Maiden voyage of Brussels to Venice night train "couldn't even enter Italy": Here's why

The maiden voyage of a night train from Brussels to Venice didn't make it to its final destination yesterday due to issues at the Italian border.

Instead, the train stopped in Innsbruck in Austria, 313km short of its destination, and passengers were moved onto a different train to complete their journey to Venice.

Train operator European Sleeper had called the route a "significant milestone" for the company, saying their "mission is to reconnect Europe’s cities by night, providing travellers with more options for sustainable and comfortable."

Innsbruck was intended to be a "prominent stop" rather than the train's final destination.

Elmer van Buuren, one of the two founders of the Dutch private railway company European Sleeper told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, that the Italian railways gave them little notice:

"It took nine months, hundreds of phone calls and meetings to start this project. We have set separate appointments with five services similar to ProRail, in each country crossed. It seemed that everything was settled, when, last week, the Italians began to change their minds and called us to tell us that we could not go beyond Bolzano.

Now it turned out that we couldn’t even enter Italy. They did not provide any reason. It is a typical phenomenon especially of the railways in Europe."

Train travel expert Mark Smith, who runs the website the Man in Seat 61, was on the train.

He reports that the locomotive engines needed to escort the train into Venice were not available. He says European Sleeper were only informed of the engine issue on 4 February, the day before the train left Brussels.

"The train was due to terminate in Verona as two locomotives are needed to ‘top and tail’ the train in and out of Venice, as the