Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
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Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#2Overnight trains are wonderful for traveling and saving a night's hotel. I used to take sleeper cars in China for distances that made sense (e.g. board at 9pm, arrive 7am). Some with shorter distances even optimized on sleep so that the train would stop for an hour outside the final station and arrive at a reasonable time in the morning. Unfortunately and similar with Europe, high speed rail has ended many of these schedules. On a side note, I've also failed to take this train multiple times in Japan due to its popularity: https://www.japan-rail-pass.com/japan-by-rail/travel-tips/su...
Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#3Smart. Fly less, kill less nature with CO2, sleep more. Have always loved the night trains here in Europe.
Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#4Good in theory, but implementation was poor the one time I tried it. The 6-person sleeper car is extremely cramped (2 triple bunks), and with the passport checks at border crossings, it's difficult to get a good night's sleep. Personal safety and luggage theft was a concern as well. I canceled my return trip and booked a low cost flight instead. Maybe the extra funding will improve train conditions and process.
Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#5I'm not sure about "revive," since sleeper trains have been coming back in Europe for years.
There was a Wall Street Journal article about it recently.
Sorry the link is Apple News, but that's where I bookmarked it from: https://apple.news/AdFPGWf-GTmOabJK30Za0ZQ
Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#6Good in theory, but implementation was poor the one time I tried it. The 6-person sleeper car is extremely cramped (2 triple bunks), and with the passport checks at border crossings, it's difficult to get a good night's sleep. Personal safety and luggage theft was a concern as well. I canceled my return trip and booked a low cost flight instead. Maybe the extra funding will improve train conditions and process.
If you choose a 6 person sleeper car, you can't really expect much. It's a bit like a hostel - you choose it because it's cheap, not because you expect to get proper rest.
To me, the 140EUR would be very much worth a private room, bathroom, and shower. It's travel + hotel, or some decent approximation. If you booked other forms of travel and an overnight hotel, you'd surely spend as much money and more time.
Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#7There are many overnight express trains in Europe. Cozy and not expensive, enough space for bikes. Warsaw-Moskow, Munich-Bologna, Paris-Tolouse, Kopenhagen-Hamburg just some examples.
Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#8Good in theory, but implementation was poor the one time I tried it. The 6-person sleeper car is extremely cramped (2 triple bunks), and with the passport checks at border crossings, it's difficult to get a good night's sleep. Personal safety and luggage theft was a concern as well. I canceled my return trip and booked a low cost flight instead. Maybe the extra funding will improve train conditions and process.
> The 6-person sleeper car is extremely cramped (2 triple bunks)
You get what you pay for. There was probably an option of a 4-person compartment (2 double bunks), or perhaps even a first-class option with a two-person compartment. FWIW, I personally have never had a problem sleeping even in the 6-person cars; people are generally respectful of each other.
> with the passport checks at border crossings, it's difficult to get a good night's sleep.
Where was this with passport checks with border crossings? Were you somewhere in Eastern Europe? There is plenty of room for overnight trains within Schengen where passports are not generally checked at border crossings.
Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#9there's only 8 million people in Sweden, most of whom live near Europe in the south and in Stockholm, so this is relatively small endeavour. Still good though!
Re: Sweden Wants to Revive Europe’s Overnight Trains
#10I'm not sure about "revive," since sleeper trains have been coming back in Europe for years. There was a Wall Street Journal article about it recently. Sorry the link is Apple News, but that's where I bookmarked it from: https://apple.news/AdFPGWf-GTmOabJK30Za0ZQ
Too bad I can't read WSJ, so I can't verify what they're saying. However, I haven't had much luck finding overnight trains here. It used to be that many existed and were popular, but they started disappearing and now few routes still have overnight options.