8 ms·

Show HN: Luna Rail – Treating night trains as a spatial optimization problem

156 points by ant6n 1y ago

Hi HN, I'm Anton, founder of Luna Rail. I've always thought night trains are a fantastic, sustainable alternative to short-haul flights, but they're often held back by a lack of privacy, comfort, and poor economics due to low passenger capacity. I became overly fascinated with this puzzle. I view it as a kind of night train Tetris (my wife less charitably calls it "sardinology"). I spent way too much time learning about and sketching various layouts, trying to figure out how to fit the maximum number of private cabins into a standard railcar, while making them attractive for both day and night travel. This eventually led to a physical workshop (in Berlin) and a hands-on rapid prototyping process. We've built a series of full-scale mockups, starting with wood and cardboard and progressing to high-fidelity versions with 3D-printed and CNC-milled parts, with various functional elements. Hundreds of people have come in to test our various iterations, because you can't test ergonomics or comfort by looking at renderings (although we did create a bunch of nice ones). The link goes to our home page showing our approach and some of the thinking behind them. It’s been a lot of fun working on this puzzle, and we're excited to share what we've come up with. We hope you think it's cool too and would love to hear your thoughts.

rmccue 1y ago
What do you see as the benefits over Nightjet’s Mini Cabins? Also, interesting to see just after the launch of https://noxmobility.com/ https://noxmobility.com/ which is targeting the same market.
- ant6n 1y ago
  ÖBB Mini cabins * night only * 40 pods per car * implemented Luna Rail * day and night * 65 pods or 40 single rooms * in physical since 2023 * team focused on technical development and testing Nox * day and night * virtual concept * team very strong on marketing
  - ant6n 1y ago
    (Messed up my edit - I mean in physical development since 2023, not just renderings)
- graphememes 1y ago
  the bed looks way more comfortable in this than luna rail
fyrn_ 1y ago
Really cool concept. I wish we could have something like this in the US one day. Wanted to report a small typo, In the 3D model index menu, "Uppder" can be found. I assume this was supposed to read "Upper", as in "above". I hope to one day ride such a system when I visit europe, best of luck with your project.
- ant6n 1y ago
  Thanks!
ViscountPenguin 1y ago
What's up with the super high carbon intensity estimate of your trains? Is it because they're running at night and can't use solar? Does it include embedded carbon in the train? Or is Germany's grid just that dirty?
- solardev 1y ago
  Where do you see the carbon intensity? I just see a plane above a train with a single "250g" figure.
  - dcan 1y ago
    I see 15g CO2(eq)/km in the bottom left-hand corner
- ant6n 1y ago
  15g/km is very low. The number is dominated by energy mix and infrastructure. Deutsche Bahn publishes lower number, but they only look at operation (not infrastructure), and assume „green energy“ rather than the energy mix of the country. The 15g is a good estimate, see discussion here: https://back-on-track.eu/de/klimawirkung-von-nachtzuegen-neue-studie-ueberprueft-back-on-track-report-aus-2022/#:~:text=Die%2520Ramb%C3%B8ll%252DStudie%2520errechnet%2520demnach,den%2520IEA%252DWerten%2520von%25202019. https://back-on-track.eu/de/klimawirkung-von-nachtzuegen-neu...
  - bcye 1y ago
    To be fair, DB claims everywhere to be running there long-distance routes entirely on green energy
  - ViscountPenguin 1y ago
    I'm not sure I'd consider 15g/km particularly low, for a rail system at least, but thanks for the source. Definitely interesting to see the disparity between night and day energy mixes in those numbers. Here in Australia, we're lucky enough to have incredibly cheap solar during the day. But iirc, our energy is even dirtier (in most non-SA/Tasmanian states) during the night due to the use of brown coal.
solardev 1y ago
I love the concept and the renders, but I wonder... is the spatial optimization really what's holding train travel back? If you decrease passenger density in order to increase privacy and comfort, do you then have a corresponding increase in ticket prices? In places with good train travel, it seems like they already have several cabin classes, from sardine seats (still luxurious compared to air travel) to private cabins (at several multipliers of price). Pod style rooms would presumably be cheaper than that, but still a lot more expensive than a seat? Then in places without high speed passenger rail, like the US, this wouldn't really be able to address the major problems with train travel (slowness, lower priority than freight, low reliability, etc.). Under what scenarios would using pods instead of cabins be more economically viable? And could these be retrofitted into existing sleeper cars, or would they have to build entirely new trains?
- ant6n 1y ago
