Prague - Czech railways will replace the night express train from Prague to Košice with an international express train that will not stop along the way.

Not even in Vsetín, a Moravian city with 28,000 inhabitants. People from the northeastern Moravia will lose their first morning and last evening train to the capital towards the end of the year.

"The railway company should consider with more sensitivity which stations can be skipped," said Květoslava Othová, the mayor of Vsetín that is more than 300 km away from Prague.

"We want to make our passengers feel safer. The more stops there are, the higher the risk is of a thief getting on. We have come across several cases of mafias stealing from the passengers on the night trains," says Karel Hanzelka, the spokesman for the transportation ministry.

Police in charge

It is mainly the police who watch the passengers on the night trains. "Police can check people's IDs, which is something that the train security is not allowed to do. But we cannot give tasks to the police. We even do not have any timetable available of what trains the police will be on," says Petr Šťáhlavský.

"The passenger closes an agreement with the transporting company after purchasing the ticket. The transporting company is required to make sure that passengers are safe even without the help of police," Veronika Benediktová, the spokesperson of the police headquarters said.

"Making the night trains more comfortable is a trend in all of Europe nowadays. The train does not stop at night, the passengers are not disturbed and they are safe," the railway spokesperson said.

Ministry is wrong

"The argument presented by the Transport Ministry is out-of-the-way. In order to make people traveling from Prague in a safe way, we will make people from my region not to travel at all?" Vsetín city council spokesperson Eva Stejskalová wondered.

While confronted with the remark that the transportation will not become faster for people from the Zlín region, spokesperson Hanzelka had a quick answer: "But it will become faster for other people."

The reason for cutting down train connections is the low amount of passengers. "In station Valašské Meziříčí in Moravia, only five people got off and ten people got on a train going from Slovakia," said Hanzelka, the spokesman for the Transport Ministry.

The railway connection between Prague and Košice is unique in Europe. "You would not find another place with so many night trains of the same category. That is why one of them will be replaced by the train Euronight," Šťáhlavský explained.

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Together fighting the ministry

People in Eastern Moravia are unhappy about the planned changes and regional administration decided to fight hand in hand against the national government.

"Together with the regional officials, we decided to ask the Transport Ministry to change the schedule so that these restrictions do not even happen," Květoslava Othová, the mayor of Vsetín informed.