Night Trains and Why They Deserve a Revival

There is something the overnight train offers that no other form of travel can quite replicate: the experience of closing your eyes in one country and opening them in another.

The world outside the window is dark when you climb into your bunk, and by the time the light returns, the landscape has changed entirely —  architecture is different, script on the signs looks unfamiliar, and morning belongs to somewhere new. It is, by any reasonable measure, a wonderful way to move through the world.

Night trains fell out of favour across Europe during the low-cost airline boom of the early 2000s. The logic was purely economic — a budget flight was faster and often cheaper than an overnight sleeper, and the rail operators, unable to compete, quietly wound down services.

The environmental argument against that trade-off was noted and largely ignored. A return flight between London and Vienna produces roughly forty times the carbon emissions of the equivalent train journey.

That figure was inconvenient during an era of cheap fuel and expanding aviation. It has become rather harder to dismiss.

Revival is already under way. Austrian Federal Railways relaunched its Nightjet network with new rolling stock and expanded routes. The European Sleeper connects Brussels with Prague. Midnight Trains, a French operator, has announced routes from Paris across the continent.

The energy around night train travel, particularly among younger travellers conscious of their environmental footprint, has shifted noticeably.

Experience itself rewards a certain attitude. A sleeper berth is compact — that is the honest word — and the motion of the train means sleep is rarely as deep as in a stationary bed. But the compartment, with its fold-down bunk, crisp linen, and the rhythmic clatter of the wheels, has a particular cosiness that hotels cannot manufacture.

Dinner in the dining car, a book in the narrow corridor window seat, lights out somewhere around midnight — there is a ritual quality to it that flying utterly lacks.

Book in advance where possible: sleeper berths on popular routes sell out weeks ahead, and the price difference between booking early and booking late can be considerable.

A first-class sleeper with a private compartment is a genuine luxury; a couchette in a shared carriage is perfectly comfortable and considerably cheaper. Either way, you arrive rested, in a city centre, having saved a night’s accommodation. The arithmetic, for once, favours the slower option.