  You yourself mention the trade off — the „sardine class“ is a six-people per cabin couchette (60 ppl per railcar). The private class is luxury (10-17 cabins per railcar). We got 65 private pods or close to 40 little single cabins - in a refurbished railcar. In a new car it would be more. We put together some explanation of the economics and the difference between old and new cars: https://luna-rail.com/approach https://luna-rail.com/approach
- bruce511 1y ago
  Clearly different markets have quite different requirements and comparisons to air travel. For example a "night train" maxes out around 12 hours. A train from 6pm to 6am is functionally equivalent to a 8pm flight, arriving at midnight, checking into a hotel, getting some sleep etc. How far you can go in that 12 hours (give or take) depends on the speed of the train etc. In Europe you can go to a lot of places in 12 hours. In the US not so much. Much longer and other factors come into play. You have to balance the time cost of "getting there" to the time benefit of "being there". But thats OK. This solution doesn't have to work everywhere. It can start where it works well and grows from there.
  - clan 1y ago
econ 1y ago
I've long joked that modules should be made easy to swap with a forklift. Trains are usually full of small defects that aren't serious enough to take them out of service. If they are comfortable you could rent out the cabins when not in use either fitted on the train or not. You could also retire the units there. You could make a platform only and make it easy for others to design modules in a broad price range. Maybe most modules should be in storage until booked. You could park the "hotel" module on the destination and put it back on the train for the return trip.
- ant6n 1y ago
  I sometimes her proposals like that, and it sounds kind of attractive - you get into your pod and forget everything until you arrive. But in a sense, night trains are already like that. Since they can stop at multiple places, you can depart and arrive downtown. In the meantime you’re in your cabin and forget everything. Entering the train „with“ the pod instead of just yourself is gonna make boarding and alighting take forever, and the logistics of storing and moving the pods are a nightmare. It’s going to reduce capacity by a lot because you cannot optimize the layout and every pod needs to be „insertable“ as a whole. (3x reduction in capacity means 3x increase in ticket cost). Homologation is going to be a nightmare - in Europe, realistically, it’s gonna take more than 10 years or develop something like that. You need a new infrastructure because right now stations are for people - that’ll probably take 20 years (in Europe).
  - Freak_NL 1y ago
    Besides, sleeper trains really are modular already, using existing standard rail infrastructure. Wagons are the natural unit of a train consist. Ideally, we end up with a big enough network of sleeper lines that it makes sense for ÖBB, European Sleeper, or whichever operator to have the luxury of taking some wagons out for maintenance and standby, and even scale up and down depending on the season.
    - ant6n 1y ago
      Yes exactly!
bruce511 1y ago
When traveling I often consider trains, and especially overnight trains. It's by far the most comfortable way to travel. Innovation in this space is a good thing. While I'm aware that feature creepy is the enemy here, I would suggest a way to "combine " two pods for those traveling as a couple. If I'm traveling with my wife we don't want to be in "separate pods". A retractable "wall" between 2 pods would be fine. It doesn't have to be elaborate, but you wanna point to something outside and say 'look at that' etc.
- ant6n 1y ago
  We considered connecting pods. The orientation „behind“ each other makes interaction difficult. They way this issue was „resolved“ more less naturally during testing is that the pods all have The same orientation, so pods across the aisle approximately face each other. In our lab we had two iterations of the pods set up to face each other, and tester and testee interacted quite naturally —- once we set up our test rig like that, the questions „what about couples“ reduced a lot, most understood the vis-a-vis intuitively. Our bigger cabins have two ppl versions, but a lot (if not most) travel is individua anyway, especially if night trains will be used for work travel.
raybb 1y ago
I gotta say I love this? Are you in contact at all with the folks advocating for more night trains across the EU https://back-on-track.eu/ https://back-on-track.eu/ ? Seems like it could be pretty mission aligned. Btw I run a weekly newsletter about urbanism and while your trains may not be exactly related I think it's cool enough that we'll feature it in the upcoming week! https://urbanismnow.substack.com/ https://urbanismnow.substack.com/
- ant6n 1y ago
  Yes, we’re connected with back on track! I’m a day-one member of the German branch. A bunch of their members came and participated in our tests. We’re participating in their night train conference in September in Berlin, probably bringing a physical prototype.
PaulRobinson 1y ago
