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.
Don’t worry, MEPs won’t do anything more than talk about it.
https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/border...
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.
Ugh.
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.
What trains have you found that offer this? As an American unaccustomed to such trains, I'd be super interested to try them.
> 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 only problem is that the schedule is kinda of aspirational. The train from NYC attaches in Albany, and the times often don’t line up.
When the economy is good, the westward tracks are busy with frieight traffic so you wait.
I enjoyed the trip though and got a lot of work done.
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’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.
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.
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.
- The 4 or 6 person compartments (couchettes) are quite cramped indeed, but the good part is they only cost 10 or 20 euros extra compared to a plain seat. https://www.vagonweb.cz/fotogalerie/SK/WSBA_Bvcmbz.php
- The actual sleeper wagons with 1 to 3-berth compartments cost more, with their prices around a hotel stay, but are quite comfortable in my opinion. https://www.vagonweb.cz/fotogalerie/A/OeBB_WLABmz-7290.php
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.
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.