This is a great map of the night train services across Europe.
https://back-on-track.eu/night-train-map/
They vary significantly in levels of comfort and price, but there’s a lot to check out. Shame this new service didn’t work out.
Real pity. It was an important idea that should have gotten a chance.
Check out European sleeper, that company is already doing this
and NightJet by ÖBB, different routes, but a lot better IMO
As far as I know those services are barely breaking even, using the few remaining old sleeper wagons. Growth of them is not likely because new wagons cost a lot and profitability is low.
Why? Sounds like a small expensive hotel and a slow plane ride.
Or a better night train. The slowness is not an issue if you can actually save time by merging the trip and the hotel stay.
You’re essentially paying for a hotel that transports you to a different city by next morning, as if by magic. You can have a full day’s work or sightseeing, eat dinner, board your train and get a reasonable night’s sleep, waking up to have another full day at your destination.
Your room is smaller, more like a prison cell than a hotel room. And it’s noisier (depending on the train). And there’s no guarantee you will arrive on time. And the food is worse. And you can’t leave.
It’s like being in prison. I want to like trains but they need to be fast (high speed rail) or convenient (subways).
There’s already a company doing this, with lines already going. European sleeper! Night trains with private cabins and beds between Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin and Prague
Right, Midnight Trains was a French company trying to create a European night train network that centred on France, specifically on Paris. I think they found out the hard way that for various reasons, as they detailed in their blog, France might not be the best country in which to organise such a company; it also might have been simply too ambitious of a project for the current market.
Ah, that was on my list of “looking forward to try”. The Porto to Hamburg line they had in their promotional material sounded really cool.