Great work so far, but I note you are looking at a custom double-decker railcar with what looks like a very large loading gauge. My understanding is that for most of Europe, double deckers are not used due to loading gauge limits imposed by tunnels, bridges and so on. I presume your planned routes take that into account? Is that one of the reasons your mocked journey planner app doesn’t include the UK?
- ant6n 1y ago
  The „current“ concept is for refurbished standard passenger coaches, which is compatible everywhere in Europe except UK. The „long term“ concept is built around to be compatible with profiles UIC GB and G2, which work in most of Europe.
  - matt-p 1y ago
    We have sleeper trains in the UK, it would obviously be great if they were cheaper but honestly there's not that much demand for travel from London - Scotland or Penzance in general. This is exacerbated by the fact a daytime train is easily doable so it's a bit of weird, niche product. However the amount of demand there'd be for an overnight train from (let's just say) London to Barcelona at £99 each way would be immense.
    - ant6n 1y ago
      You can run London to Europe via HS1 and tunnel, but the operating costs are insane. Anybody who propose that would get shut down by the „rail bubble“ extremely hard (like midnight trains did a couple years back). I think it would be nice, but it’s far off. As for intra-UK sleeper: yes there are some possible routes, but the market is small. Developing custom trains for that would be very expensive. And the concepts we propose don’t work well cut the profile is so small.
      - matt-p 1y ago
        This was true a few years ago, but today the regulatory environment is very positive for these kind of services. You will see many non-eurostar open access operators on those tracks within the next year or two. I wouldn't massively bother with intra-uk yet, I agree wholeheartedly.
eqvinox 1y ago
Hi! What's your perspective on the shortage of manufacturing capacity for night train rolling stock? Last I heard ÖBB can't build them fast enough for demand, and few other companies are able to actually produce these? Are you planning to build your own industrial manufacturing capability for this? And what about 2nd level suppliers?
- ant6n 1y ago
  Yes, the bottle Beck for night trains is rolling stock. The plan is to initially target refurbished standard passenger couches. We have a large research and development consortium to develop the technology and adaptation of coaches. The refurb itself can be done by many companies, we don’t need a large supplier like Siemens. As for the ÖBB nightjet, there’s talk about shifting the last ordered nightjet to rail jets (for day travel). Speculation is that the low capacity of the Trainsets result in poor unit economics.
  - eqvinox 1y ago
    Interesting, Thanks! (and sad to hear about that shifting to railjets :/)
Freak_NL 1y ago
Sleeper trains are held back by flying getting subsidised heavily by not having kerosene taxed, and national governments giving airports effectively unlimited room to grow; happily externalising the environmental cost. Why take a train if you can fly for a fraction of the cost? Trains in general are held back by governments not investing in rail infrastructure, because the pork barrel of another motorway link is so hard to resist (and we're not properly maintaining these either). Sleeper trains are held back, because cross-boundary collaboration between the various semi-national rail companies is tough (for Europe). Sleeper trains are held back, because there is a lack of modern rolling stock. Not completely new concepts; just up-to-date sleeper wagons (the ÖBB has the leading edge here now with their new wagons). There is room for improvement in the wagon designs, but it is almost irrelevant in the face of the other challenges.
- ant6n 1y ago
  You start off by essentially claiming the unit economics of night trains being too poor compared to aviation is the largest hurdle, then finish off by claiming that unit economics are not that major issue. Our perspective is that with much improved unit economics, the problem overall becomes much more easily solvable. You can compete with aviation on price. You can pay for prioritized track access. You can operate trains privately without direct involvement of national operators. Finally, the refurb approach skirts the rolling stock bottle neck.
  - Freak_NL 1y ago
    I've listed four major causes. These are cumulative, not mutually exclusive. You can't compete with aviation on price currently. Not while its environmental costs are graciously overlooked and left out of the ticket price. This is a political problem. Comfort, reliability, sustainability, elegance, ease-of-use: those are the major selling points for night rail travel done right. This includes legroom, luggage space, and the ability to move around outside of your seat and to toss and turn in bed¹ — something current generation sleeper trains provide. If your goal is to cram as many people as possible in every metre of train length, you are optimising the wrong parameter at the wrong time. 1: The coffin beds in these hotel pods are clever from a space filling perspective, but I fear I would be nastily banging my knees several times in the course of the night, and that's ignoring the fact that sleeping that low close to the rails is just not pleasant.
