Luna Rail puts its night train pods in a real coach
Berlin start-up Luna Rail will show its Hotel Pod and Seat Pod cabin concepts in a converted passenger coach at InnoTrans in September — the first time the designs move beyond mock-ups.
The company announced the plan on 11 August. The coach is being converted at the Luna Rail Lab to serve as a development, testing and demonstration platform for the cabin systems.
Both designs target the economics of overnight rail. They aim to let the same vehicles switch between daytime and overnight service, raising the utilisation of rolling stock that would otherwise run only at night.
Two cabin types, one capacity argument
The Hotel Pod is a private cabin with a wide seating and sleeping area, a large window and an integrated multimedia system; at night the seat converts into a bed. The Seat Pod is a smaller cabin that keeps individual privacy in less space.
The company says both formats hold capacity at a relatively high level within an existing coach — its answer to the low passenger density that has weighed on night train economics.
We want to be the driving force behind the night train renaissance in Europe, chief executive Anton Dubrau said in the announcement.
Luna Rail has spent two years on design, prototyping and testing ahead of the conversion. InnoTrans runs from 22 to 25 September in Berlin.