European sleeper trains are making a comeback. Here's a look inside the new generation of night trains, which include modern beds in private cabins, Wi-Fi and redesigned bars and restaurants.
We all know the romanticized version of what it was like to tour Europe on sleeper trains: chance encounters with exotic strangers, late-night border crossings, and diner cars where mysterious passengers nursed cocktails and ate poulet de Bresse while rumbling across the Dauphine alps.
The reality—2 a.m. whistle-stops, sketchy compartment companions, and a suite of funky smells and sounds that made the actual sleeping part a monumental effort—wasn’t quite that glamorous. So when the rise of low-cost airlines in the 1990s gave travelers a faster way to get to European destinations, demand for night trains fell and operators started abandoning routes around 2005.
But now, despite the odds, European sleeper trains are making a comeback. In the past two years, Europe has witnessed a revival of sleeper trains both from state-run rollers such as Austria’s ÖBB, which operates 19 Nightjet routes and seven Euronight trains as a partner, and a new crop of privately operated trains like the Alpen-Sylt Nachtexpress, which in July started service between the North Sea and the Alps.
“The flight-shame in Europe was real,” says Joe Herger, who operates a hiking company, The Alps by Joe, in Switzerland. “People really called you out if you expressed a desire to take a short flight within Europe. I still love to fly, but in many instances, European trains are easier to use for shorter distances and definitely better for the environment.”
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