schmorptron 1y ago
Cool idea! Small typo on the landing page, in the media section it says "german nationa media" without the l
- ant6n 1y ago
  Thanks!
octo888 1y ago
Looks like some heavy inspiration from modern airline business class cabins? Love it
MrJohz 1y ago
How do you plan to handle groups or families with this system? Having larger compartments gives a lot of flexibility and allows families or groups to travel together easily and spend the time with each other. The hotel pods look like they only go up to two people in size, and the seats are very isolated from each other, not even allowing people to sit next to each other as far as I can see. I'm excited to see more work being done to improve night train travel though!
- ant6n 1y ago
  We’re working on standard railcars, which can be running together with traditional couchettes railcars. I would argue that group travel is largely a „solved“ problem, using couchettes (railcars with cabins having 4-6 beds). For couples, the smaller pods actually kind of „face“ each other across the aisles.
torwag2 1y ago
Whatever you do, add ventilation and if you think you have added enough, add some more. If you do not believe me, go and visit some of Tokyos capsule hotels close to the party districts. Nothing is more worse than the feeling to breath what has very recently left intoxicated people from one or the other side. Also for the sake of avoiding drama on those trains, add snoring tests.
- ant6n 1y ago
  As a startup, there are two perspectives on these kinds of issues: just get something built and running as quickly as possible, or make sure you work out the kinks. So far we've been very much doing the second. Built it, experiment on it, test it, make sure it works. Only publish what's actually feasible. Set up more projects to make sure all the kinks will be worked out. Work together with experts to ensure proper ventilation, noise and vibration control, etc. etc. But as a startup, this process can be frustratingly slow. I am concerned investors may want to see quick results, not perfected solutions.
gregorvand 1y ago
Awesome concept and execution. For those interested, this is a good bbc podcast episode digging in to the economics of train travel including sleeper trains https://pca.st/episode/262c1fdd-7dbd-4fa2-a3c6-5bf69bae6822 https://pca.st/episode/262c1fdd-7dbd-4fa2-a3c6-5bf69bae6822
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nylonstrung 1y ago
Love this idea, I 100% will use it when it is live.
- ant6n 1y ago
  Thank you!
VoidWhisperer 1y ago
I feel like I'm missing something here but even after looking at the 3D view I can't figure it out - how are people meant to get into and out of the upper pods in the private seats?
- ant6n 1y ago
  There are three ladder steps, and two bars to hold onto while stepping up. From the uppermost step you can already sit on the upper seat. It’s definitely easier to get into than the öbb mini cabins, because the relative orientation of steps and entrance are better.
L_226 1y ago
Hello! happy to see this on HN, I tested some of your mockups last year. How are you progressing now, do you see potential collab / competition with Nox? Kind regards,
- ant6n 1y ago
  Our prototypes keep getting better, and we’re assembling a team of partners for development. I think it would be great to have more partners in the team, we’re fairly open as to who, if we can make our work better.
anitil 1y ago
Please bring this to Australia. The Sydney to Melbourne air corridor is one of the busiest in the world [0], and yet anyone who has taken the train journey has told me to never, ever take it due to how horrible it is. Complaints include lack of ammenities, comfort, aggressive passengers (fights and yelling etc). I'm tempted to try it just to experience it. Surely, surely we can do better than that. I'd love to hop on at Central at 8pm, have a hot dinner, relax and wake up at Melbourne around 6am with a hot shower and breakfast. [0] I'm sure there's better sources but I could only find https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/travel-news/the-world-s-busiest-air-routes-for-2024-named-20241219-p5kzo9.html https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/travel-news/the-world-s-bus...
idkfasayer 1y ago
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LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
Interesting. But too blue-eyed/rose-tinted IMO. Lemme explain. I see no (lockable) doors. Which means I wouldn't want to let my gadgets and other luggage out there in the open, when having to use the bathroom, or maybe going into the (snack)bar, if there is one. Which means having to carry my backpack/suitcase around with me, which is annoying. Which also opens the questions of other commonly encountered annoyances. Dirty bathrooms/toilets. What level of service is to be expected, regarding this?
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gyb997 1y ago
come to china! We have enough trains and long railway to make your dream became real~

