Good 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.
Croatia to Germany is only a little less annoying with Slovenia’s ascent into Schengen.
But before that, it was stop for Croatian exit controls, deal with Slovenian EU immigration, then Slovenian/EU customs, then Schengen once entering Austria.
A lot of interruption for an overnight train when travelling solo.
Then the equipment problems where I had to board a coach train and transfer to a bus before getting on the sleeper some hours later.
With the migration crisis, spot checks have been introduced at a few select crossings, but that still leaves plenty of possible train routes within Schengen where the authorities are not concerned about checking for migrants.
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.
Not sure if it exists still but in 2012 I took a round trip Berlin Paris in a 4 bunk bed room around xmas. It was about 200 euros per person. About 13 hours in train, not the best sleep in such room.
> What trains have you found that offer this? As an American unaccustomed to such trains, I'd be super interested to try them.
Just FYI, we have those in America on Amtrak long-distance trains; the Bedroom and Bedroom Suite (on both Viewliners and Superliners) have these features, as does the Accessible Bedroom on Viewliners. Roomettes don't have the shower (or the bathroom, on Superliners.)
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.
That is too bad. My experience was a few years back.
I’m built like a gorilla and airplane seats are often pretty tortuous for me.
The train experience is pretty cool in many ways, despite with the problems that exist. Even in NYC, I can show up 5m before the train leaves and be good to go, while airports have all sorts of bullshit to deal with. It’s a shame that the circumstances of the mid 20th century prevented us from having good, integrated transportation for passengers.
The Trump 2019 budget cut over $600 million from Amtrack's budget, and Amtrack was already not in great financial shape.
If there's a change in leadership and some changes in US mentality regarding trains vs cars/planes, there might be hope for Amtrack in the future. If not, then I would expect more services being eliminated until there's nothing left.
I travelled in a such a cabin in 2012 from Denmark to, I believe, Munich. Very relaxing, and with a complimentary bottle of sekt from the conductor.
Sleeper cars are great—I have fond memories of travelling up the coast of Norway in 1990, as well as travelling in the seventies in Sweden with my father.
You do realize that Amtrak long distance routes offer such accommodations?
I mean yeah, the trains themselves are slow as shit and might not go where you want, but superliners and viewliners have some interesting accommodations.
Train pricing is utterly insane, I have tried the last few years to find an affordable alternative to flying/driving by searching for long-distance or overnight Amtrak options (for Southwest area), but have consistently failed to find tickets less than $500, regardless of time of year.
Sleeper trains to Scandinavia were a thing not so long ago. When German DB scrapped their CityNightLine system around year 2014, Copenhagen was being served with a sleeper train that had carriages to Basel, Amsterdam and Prague. The carriages were shunted between trains somewhere in Germany. It only takes few hours to reach Copenhagen from most inhabitated parts in Sweden - actually Copenhagen's airport is the main airport for many leisure travellers in Sweden. Nevertheless, a decade or two earlier there was a similar sleeper service that reached Stockholm.
I'm finding it hard to believe that sleeper services are not economically feasible since Europeans think of them quite fondly but of course, if they were feasible they would not have lost to discount airlines and even buses. Maybe sleeper trains could be operated more efficiently or marketed and priced more aggressively? In addition, it's currently a lot easier to buy a plane ticket than to plan a long railway journey and figure out which companies will sell the tickets.
Most CNL trains were still well-filled when they were suddenly cancelled. It was just that DB didn't want to invest in them anymore (the carriages were 30-40 years old and needed to be replaced), they wanted people to take fancy high-speed trains instead. Also, some countries levied high track access charges. Blaming only cheap airfares is not entirely fair. ÖBB took over some CNL routes and marketed them a lot better, and has made profits on them.
> Sleeper trains to Scandinavia were a thing not so long ago.
There's still a Stockholm-Malmö-Berlin sleeper, though only in the summer. There's also a year-round Stockholm-Malmö sleeper, and in Malmö you just take a 20-minute ride by Öresund train to hop over to Copenhagen.
