How Europe's Night Trains Came Back From the Dead (cnn.com) 89
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: [O]ver the past decade, much of Europe's night train network has been cut. 2013 and 2014 saw the culling of lines from Paris to Madrid, Rome and Barcelona; Amsterdam to Prague and Warsaw; and Berlin to Paris and Kiev. For many, it seemed the end of the line was nigh. But recently there has been a resurgence of night trains across Europe. And on December 8, four national rail providers teamed up to announce new routes between 13 European cities. Spearheaded by Austria's OBB, in conjunction with Germany's Deutsche Bahn, France's SNCF and Swiss Federal Railways, the collaboration will see four new "Nightjet" routes over the next four years. By December 2021, Vienna-Munich-Paris and Zurich-Cologne-Amsterdam will be up and running. Two years later, a Vienna/Berlin to Brussels/Paris will launch. And in December 2024, sleeper trains will start running between Zurich and Barcelona.
While countries like Germany and France quietly phased out their routes, OBB saw a future, and swept in to pick up many of the abandoned Deutsche Bahn routes, including Munich to Rome, and Berlin to Hamburg. Both [Nicolas Forien, part of Back On Track, a European network arguing for cross-border sleeper trains] and [Mark Smith of train website The Man in Seat 61] put the resurgence of the services down to the Austrian rail network. "There are high costs, but a lot is down to attitude, willingness and management focus," says Smith, who praises OBB CEO Andreas Mattha, who took over in 2016, for "making night trains wash their faces commercially." On Austrian railways, "Nightjet" sleeper trains now make up almost 20% of long-distance rail traffic, he says -- a far cry from the 5% in Germany, before Deutsche Bahn let them slide. "Finding passengers isn't a problem -- and it's becoming easier as people become fed up with the airline experience, and want to cut their carbon footprint," he says.
While countries like Germany and France quietly phased out their routes, OBB saw a future, and swept in to pick up many of the abandoned Deutsche Bahn routes, including Munich to Rome, and Berlin to Hamburg. Both [Nicolas Forien, part of Back On Track, a European network arguing for cross-border sleeper trains] and [Mark Smith of train website The Man in Seat 61] put the resurgence of the services down to the Austrian rail network. "There are high costs, but a lot is down to attitude, willingness and management focus," says Smith, who praises OBB CEO Andreas Mattha, who took over in 2016, for "making night trains wash their faces commercially." On Austrian railways, "Nightjet" sleeper trains now make up almost 20% of long-distance rail traffic, he says -- a far cry from the 5% in Germany, before Deutsche Bahn let them slide. "Finding passengers isn't a problem -- and it's becoming easier as people become fed up with the airline experience, and want to cut their carbon footprint," he says.
And I thought it was about Guns N Roses (Score:1)
And perhaps the cheap wine about which the song "Night Train" was written.
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I'm so old I thought it was about Night Train Lane.
James Brown kid (Score:2)
Though the Guns tune is good as well. Especially Slash's opening riff.
Are the trains that good or the flights so bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Are the trains that good or the flights so bad (Score:5, Informative)
The wife and I took one in 2018 from Munich to Vienna.
We paid for a private sleeper, which was still only about the same as a night's accommodation somewhere.
It was about 95% fantastic, with the main annoyance being the driver turns off the power to the cabins if he feels the train needs it more than we do, which meant the shower (electric pump) was off until about 20-30 minutes out from Vienna. Also, you don't get the normal train benefit of scenery, which varies a lot depending on your route...
The beds were really quite comfortable for only narrow/thin mattresses, and I would say a LOT better than the business class (points, yay) sleeper on Singapore Airlines that we used from Milan to Darwin; the cabin service was a better though.
If I had to travel regularly for work, this would be my first choice instead of a flight the night before/early. For tourism it's less of a certainty; I think I'd rather do a trip across mountain scenery in the day.
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Did that same private sleeper route from Vienna about 6 years ago in August. As you alluded to with engine power, A/C is not high on the priority list. Folks (i.e. Americans) don't appreciate how hot that region gets in the summer, even at night it was in the 80s F.
I like to think of myself as a tough hombre but that evening proved I'm closer to the stop-picking-on-Britney guy.
(Helluva fun trip though, wouldn't trade it)
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I can't conceive the electricity needed for AC (much less a water pump) even shows up on the radar of the energy needed to move a train. For cars it's something like 6%, and must be much less proportionally on a train.