156 points by ant6n 1y ago

rmccue 1y ago

What do you see as the benefits over Nightjet’s Mini Cabins? Also, interesting to see just after the launch of https://noxmobility.com/ https://noxmobility.com/ which is targeting the same market.

ant6n 1y ago
ÖBB Mini cabins * night only * 40 pods per car * implemented Luna Rail * day and night * 65 pods or 40 single rooms * in physical since 2023 * team focused on technical development and testing Nox * day and night * virtual concept * team very strong on marketing
- ant6n 1y ago
  (Messed up my edit - I mean in physical development since 2023, not just renderings)
graphememes 1y ago
the bed looks way more comfortable in this than luna rail

fyrn_ 1y ago

Really cool concept. I wish we could have something like this in the US one day. Wanted to report a small typo, In the 3D model index menu, "Uppder" can be found. I assume this was supposed to read "Upper", as in "above". I hope to one day ride such a system when I visit europe, best of luck with your project.

ant6n 1y ago
Thanks!

ViscountPenguin 1y ago

What's up with the super high carbon intensity estimate of your trains? Is it because they're running at night and can't use solar? Does it include embedded carbon in the train? Or is Germany's grid just that dirty?

solardev 1y ago
Where do you see the carbon intensity? I just see a plane above a train with a single "250g" figure.
- dcan 1y ago
  I see 15g CO2(eq)/km in the bottom left-hand corner
ant6n 1y ago
15g/km is very low. The number is dominated by energy mix and infrastructure. Deutsche Bahn publishes lower number, but they only look at operation (not infrastructure), and assume „green energy“ rather than the energy mix of the country. The 15g is a good estimate, see discussion here: https://back-on-track.eu/de/klimawirkung-von-nachtzuegen-neue-studie-ueberprueft-back-on-track-report-aus-2022/#:~:text=Die%2520Ramb%C3%B8ll%252DStudie%2520errechnet%2520demnach,den%2520IEA%252DWerten%2520von%25202019. https://back-on-track.eu/de/klimawirkung-von-nachtzuegen-neu...
- bcye 1y ago
  To be fair, DB claims everywhere to be running there long-distance routes entirely on green energy
- ViscountPenguin 1y ago
  I'm not sure I'd consider 15g/km particularly low, for a rail system at least, but thanks for the source. Definitely interesting to see the disparity between night and day energy mixes in those numbers. Here in Australia, we're lucky enough to have incredibly cheap solar during the day. But iirc, our energy is even dirtier (in most non-SA/Tasmanian states) during the night due to the use of brown coal.

solardev 1y ago

I love the concept and the renders, but I wonder... is the spatial optimization really what's holding train travel back? If you decrease passenger density in order to increase privacy and comfort, do you then have a corresponding increase in ticket prices? In places with good train travel, it seems like they already have several cabin classes, from sardine seats (still luxurious compared to air travel) to private cabins (at several multipliers of price). Pod style rooms would presumably be cheaper than that, but still a lot more expensive than a seat? Then in places without high speed passenger rail, like the US, this wouldn't really be able to address the major problems with train travel (slowness, lower priority than freight, low reliability, etc.). Under what scenarios would using pods instead of cabins be more economically viable? And could these be retrofitted into existing sleeper cars, or would they have to build entirely new trains?

