I remember taking the rump ‘Orient Express’ back in 1998, when it still ran from Budapest’s Keleti station to Paris – not the most luxurious of trains, but still exciting. I was sorry to hear of its demise and happy that it has now effectively been revived – the Brussels-Vienna link is a brilliant idea and one that deserves to succeed.
I think some credit should be given to the Austrian state railways for saving and then reviving sleeper services across Europe – Nightjet is run by them, and is responsible for most of the new services which have appeared so far. They were the ones who took over a lot of the routes and carriages abandoned by Deutsche Bahn ten years ago, and they were already announcing further expansion back in 2016. They have turned Vienna into a hub from which you can reach Budapest, Trieste and lots of other points east by sleeper from Western Europe.
Also, while the Bolshevik revolution did indeed cut Russia off from most connections to Western Europe, there is a night train between Berlin and Moscow, which I have taken in both directions (they now lift the train onto new bogeys at Brest-Litovsk rather than Eydtkuhnen). And the former USSR itself is still a paradise for lovers of the sleeper train – not just the Transsiberian, which is rather over-rated (six days looking at pine forests), but the luxurious Moscow-Petersburg overnight trains, Riga – Moscow, trains to destinations such as Orenburg or Ufa in the Ural (a comfortable 24hr journey) or, best of all, into Central Asia, to Almaty or Tashkent, where you fall asleep after passing the Volga and wake up in the steppe, surrounded by camels. Every carriage has its own samovar, ensuring a constant supply of tea – very civilised indeed!
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Whatever the reason, I would support train travel. It is enjoyable and relaxing, unlike airports. My last time on a sleeper was on Amtrak from New Orleans to New York and I loved the experience. I wonder how long distance Amtrak is doing now.
Mr Biden is very keen on Amtrak, wants to modernise and expand. But who knows?
I had a wonderful experience on the Silver Star (Richmond Va to Tampa) many years ago, reading Winnie the Pooh to my 3 year old daughter in her bunk with the cabin door open. When I turned round, there was a crowd behind me listening!
I have an Amtrak sleeper booked for my wife’s birthday this month.
New York to Charleston (and back!).
We are looking forward to the journey as well as the chance to visit such a famous city and the hope of some warmer weather.
You set me off on a reverie about Charleston there! Not by train from the UK of course, but I would probably be there right now if not for Covid stuff, celebrating our wedding anniversary as we did for most of the last 15 years. Have a wonderful visit!
When my wife was alive we did Flagstaff to Pittsburgh, which is two overnights, had a great time, and met new people. Bears and buffalo visible from the observation car! It’s a form of travel that most people don’t realize still exists.
Jürg Gassmann
2 years ago
Pricing needs to be addressed. It is ridiculous that long-distance train travel is so much more expensive than flying.
I have enjoyed overnight rail many times, whether it was the camaraderie of travelling Europe in couchette as a student on a Eurail Pass, or later in sleeper, where a good overnight sleep and arriving in the city centre – and often not a capital city, but one not that easily reachable by air – beat hectic airports, flights too short to relax, and interminable hassles transferring from airports to city centres, regularly missing at least half a night’s sleep at one end or the other.
Back in the 1990s GEC Alstom in Birmingham built “Channel Tunnel Nightstock”, which were luxury night-time sleeper trains between UK and European cities. The investors pulled the plug because it couldn’t compete with the low cost airlines, and I think the taxpayer footed the bill. They were sold to Canada for next to nothing.