This is crap design to even allow it, and probably derives from it running off the same deisel engine and generator used for the locomotive itself, and someone installed a switch. ("This thing is nuclear?" "No, no! This sucker's electrical!")
"We can save a few dollars on diesel fuel by shu
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This is crap design to even allow it, and probably derives from it running off the same deisel engine and generator used for the locomotive itself,
The only problem with this statement is that most (about 80% of the traffic) European trains are not usually diesel-powered, but use electric locomotives. That 80% goes probably way up if you exclude Eastern Europe and UK along with the most remote regions of the other countries.
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Re:Are the trains that good or the flights so bad (Score:4, Informative)
Munich to Vienna is only four hours by train. To be practically useful, night trains have a minimum distance requirement, so you can at least get a full night's sleep before arriving.
I regularly travel between Amsterdam and Munich. It would be great for a night train: it's about 9 hours, so you can leave in the evening and arrive in the morning, in time for a meeting. Unfortunately, while you can travel at night, currently you are required to switch trains something like seven times, so forget about sleeping...
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Low cost and timing can be factors too, not just distance. In Japan there are routes where you can take high speed rail in about 4 hours, or for a fraction of the price you can get a sleeper bus and travel overnight. The bus leaves late in the evening and arrives early in the morning so you can make full use of both days, where as the train takes up a significant chunk of one day.
They don't run the high speed trains all night because in order to safely go that fast they need a lot of maintenance and daily t
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That's what killed off night trains in the first place - widespread availability of TGV-class service in daylight hours. Railroads can then use nights for running freight.
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Yeah, the train actually spends 2-3 hours in Salzburg so you can get enough sleep.
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I used Japanese sleeper busses a couple of times and they have nailed the mattress problem. Seems to be some kind of memory foam, thin but very comfortable.
You get a private room but no shower, just a couple of shared toilets. It's a nice option, very cheap and easy compared to flying. Only small issue is that it arrives very early in the morning so not great if you aren't a morning person, and in Japan most of the shops don't open until 11 AM and hotels don't check in until afternoon so you are kinda stuck
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Which really keeps the beancounters office happy, even if the travel secretary is upset about having to consider two options, instead of just booking you onto the red-eye flight at twice the cost, and still struggling to make the 10:00 meeting start.
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I could fly from my home to Prague total time taking around 6 hours from my home to downtown Prague and cost around $100 US with price, parking, transport to city, etc.
For the night train it was around a 15 hours trip, slept most of the time, free parking at train station (15 mins away) but it cost around $300-$400 with discount and private 2nd class room.
Make it multiple people or a family and cheap airlines were an easy thing to do.
saving money by combining "hotel" + journey (Score:2)
Yes, cheap airlines did a lot of damage. Often airlines operating (at least in Sweden, for example Ryan Air) from municipality-subsidized airports ...
The train do not need to be completely expensive, however. I remember being able to find tickets Stockholm - Amsterdam for 59€, including a berth in a quite comfortable couchette car. That's less than even some hostels just for the sleeping space.
Also, I know some sleepy-head business travelers preferring the night train: If you have to be at a conference
Re:Are the trains that good or the flights so bad (Score:5, Informative)
We do have sleeper trains in the US, and it is actually a viable way to travel if you're lucky enough to be traveling between connected city pairs. It's probably the most comfortable and convenient (albeit slow) way to travel in the country. The room layouts are actually superior to most of the European night trains, even if the performance of the train itself is slower.
Pricing-wise it's almost always cheaper than domestic first-class airfare, and it always is if you're traveling with two people (the price of the room on Amtrak is a one-shot price, then they let you add people to the room at capacity with each person only paying the equivalent of coach fare).
The downside is that it's incredibly slow given the decrepit freight-focused nature of the US rail network. For instance, Oakland to Los Angeles takes 11 hours, costs about $180 for one person, $240 for two people, but you can spend that whole time lying naked in bed with your tablet/laptop watching movies or watching the scenery, sipping a bottle of wine, with all meals included.
Re:Are the trains that good or the flights so bad (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Are the trains that good or the flights so bad (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, the passenger train experience in the US is quite surprising when you are used to European or Asian standards. It's not that the experience is bad - as always the service level is very good in the US - but everything is so slow ! It's not just about the nominal speed on the track. The train slows downs very frequently, probably to cope with the freight transport around it. The train stops for ages in stations waiting for passengers to get off/get on through a limited number of open doors. In the end, it takes forever to reach your destination...