ant6n 1y ago
You yourself mention the trade off — the „sardine class“ is a six-people per cabin couchette (60 ppl per railcar). The private class is luxury (10-17 cabins per railcar). We got 65 private pods or close to 40 little single cabins - in a refurbished railcar. In a new car it would be more. We put together some explanation of the economics and the difference between old and new cars: https://luna-rail.com/approach https://luna-rail.com/approach
bruce511 1y ago
Clearly different markets have quite different requirements and comparisons to air travel. For example a "night train" maxes out around 12 hours. A train from 6pm to 6am is functionally equivalent to a 8pm flight, arriving at midnight, checking into a hotel, getting some sleep etc. How far you can go in that 12 hours (give or take) depends on the speed of the train etc. In Europe you can go to a lot of places in 12 hours. In the US not so much. Much longer and other factors come into play. You have to balance the time cost of "getting there" to the time benefit of "being there". But thats OK. This solution doesn't have to work everywhere. It can start where it works well and grows from there.
- clan 1y ago

econ 1y ago

I've long joked that modules should be made easy to swap with a forklift. Trains are usually full of small defects that aren't serious enough to take them out of service. If they are comfortable you could rent out the cabins when not in use either fitted on the train or not. You could also retire the units there. You could make a platform only and make it easy for others to design modules in a broad price range. Maybe most modules should be in storage until booked. You could park the "hotel" module on the destination and put it back on the train for the return trip.

ant6n 1y ago
I sometimes her proposals like that, and it sounds kind of attractive - you get into your pod and forget everything until you arrive. But in a sense, night trains are already like that. Since they can stop at multiple places, you can depart and arrive downtown. In the meantime you’re in your cabin and forget everything. Entering the train „with“ the pod instead of just yourself is gonna make boarding and alighting take forever, and the logistics of storing and moving the pods are a nightmare. It’s going to reduce capacity by a lot because you cannot optimize the layout and every pod needs to be „insertable“ as a whole. (3x reduction in capacity means 3x increase in ticket cost). Homologation is going to be a nightmare - in Europe, realistically, it’s gonna take more than 10 years or develop something like that. You need a new infrastructure because right now stations are for people - that’ll probably take 20 years (in Europe).
- Freak_NL 1y ago
  Besides, sleeper trains really are modular already, using existing standard rail infrastructure. Wagons are the natural unit of a train consist. Ideally, we end up with a big enough network of sleeper lines that it makes sense for ÖBB, European Sleeper, or whichever operator to have the luxury of taking some wagons out for maintenance and standby, and even scale up and down depending on the season.
  - ant6n 1y ago
    Yes exactly!

bruce511 1y ago

When traveling I often consider trains, and especially overnight trains. It's by far the most comfortable way to travel. Innovation in this space is a good thing. While I'm aware that feature creepy is the enemy here, I would suggest a way to "combine " two pods for those traveling as a couple. If I'm traveling with my wife we don't want to be in "separate pods". A retractable "wall" between 2 pods would be fine. It doesn't have to be elaborate, but you wanna point to something outside and say 'look at that' etc.

ant6n 1y ago
We considered connecting pods. The orientation „behind“ each other makes interaction difficult. They way this issue was „resolved“ more less naturally during testing is that the pods all have The same orientation, so pods across the aisle approximately face each other. In our lab we had two iterations of the pods set up to face each other, and tester and testee interacted quite naturally —- once we set up our test rig like that, the questions „what about couples“ reduced a lot, most understood the vis-a-vis intuitively. Our bigger cabins have two ppl versions, but a lot (if not most) travel is individua anyway, especially if night trains will be used for work travel.

raybb 1y ago

I gotta say I love this? Are you in contact at all with the folks advocating for more night trains across the EU https://back-on-track.eu/ https://back-on-track.eu/ ? Seems like it could be pretty mission aligned. Btw I run a weekly newsletter about urbanism and while your trains may not be exactly related I think it's cool enough that we'll feature it in the upcoming week! https://urbanismnow.substack.com/ https://urbanismnow.substack.com/

ant6n 1y ago
Yes, we’re connected with back on track! I’m a day-one member of the German branch. A bunch of their members came and participated in our tests. We’re participating in their night train conference in September in Berlin, probably bringing a physical prototype.

