Transport
How a small town got its night train back
For eleven years the last train left at 9:40 pm. Then 2,300 people signed a letter, and a timetable office listened.
By Jonas Weber, reporter
Oct 9, 20266 min read
When the late train to Wendel was cut in 2015, the reason given was simple. Too few people used it, about forty on an average night.1 What nobody counted was how many people stopped taking the evening train altogether because they could not get home.
Lena Brandt, who runs the bookshop by the station, started the letter on a Tuesday. By Friday it hung in eleven shop windows. The wording was short and polite and asked for one thing only, a train at 11:10 pm on weekdays.2
What changed the answer
The letter alone would not have done it. What helped was a count the town did itself. For six weeks, volunteers stood at the bus stop where the replacement taxi left and noted every person who asked for a later train.3 The number they brought to the regional office was 212 a night.
The train has run again since June. It is not full, but it is busier than the forty people of 2015, and the bookshop now stays open until eight on Thursdays.