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Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

• robin_reala 8y ago
  The invaluable Seat61 has loads on information on how and where to take sleeper trains at https://www.seat61.com/sleepers.htm https://www.seat61.com/sleepers.htm
  • Rebelgecko 8y ago
    Thanks, I'm planning a trip to Europe later this year and this site looks like a fantastic resource.
• z2 8y ago
  Overnight trains are wonderful for traveling and saving a night's hotel. I used to take sleeper cars in China for distances that made sense (e.g. board at 9pm, arrive 7am). Some with shorter distances even optimized on sleep so that the train would stop for an hour outside the final station and arrive at a reasonable time in the morning. Unfortunately and similar with Europe, high speed rail has ended many of these schedules. On a side note, I've also failed to take this train multiple times in Japan due to its popularity: https://www.japan-rail-pass.com/japan-by-rail/travel-tips/sunrise-izumo https://www.japan-rail-pass.com/japan-by-rail/travel-tips/su...
  • calyth2018 8y ago
    That's what I did when I went around northern Europe. Took the Stockholm to Malmo, and then switch to Copenhagen. Unfortunately, I don't think there was sleeper cars. That train departed late evening, got us there in the daytime. I figured if I'm paying to sleep, I might as well be moving. I only wish that there was bunks on that train.
    • winterswift 8y ago
      There are sleeper compartments on the SJ Night trains – I took one to Malmö, but they also run to the north and across to Göteborg. https://www.sj.se/en/about/about-sj/our-trains/sj-night-train.html https://www.sj.se/en/about/about-sj/our-trains/sj-night-trai...
      • Tijdreiziger 8y ago
        > they also run to the north I took the sleeper from Stockholm to Kiruna in Lapland not too long ago. Definitely takes a while but it was a really nice experience!
    • alexanderchr 8y ago
      That Stockholm-Malmö night train is actually all sleepers except for one or two seating carriages. They tried to discontinue running it a few years ago but it’s becoming really popular so they might have just been sold out that night.
• jkaljundi 8y ago
  Smart. Fly less, kill less nature with CO2, sleep more. Have always loved the night trains here in Europe.
• kliao 8y ago
  Good in theory, but implementation was poor the one time I tried it. The 6-person sleeper car is extremely cramped (2 triple bunks), and with the passport checks at border crossings, it's difficult to get a good night's sleep. Personal safety and luggage theft was a concern as well. I canceled my return trip and booked a low cost flight instead. Maybe the extra funding will improve train conditions and process.
  • blunte 8y ago
    If you choose a 6 person sleeper car, you can't really expect much. It's a bit like a hostel - you choose it because it's cheap, not because you expect to get proper rest. To me, the 140EUR would be very much worth a private room, bathroom, and shower. It's travel + hotel, or some decent approximation. If you booked other forms of travel and an overnight hotel, you'd surely spend as much money and more time.
    • alehul 8y ago
      > a private room, bathroom, and shower What trains have you found that offer this? As an American unaccustomed to such trains, I'd be super interested to try them.
      • dragonwriter 8y ago
        > > a private room, bathroom, and shower > What trains have you found that offer this? As an American unaccustomed to such trains, I'd be super interested to try them. Just FYI, we have those in America on Amtrak long-distance trains; the Bedroom and Bedroom Suite (on both Viewliners and Superliners) have these features, as does the Accessible Bedroom on Viewliners. Roomettes don't have the shower (or the bathroom, on Superliners.)
        • alehul 8y ago
          Awesome, TIL! I live in Boston and have only traveled to New York often, but maybe I'll try a longer route sometime. :)
• reaperducer 8y ago
  I'm not sure about "revive," since sleeper trains have been coming back in Europe for years. There was a Wall Street Journal article about it recently. Sorry the link is Apple News, but that's where I bookmarked it from: https://apple.news/AdFPGWf-GTmOabJK30Za0ZQ https://apple.news/AdFPGWf-GTmOabJK30Za0ZQ
  • blunte 8y ago
    Too bad I can't read WSJ, so I can't verify what they're saying. However, I haven't had much luck finding overnight trains here. It used to be that many existed and were popular, but they started disappearing and now few routes still have overnight options.
    • reaperducer 8y ago
      If this helps... "In Europe alone, several new affordable options have materialized too, running more utilitarian services (no guided excursions, just overnight schedules). In 2017, the United Kingdom’s Great Western Railway (GWR) relaunched the Night Riviera, traveling between London and Cornwall, one of England’s sunniest corners. Also in 2017, Italy’s Trenitalia-owned Thello debuted new sleeper cars with en suite showers on their Paris to Venice route. And in June 2019, Scotland’s Caledonian Sleeper will debut highly anticipated new cars with routes from London to Glasgow and Edinburgh and Highlander routes to Aberdeen, Inverness and Fort William with en suite showers, double beds and plenty of whiskeys in the bar car."
      • Symbiote 8y ago
        "Relaunched", at least for the two British trains, seems to mean they refurbished the carriages and issued a press release. I used both of these trains as a student (late 2000s), so I'm not convinced that they weren't affordable before the relaunch.
