Do you know the film? Before Sunrise? If you just let out a dreamy sigh, then obviously you did. If not: In it an American and a French woman get to know each other on the train, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, stroll through Vienna for a night, fall in love and so on and so forth. The film turns 30 next year, which is an important anniversary for children of the nineties like me. But that’s not the point here. It’s about the two lovebirds speaking to each other for the first time in an ÖBB dining car. In one of those beautiful old wagons, with tablecloths, lamps, chairs that you can move – oh! It’s a terribly romantic scene, you don’t know who you want to adore more: the good-looking Ethan Hawke, the enchanting Julie Delpy or the really beautiful dining car.
I remember the film because I’m sitting on the Westbahn, somewhere between Vöcklabruck and Amstetten, and got a coffee. A maximally unromantic process. To do this, I go to a machine, tap it, pay with a card and pull the leash again. Yes, there are already two tables next to these devices, it has nothing to do with a dining car. There is still a dining car in the ÖBB Railjet, but it is much smaller than the old ones and exudes the charm of a rather carelessly designed canteen.
It is easy to explain why this is the case, and I will do so in a moment – but first I would like to expressly regret it again. Because it’s really a shame about the dining cars. I mean: who doesn’t like them? Have you ever taken the train from Vienna up to Semmering on a Sunday and had breakfast on the way there? If not, you’ve missed something. By the way: For a good view, please sit on the left in the direction of travel.
Eating on trains is as old as the railway itself. At the beginning, in the 19th century, orders were taken during the journey, telegraphed to the next station and served there. Dining cars as we know them were only introduced towards the end of the century. Some of these were real high-class restaurants on wheels – for example in the famous Orient Express. There, champagne was drunk and sinfully expensive food was eaten. When we think of dining cars, we usually think of luxury compartments that we know from films, for example James-Bond-Stripes or even Darjeeling Limited by Wes Anderson.
In between there were also adventurous experiments. For example, in the early 1990s: the McDonald’s dining car in Switzerland and Germany. That didn’t go well, demand was weak, the thing was discontinued – in that case it really wasn’t a shame.
And today? The spacious, elegant dining car has to give way to efficiency. They are being abolished everywhere. My colleague Aram Ghadimi recently complained that the legendary restaurants on the Czech Railway tracks were also closing.
“You can twist and turn it however you want: dining cars are not a business,” says Kurt Bauer, giving me a slight stab in the heart. Bauer manages ÖBB’s long-distance transport. He says the old dining cars, so those are out Before Sunrisehad simply reached their expiration date. The cars are 40 years old or more and have to go. And at the same time, more people have to fit on a train than before. In the old ÖBB trains there were eleven compartments with six seats each. Around 80 people fit into a Railjet carriage. What counts today is what a seat kilometer costs and which seats can be sold. Of course the dining car gets out very badly. In the Railjet it is therefore squeezed into half the length of the car – the rest still has a few first class seats.
And unfortunately we are also partly to blame for the gradual death of the dining car: We all buy something to eat and drink before the journey in these shopping temples that were once simple train stations. The operators of the dining cars also notice this. And when we buy something on the train, it’s simple things: water, coffee, sausage, beer. Yes, it may be that you recently ordered a mushroom goulash with bread dumplings, but those are outliers.
At the same time, it is incredibly complicated to operate a dining car like this. It has to be refilled in a short time at certain train stations, the employees have to be accommodated at the arrival points – at a time when normal restaurants are already having a hard time, a mobile restaurant like this is especially not easy.
Nevertheless: “We are committed to the fact that eating on the train is part of the travel culture,” says Kurt Bauer. ÖBB’s dining cars are operated by an external company, but in order for this to be profitable, ÖBB has to pay a lot of money to the company. How much? “I would count that as a trade secret,” says Bauer.
In short: the dining car will (hopefully) stay, but no longer as romantic as it was back then. And now I’ll just trot over to the vending machine and get some more Manner slices. Or maybe a Stifterl – but wine that comes from the vending machine?! Brought far hammas. It’s quite sad.
PS: Where do your favorite dining cars go? Let us know before they are all abolished.
PPS.: Of course I have to do this research again Before Sunrise and I almost fell off the couch: In the scene in the coffee house I suddenly hear and see my colleague Christian Ankowitsch. He’s sitting there with a few buddies, they’re talking some nonsense (as befits late at night in a coffee house), while next door Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are getting closer. Somehow, it seems to me, half of Vienna played in the film back then. And Christian Ankowitsch still writes with verve about everything Viennese: in Mixed set, the ZEIT Austria newsletter. If you want to watch the scene: Anko can be seen at 1:08:33, he is the man with the leather jacket.