PaulRobinson 1y ago

Great work so far, but I note you are looking at a custom double-decker railcar with what looks like a very large loading gauge. My understanding is that for most of Europe, double deckers are not used due to loading gauge limits imposed by tunnels, bridges and so on. I presume your planned routes take that into account? Is that one of the reasons your mocked journey planner app doesn’t include the UK?

ant6n 1y ago
The „current“ concept is for refurbished standard passenger coaches, which is compatible everywhere in Europe except UK. The „long term“ concept is built around to be compatible with profiles UIC GB and G2, which work in most of Europe.
- matt-p 1y ago
  We have sleeper trains in the UK, it would obviously be great if they were cheaper but honestly there's not that much demand for travel from London - Scotland or Penzance in general. This is exacerbated by the fact a daytime train is easily doable so it's a bit of weird, niche product. However the amount of demand there'd be for an overnight train from (let's just say) London to Barcelona at £99 each way would be immense.
  - ant6n 1y ago
    You can run London to Europe via HS1 and tunnel, but the operating costs are insane. Anybody who propose that would get shut down by the „rail bubble“ extremely hard (like midnight trains did a couple years back). I think it would be nice, but it’s far off. As for intra-UK sleeper: yes there are some possible routes, but the market is small. Developing custom trains for that would be very expensive. And the concepts we propose don’t work well cut the profile is so small.
    - matt-p 1y ago
      This was true a few years ago, but today the regulatory environment is very positive for these kind of services. You will see many non-eurostar open access operators on those tracks within the next year or two. I wouldn't massively bother with intra-uk yet, I agree wholeheartedly.

eqvinox 1y ago

Hi! What's your perspective on the shortage of manufacturing capacity for night train rolling stock? Last I heard ÖBB can't build them fast enough for demand, and few other companies are able to actually produce these? Are you planning to build your own industrial manufacturing capability for this? And what about 2nd level suppliers?

ant6n 1y ago
Yes, the bottle Beck for night trains is rolling stock. The plan is to initially target refurbished standard passenger couches. We have a large research and development consortium to develop the technology and adaptation of coaches. The refurb itself can be done by many companies, we don’t need a large supplier like Siemens. As for the ÖBB nightjet, there’s talk about shifting the last ordered nightjet to rail jets (for day travel). Speculation is that the low capacity of the Trainsets result in poor unit economics.
- eqvinox 1y ago
  Interesting, Thanks! (and sad to hear about that shifting to railjets :/)

Freak_NL 1y ago

Sleeper trains are held back by flying getting subsidised heavily by not having kerosene taxed, and national governments giving airports effectively unlimited room to grow; happily externalising the environmental cost. Why take a train if you can fly for a fraction of the cost? Trains in general are held back by governments not investing in rail infrastructure, because the pork barrel of another motorway link is so hard to resist (and we're not properly maintaining these either). Sleeper trains are held back, because cross-boundary collaboration between the various semi-national rail companies is tough (for Europe). Sleeper trains are held back, because there is a lack of modern rolling stock. Not completely new concepts; just up-to-date sleeper wagons (the ÖBB has the leading edge here now with their new wagons). There is room for improvement in the wagon designs, but it is almost irrelevant in the face of the other challenges.

ant6n 1y ago
You start off by essentially claiming the unit economics of night trains being too poor compared to aviation is the largest hurdle, then finish off by claiming that unit economics are not that major issue. Our perspective is that with much improved unit economics, the problem overall becomes much more easily solvable. You can compete with aviation on price. You can pay for prioritized track access. You can operate trains privately without direct involvement of national operators. Finally, the refurb approach skirts the rolling stock bottle neck.
- Freak_NL 1y ago
  I've listed four major causes. These are cumulative, not mutually exclusive. You can't compete with aviation on price currently. Not while its environmental costs are graciously overlooked and left out of the ticket price. This is a political problem. Comfort, reliability, sustainability, elegance, ease-of-use: those are the major selling points for night rail travel done right. This includes legroom, luggage space, and the ability to move around outside of your seat and to toss and turn in bed¹ — something current generation sleeper trains provide. If your goal is to cram as many people as possible in every metre of train length, you are optimising the wrong parameter at the wrong time. 1: The coffin beds in these hotel pods are clever from a space filling perspective, but I fear I would be nastily banging my knees several times in the course of the night, and that's ignoring the fact that sleeping that low close to the rails is just not pleasant.

