Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains

This is amazing. I've taken daylong trains between Narvik and Copenhagen.

Didn't know overnight trains had disappeared. When I lived in Europe as a poor student from the US I would take night trains every single time I could. I had an Interrail pass and once everyone was settled down for the night go look for an empty seating or sleeping area with a door. I could usually find one and then I would just lay down inside with my feet agains the door, use my pack for a pillow and go to sleep. I traveled a month like that and never paid for a hotel.

> 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.

Yeah, the sweet spot is definitely 8+ hours en route.

I took a fantastic service from Nice to Paris which ran about twelve hours, which was plenty of time to sleep. It was weirdly cheap at €87 for a first-class sleeper car, or €157 including an extra €70 supplement to be guaranteed to be the only occupant in a room with four berths. The service started at Nice (8pm), made a few local stops to pick up more passengers, finally got to Marseilles (10:29pm), then ran nonstop from 10:30pm Marseilles to 7:38am Paris.

I had been expecting a very low-key cut-rate service designed for locals to travel comfortably overnight in dedicated beds but got a very modern train instead -- apparently operated by Russian Railways (RZD) with 2014-built passenger carriages that RZD also uses for their Paris to Moscow service (same equipment as the "sleeping cars" shown here). The onboard shower was an unexpectedly nice touch and it was an awesome ride.

Sadly the train I took no longer exists -- when I took it in July 2016, the French government had already begun to withdraw subsidies for the service (https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2016/may/10/france-waves-... , https://www.seat61.com/lunea.htm ) and it vanished.

The logistics can work out really well. My calculus was that (1) I was in Nice visiting family and wanted to stay as long as possible, but I needed to catch a 10am flight out of CDG the next day; (2) it would have cost €300+ to book a flight NCE-CDG and an airport hotel, and departing the city center at 8pm let me see the city for longer than heading to NCE in the late afternoon.

Unclear if it was a good deal from a point of view of national priorities. My trip kept one person from taking one domestic flight -- is that a good deal considering the externalities of shorthaul plane rides versus train rides? I have no idea.

I'm actually surprised they let you stay on the train. Both times I've taken that route they seemed pretty diligent about making sure everybody was off the train. I assume this is for safety reasons -- down in a darkened train on the lowest deck would be the last place I'd want to be if the ferry had any difficulties.

I really liked the ferry experience. The ferry part is only about 40 minutes, but it's just enough time to have a quick meal in the on-board restaurant. Unsurprisingly it's not exactly a bargain price for a buffet, but it did break up the train journey nicely. It's pleasant to sit in a comfortable booth and stare out at the sea for a bit.

The Late, Slow Limited (Lake Shore Limited). Cool route through the rust belt. The shitty thing about the two East coast-Chicago routes is they dropped dining car service. Until recently sleeping car passengers got an actual on board full service restaurant prepared meal included in the ticket. They dropped this due to costs. Now there is just the cafe car and these airplane style meals included with sleeping car tickets.. not the same at all.