Electronic systems were subcontracted to the company I still work for, and we got as far as taking it through the tunnel for tests
Stephan Quentin
2 years ago
Sleeper trains have enjoyed a quiet a comeback for some years now. My youngest daughter recently had to go to Sweden for a few weeks. We were delighted to discover that a nighttrain service from Berlin to Stockholm already exists. For a few years now it has been possible to travel on a Nightjet train from Berlin to Zurich. When I recently researched how we could get from Berlin to northern Italy without flying we found that there is a Nightjet connection from Munich to Rome, stopping over in Florence, Bologna etc. We leave Berlin at about 3 pm, arrive in Munich at 7 pm. switch over to the Nightjet and arrive in Florence city Center at 7 am. Perfect! This is a very exciting time for travel in Europe. In a few years we will be able to get almost anywhere without having to bother with noisy and overcrowded airports and polluting flights. I think one of the main drivers behind this debelopment is the increasing aversion against flying as an important contributor to climate change. As a further development, the airline industry may take this competition as an additional spur to speed up the development of climate neutral fuels. They still won´t be able to beat the romanticism of train travel.
William MacDougall
2 years ago
There was still a Paris-Moscow sleeper train before Covid, and there likely will be another once travel restrictions ease. Sleeper trains have been going out of fashion elsewhere because of high speed trains and air travel; having tried all three, I expect sleeper trains will continue to be a minority taste, at best, in the future.
Marcus Scott
2 years ago
Fantastic idea.
First, we need to do the following:
stop all taxpayer subsidies to rail; and
introduce a Rail Passenger Duty that raises the same amount of money as Air Passenger Duty does each year, around £3.7bn
“Level the playing field” for those who aren’t brainwashed by propaganda.
Last edited 2 years ago by Jeffrey Chongsathien
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Driving back from Austria 25 years ago I put the car on a train in Munich in the evening, went into town for dinner and beer, then boarded the sleeper train and woke up in Cologne. It knocked 350 miles off the distance I had to drive and only cost about £100. I’d have spent £50 on petrol, given what I was driving, plus a hotel night. So not only was it very civilised, it even saved me money.
An essential resource if you like trains is https://www.seat61.com/. It tells you how to get pretty well anywhere starting in London with the Eurostar, eg London to Istanbul via Bucharest in 4 days: https://www.seat61.com/Turkey.htm#london-to-istanbul-via-bucharest
Of course you can break this journey in either direction if you get bored of sitting on trains.
Chris Milburn
2 years ago
Thoughts from Canada: As someone from the east coast (NS) who lived in Ontario for some time I often took the train (whenever my schedule allowed). Train service has been greatly reduced over time, but for any train afficionados (?sp) I highly recommend catching it before its demise. One can get on a train in Montreal (eastern terminus of “the corridor” in Ontario/Quebec with Windsor being the western terminus), hop on a train in the evening, and arrive in Halifax early the next afternoon. Spectacular scenery, great food in the dining car, observation car is wonderful, and the beds are very comfortable. One arrives downtown having slept/showered and seen the country roll by outside their window. My wife and I always brought a bottle of wine and a movie, and loved the experience on every occasion.
Brendan O'Leary
2 years ago
I like train travel but I’m done with sleepers. My maximum comfort level is five hours and then sleep in a hotel.
Dii Stitt
2 years ago
Thoughts from Australia. The Indian Pacific (East West or vice versa) and The Ghan (North Southern or vice versa) are alive and well here. Although, as others have said, expensive. The main attraction for me is the slowing down nature and the taking in of a country that train travel (and sleepers) bring.
Those trains are massively subsidised and run two or three times a week at most.
Everyone should do it once for a holiday but once is enough and they’re impractical otherwise.
Will R
2 years ago
Enjoyed the article – thanks
Jeffrey Chongsathien
2 years ago
As an experience, sure, but from a utilitarian perspective, unlikely. My bugbear is that most people are filthy animals, unless they’re Japanese. Recall the filth at the end of a pre-2020 flight – air travel got cheap, the proletariat and lumpenproletariat started travelling en masse, then the planes became garbage dumps. British trains are disgusting… wouldn’t want to sleep in one.
Snake Oil Cat
2 years ago
Cheap flights are unsustainable. Not just environmentally, but also in a narrow, business sense. Time on a train can be used productively, unlike time spent queueing in an airport or fuming in a traffic jam.