In the USA and Canada, except for parts of the ne USA, there is little dedicated passenger trackage. Passenger trains run on freight tracks owned, operated and controlled by freight railways. They all abandoned passenger service nearly 60 years ago - freight service was the money maker, passenger service mostly lost money. Both governments stepped in and created national quasi-private passenger railways - VIA Rail in Canada and Amtrak in the USA.
Freight trackage has lower speed limits, is generally rougher than dedicated passenger track - freight loads are much more forgiving about ride quality compared to people. Some rail lines are still single-track, so conflicting movements have to spaced to meet at sidings.
Railways are compensated for the use of their tracks, but, less than can be generated moving freight. So, schedules tend to favour freight over passenger, and, whenever there is a unscheduled conflict between the two, passenger usually "takes the hole" (be still and wait, usually in the middle of nowhere)
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Rode a train from Jackson, MS to Chicago, IL about 10 years ago. When we went to the food car for dinner, we had to wait for the doors to "line up" and dash thru and hope not to get smashed too bad. I felt like I was still bouncing up and down a day after getting there because the train ride was so rough.
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We do have sleeper trains in the US, and it is actually a viable way to travel if you're lucky enough to be traveling between connected city pairs.
We have done this, Flagstaff - Pittsburgh. It takes two full days and a change in Chicago, but it's a way to really see the country.
Re:Are the trains that good or the flights so bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, the use of the Night Jet netted us one additional day in Venice for less than the price of a hotel, and it was totally worth it. Unfortunately, I can't see older folks (i.e., retirees who would travel a lot) or business people doing it, and that's probably where the main revenue streams come from.
I applaud the crap out of what OBB has done and is doing - they are going out of their way to make train travel family friendly, comfortable, and affordable. I'm happy to pay for their services.
Re:Are the trains that good or the flights so bad (Score:4, Insightful)
(Like, did the train conductor really have to hit the brakes that hard?)
No, but the engineer did.
Hopefully one day all trains will be like the more advanced subways, where each car has its own motive power. That would also permit solving some other problems with trains besides the bumpy ride.
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Austria does have EMUs, but most of them are used as local trains. The only exception is the intercity express - that's the one that needs only four hours from Munich to Vienna.
Re:Are the trains that good or the flights so bad (Score:5, Insightful)
I have taken these a lot, and loved it.
The trick is to see them as hotels/hostels on wheels. Then they suddenly make a lot of economic sense.
Upsides:
- You're going to pay for a hotel in a city anyway, so by taking a night train you essentially get the trip to a new city for free.
- Amazing changing views right from your hotel window. It's a great way to get a sense of a new country before you arrive.
- More comfortable. Walk around, stretch your legs. Bring tons of luggage and food. Chill in the restaurant wagon.
- Met some lovely people on these trains.
- There is something soothing about the cadence of trains on tracks which makes me sleep like a baby.
- Environmentally friendly.
- No need to go through airports.
Downsides:
- Lack of privacy if you share a coupé with others.
- No shower. But you can take one when you check into the hotel at your destination in the morning anyway.
- You might share a coupé with strange people. Never happened to me, but it's possible.
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I have only travelled on the older, now discontinued Deutsche Bahn lines, but back then I could book a first-class cabin for myself with private shower in the cabin.
Even first class, it didn't cost more than a cheap hotel room and a regular train ride would have done.
Compared to taking a plane in the middle of the day, it saved a lot of time.
The train stops at train stations in the city centres, so there is no commute to/from the airports. No check-in half an hour in advance, no security check, and no waiti
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- You might share a coupé with strange people. Never happened to me, but it's possible.
If there is one thing I've learnt from extensive research on Pornhub it's that this is not a downside.
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^ you've just listed the reasons a first class EuRail Pass is the most awesome way to cover Europe, hands down.
Yes, as a student it's a stretch economically but it saves you so damn much money, plus "go to sleep in Liechtenstein and wake up in Berlin" is amazing.
And yeah my g/f and I did have to share our 1st class cabin with 2 other travelers....two other college age girls. So when we pushed down the seats to sleep (that's cheaper than getting a sleeper car, and "good enough" for young bodies), turns out
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Man, if *literally* sleeping next to a girl gets you that excited, you gotta go get some more action in your life.
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THREE girls. Two of them not really known.
Left side: girlfriend
Right side: stranger girl #1
Atop me, straddling my right leg: stranger girl #2
If having your g/f and two other reasonably hot girls form a literal pile with you beneath it DOESN'T get that sort of response from you, you have a far more exciting life than me.