schmorptron 1y ago

Cool idea! Small typo on the landing page, in the media section it says "german nationa media" without the l

ant6n 1y ago
Thanks!

octo888 1y ago

Looks like some heavy inspiration from modern airline business class cabins? Love it

MrJohz 1y ago

How do you plan to handle groups or families with this system? Having larger compartments gives a lot of flexibility and allows families or groups to travel together easily and spend the time with each other. The hotel pods look like they only go up to two people in size, and the seats are very isolated from each other, not even allowing people to sit next to each other as far as I can see. I'm excited to see more work being done to improve night train travel though!

ant6n 1y ago
We’re working on standard railcars, which can be running together with traditional couchettes railcars. I would argue that group travel is largely a „solved“ problem, using couchettes (railcars with cabins having 4-6 beds). For couples, the smaller pods actually kind of „face“ each other across the aisles.

torwag2 1y ago

Whatever you do, add ventilation and if you think you have added enough, add some more. If you do not believe me, go and visit some of Tokyos capsule hotels close to the party districts. Nothing is more worse than the feeling to breath what has very recently left intoxicated people from one or the other side. Also for the sake of avoiding drama on those trains, add snoring tests.

ant6n 1y ago
As a startup, there are two perspectives on these kinds of issues: just get something built and running as quickly as possible, or make sure you work out the kinks. So far we've been very much doing the second. Built it, experiment on it, test it, make sure it works. Only publish what's actually feasible. Set up more projects to make sure all the kinks will be worked out. Work together with experts to ensure proper ventilation, noise and vibration control, etc. etc. But as a startup, this process can be frustratingly slow. I am concerned investors may want to see quick results, not perfected solutions.

gregorvand 1y ago

Awesome concept and execution. For those interested, this is a good bbc podcast episode digging in to the economics of train travel including sleeper trains https://pca.st/episode/262c1fdd-7dbd-4fa2-a3c6-5bf69bae6822 https://pca.st/episode/262c1fdd-7dbd-4fa2-a3c6-5bf69bae6822

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nylonstrung 1y ago

Love this idea, I 100% will use it when it is live.

ant6n 1y ago
Thank you!

VoidWhisperer 1y ago

I feel like I'm missing something here but even after looking at the 3D view I can't figure it out - how are people meant to get into and out of the upper pods in the private seats?

ant6n 1y ago
There are three ladder steps, and two bars to hold onto while stepping up. From the uppermost step you can already sit on the upper seat. It’s definitely easier to get into than the öbb mini cabins, because the relative orientation of steps and entrance are better.

L_226 1y ago

Hello! happy to see this on HN, I tested some of your mockups last year. How are you progressing now, do you see potential collab / competition with Nox? Kind regards,

ant6n 1y ago
Our prototypes keep getting better, and we’re assembling a team of partners for development. I think it would be great to have more partners in the team, we’re fairly open as to who, if we can make our work better.

anitil 1y ago

Please bring this to Australia. The Sydney to Melbourne air corridor is one of the busiest in the world [0], and yet anyone who has taken the train journey has told me to never, ever take it due to how horrible it is. Complaints include lack of ammenities, comfort, aggressive passengers (fights and yelling etc). I'm tempted to try it just to experience it. Surely, surely we can do better than that. I'd love to hop on at Central at 8pm, have a hot dinner, relax and wake up at Melbourne around 6am with a hot shower and breakfast. [0] I'm sure there's better sources but I could only find https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/travel-news/the-world-s-busiest-air-routes-for-2024-named-20241219-p5kzo9.html https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/travel-news/the-world-s-bus...

idkfasayer 1y ago

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LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago

Interesting. But too blue-eyed/rose-tinted IMO. Lemme explain. I see no (lockable) doors. Which means I wouldn't want to let my gadgets and other luggage out there in the open, when having to use the bathroom, or maybe going into the (snack)bar, if there is one. Which means having to carry my backpack/suitcase around with me, which is annoying. Which also opens the questions of other commonly encountered annoyances. Dirty bathrooms/toilets. What level of service is to be expected, regarding this?

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gyb997 1y ago

come to china! We have enough trains and long railway to make your dream became real~