Peter Collins
1 year ago
We took an overnight sleeper train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand a few years ago. Runs nightly. Ditto from Hanoi to Hue in Vietnam. Both interesting and positive experiences. And decent sleep, too!
I remember taking the rump ‘Orient Express’ back in 1998, when it still ran from Budapest’s Keleti station to Paris – not the most luxurious of trains, but still exciting. I was sorry to hear of its demise and happy that it has now effectively been revived – the Brussels-Vienna link is a brilliant idea and one that deserves to succeed.
I think some credit should be given to the Austrian state railways for saving and then reviving sleeper services across Europe – Nightjet is run by them, and is responsible for most of the new services which have appeared so far. They were the ones who took over a lot of the routes and carriages abandoned by Deutsche Bahn ten years ago, and they were already announcing further expansion back in 2016. They have turned Vienna into a hub from which you can reach Budapest, Trieste and lots of other points east by sleeper from Western Europe.
Also, while the Bolshevik revolution did indeed cut Russia off from most connections to Western Europe, there is a night train between Berlin and Moscow, which I have taken in both directions (they now lift the train onto new bogeys at Brest-Litovsk rather than Eydtkuhnen). And the former USSR itself is still a paradise for lovers of the sleeper train – not just the Transsiberian, which is rather over-rated (six days looking at pine forests), but the luxurious Moscow-Petersburg overnight trains, Riga – Moscow, trains to destinations such as Orenburg or Ufa in the Ural (a comfortable 24hr journey) or, best of all, into Central Asia, to Almaty or Tashkent, where you fall asleep after passing the Volga and wake up in the steppe, surrounded by camels. Every carriage has its own samovar, ensuring a constant supply of tea – very civilised indeed!
Whatever the reason, I would support train travel. It is enjoyable and relaxing, unlike airports. My last time on a sleeper was on Amtrak from New Orleans to New York and I loved the experience. I wonder how long distance Amtrak is doing now.
Mr Biden is very keen on Amtrak, wants to modernise and expand. But who knows?
I had a wonderful experience on the Silver Star (Richmond Va to Tampa) many years ago, reading Winnie the Pooh to my 3 year old daughter in her bunk with the cabin door open. When I turned round, there was a crowd behind me listening!
I have an Amtrak sleeper booked for my wife’s birthday this month.
New York to Charleston (and back!).
We are looking forward to the journey as well as the chance to visit such a famous city and the hope of some warmer weather.
You set me off on a reverie about Charleston there! Not by train from the UK of course, but I would probably be there right now if not for Covid stuff, celebrating our wedding anniversary as we did for most of the last 15 years. Have a wonderful visit!
When my wife was alive we did Flagstaff to Pittsburgh, which is two overnights, had a great time, and met new people. Bears and buffalo visible from the observation car! It’s a form of travel that most people don’t realize still exists.
Pricing needs to be addressed. It is ridiculous that long-distance train travel is so much more expensive than flying.
I have enjoyed overnight rail many times, whether it was the camaraderie of travelling Europe in couchette as a student on a Eurail Pass, or later in sleeper, where a good overnight sleep and arriving in the city centre – and often not a capital city, but one not that easily reachable by air – beat hectic airports, flights too short to relax, and interminable hassles transferring from airports to city centres, regularly missing at least half a night’s sleep at one end or the other.
Why is it ridiculous that the trains cost more than flying? They use more of scarce material and staff resources, including land.
Don’t forget, aviation fuel is tax free. If they paid anything like their fair share on it hardly anybody would fly anywhere.
It’s not at all unclear whether the Greens plans are unrealistic.
It’s very clear.
I bet its not that green either
Back in the 1990s GEC Alstom in Birmingham built “Channel Tunnel Nightstock”, which were luxury night-time sleeper trains between UK and European cities. The investors pulled the plug because it couldn’t compete with the low cost airlines, and I think the taxpayer footed the bill. They were sold to Canada for next to nothing.