        • ghaff 8y ago
          I also enjoyed "Cornwall, one of England’s sunniest corners" though it was admittedly mostly nice last time I was there. That said, might have been a useful option when I did a coastal walk last summer.
• novaRom 8y ago
  There are many overnight express trains in Europe. Cozy and not expensive, enough space for bikes. Warsaw-Moskow, Munich-Bologna, Paris-Tolouse, Kopenhagen-Hamburg just some examples.
• olivermarks 8y ago
  there's only 8 million people in Sweden, most of whom live near Europe in the south and in Stockholm, so this is relatively small endeavour. Still good though!
  • kryptiskt 8y ago
    There's 10 million of us now!
• nicolaslem 8y ago
  I was disappointed when I checked if it was possible to do Paris-Warsaw by night train. I imagined entering the train at 5pm, eating something, watching a movie and waking up in Paris in the morning. It sounded much better to me than spending an actual day commuting to/from far away airports and waiting in queues. Unfortunately such train does not exist, but neither does the platform that would allow searching and booking such trips across Europe.
  • Mediterraneo10 8y ago
    I second the recommendation of Bahn.de. For like two decades now it has provided a way to search train schedules across Europe when the national rail companies didn’t bother to provide their own accessible interface.
    • Xylakant 8y ago
      While you can generally search trips, last time I checked you couldn’t book anything that doesn’t either start or end in Germany.
      • gpvos 8y ago
        You can book some trips that go through Germany but don't actually start or end there (e.g., Amsterdam-Göteborg). Conversely, there are some trips that are best booked online on the web site of the national railway of a third country. For example, the site of the NMBS (Belgian Railways)[0] knows about some Dutch fare reduction cards that the DB (Germany) doesn't know about, while it also knows about more German stations than the NS (Netherlands) does, so some (admittedly fairly obscure) tickets from the Netherlands to Germany can only be bought online on their site. [0] https://www.b-europe.com/ https://www.b-europe.com/
    • Scoundreller 8y ago
      I was thoroughly confused trying to book a French train yesterday when I realized that the regular SNCF website only lets you browse train schedules. You had to lookup the schedule on another website (oui.sncf) to do the booking. Then Iberia airlines kept showing a different date at the top menubar, which was a day before what I was actually booking. Thankfully the date in the body was correct.
• avolcano 8y ago
  Excited about this idea. I wanted to do an overnight train in a Europe trip I did last year, but the timing and quality never quite worked out. A lot of the time, trains between cities in western Europe are annoyingly long for a day trip, but slightly _too short_ for overnight trips - almost like an NYC->London red-eye, where you arrive just after you fall asleep. The couple of overnight trains I saw that seemed like they'd work out timing-wise, like Paris to Venice, had really poor reviews, but I assume that's down to the various companies running these services, who probably haven't invested much in them lately as budget airlines continue to compete so heavily. Sweden seems perfectly set up to invest in overnighters, though, as the article notes some theoretical routes. Norway and Denmark would benefit too, I think; at one point I was investigating doing a trip that would involve going from Oslo to Copenhagen, and the only reasonable non-flight options were an overnight _ferry_ (which, all things considered, was surprisingly cheap, though I'm sure they gouge you on food and the on-ship shopping mall), or a 7 and a half hour train trip that'd take all day. If Sweden were running overnight service along that route through Gothenburg, connecting those countries, it'd be a pretty awesome way to get between places.
  • robin_reala 8y ago
    There’s a coach from Oslo to Malmö. Not sure if it goes on to Copenhagen, but it’s easy enough to walk to the train platform and be at Copenhagen in 40mins.
    • gpvos 8y ago
      I can't stand to be in a bus for more than about an hour and a half (or on a plane at all), while I can be in a train all day and enjoy the ride. YMMV.
  • jasonkester 8y ago
    That Venice train is great. Living near Paris, we can do a weekend in Venice with two full days on the ground but only one night in a hotel (which is handy since rooms start at around $400/night there.) It’s a shame that they killed off the dozen other night train destinations from here over the years. If Sweden and Norway open up as possibilities, I’ll be dragging the family up there the first sunny weekend.
• kryptiskt 8y ago
  It's just like a year ago that SJ tried to kill off the Malmö-Stockholm sleeper. I believe that this will work out when I see it.
  • danieka 8y ago
    I've read that travel on the Malmö-Stockholm sleeper is on the rise, especially by business travelers. Unfortunately I can find the source, but I think it was covered in SvD. I often travel Malmö-Stockholm for work, but quite often I'm not able to get a ticket because it's sold out.
  • kartan 8y ago
    I traveled from Stockholm to Malmö almost 5 years ago. I had a sit instead of a sleeping coach. It was a good experience. I got really early to Malmö without the stress of flying.
  • ahje 8y ago
    As I read the article, the "revival" is more about the government trying to get people to reduce their carbon footprint when travelling, and less about popular demand. That being said, I remember taking the sleeper from Stockholm to Elsinore in Denmark as a kid. Boarding the ferry while on the train was pretty awesome to a ten year-old. :P
• duxup 8y ago
  When I visited Europe many years a go I often took overnight trains with the intent of maximizing time to do things other than travel. It was a great experience, maybe not the most comfortable, but I thought it was worth it.
