City Night Line , abbreviated CNL , was a train category of German railway company Deutsche Bahn for overnight passenger train services between Germany and neighbouring European countries.
In late , Deutsche Bahn announced that it planned to terminate all night train services in December , [ 1 ] and this plan was implemented on 11 December It was run by the same management team as DB Autozug GmbH, so that responsibility for all night train categories, which still form the core element of the City Night Line network, lay with one single source from then on.
The management of services, rolling stock and pricing of CityNightLine and its then DB counterpart NachtZug , however, remained separate. On introduction of the new timetable on 15 December , the DB Nachtzug portfolio was increased to 20 trains. The target was to establish overnight services as a supplementary product to high-speed trains over long distances between and km.
The line network was then redesigned to reflect these new objectives: routes which ran parallel to long-distance services were discontinued, other routes were systematically extended, destinations with strong seasonal fluctuations and tourist destinations were replaced by daytime services. In the course of this bundling process, older passenger cars were taken out of service.
Since then, the entire fleet of sleeping, couchette and seated cars has been fully air-conditioned. The cars were given a uniform livery in white with red window stripe and all-white doors. The service was standardised on all lines. The night lines were originally operated by the former railway company CityNightLine. At the end of , the domestic night trains between Munich and Berlin were also terminated. In December , Deutsche Bahn decided to cancel all remaining night train services including City Night Line, effective December City Night Line trains were made up of compartment or open-saloon coaches with reclining seats, couchette cars, sleeping cars and dining cars.