Electronic systems were subcontracted to the company I still work for, and we got as far as taking it through the tunnel for tests
Sleeper trains have enjoyed a quiet a comeback for some years now. My youngest daughter recently had to go to Sweden for a few weeks. We were delighted to discover that a nighttrain service from Berlin to Stockholm already exists. For a few years now it has been possible to travel on a Nightjet train from Berlin to Zurich. When I recently researched how we could get from Berlin to northern Italy without flying we found that there is a Nightjet connection from Munich to Rome, stopping over in Florence, Bologna etc. We leave Berlin at about 3 pm, arrive in Munich at 7 pm. switch over to the Nightjet and arrive in Florence city Center at 7 am. Perfect! This is a very exciting time for travel in Europe. In a few years we will be able to get almost anywhere without having to bother with noisy and overcrowded airports and polluting flights. I think one of the main drivers behind this debelopment is the increasing aversion against flying as an important contributor to climate change. As a further development, the airline industry may take this competition as an additional spur to speed up the development of climate neutral fuels. They still won´t be able to beat the romanticism of train travel.
There was still a Paris-Moscow sleeper train before Covid, and there likely will be another once travel restrictions ease. Sleeper trains have been going out of fashion elsewhere because of high speed trains and air travel; having tried all three, I expect sleeper trains will continue to be a minority taste, at best, in the future.
Fantastic idea.
First, we need to do the following:
Level up the playing field.
“Level the playing field” for those who aren’t brainwashed by propaganda.
Driving back from Austria 25 years ago I put the car on a train in Munich in the evening, went into town for dinner and beer, then boarded the sleeper train and woke up in Cologne. It knocked 350 miles off the distance I had to drive and only cost about £100. I’d have spent £50 on petrol, given what I was driving, plus a hotel night. So not only was it very civilised, it even saved me money.
An essential resource if you like trains is https://www.seat61.com/. It tells you how to get pretty well anywhere starting in London with the Eurostar, eg London to Istanbul via Bucharest in 4 days:
https://www.seat61.com/Turkey.htm#london-to-istanbul-via-bucharest
Of course you can break this journey in either direction if you get bored of sitting on trains.
Thoughts from Canada: As someone from the east coast (NS) who lived in Ontario for some time I often took the train (whenever my schedule allowed). Train service has been greatly reduced over time, but for any train afficionados (?sp) I highly recommend catching it before its demise. One can get on a train in Montreal (eastern terminus of “the corridor” in Ontario/Quebec with Windsor being the western terminus), hop on a train in the evening, and arrive in Halifax early the next afternoon. Spectacular scenery, great food in the dining car, observation car is wonderful, and the beds are very comfortable. One arrives downtown having slept/showered and seen the country roll by outside their window. My wife and I always brought a bottle of wine and a movie, and loved the experience on every occasion.
I like train travel but I’m done with sleepers. My maximum comfort level is five hours and then sleep in a hotel.
Thoughts from Australia. The Indian Pacific (East West or vice versa) and The Ghan (North Southern or vice versa) are alive and well here. Although, as others have said, expensive. The main attraction for me is the slowing down nature and the taking in of a country that train travel (and sleepers) bring.
Those trains are massively subsidised and run two or three times a week at most.
Everyone should do it once for a holiday but once is enough and they’re impractical otherwise.
Enjoyed the article – thanks
As an experience, sure, but from a utilitarian perspective, unlikely. My bugbear is that most people are filthy animals, unless they’re Japanese. Recall the filth at the end of a pre-2020 flight – air travel got cheap, the proletariat and lumpenproletariat started travelling en masse, then the planes became garbage dumps. British trains are disgusting… wouldn’t want to sleep in one.
Cheap flights are unsustainable. Not just environmentally, but also in a narrow, business sense. Time on a train can be used productively, unlike time spent queueing in an airport or fuming in a traffic jam.
We took an overnight sleeper train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand a few years ago. Runs nightly. Ditto from Hanoi to Hue in Vietnam. Both interesting and positive experiences. And decent sleep, too!