• dmitriid 8y ago
  In my limited experience trains are both ridiculously expensive and impossible to find in Europe. Let’s say I want to travel from Stockholm to Hamburg. It will cost an arm and a leg. And it will require a ridiculous amount of layovers (5 IIRC, with bus travel between some trains) if you can a website to actually plan such a route properly. It gets even more ridiculous the farther you travel.
  • robin_reala 8y ago
    Uh, no? Stockholm to Copenhagen on the X2000 then an overnight train to Hamburg. Not the cheapest, but it’s totally feasible.
    • eCa 8y ago
      AFAIK, the Copenhagen->Hamburg night train is seating only, it's not a sleeper train any more.
      • gpvos 8y ago
        Hasn't been since 2014 or so. But taking the night train from Stockholm to Malmö, then a local train to Copenhagen and the intercity to Hamburg works great.
  • detaro 8y ago
    I just plugged those two cities into the Deutsche Bahn website, and can now buy a ticket for a train leaving Stockholm in 8 hours (6:25 local time). 2 transfers (although routes exist with only one), 11:37 travel time. Saver fare still available: 99,90 € (regular would be 225 €). And it's not the only connection tomorrow. That said, your point somewhat stands: it really depends on the route if good options are available, I've also looked at trips that seemed possible but I couldn't make work at all. Biggest problem is often the lack of overnight connections/night trains, which mean you're limited to what you can do during the day unless there's one of the exceptions on your route. Not fun if the only overnight "connection" means spending 2:30am to 4:45am on some train station.
• danielfoster 8y ago
  It would be great to see more night trains but having taken several before, I've never really been able to fall asleep. I would love to see technical improvements to reduce rumbling and promote sleep.
  • Vekz 8y ago
    Agree with you. I took a night train from Venice Italy to Paris. The next day in Paris I had essentially prolonged motion sickness where I felt as if I was still on the train rocking with the rhytmn of the tracks about to fall out of the top bunk I had tried to sleep in.
• Tharkun 8y ago
  I'll believe it when I see it. Sleeper trains have been on the out for a while now, because they're much cheaper and often much more convenient than high speed rail. Don't want cheap and good to compete with overpriced and profitable, do we now?
• keeganjw 8y ago
  With the addition of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel potentially coming in 2028, it would be much more attractive for people in all the Nordic countries to take an overnight train into central Europe and vice versa. It looks like construction will begin this fall in Denmark. http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/green-light-74bn-tunnel-between-denmark-and-german/ http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/green-light-74b...
• leroy_masochist 8y ago
  Overnight trains are awesome and I am glad they are making a resurgence but is $5.3mm really "a major shot in the arm for Europe’s night trains overall"? That's not very much money for infrastructure. Perhaps the important thing here is that the Swedes are publicly announcing that they're spending money on this, in general. The cooler night train story is what is going on in Asia -- lots of projects in the works such as an Istanbul-Baku luxury sleeper train and major new Chinese routes such as Dushanbe-Kashgar and Lhasa-Yunnan.
  • fearhugs 8y ago
    100% agree. Would have thought $5.3m is barely be enough to fund a proper advertising campaign.
• deleted 8y ago
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• niftich 8y ago
  Sleeper trains are doing fine in Central and Eastern Europe, despite having to contend with some long running times. Sweden is trying to revive them through Denmark, which hasn't hosted night trains since 2014 [1]. There's two viable, existing routes for trains between the Central Sweden and Northern Germany. One's through the Fehmarn Belt rail ferry, and another is the long way through Jutland. Both ways take a long time compared to the distance covered. Stockholm is already ~5 hours by fast train from Copenhagen -- this segment of the journey stays the same. It's after that things get complicated and slow. Operational issues remain with changing voltages and train protection systems (ETCS Level 2 will be built out in a few years), or with the ferry. A Fehmarn Belt fixed link would be a boon for such a service, like the article says. But it remains to be seen whether that will be built. [1] https://back-on-track.eu/night-trains-to-europe-new-opportunities-to-scandinavian-sustainable-travelers/ https://back-on-track.eu/night-trains-to-europe-new-opportun...
  • rory 8y ago
    Re: Central and Eastern Europe, I took an overnight (sort of, 5AM to 5PM) sleeper train from Lviv to Budapest a couple years ago. It was quite pleasant and they managed the journey in a way I never would have expected. Instead of passenger layovers and shuffling between trains at subsequent stations, they just designated a whole car bound for Budapest and then detached & reattached it to different trains along the way. Made the long ride a surprisingly pleasant and restful experience.
    • gpvos 8y ago
      They're called though coaches (Kurswagen in German) and used to be quite common. In fact, quite a few night trains are split and recombined during the night, but usually in chunks of three or four cars.
    • fit2rule 8y ago
      One of my most pleasant travel snooze memories is waking up in a very comfortable bunk bed, looking out the window to the morning sun rising over the Danube, a castle and some vineyards and fruit gardens rolling off into the distance, slowly coming to a two hour halt and having a mountain valley full of green life splayed out for the breakfast picture.
• telesilla 8y ago
  I took a first-class sleeper train from Budapest to Amsterdam 20 years ago and loved every second of it. It's saddened me that it's become too expensive: something I afforded as a recent graduate at short notice now requires you to either to shell out a lot of cash or book far ahead, like a tourist? At least, Austria still offers affordable sleepers. The sound of the train lulling you to sleep is a wonderful thing.
