The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
‘Night creeps in over a Great American Songbook set...’
Florence Derrick dances into the early hours on the new Jazz Express ‘sleeper’ to Berlin
Deep in the Dutch countryside, the vintage train trundles past windmill-dotted hay fields and canals stacked with state-of-the-art houseboats. Cyclists stop to watch as the burgundy carriages roll between level crossings, slow enough for the lilting sound of a saxophone solo to lazily drift through the open windows and into the late-June breeze. On board, the Ntjam Rosie Quartet croons out soulful R&B, while a packedtogether audience sips on €2 beers and sways to the rhythm of steel tyres and bongos, languid in the goldenhour heat.
Having left Rotterdam at sunset, the first outing of the Jazz Night Express is in full swing. Travelling overnight to Berlin via Amsterdam, it hosts an eclectic line-up of jazz acts. Engineer Chris Engelsman is responsible for the idea, which incorporates sleeper cars, two live music carriages, an area for book readings and talks, and a restaurant. Hiring out a rickety, Eighties train to reinvent the magic of old-school travel, Engelsman calls it a “jazz festival with a night train message”. In partnership with Rotterdam jazz festival North Sea Round Town, the train links the Dutch music capital with one of the world’s hottest jazz cities.
“The rhythm of jazz and the train go well together,” explains
Engelsman. “I’ve always loved night trains. When I was growing up, every day the Nord Express would pass my house. But the last night train in Holland was cancelled in 2016. It was such a pity, because there’s still a demand for them.”
If anything, that demand is increasing – as seen by the reintroduction at the beginnning of this year by the reintroduction of a sleeper service between Vienna and Brussels. With a sharpened awareness of flygskam, Europeans are thinking more about the impact of their holidays on the environment – a train from London to Edinburgh produces 87 per cent less CO2 emissions than a flight – and rail travel is booming as a result.
While the majority on board are Dutch and German, there are plenty of Swedes, as well as a handful of passengers from the UK, Belgium, Portugal and Italy. In a surprisingly age-diverse mix, gaggles of friends lounge on retro-blue banquettes beside older couples and young families. With the windows down and the farmland-scented air rushing through carriages swaying to brass and percussion, our 12-hour trundle to Berlin feels like the epitome of slow travel.
Night creeps in over a Great American Songbook set by the
Thijs Nissen Trio and I make my way to the retro dining car, all bright-blue curtains and varnished tables. It’s three courses for €59 (£50) – including wine that’s topped up whenever your back is turned – and surprisingly gourmet. The first course, under the name “Miles Davis”, is a sharing platter of steak tartare, chipotle chicken and smoked salmon; the “New Orleans” main course is beef bavette or asparagus and polenta tart; and the “Saxophone” dessert is a pineapple pannacotta impaled by a shard of tempered dark chocolate.
The music is due to come to a close at half-past midnight. But all scheduling is thrown out the window in the party carriage, where DJ Maestro is spinning funk, house and soul. Reserves of cheap beer are starting to run low as we move on to gin and tonics, dancing ever more wildly into the early hours of the morning. We briefly pull in at Bad Bentheim and Hanover, and passengers spill on to the platform to smoke and swing each other around in the balmy night air.
When the train creaks to a halt at Berlin Zoo, at 7.30am on the dot, I’ve had three hours’ sleep. New-found friends exchange hugs and contact details.
Engelsman is elated at the night’s success: “In the future, we’re considering a Jazz Night Train to Copenhagen, an Oktoberfest outing to Munich and a party train to Eurovision in the Netherlands,” he enthuses.
While the passengers are enthralled by the train’s romanticism, the musicians love it, too – “it was up close and personal, like playing a livingroom set,” singer Ntjam Rosie tells me – and the first trip even caught the eye of the Dutch national rail network, who hosted an on-board talk on the future of the night train. With Austria’s ÖBB and the Swedish government both expanding night-train services, perhaps the golden years of sleeper services aren’t behind us after all.
The next Jazz Night Express from Rotterdam to Berlin runs on July 3: tickets from €169 (£142) one-way; €268 return ( jazznightexpress.nl).
‘We’re now considering a Eurovision party train and an outing to Oktoberfest’