From a Scandi sleeper to an underrated Scottish city link, here are five new train routes confirmed or planned for 2026.
Train travel across Europe is set to get a major boost in 2026. A survey of 11,000 people commissioned by rail manufacturer Hitachi Rail found that one-third of respondents expect to travel more by train in the next 12 months.
Over the next five years, that increases to 40 per cent across countries and 49 per cent across cities.
Train-loving travellers will be pleased to hear, then, that there are five new routes in the pipeline scheduled to begin running next year.
From a revived Paris–Berlin sleeper to a brand-new Prague–Copenhagen daytime service, here are five new train routes confirmed or planned for 2026.
Earlier this year, Austrian national rail operator ÖBB announced its night trains linking Paris with Vienna and Berlin would be discontinued from 14 December, following the French government’s withdrawal of funding.
However, European Sleeper has since announced that it will take over the route, with the first train scheduled to run on 26 March 2026.
The service will operate three times a week with departures likely to be from Paris Gare du Nord on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday evenings and the return service from Berlin Hauptbahnhof and Ostbahnhof on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, according to the Guardian.
Late 2026 will see a faster service linking Paris to Munich
Further boosting cross-border links between France and Germany will be a new service linking Paris and Munich, slated to launch at the end of 2026.
The high-speed route will be run by Germany’s Deutsche Bahn and France’s SNCF.
There is already one TGV train per day that runs in each direction, but the two rail operators say the new services will be faster and more frequent.
Details have not yet been released about timetables or pricing.
New Prague to Copenhagen train will have a children’s cinema
Deutsche Bahn (DB), Danish Railways (DSB) and Czech Railways (ČD) are teaming up to offer the new direct connection from Prague to Copenhagen via Berlin, which will launch on 1 May 2026.
The year-round daytime service will run in both directions and is expected to take just seven hours between Copenhagen and Berlin, and around eleven hours between Copenhagen and Prague.
The operators will also extend a summer season night train that currently links Hamburg and Copenhagen onward to Prague.