• sotothehail 8y ago
  This is a great idea. I wish we had something like this in the states.
  • pm24601 8y ago
    There is the auto-train. Washington DC to Florida: https://www.amtrak.com/auto-train https://www.amtrak.com/auto-train
• DoubleCribble 8y ago
  As of 25 years ago this was THE way for a backpacker with a Eurail pass to see the continent during the summer. The cheap cars (ie 6 beds/room) were basically a youth hostel on rails. It was a fantastic way to meet other travelers and explore new cities together.
  • FearNotDaniel 8y ago
    Yup, I did this for a month back in my student days - the ticket is called Inter-Rail if you buy it within Europe. I was incentivised to basically visit a different country every day because every night spent on a train was one you didn't have to pay for a hostel! Also, some places like Florence had a free campsite with wooden shelters, you just had to bring a sleeping bag, and the month's rail ticket included an overnight ferry from Italy to Greece. Happy days!
• jompa 8y ago
  I take this train 3-4 times a year going from stockholm-luleå and it's great. You can get a 6 person cabin when travelling in a company of 4 which is great when you have small kids. This way you a whole cabin for them be pains without disturbing anybody else and it's much more of an adventure and much more cosy. I would love to have more good alternatives to travel by night trains because I really dislike airports and flying. One of the problems is that it's much more expensive to travel by train than the flying alternative.
  • elamje 8y ago
    Whats the cost comparison for the SJ vs SAS to Luleå?
• etiam 8y ago
  Swedish railways have been staggeringly mismanaged and neglected since the 1990s. I wouldn't be surprised if they're one of the worst managed railway systems in the entirety of what used to be known as the developed world. But it would be wonderful to have them restored and have international overnight services added. Hoping, with some skepticism, that the politics translate to reality here.
  • Melchizedek 8y ago
    You are right but it's not likely to be fixed. On the contrary, the government has extracted billions upon billions in dividends from the state railway company, in order to shore up the budget.
• simonsaidit 8y ago
  Remember my school trip..denmark to italy. Drunk most of the way and still felt like being on a moving train hours after we got off.
• elamje 8y ago
  I took an overnight train in Sweden from Stockholm to Åre a couple of years ago. My experience was average at best, but possibly not good data. I was in a 6 person room (3 beds stacked on each side), and I ended up on the top bed. It was pretty hard to fall asleep on a slowly, but slightly rocking train, then add in other strangers you are sleeping around, and it makes it even less comfortable. I ended up just sleeping in 30 minute intervals, woken up by the rocking of the relatively smooth train. I would imagine it might be a good experience if friends/family took a cabin together, but with strangers it's not very comfortable (although some might disagree). Additionally, being on the top bunk made me subject to wider rocking then the people below me. I can imagine the experience being terrible if you don't have completely silent bunkmates like I got lucky with. I think it might catch the attention of people who haven't done it before, but I didn't think it was anything to write home about.
  • Tijdreiziger 8y ago
    > I was in a 6 person room (3 beds stacked on each side) That sounds like a couchette (i.e. no real mattress, just a bunk). My experiences with those are also quite bad. A bed in a real sleeper cabin (with an actual mattress) is much more comfortable.
• the_mitsuhiko 8y ago
  The Austrian federal railways (OeBB) is doing really well with night trains after the takeover. They even ordered new trains which should go into service in 2022. Really happy for this because the current rolling stock is just ancient and sleepers are a nice concept.
• deleted 8y ago
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• evmar 8y ago
  As an American with little access to trains, I was excited to try a sleeper train from Vienna to Poland. But I was disappointed to find that it was pretty uncomfortable -- lots of stopping and ringing bells throughout the night.
  • elamje 8y ago
    I had a similar experience on a sleeper in Sweden. No bells, but stopping and rocking.
• vladletter 8y ago
  Most of those trains consumes nuclear energy. Nuclear vs Gas? :)
• elamje 8y ago
  > That delay would be in order to wait for the construction of an 11-mile-long rail tunnel between Denmark and Copenhagen called the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link, which would reduce the journey time by train from Copenhagen to Hamburg from five hours to just two. The author meant to say "11-mile-long rail tunnel between Denmark and Germany" as Denmark and Copenhagen do not need to be connected with a tunnel since they are already quite closely connected.
• elamje 8y ago
  As good as this sounds in concept, price wins at the end of the day, and while I lived in Europe RyanAir, SAS & Norwegian were a similar price to trains, but faster. The exception is when you travel to smaller regions with no major airport.
  • GuB-42 8y ago
    For the same price I actually prefer night train to airlines, by far. Sure, airlines are faster, but the time to go in and out of the airport, security checks, boarding, etc... Your one hour flight easily translates into 3-4 uncomfortable hours. With the train, it is usually downtown to downtown, just hop into the train and you are done. The journey may last 10 hours, but it is relaxing. Trains are much more comfortable than planes and sleeping is less of a problem, even with a standard seat. With sleeping cars, you have what is essentially a moving hotel room, making your travel time effectively zero.
