(Almost) complete abandonment of overnight trains wasn't so good though.
They are a great alternative to, otherwise, spending a big portion of the daylight in a TGV.
As a tourist in France, I wished so much country still had those.
Timetable and ticket booking link for one of the first Wien-Paris trips: https://fahrplan.oebb.at/webapp/?language=de_DE&storageRecon...
We drive from our home in DK to Hamburg, loaded our car on the train (8:45 PM after having dinner). Slept comfortably in a cabin for the night. Drove off at Vienna the next morning from the train off to Salzburg.
It was a joy to
1. Not worry about packing light to lug around all the stuff in a airport, or to worry about checking in luggages. We have a 2 year-old. So, these things are a source of stress. We just packed everything we wanted in the trunk of our own car.
2. Have our car with us during the trip so that we got the freedom to go wherever we wanted to and not have to rent a car in Austria.
3. Pay less. The cost of the train ticket can be seen also as including what would’ve been a night stay at a hotel.
4. Sleep comfortably. No driving over night or sitting in a cramped airline seat.
I will happily pay extra for such car train trips. It’s a pity they very few.
The train shakes a lot (possibly only a problem of older cars/rails that is not present in richer Western Europe) and wakes me up. On some stretches of the track my head is lower than my feet, and even if the tilt is slight, it makes falling asleep hard. Whenever we arrive at a station, sharp white-bluish artificial light penetrates the curtains and a loud, long announcement for passengers wakes me up.
I can manage about 2-3 hours of tired sleep in such conditions and the next day I zone out regularly until I get into a real bed.
However it's not the noise. A plane rarely has turbulence - you can board a plane at midnight in Singapore, put the bed back after a nightcap about 2am singapore time, get a good 8 hours, and wake for an early breakfast, with no disturbance as everyone else is either asleep or sat in their seat.
On a sleeper from say London to Aberdeen you are woken by various stops and the noise on the platform (Crewe, Preston, Carlisle), and then again by shunting and banging at Edinburgh as trains are coupled and decoupled.
That's because you haven't tried the wax+cotton ones - or if you did, not the good ones. You just should not feel them, at all. Like they don't exist. My personal favorite are Mighty Plugs (https://mightyplugs.com). I tried all different ones but nothing comes close.
But yes, these days I have both, so I might try the next time. I only found a good mask in 2018, though, and I had it imported from the U.S., it had to go through the customs. IDK why, but locally available masks are mediocre.
Probably for the same reason you mentioned – they are hardly used by anyone in Europe, whereas overnight flights are very common in the US – think West to East coast, for example.
Also, see my other comment just above on the plugs. And mind sharing which mask did you buy?
Didn't consider car trains yet, there might be a trip coming up next year where this might fit really well. Just the other direction, Munich to Hirtshals. When a train, over night, can cut the German leg to Hamburg out that would be cool!