Belgian entrepreneurs start a night train between Brussels and Berlin
From April 2022, two Belgian entrepreneurs will start the Moonlight Express night train connection between Brussels, Liège and Berlin. Initiators Louis Lammertyn and Louis De Jaeger also have plans to connect Belgium with the south of France and Barcelona.
Departure from Brussels with the Moonlight Express will be at 8 pm and the train arrives in Berlin at 9 am. This makes the travel time a total of 13 hours. With the new international night train connection, Brussels can further develop as an international train hub with various providers, according to the entrepreneurs. The company was founded a year ago, and is not the only new entrant on the European night train market. Dutch start up European Sleeper presented plans this week for a night train from Brussels to Prague from 2022.
Lammertyn and De Jaeger are two young Belgian entrepreneurs who enjoy traveling. In recent years, it has begun to gnaw at them that their mode of travel “was not in line with their environmental commitment”. Lammertyn and De Jaeger are consultants in the field of sustainability. De Jaeger with regard to agriculture and Lammertyn with regard to transport and renewable energy. “I have been doing restructuring projects in the aviation industry for several years,” says Lammertyn. “I have especially seen the pace at which we are destroying the earth by our way of traveling.”
At the same time, the initiators understand that people would like to go out and will continue to do so, especially after the corona pandemic. De Jaeger: “The train offers a great alternative for people who want to travel with a clear conscience and it should not be boring. Instead of competing purely on speed or price for transport from A to B, we focus on affordable and high-quality travel time.”
Moonlight Express
The entrepreneurs founded Moonlight Express a year ago to create “magical travel experiences” with the night train. De Jaeger: “We actually see a night train as a time machine. A stress-free journey starts from the moment the traveller leaves. He or she gets an aperitif, can eat something tasty local and healthy and gets the chance to meet nice people in their own compartment or the bar wagon. You can sleep safely and comfortably in a real bed and you arrive rested. ”
“A project of this size requires quite a bit of preparation, but we are pleased that after more than a year of discussions with various German and Belgian partners, we can further get this company on track,” says Lammertyn.
The night train connection between Brussels and Berlin via Liège starts from April 2022. Ticket prices for a bed in a shared compartment in the Moonlight Express start from 49 euros per person.
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