• chx 8y ago
  I once took a sleeper from Budapest to Munich and the problem was the jolt of the train stopping waking me up. It was OK-ish otherwise. I do not know how people would sleep through that.
• Shalle135 8y ago
  The hing about trains in general though is the pricing around it. In Sweden a flight from the northern parts to the southern is about $100 and takes an hour. The train cost $100-200 and takes about 16h depending on where you depart from. I believe a requirement for people choosing to take the train is that they add some facilities (you feel pretty nasty after 16h on a train) and reduce the price. Raising the price on flights won’t help unless it’s drastically, around 2-300%. And if you do this on domestic flights then nobody will afford international flights.
  • ptaipale 8y ago
    Another point (not in Sweden) is that the rail operators are government-owned companies which often operate like the government does. Couple of months back, I tried to buy a ticket to the car-train to Lapland (I can take the car with me to train in the evening, sleep in a cabin, wake up in the morning and set off for the remainder of the journey with my car). When booking the car slot, the booking system required me to enable flash and when it got started, it just rotated that thing on the browser window. I got bored, checked out flights. In 5 minutes I had flight tickets, with extra bags paid, and a rental car, at half the total cost of what the car-train would have been. I returned to the booking window, it still had that rotating thing on the browser window. I closed the window and did not miss it.
    • belorn 8y ago
      The rail infrastructure is government operated, but train companies that are responsible for all customer interaction is not. SJ is just as government-owned as SAS. The rail is basically like the airport, and the train companies are like airlines. The general problem is the lack of competition. Between two destinations you usually have the choice between multiple airlines, but for trains there is usually only one. Between malmö-göteborg-stockholm there is the fast train alternative but it is arguable if that actually serve as competition. With air-travel you got multiple airlines and multiple resellers. Swedish rail operate like a monopoly, which is in my view the main reason why its both expensive and terrible at the same time.
      • 8y ago
• httpz 8y ago
  I took an overnight train from Paris to Munich. Got on the train from Paris in the evening. My private stall had three seats with a folding table and a sink. The seats folds down and you can unfold three beds from the wall. I had a good sleep, woke up, got some breakfast delivered, took a shower and I was in Munich.
• krn 8y ago
  Western Europe is very different from Eastern Europe in this case. In Western Europe, low-cost flights and buses essentially won the market. But there are not as many direct flights between Central and Eastern European cities, and the roads are often not that good, either. Therefore, in any direction from Budapest overnight trains are still very popular, and in countries like Ukraine it's probably the single most important way to travel long distances. The overnight trains in Central and Eastern Europe are much cheaper, too. For instance, a seat in Budapest - Belgrad costs 15€, and a bed in Kiev - Lviv starts at around 8€.
  • Mediterraneo10 8y ago
    The rise of Wizzair is reducing the appeal of long-distance train travel in Central and Eastern Europe. You can now fly from Budapest to certain destinations in surrounding countries for equal to or less than the price of the train if you book early or have little luggage. Also, the launch of Polski Bus (a localized Megacoach) a few years ago means you can get between Poland and various Central European destinations for as little as 5€, again cheaper than the train.
    • chungleong 8y ago
      And the national train operators are being challenged on their own turf by open-access operators. The days of sleepers are probably numbered in this part of the Europe. Wagons with convertible benches are uncomfortable both for sitting and sleeping. They're utterly uncompetitive vis-a-vis reclinable seats deployed by operators like Leo Express. Perhaps one day they'll start putting lie-flat recliners used in airliners on trains one day. That's more economical--and flexible--than having separate rooms. P.S. Polski Bus has been absorbed into Flixbus.
  • mrweasel 8y ago
    The airlines have basically put trains out of business in Western Europe. Currently you cannot get from one end of Denmark to the other for a morning meeting by train. Last time I checked the only way to have a 9:00 meeting in the center of Copenhagen, leaving from Aalborg (400km away) is by leaving at 23:00 the day before. It's a 6.5 hour train ride. Flying is 20 minutes and you have multiple departures and airlines every morning (granted you have to be at the airport 20 minute early and it a 30 min trip for the airport to the center of Copenhagen). When people talk about how great trains are in Europe, I assume they never had to used them. Trains absolutely suck, they aren't fast enough, not frequent enough and they are expensive. It cheaper and faster to fly or drive.
• jwr 8y ago
  I used overnight trains many times in my life. They are great, but if the revival is to succeed, we need better solutions for security. Theft was always a problem in sleeper trains. There needs to be a way to lock yourself in and have an alarm sound whenever someone opens the door with an override.
  • gpvos 8y ago
    The European night trains I've been in all have physical locks that are only openable from the inside. Things could be stolen by other people in your compartment, but that's a lot less likely. I also have a preference for the upper bunks/beds, because you can stow your luggage in a nook above the wagon's side corridor, and thieves will have to actually get past you to get at your stuff (except for maybe the person on the bunk opposite you if you're in a couchette compartment). Seating compartments are to be avoided; I can't sleep in them anyway.
    • jwr 8y ago
      > all have physical locks that are only openable from the inside Really? I thought all these locks can be opened from the outside by railway personnel using a "special key", which of course means that the thieves have access to that "special key" as well.
