER body. So it's not just sleepers, it's also some of the non-TGV daytime service.

I haven't ridden a sleeper in France since 2007, when I traveled from Strasbourg (in north-easten France) to Marseille (on the south coast). The trains were about as stripped of expense as was possible. No catering or bar car, just berths with low cost sleep sacks and pillows on each bed.

With the growth of the LGV network and the reach of the TGV, there isn't much purpose for a slow long distance train, sadly.
 
France isn't alone. Japan had most of its overnight long distance routes scrapped. Only the "Sunrise Izumo" and the "Sunrise Seto" remain, in which their route length is comparable to the Pennsylvanian, Vermonter, Maple Leaf, and the Northeast Corridor. The rest of them have been scrapped.

Here are some of the Japanese sleeper services that have been discontinued from regular services:

Hayabusa: Discontinued 2009

Nihonkai: Discontinued 2012 (currently operates as a seasonal service)

Akebono: Discontinued 2014 (currently operates as a seasonal service)

Twilight Express: Discontinued 2015 (operated as a cruise train 2015-2016 in western Japan)

Hokutosei: Discontinued 2015 (operated as a seasonal service March-August 2015)

Cassiopeia: Discontinued 2016

At this point, only God knows when the two Sunrises will be discontinued, but I won't be surprised if that will happen to these last two Japanese sleeper trains.

These info are from Wikipedia. For a more detailed list, see the following Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_named_passenger_trains_of_Japan#Night_trains
 
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