Re: Are the trains that good or the flights so bad (Score:2)
Re:Are the trains that good or the flights so bad (Score:4, Informative)
Euro trains are a viable option to air travel. Between big cities, there's often a high-speed train that's at least as fast as flying. Except you have more space and can freely move around. Trains in North America aren't a thing - the tracks are primarily freight only with passenger use second, so they're all low speed tracks.
The overnight trains aren't high speed trains, but since you're sleeping through it, it doesn't matter. Private cabins aren't expensive and you'll get a good night's sleep and end up being refreshed. Better than taking a short plane trip, being woken up to get through the airport, taxi to the hotel and finishing the rest of your sleep.
The trains aren't as fast as say, Japan or China, but they're a viable form of travel in Europe and definitely a lot more civilized. And aren't necessarily slower than flying, either.
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The schedules are all screwed up lately, with long changeovers in places like Bruxelles-Midi and Paris, (probably related to Covid), but I can confirm that the worst I've seen over flying when they still ran normally is 30 minutes more on total travel time.
That of course is counting everything that makes flying a hassle: travel to and from the airport, airlines telling you to be there 1-2 hours before departure for checkin and security. The train travels more slowly than a plane, but it travels at least dur
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Both.
France f.ex. got enough TGV routes that you don't need to sleep on the way.
I live in Luxembourg and by TGV I need 2 hours and 5 minutes to Paris, hardly worth a nap, a couple of drinks in the bar and you're there.
If I took a flight there, I'd have to be at the airport at least 90 minutes before the flight, plus the drive to the airport.
I'd already be in Paris if I take the TGV, since I only need to be there 1 minute before departure.
320km/h can't be beaten by cars or flights for such rather short trips
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I used to regularly take the train on the US East Coast for business trips. It hands down beats the plane for any trip that takes less than eight hours -- at least for business travel. For leisure the longer trip time means a day off your vacation on either end, but bring your laptop on the train and you have so much less down time. There's nothing like stepping off the train at the end of your trip with all your immediate follow-up work done and the invoice sent.
I also once took a trip from Davis Calif
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And unlike airports, train stations are mostly right downtown, so no hour to an hour and a half drive in.
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Not just night trains (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll tell you what I miss most: it's night trains where you could bring your car along. That used to be super common in Europe in the 80s and 90s: drive up to the car terminal at the end of the afternoon, park your car on the car carrier wagon, go to the sleeper car, find your cabin, spend the night travelling to your destination (hopefully find some sleep if none of the other passengers snore), wake up the next morning at your destination, go to your car and drive off. You could do that with a motorcycle also.
I can't count the number of holiday trips I've taken that way. It's great because you have your own car with all your stuff in it wherever you happen to be vacationing - as opposed to packing all your shit in two suitcases and renting a car at your destination. Now I think there's only a couple of summertime-only services from Germany to Italy left.
I think that sort of service is still quite common in Scandinavia. At least I know for sure it is in Finland. Makes sense: it's more convenient to stick your car on the train than to drive cross-country in the winter.
Re: Not just night trains (Score:2)
amtrak can use more of them (Score:2)
amtrak can use more of them
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Eurotunnel might be the last pax + car transporter (Score:3)
... in Europe though I hope I'm wrong. Plus its far from being luxurious - you have to stay in your car in the wagon and its mostly in tunnel. OTOH its only 25 mins to do the 25 miles which is about 40% the time the ferry takes and a damn site quicker either end for disembarking. But as a train travel experience its not really up there with a motorail across the alps.
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As grandparent said, these are in operation in Finland (North-South). See
https://www.vr.fi/en/carcarrie... [www.vr.fi]
Works quite well. If you have an EV, you can even charge your car on the way (well, not at very high speed, but still...- those sockets are originally meant for engine block warmers) and replaces a 1000+ km drive. Pricewise, even if you factor in fuel, it's more expensive than driving through the night and just booking a hotel, but the few times we have taken it as a family I was glad to pay for the com
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At my workplace, they got tired of people mooching off the engine block warmer sockets to charge their EVs. As a result, they installed a device that cuts the power on and off every 15 minutes. Apparently that's enough to confuse the charge controller and prevent the car from charging - but it keeps dumb heating devices working.
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Does your workplace keep the pens and pencils in a locked room, as well?
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That is standard practice herein the UK.
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It's not a question of bean counting, it's a question of EVs pulling too much current. Even with a 6 amp limit, too many EVs in the parking lot would trip the fuse. Most car with an engine warmer and an interior warmer don't pull more than 4 amps.