  • iso-8859-1 8y ago
    On DB's CityNightLine, you could lock the door. Of course, the five other people in the room could steal from you. I always just put my backpack against the wall. Would be impressive to have one of your five roommates open your backpack in darkness while reaching over you...
• dang 8y ago
  Second big train thread in two days: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19548272 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19548272
• fitzroy 8y ago
  My girlfriend and I travelled through Europe last summer and I was hoping to take overnight trains as much as possible, unfortunately the train strike in France killed a lot of that plan. Still, we were able to take two overnight sleepers. Rome to Turin and Budapest to Prague. Rome to Turin would have been fine, except the air conditioning barely worked, which would have also been okay except (unlike 20 years ago) the window only opened about an inch. We had been backpacking all day in the hot sun. If you have trouble sleeping when it's hot, and you're traveling during the summer, this is something to consider. It made the night pretty miserable. I can't imagine how bad this would have been in a 4 or 6 person couchette. The Italian train was about $200USD total for both of us. For Budapest to Prague we were able to book one of the three deluxe sleepers with a private toilet and shower. The trains were both newer, cheaper ($150USD total for both of us), and the AC worked better. Whether the deluxe is worth it is a toss up. You'll get bounced around a lot in the shower (part of the charm?) and having the private toilet, while convenient, gives the whole room a vaguely gross smell similar to sitting near a restroom on a plane. - Sleepers will not save you money vs a cheap hotel + day train (although the 4 or 6 person couchette might save a bit), and the trains shake and vibrate a lot. - Booking tickets is a pain until you get used to it (for each new country). The "English" version of whatever train site is often about 60% English at best (cough, ItaliaRail...). The Hungarian website (MÁV-Start) is a UX disaster. But you can often book on the destination country site, as well as the departure country. Luckily, we were able to book on the Czech site (CD) instead. - You will sometimes need a printed ticket that can be physically stamped for part of the journey. Check in advance. - Sleepers on popular routes book up quickly. They often either get very expensive or sell out completely at peak times. - seat61.com is an absolute lifesaver. Still, with all of the "challenges" there are tons of little charming elements about overnight trains: differences in the layout of the spaces, the adorable/offensive gendered gift boxes (I got a razor and my girlfriend got a pink sewing kit), disposable paper slippers that I ended using for 2 months... Anyway, happy to answer any questions from my limited (but enthusiastic) experience.
• gumby 8y ago
  Yes please. I traveled this way a lot as a child, and have recently done so for recreation. But when you factor in all the hassles of air travel, the opportunity to arrive well rested, possibly with some work done, the city center to city center scenario is superior to air (because though travel time itself is shorter, there's all the security hassles, getting to the airport, checking into a hotel for a brief nap, etc). Note: I can sleep through stops, equipment changes etc. I don't know if that is common or not.
• koib 8y ago
  This is a very good idea if it works reliably. However, from my experiences with sleeper trains in Sweden (via SJ), it's quite inconsistent. Just the other month, I took a sleeper from Stockholm to Kiruna and it was delayed by 9+ hours! Good thing this was an unplanned vacation so I had time. The customer service was excellent though, they were attentive and reimbursed me for the train tickets, hotels, food and car rental. I can't imagine myself using the sleeper trains for any business purposes though as I've had many delays with them.
  • stareatgoats 8y ago
    Yes, I'm all for sleeper trains, but Sweden has the worst maintained infrastructure. They are trying to catch up after decades of neglect, but are open about expecting continuing disturbances for years to come. It is not only a nuisance, reimbursements or not; it's outright risky and a damn shame because we really need trains now The "new economy" made popular round the turn of the millennium didn't deliver on it's promise of solving everything imaginable, just by turning maintenance of public assets over to lowest bidder private entrepreneurs. Go figure.
  • sorisos 8y ago
    Also very cheap if you claim the refound! Last summer I traveled a lot with these trains and only payed for half of them. :)
• MrMorden 8y ago
  The Hokutosei from Tōkyō to Sapporo was a really good way to travel, but it was discontinued in 2015.
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• p2t2p 8y ago
  So back in Russia a trip from my home town to Moscow on a plane takes about 6 hours in total. - get to the airport about 1 hour in advance - about 1.5 hour drive - The flight with all the procedures takes about 2 hours - All the exit procedures can take up to 0.5 hours easily if no longer - Wait for a train and ride to the city on the train - about 1 hour. - Once in the city get on subway and ride to destination - usually 1 hours as well. Compare it to the train, the fastest one is 14 hours: - 0.5 hours to get to the trains station in the middle of my hometown. (or less than 0.5 hours if you live near by) - 14 hours laying down on a relatively ok bed with clean sheets - BOOM! you're in the middle of Moscow No check-ins, luggage management, no nothing. 6pm you lay down on a bed, have a much, read a book, go to sleep and next morning you wake up at 7 am, do your morning rooting and at 8 am you're almost in the middle of the city. I take this train over a plane any day. The only problem with that is that it twice or more as expensive compared to plane tickets.
  • readhn 8y ago
    it would be fun to take a trans-siberian rail ... except it takes like what ...7 days? eats up vacation time pretty quickly.
