EuroCity

The names are printed on brochures showing the times of arrival and departure at every stop and details of the journey; these are placed on the seats by the train staff.

On 29 July 1991, the European Community decided to reorganise the legal structure of the railways in order to stimulate commercial operation and reduce government subsidies.

Night services are shown in blue on the map, with the exception of the boat-train Benjamin Britten (London–Amsterdam), whose overnight portion was by ferry, not by train.

The network was set up by the national railways of Norway, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, and the European Community.

After the historic developments occurring in Central and Eastern Europe regarding the fall of Communism around that time, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia became part of the system in 1991, and Poland in 1992.

In 1993 the night services were rebranded as the EuroNight network, the start of a gradual decline in the number of EuroCity trains in Western Europe.

In Central and Eastern Europe more services were introduced, and over a period of 25 years the centre of the EC network had shifted east.

This is due to tariff reasons: in Germany, EC normally are classified below ICE, the highest class, and thus slightly cheaper.

ECE however are the same rank as ICE, and are priced as such, as the Deutsche Bahn claims them to provide similar levels of comfort.