ÖBB is leading the pack on the sleeper train front though. Wien, Graz, Innsbruck, all linked up to the rest of Europe on a neat network of NightJet trains. The next generation of rolling stock for the sleeper cars looks amazing too.
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.
Österreichische Bundesbahnen (ÖBB) took over all remaining sleepers run by Deutsche Bahn (DB) some years ago. One downside of this was the dropping of the Amsterdam–Munich sleeper — ÖBB's nexus lies in Vienna. The Netherlands currently has no sleeper trains, which is rather unfortunate, because the sleeper train appears to gaining in popularity after a period of decline.
Increasingly, people want to avoid flying if reasonably possible. A sleeper train is ideal, because you spend most of the trip asleep, and end up in Munich, Paris, Vienna, etc. early in the morning, in the middle of the city.
Sure, it's not as comfortable as a hotel, but it beats the torture of flying (I'm 200cm tall), and train stations are just a lot more pleasant to be in than airports.
They took over the DB lines, incidentally bringing back sleeper trains from/to the Netherlands after a short absence, and I think rolling stock as well. ÖBB is certainly delivering on its promise. We took the sleeper train from Arnhem to Innsbruck and back just this month for a trip to the North of Italy (which is just two hours on the EuroCity from Innsbruck). The rolling stock is ageing a bit, but it's clean and has great service.
I was also pleasantly surprised by the fast, no-fuss refund of 25% when our return trip was delayed for 65 minutes. After alighting, on the next train, I arranged for the €80 to be refunded in just five minutes of entering the relevant details through their chat bot.
>New sleeper train connections are cropping up across Europe. The Austrian operator ÖBB Nightjet has overnight services to cities like Rome, Milan, Brussels and Amsterdam, and recently initiated a Vienna-Paris overnight link.
Austrian ÖBB, which runs in multiple countries like most lines going through Germany, is working on modernizing their trains, but they also have quite old cars. Not sure if there is a good site showing car types and train lines.
https://www.nightjet.com/en/komfortkategorien/nightjetzukunf...
I'm lucky to live in a city (Hanover, Germany) on the intersection of many night train routes. Back when Deutsche Bahn operated their night trains one could travel to Amsterdam, Brussels, Warsaw, and Prague. Now with ÖBB operating them one can ride to Hamburg, Vienna, Innsbruck, and Zurich.
Some years ago I did Hanover -> Warsaw and Hanover -> Prague. It was very chaotic to board at night and all the confusion which one of the train parts goes to which end station. Clearly other passengers had the same problem. Seems to be part of the adventure. You also have to get used to sleep in those trains. When ÖBB started to operate them I did Hamburg -> Hanover to ride back home (which continues to Vienna) and Munich -> Venice.
Of course your riding experience depends on whether you book seats, beds, cabins, or just the train ride. One time when I woke up I saw the polish worker standing by the window having his first beer. I didn't even notice him enter the cabin in the middle of the night. We talked for hours. Another time I just booked the train ride and when boarding the train spend minutes to cross the compartments full of people to find a nice spot. There were even some sleeping on the floor. I was lucky to reach the Czech part of the train, which had a lot of empty seats. The ride on the tracks next to Elbe and Vltava rivers is very magical.
For the train ride to Venice I reserved a single cabin which was very comfy. And the one departing from Hamburg had a delay of 120 minutes. I entered the train a searched for a cabin and was greeted by someone who smiled at me. So I entered the cabin and had a chat with her. She told me the delay was due to ÖBB having problems with loading all the cars and motorcycles on the train, and added there seems to be a delay between 60 and 120 minutes every day, because the problems don't go away.
In Europe sleeper trains have become somewhat extinct. High speed rail is just so fast and Ryanair so cheap, they became unprofitable.
However, there seems to be a revival going on. Especially the Australian railway operator (OBB) is investing a lot in their Nightjet trains. Some of the trains allow you to take your car with you.
I'm not sure if they are profitable, but they seem to be fully booked during the summer months (we had to book 2+ months in advance last year)
I will take it from Munich to Venice, but I must say that I have a better time in sleeper trains in India and China than in Europe, why I find them more comfortable there? My last OBB nightjet Vienna-Berlin was very uncomfortable.
DB got rid of its sleepers (which were the last ones to serve the Netherlands) in 2016. The Austrians bought most of the rolling stock, and kept some of the routes that served Austria going. They've now started expanding again, and a route from Amsterdam to Vienna and Innsbruck has just opened.
The ÖBB night trains can be awesome, but the quality doesn't seem to be consistent enough yet. There were reports of over 10% of all night trains getting cancelled this summer and replaced with regular trains (with seats, no beds).
The Nightjet network has reconnected to Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris, and OBB seems to be investing heavily. The Thelo trains from Paris-Italy have disappeared, but that was a recently opened service and frankly not very good when I rode it. When DB pulled out it looked like the end of an era, but European night trains are in better shape now than they have been for a long time, Covid notwithstanding.
ÖBB night trains vary greatly in quality. I had the displeasure of taking the Zürich Budapest night train and back. It was absolutely terrible. Broken cars from the 90s, beds so short you can’t fully lie in them, defective toilets, blinds that don’t close, rattling doors all night, arrived 4h late… not something I’d do again.
Doubly painful, now that people are once again more open to the use of a sleeper train to avoid flying (for environmental reasons, or just not having to deal with airports).
ÖBB took over Deutsche Bahn's sleepers, which coincided with the retiring of the last sleeper train from/to the Netherlands (bugger me). But their service does seem to be working pretty well.
I missed an opportunity to travel from Milan to Paris by Thello's sleeper train due to the railway strikes in France this year, unfortunately.
I really wish the EU or collaborating national governments would invest more in sleeper train services by taxing flights. It's much more sustainable, and the real kicker is this: yes, a train takes longer, but in a sleeper train you just wake up with a complimentary breakfast early in the morning in the middle of a city hundreds of kilometres from where you started.
Making a major resurgence in the last few years though. We took a direct Amsterdam-to-Innsbruck sleeper train earlier this year and there are several companies operating sleeper trains to other parts as well. Somewhere next month the Brussels-Amsterdam-Prague line will start and several more are in planning.
The biggest downside of sleeper trains IMO is that they are only really suitable for certain distances. It's not very nice to arrive somewhere at 02:00, so you really need a destination that is at least 8-10 hours away from your origin.
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