    • Aeolun 8y ago
      Isn’t that the charm? My issue was more with recent tickets I’ve seen being pretty expensive.
    • fritkot 8y ago
      In this case, the trainride IS the vacation. You don't take the Trans-Siberian primarily to get from Moscow to Vladivostok / Beijing, but to check out everything else along the way.
    • FabHK 8y ago
      I've taken the TransSib (or TransMongolian, in this case) from Ulaanbaatar to Moscow. It's pretty much 4 days, just short of 100 hours. No showers, and the restaurant car was so-so; I mostly ate nuts and snacks: the train would stop some 10 minutes or so at stations, and there were kiosks on the platform to stock up. You really need to take some good books or good friends. BTW, "The Man in Seat 61" has lots of info on it: https://www.seat61.com/Trans-Siberian.htm https://www.seat61.com/Trans-Siberian.htm
• Zenst 8y ago
  One issue night trains face when being reintroduced/introduced upon routes would be Urban sprawl and development. In many Major towns and along those routes can and do become developed upon. You then face noise factors that you did not have before in reintroducing night trains and for introduction upon new routes - more so potentially an issue. Whilst night trains don't need to go full speed and for many, more viable for comfort and running costs to run them slower. But in area's of urban sprawl, and noise regulations can and will prove an issue in such usage. Which is a shame but a major consideration today. But equally, many transport avenues are under utilised and overlooked. Canals for one were a big thing decades ago and all but now abandoned in many parts as a means of transporting goods. Which is a shame as sometimes you just don't need it moved as quick as possible.
• vkaku 8y ago
  This is amazing. I've taken daylong trains between Narvik and Copenhagen.
• gaoshan 8y ago
  Didn't know overnight trains had disappeared. When I lived in Europe as a poor student from the US I would take night trains every single time I could. I had an Interrail pass and once everyone was settled down for the night go look for an empty seating or sleeping area with a door. I could usually find one and then I would just lay down inside with my feet agains the door, use my pack for a pillow and go to sleep. I traveled a month like that and never paid for a hotel.
• smackfu 8y ago
  I was very excited by the idea of an overnight train in Europe but the reality was a bit underwhelming. We went from Cologne to Vienna which was roughly from 10 pm to 7 am which wasn’t super convenient timing on either end. Also the cabins were super claustrophobic for me when the beds were folded down. Fun once but I would probably fly next time.
• jor-el 8y ago
  Last time I took such overnight train in Europe was Frankfurt to Copenhagen in 2013 by DB, and it was nice and comfortable. Trains always have more leg space and moving around areas than an airplane. With budget airlines they are trying to cram in as many people as possible, almost to the point of making you feel claustrophobic. With trains there is no hassle of going to the airport, as they are mostly around city center. Also, I found people to be more friendly in trains, unlike in airplane, where most people have their headphones on, and do-not-disturb expressions.
• m0zg 8y ago
  Come to think of it, this could take off in the US too. I wouldn't mind taking a sleeper (to and from) between SF and Seattle. 807mi at 100mph = 8 hours and change. Pretty nice.
• petre 8y ago
  This is smart because it uses electricity during the lowest demand period of the energy load profile. If your country or one of its neighbours has high base load power generation like France does, it makes a lot of sense to run electric trains during the night because they'll use electricity which is otherwise sold at a discount or redirected to pumped hydroelectric storage or other storage options if they exist.
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• adrianN 8y ago
  Low-Tech Magazine had a nice article about the trouble with the European rail network: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/trains/ https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/trains/
• jeena 8y ago
  I'm traveling from Gothenburg to Berlin basically on at least a monthly basis. Ever since I moved to Sweden 2005 I was looking for night trains to bring me to the continent but there weren't any. Early on I took day trains but they took so much time that I never had wiggle time and since the Deutsche Bahn got private they are notoriously late which meant that most of the time I wouldn't catch the last train from Copenhagen and needed to take a expensive taxi for the last hundred of kilometers late during the night after a 16 hour journey. The weird thing is that the flights just go on time and even though it takes time to get to and from the airport it's possible to calculate the time when you will arrive, ect. which is really important with businesses. With Deutsche Bahn you basically never know if you will arrive on the day they promised or not.
  • henrikschroder 8y ago
    I travelled Stockholm-Copenhagen biweekly for a couple of years, and flying was cheaper and faster door-to-door than the train pretty much 100% of the time. That includes getting through airport security and taking public transportation to/from the airports at either end. I mean, I would have preferred to take the train, but I'm not going to pay more to get there slower...
    • njepa 8y ago
      With the train you potentially lose a lot less productive time. Air travel can't be made much nicer since there are too many hard limits. The train however suffers from a lack of investment in fundamentals. A lot of people live in the suburbs today, where the train doesn't stop. Stockholm central station is despite the many renovations not very nice. The trains themselves are getting old. The infrastructure and service isn't what it could be either. And maybe most of all everything is just expensive in Sweden, and the Nordics, these days. If you could have a slightly faster train with first class airline interior and a matching, not too expensive, hotel on top of the train station it would be a competitive proposal. But while I can appreciate that people like to talk about trains on hacker news the story really is that the future isn't happening in Sweden. Rather we seem to be on a seemingly predictable path following countries like the US and the UK were we are incapable of making long term investments and everything of value is getting expensive.