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Most commercial buildings are required to be designed for expansion/modification. Thus, adding/upgrading circuits to handle this load would typically cost US$200-400 a piece, and the electricity costs would be trivial compared to the HVAC costs. I regard it as an inexpensive benefit to the employees.
Switzerland ; Vehicles (Score:2)
Car train-ferries are still a thing in Switzerland, mostly as a way to get on the other side of mountains where the only available tunnel is a train-track.
(E.g.: it's the simplest way to travel form the northern Swiss-German part of Switzerland to Zermatt).
The difference is that they are used for extremely short trips, so you stay in the car (they don't feature any passenger cars for you to get out and walk to), unlike the overnight car ferries+sleeper car train combo you mention.
The "have a car ready to tr
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There's a town like that in Alaska. Took a ferry with the car across a chunk of sea, then drove right up onto a train flatcar and rode through the mountain.
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The "have a car ready to travel once the train arrives" has been massively taken over by Car Sharing companies. E.g.: In Switzerland there's Mobility (if you're used to Germany, think DB CarSharing / Finkster).
Those aren't really too different from regular car rental, but yeah, that really makes much more sense in most cases than transporting back and forth two tons of steel thousands of kms at great monetary and emission cost.
I'll definitely look into it though, I've been meaning to do a roadtrip around Southern Italy or Spain but it's 2 and 3 thousand km away just to get there. I actually ended up doing Spain this year in a rented Fiat but I'd love to do Italy in my own car. If a route to Bari even exists it's
Booth less (Score:2)
Those aren't really too different from regular car rental,
There are major difference:
- virtual all car-sharing are completely boothless. 100% of interaction are through apps and website. Unlocking the car is done through the app and/or using RFID cars. Talking to human is mostly used as a fall-back solution. (As opposed to needing to show up at the rental's booth at the airport before picking up the keys and the car, and needing to drop them back - I know some rentals offer check-in-less pick-up or drop-off, but for car-sharing that's the default modus ope
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Well yeah, that's correct. That said I was mainly talking about this specific scenario, where it's an alternative to transporting your own car in the train. Nobody would do that for a single trip to/from the office, for example, and for longer term rentals it's pretty much the same. Use the app or pick up your keys on the way from the train to the parking.
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Driving my motorbike all the way to the end of a very long car train was probably the scariest thing I've ever done with it. You drive over a narrow metal rail with gaps on both sides (so if you stop you really have to make sure your feet can rest on something!), and since I was on the lower deck, I had to drive bent forwards, making it nearly impossible to see where I was going.
Getting it on the stand was also an interesting problem, but we managed in the end. The train crew wasn't all that impressed with
News for Europeans! (Score:3)
Train nerds maybe...
and Europe-dwelling nerds.
Finally a /. news where the discussions thread will be mostly us smug European trading anecdotes about our travels.
All the while US-American wonder what is this strange "train" thing that we're talking about.
And wonder what restrictions on carrying liquids there are before boarding those mythical travelling marvels.
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vacuum toilets are the norm (Score:3)
That's hard to find - normally toilets are connected to storage tanks now, flushed by a vacuum system. At least in western Europe; I only found open-flush toilets on some of the less-luxury (but still quite clean and comfortable) domestic night trains in Russia when traveling from Japan to Sweden some years ago.
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Did Amsterdam to/from Stockholm and Berlin to/from Stockholm by train several times when we lived in Sweden, and they were both quite tolerable runs. My wife and I took a very nice trip a couple of summers ago from Prague to Berlin via Bratislava, Vienna, and Munich.
Train travel in general is much less stressy than air or long-distance car travel. And one especially nice thing about it vis-à-vis flying is not having to worry about the effects of dramatic air-pressure changes on sinuses/ears.
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Really missing my EU citizenship now, cruelly ripped away.
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Nice way to travel (Score:2)
Yeah, but what about the ticket price? (Score:1)
I loved night trains. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the mos convenient way to travel imaginable without beaming. You go to bed, and when you wake up, you're there.
I remember nice cabins, cool springy seats that converted to comfy beds, freshy washed clean white sheets, my own night lamp and book, thick fully darkening curtains, and a view you could get nowhere else if the lights were turned off.
But Deutsche Bahn ruined it with the profit greed of their "privatization" (aka stealing it from us citizens and handing it to gambling leeching thugs, while still handing it government money to out-compee others for monopolism).
