Adrien Aumont — Midnight Trains won’t become Belgian. Despite interest from the Belgian Minister of Transport, and despite his desire to put us in touch with Brussels banks, there are no more guarantees there than here in France. But since Clément Beaune and his teams keep snubbing us, we’re exploring other directions. We’re digging into all the leads, knocking on all the doors and meeting everyone who operates the French and European railways in the hope of finding other solutions.
This undertaking, which is somewhere between door-knocking and an adventure quest, leads us to lunch with two big SNCF bosses in July 2023. It’s to discuss a possible equipment takeover agreement in the event of bankruptcy, which is one of the ways to guarantee the purchase of our trains. But these two senior managers stop us in our tracks: the vast majority of rolling stock belongs to the General Directorate of Infrastructure, Transport and Mobility (DGITM). So they can't do anything for us on this subject. However, they advise us to meet Clément Beaune to try to move forward on this issue. But the truth is, we’ve tried everything, and have activated all the connections within our reach, with no outcome. One of them tells us not to worry - he’ll take care of it.
A few days later - bingo. We receive an email saying that the Minister of Transport Clément Beaune will meet us on August 29th 2023 at 6.30pm. There’s no flex on date or time, but it’s a formal appointment. It’s proof - if it were needed - of the real bosses of French railways. And, spoiler alert - they don’t work in a ministry.
Romain Payet — We arrive at the minister’s office at the end of the summer. Except that this time, we’re not making a list of all the obstacles we've encountered. We don't deliver a map to reuse in a Tweet that doesn't mention us. We’re focusing on the urgent and unique need for guarantees on our rolling stock: the few drops of water needed to germinate the seed of the Midnight Trains project. The minister tells us that he believes in the night train and in our model, as well as how our offer complements SNCF. But he can’t help us directly. And because there’s no coconuts without shaking a few trees, Clément Beaune suggests we get creative and head to other ministries: to the Minister for Economy, Bruno Le Maire and the Minister for Industry, Roland Lescure.
So we book meetings with both ministers in the following weeks. But this turns out to be a trap, or a mirage, at best. When Roland Lescure's advisor, who we see first, hears that we’re going to his colleagues next, he gets rid of us, telling us it’s not his problem and that we should see the guys across the street next. So we go to our second meeting of the day, with a member of Bruno Le Maire's cabinet. But he sends us to someone else: the Ministry of Transport, who sent us there in the first place… He explains to us that he has the financial means to help us with our guarantees. It’s back to square one.
Nicolas Bargelès — It’s the last avenue to find guarantees on the purchase of our rolling stock: the European Commission and, in a way, a return to Brussels. The fourth railway package may have completed the community legal framework for the opening of the European rail market, but the teams have noticed that reality differs from theory. The creation of new international lines in continental Europe is rare, so the European Commission is identifying around ten cross-border train projects in January 2023 to analyse their difficulties and, possibly, contribute to bringing them to light: institutional support on one side, feedback on the other. This selection has a bit of everything: Flix on routes Leipzig-Berlin-Stockholm and Munich-Zurich, WESTbahn between Munich and Budapest, Trenitalia and Deutsche Bahn who want to cooperate to launch Milan-Munich and Rome-Munich trains, our European Sleeper colleagues running between Amsterdam and Barcelona, and us, with our Paris-Milan-Venice line.
This pilot program doesn’t have a single euro to help the new entrants like us, but it does open a few doors for us in Brussels, starting with the European Investment Bank (EIB). Only problem is, when we arrive, we’re told that the most important letter in their name is B. Above all, it’s a bank and we can’t count on it to offer us access facilities. It’s true, it would be a shame if a European institution could help European companies enter a European market open to all through European laws. Imagine the paradox there... Then we’re told that the EIB isn’t under the thumb of the European Commission, and that its teams aren’t at attention when the latter sends them people. Either way, there’s no solution they can provide for us. Nevertheless, they recognise that there’s a problem with the guarantees of rolling stock for new entrants. It’s the same issue for incumbent operators. Even if they benefit from implicit or explicit guarantees from their origin states. As for the EIB bankers, they’re like rabbits caught in headlights.
It’s both reassuring and infuriating. Reassuring because we’re not the only ones in this situation, or the only ones to suffer from an open access rail leasing market still in its infancy. It’s exasperating, because everyone knows it’s a problem, but no one is doing anything to change it. To succeed, we need to bring partners along with us. But that’s where things get really stuck. To build carbon-free transport solutions in Europe and create a rail offer that covers journeys of 1,500km that compete with air travel...we'll come back to that.
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