• skrebbel 8y ago
  My experience is that flying inside Europe tends to be cheaper than long-distance train. Does anyone here whether it's simply intrinsically cheaper, or whether it's all because of kerosine subsidies etc? In other words, if countries would subsidize long-distance train as much as they subsidize air flight, would the economics look different? Would train get substantially cheaper? I lack both the insight and the data to do this math.
  • alkonaut 8y ago
    Air travel is extremely tax-subsidized. If taxes on airplane fuel was similar to car petrol taxes in Europe that would be a good start. I hope there can be some sort of EU-wide agreement on that soon, because the current state of affairs is pretty silly and there is no way a single country can unilaterally impose high CO2 taxes on airlines.
    • skrebbel 8y ago
      Yeah, but I propose the opposite: don't cut air subsidies, but add train subsidies. Basically, my understanding is that countries subsidize air travel because it's good for the economy. Business and trade and all that. Now that long distance train becomes more fashionable and comfortable (and it does! A 1st class ICE across Germany is like a moving office, wow), you could make the argument that (long distance) train should be similarly subsidized for the exact same reasons: a country with great international train connections will be better at trade. I wonder what would happen to price and availability if that would happen.
      • kaybe 8y ago
        Still, we want people to fly less and substitute for train wherever remotely possible (since climate). So I don't agree.
    • Shivetya 8y ago
      trains are even more heavily subsidized so I don't understand the comment. the EU restricts subsidizing airlines and similar at all but the smallest fields and even has pursued having some airlines refund monies giving to them in violation of the rules. There are tax breaks in the form of not paying VAT for domestic flight routes but overall the cost for all air travel breaks is less than twenty billion Euros whereas subsidies for rail and worse the debts[2] for building and maintenance are ten to twenty times as much. finally the one issue that stands out, is that while European members use rail at over five times the average of Americans it only works out to approximately 600 miles per year versus 100. Urban transport usage is only double the average use in American but that is a 120 uses per year versus 60. [1] Then to make it even worse by focusing so much subsidies and expense on trying to convince people to take rail it has caused much more freight to end up on roads. In the US over forty percent of freight goes by rail, in the EU it is around eleven percent. So for the limited gains of moving people by rail are slaughtered by the losses in resulting environmental and financial impact of moving freight over roads. The truth is many have this romantic view of rail travel which is not supported by facts. Politicians in the EU, where the lines are almost all government owned, love rail because its very visible and people don't look below the surface to see the reality of actual cost, debt load, and lack of real usage. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/5711595/KS-DA-09-001-EN.PDF/9c90d489-5009-4acc-9810-ae39612897d3 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/5711595/KS-D... [2] https://re.public.polimi.it/retrieve/handle/11311/1015984/186783/Beria%20Bel%20et%20al%20-%20Mismatches%20HSR%20Italy%20n%20Spain%20-%20PAPER%2013%20%5BSENT%5D.pdf https://re.public.polimi.it/retrieve/handle/11311/1015984/18...
• dsign 8y ago
  Oh no! 5 million USD is ridiculously low amount of money for this; I expect that most of it will go to fund studies and planning, not actual trains. IMHO, it would be better to invest on research in cleaner airplanes and some influence-giving Airbus stock. Also, for the budget I can usually afford on travel, the less time I'm inside the can the better. Trains are a big no-go.
• mongol 8y ago
  This will probably amount to nothing. Government injects 50 MSEK to make carriers schedule night trains. Will people use them? Time will tell. This is very similar to the same government's initiative to subsidise electric bikes. Gone after a year.
• Zash 8y ago
  This is great! I love overnight trains!
• bogle 8y ago
  We've just upgraded our London to Scotland sleeper service recently. It's not cheap but's it's fun! If you want to get into the Highlands it's a lot more convenient, too: Fort William is hours from a major airport. Going from Edinburgh to London it's really useful as you end up right in the heart of the London. https://www.sleeper.scot/ https://www.sleeper.scot/
• jayalpha 8y ago
  I love night trains. Trains a underrated in general. I wish the EU would invest heavily in trains. There should be high speed and sleeper trains all over Europe. Single rail cars could have different destinations with automatic coupling/decoupling outside of cities. You can run trains easily on Thorium generated electricity, so the tech is future proof. Cargo should also be moved to the tracks: https://www.cargobeamer.eu/ https://www.cargobeamer.eu/
• jayalpha 8y ago
  The last sleeper trains in Europe: "A sleeper is the most civilised, comfortable, and romantic way to travel... " https://www.seat61.com/sleepers.htm https://www.seat61.com/sleepers.htm Paris<>Venice sounds tempting.
• kolla 8y ago
  I live in Sweden and most of the times I try to travel by train there is some unexpected thing they can't handle like snow, rain, leaves, sunshine so they are replaced by a buss. I wish trains were reliable.
• Tepix 8y ago
  I welcome this idea. I look for an opportunity to take an overnight sleeping train occasionally but usually it fails because there is no connection between the cities I am interested in. Last time I used an overnight train I arrived after a good nights sleep in Genoa. Even if the train is slower than a plane, the fact that you travel while sleeping means you save time.