I remember the sleeper wagons becoming seen as old and crusty, with you-don't-know-who sleeping in there, and cabins shared with weirdos. Although part of that was just the rise of the anxiety pandemic we're currently also in, the majority of it was DB neglecting it and cheaping-out on it to make more money, until nobody wanted to use it anymore.
E.g. there never were ICE-level sleeper wagons, AFAIK. In terms of modern looks and cleanliness and comfort.
Had they invested in entirely new sleeper trains, OBB wouldn't have taken the market from them.
But "thanks" to a monopoly *and* profit instead of the good of the country being their primary goal they did not need to.
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It's the mos convenient way to travel imaginable without beaming
Remember that some slashdotters want to live in a world where beaming kills you, only sending your information and assembling you from local atoms, rather than Star Trek's, where multiple statements by Bones, as well as the "beam it into space, wide dispersal pattern" method of killing, demonstrate conclusively does not.
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Uh, what?
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While this is getting kind of off-topic, I should point out that transporter accidents that result in two versions of the person being transported obviously contradict that.
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Carbonic acid (Score:2)
Good stuff in Europe, not so much in the US (Score:4, Interesting)
If you're travelling an appropriate distance, sleepers are a huge time saver. Flying somewhere you have all the airport delays, the airport will not be in the city centre, you have to check in and check out of your hotel. With overnight trains, you get on the train - a matter of a few minutes - go to your compartment, go to sleep. When you wake up, you are at your destination. What's not to like?
I don't understand why they ever fell out of fashion in Europe.
In the US, the train system prioritizes freight. Which is fair enough - the US moves far more freight by rail than does Europe. However, it does mean that long-distance passenger trains travel slowly overall, and are often late. I can't really recommend the experience, unless things have improved in recent years.
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I don't understand why they ever fell out of fashion in Europe.
Because of the high speed rail network, and originally, 20 years ago, sleeping in trains was super expensive.
While US favours cargo on rails, in europe at night we favour cargo on rails. There are not many slots for sleeper trains at night.
I enjoyed the sleeprs (Score:2)
Do it once for the experience (Score:1)
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We used to take the overnight ferries between Stockholm and Helsinki and found it quite enjoyable. I guess that's not the one you took.
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Maybe miss the best scenery in the world... (Score:1)
I remember going through the Alps by train, it was wonderful, such a waste to do it at night.
I also did north from Oakland to Portland on the Amtrak Coast Starlight, and the compartments were good, but the meals included made it really worthwhile. It being overnight, missed Northern California and Southern Oregon scenery, but maybe one day southbound to see that...
Also good if you have luggage (like instruments) (Score:4, Informative)
I play in the Uppsala University Symphony in Sweden. We go on tour all over Europe, and many of us prefer going by train. Many do it for climate reasons, to see more or the places we visit, or the convenience of getting straight to the city centre.
But the train also have extra advantages when traveling with instruments: If you have seen (which a colleague did) a cello being smashed to pieces by airport crew (despite promises of special care), you don't want to check it in. And putting it in the cabin is hard - you need to pay for an extra seat, if allowed at all. Double basses are completely out of question. Even violins and french horns have problem fitting in the overhead rack - and the few that can fit their instrument, have used all their hand luggage allowance.
On the train, you can bring every instrument (except timpani ...) on board, and keep it close to yourself all the time. On the night train, we booked an extra bed (for 10€) for some larger instruments to share, but you can have them standing on the floor too, in your locked compartment. The overhead racks are also much more generous on the train; no problem fitting a bassoon or bass clarinet for example.
And no security theatre, no waiting in lines for boarding, no putting your luggage on the scales and hope for the best: Just go to the train on the station, show the ticket when boarding (on night trains) or during the journey (on day trains). Bring as much or as little luggage as you need - all nearby during the journey.
The next step - high speed night trains (Score:3)
The European high speed rail network is now quite extensive, with a network allowing 200 - 320 km/h operations - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
The night step for night travel? Perhaps using this network with a high speed sleeper train. With such a train, you could go between more or less all parts of central Europe by sleeping. Not a Star Trek transporter, but a bit closer :-)
The railways of China actually have some high speed trains like that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Surprised to learn (Score:2)
As a participator in the "backpack around Europe after college" movement back in the day, me and people I met on my travels used a Eurail pass and night trains to save on a night in a hostel. This was a huge benefit of night trains; especially the romantic ones like the Orient Express. Yes I rode it with a lady I'd met in Barcelona, and yes, the night train of old lent itself to extracurricular activities in the chosen
Can somebody check the schedule for me? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)