The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper Train Interior Design

Sleeper trains make so much sense for travel over land. They are often competitively priced with air travel, they pollute a lot less and the time saved can be huge when you consider that you spend time travelling when you would otherwise be asleep (although this is sometimes true for air travel, many/most people find it difficult to get quality sleep in economy class).

The London - Edinburgh sleeper train (Caledonian Express) has been running pretty much since 1873 and is an amazing way to get between the two cities. You arrive at the station in London between 10-12pm, depending on if you want to have a few snacks or glasses of wine, then wake up in Edinburgh around 8am the next day.

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.

These trains looks really nice.

As a regular train traveller here in Austria and I'm very curious how this turns out.

Currently the Intercity/RailJet trains are more like a downgrade to what was available before. They look nicer, but provide quite uncomfortable seating and offer no possibility to change the seating inclination; due to the air condition it's very noisy; there's no place to put your feet in an elevated position; there's no compartments, the whole car is one big room; and the only option for children is an open place with a TV, you have a lot of fun chasing your small children through the train.

If only the US had trains this nice... One can dream. This really looks spectacular.

> many/most people find it difficult to get quality sleep in economy class

I've only taken a sleeper train once (from Paris to Marseille), but i found it difficult to get quality sleep on that. There's noise, there's movement, and the mattress isn't terribly good. Train schedules don't necessarily fit well with your normal sleeping schedule. I'd much rather to the trip in a TGV and then spend the hours saved having a shower and a rest on arrival.