Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains • Hacker News Board

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#91

Post by ptaipale » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 9:21 PM UTC

Shalle135 wrote: post #88

The hing about trains in general though is the pricing around it. In Sweden a flight from the northern parts to the southern is about $100 and takes an hour. The train cost $100-200 and takes about 16h depending on where you depart from. I believe a requirement for people choosing to take the train is that they add some facilities (you feel pretty nasty after 16h on a train) and reduce the price. Raising the price on…

Another point (not in Sweden) is that the rail operators are government-owned companies which often operate like the government does.

Couple of months back, I tried to buy a ticket to the car-train to Lapland (I can take the car with me to train in the evening, sleep in a cabin, wake up in the morning and set off for the remainder of the journey with my car). When booking the car slot, the booking system required me to enable flash and when it got started, it just rotated that thing on the browser window.

I got bored, checked out flights. In 5 minutes I had flight tickets, with extra bags paid, and a rental car, at half the total cost of what the car-train would have been. I returned to the booking window, it still had that rotating thing on the browser window. I closed the window and did not miss it.

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#92

Post by krn » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

Western Europe is very different from Eastern Europe in this case.

In Western Europe, low-cost flights and buses essentially won the market.

But there are not as many direct flights between Central and Eastern European cities, and the roads are often not that good, either.

Therefore, in any direction from Budapest overnight trains are still very popular, and in countries like Ukraine it's probably the single most important way to travel long distances.

The overnight trains in Central and Eastern Europe are much cheaper, too. For instance, a seat in Budapest - Belgrad costs 15€, and a bed in Kiev - Lviv starts at around 8€.

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#93

Post by seppel » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 9:30 PM UTC

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #20

nicolaslem wrote: post #11

I was disappointed when I checked if it was possible to do Paris-Warsaw by night train. I imagined entering the train at 5pm, eating something, watching a movie and waking up in Paris in the morning. It sounded much better to me than spending an actual day commuting to/from far away airports and waiting in queues. Unfortunately such train does not exist, but neither does the platform that would allow searching and bo…

I second the recommendation of Bahn.de. For like two decades now it has provided a way to search train schedules across Europe when the national rail companies didn’t bother to provide their own accessible interface.

Bahn.de is remarkable. You can search for Paris->Beijing if you want(202h with one change or 173h with three changes). Or you can look up the train schedule of a remote Scotish villages.

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#94

Post by FearNotDaniel » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 9:30 PM UTC

DoubleCribble wrote: post #60

As of 25 years ago this was THE way for a backpacker with a Eurail pass to see the continent during the summer. The cheap cars (ie 6 beds/room) were basically a youth hostel on rails. It was a fantastic way to meet other travelers and explore new cities together.

Yup, I did this for a month back in my student days - the ticket is called Inter-Rail if you buy it within Europe. I was incentivised to basically visit a different country every day because every night spent on a train was one you didn't have to pay for a hostel! Also, some places like Florence had a free campsite with wooden shelters, you just had to bring a sleeping bag, and the month's rail ticket included an overnight ferry from Italy to Greece. Happy days!

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#95

Post by jnurmine » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 9:31 PM UTC

dmitriid wrote: post #18

In my limited experience trains are both ridiculously expensive and impossible to find in Europe. Let’s say I want to travel from Stockholm to Hamburg. It will cost an arm and a leg. And it will require a ridiculous amount of layovers (5 IIRC, with bus travel between some trains) if you can a website to actually plan such a route properly. It gets even more ridiculous the farther you travel.

But wait. If you plan to travel a LOT with a train within Europe, and you are a European resident, check out the Interrail passes.

For non-residents, check out Eurail instead.

I've no experience with Eurail but Interrail worked fine back in the days and saved a lot of money, too. As horribly cliché as it may sound, it truly was a great eye-opening experience which made me appreciate Europe (culture, people, cuisine, geography, history, and so on) more than I did before.

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#96

Post by elamje » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 9:32 PM UTC

avolcano wrote: post #12

Excited about this idea. I wanted to do an overnight train in a Europe trip I did last year, but the timing and quality never quite worked out. A lot of the time, trains between cities in western Europe are annoyingly long for a day trip, but slightly _too short_ for overnight trips - almost like an NYC->London red-eye, where you arrive just after you fall asleep. The couple of overnight trains I saw that seemed like…

The ferry isn't too bad, I've taken it between Stockholm, Tallinn, Helsinki, and St. Petersburg. It's not like an all inclusive, nice experience like American cruises, but more minimalist (taking people, cars, and trucks). It's extremely cheap in the baltic sea and way cheaper than flight + hotel. It's a good experience all in all. Prices on board for food and shopping weren't bad at all.

The ferries are also known as booze cruises since Scandanavia has such high alcohol tax/gov. monopoly on alcohol, people buy a ton of it from the duty free store on board.

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#97

Post by jwr » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 9:32 PM UTC

I used overnight trains many times in my life. They are great, but if the revival is to succeed, we need better solutions for security. Theft was always a problem in sleeper trains. There needs to be a way to lock yourself in and have an alarm sound whenever someone opens the door with an override.

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#98

Post by eCa » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 9:33 PM UTC

robin_reala wrote: post #22

dmitriid wrote: post #18

In my limited experience trains are both ridiculously expensive and impossible to find in Europe. Let’s say I want to travel from Stockholm to Hamburg. It will cost an arm and a leg. And it will require a ridiculous amount of layovers (5 IIRC, with bus travel between some trains) if you can a website to actually plan such a route properly. It gets even more ridiculous the farther you travel.

Uh, no? Stockholm to Copenhagen on the X2000 then an overnight train to Hamburg. Not the cheapest, but it’s totally feasible.

AFAIK, the Copenhagen->Hamburg night train is seating only, it's not a sleeper train any more.

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#99

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 9:34 PM UTC

Shalle135 wrote: post #88

The hing about trains in general though is the pricing around it. In Sweden a flight from the northern parts to the southern is about $100 and takes an hour. The train cost $100-200 and takes about 16h depending on where you depart from. I believe a requirement for people choosing to take the train is that they add some facilities (you feel pretty nasty after 16h on a train) and reduce the price. Raising the price on…

There are some cost savings if you're traveling via rail regularly, though, via stuff like Eurail passes.

Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

#100

Post by shuzchen » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 9:35 PM UTC

Shalle135 wrote: post #88

The hing about trains in general though is the pricing around it. In Sweden a flight from the northern parts to the southern is about $100 and takes an hour. The train cost $100-200 and takes about 16h depending on where you depart from. I believe a requirement for people choosing to take the train is that they add some facilities (you feel pretty nasty after 16h on a train) and reduce the price. Raising the price on…

One benefit of sleeper trains is you can take into the account the price of a night stay at a hotel as well as the time saved (in the sense that you do your travel while you're sleeping, so you have more net waking hours available). I rode the Caledonian Sleeper from London to Edinburgh last Christmas and yes, the price was about the same as a flight but considering it saved me from paying for a night in a hotel it was actually a better deal.