Night Train Map with all regularly served night train destinations in Europe | Hacker News Reader

Night Train Map with all regularly served night train destinations in Europe

back-on-track.eu

206 pointsrobin_reala133 comments

Are these all proper sleeper trains? I took the one that goes from Gdańsk to Kołobrzeg in Poland many years ago (with a bunch of friends) going to a "copy party"(yes before the Internet we had parties for copying software in person, eventually they turned into demoscene events). We spent the entire night drinking beer and smoking weed, but this was in a normal 8 seat compartment. I don't remember if there were sleeper cars in the train too.

Also, this map doesn't show that there are many local train services that are aligned in time so people can come from off the main route to get on the sleeper train. So those trains can be seen less as connecting cities and more like connecting regions.

One could take a regional train from their all town to a big city then when one arrives there is a mad dash because you have 10 minutes before your sleeper train leaves (your train is usually late 9 min 30 s in such situations). In many cases when regional trains are late the sleeper will wait for them, but only giving people 30s a minute to disembark, find out where are they supposed to go, find the right train (not so easy at a big station) and get on.

I miss the times when those trains cost peanuts. One could go 400km for a price of 5l of fuel.

I don’t think there’s a sleeper train between Gdańsk and Kołobrzeg. It’s too short a journey, and it’s not on the way to anything. AFAIK, the sleeper trains start from Gdańsk (or actually, Gdynia Główna, which is not far away), and then head south to Warzawa, Kraków, Wrocław, etc.

Not really. While it looks good on paper, booking some of these is quite a pain. I loved travelling by train as a kid, and would love to do it now, but when you compare the offers, it's quite bad. A flight is 1:15 between 2 places of interest for me. The train routes on this map exist (used it twice), but part of it is at night but only has normal compartments. Whole train journey is 15:34 (compared to 1:15 flight), with a sleeper cart only on the last 6 hours (and that is actually at 10 am in the morning, the first part, from midnight until 10am is the normal train). Not only that, but you can't buy only one ticket, you need a ticket for the first train from one operator and another ticket from the second operator.

Once we get a more unified european system that properly covers also medium size cities and not just connections between major hubs and capitals, I think more people would switch to trains.

Things could certainly be better, but it is a but disingenuous to give the pure flight time of 1:15, when we all know that flying has quite a bit of time requirements on both ends. Not enough to bring it to 15.5 hours, but still easily enough to triple the trip time.

That doesn't match my experience. Flights within the EU - especially if I travel with a carry-on only - are quick and frictionless.

I arrive at the airport 30 minutes before departure. I check in using a mobile app. Automatized gate with facial recognition tech takes my ID and boarding pass QR code - there are so many gates there's never a queue. The worst part of the ordeal - the security check of baggage - takes 5-10 minutes or so. I sit in the plane and we fly. At the destination I simply walk away without any queues anywhere (single duty zone...).

Definitely not 3x the travel time, no way. I never had boarding take more than an hour, and it only took that long when I was going out of EU.

Don't forget that trains take you right to the city centre, but airports are outside of the city.

Where I live it's 20 minutes trip from the city centre. So yep, you're right - adds some time. But not enough to add up to 3x travel time, by far.

This is usually more of a concern for people traveling with lowcost airlines - these cheap out and arrive at another town's airport in many cases. National airlines like Lufthansa will take you much nearer your actual destination.

Of course there is, it's just that when you look at the overall picture, it's faster and more convenient. Just to give an example, as this was my general setup and still is for quite some time. One flight is at 10 PM, you can still work the whole day, go leave for the airport at around 7-7:30 PM, at 1 AM I'm at my destination (with a +1 hour timezone change), so that is about 5 hours. But can still sleep afterwards and have a full day the second day.

By car you can leave at around 7 AM and best case scenario you drive 9 hours, worst case 12. Train you leave at around midnight and get there at 4 PM, but you can't actually sleep in the train as there are no sleeper carts. When it comes to cost, car is cheapest with plane and train around the same, depending when you buy the ticket. When it comes to setting everything up, car is basic, you just get in and drive, all vignettes online; plane buy ticket in one place, that is it, train a bit more complicated. I still hope we'll get better at this, because I don't believe that autonomous cars or self driving will solve anything and we should focus on trains when it comes to more environmentally friendly mass transportation.

High speed trains (300 km/h) can happen only between hubs because each added stop costs time and makes those train no high speed anymore. Plus congestion if every train could use the high speed tracks, unless we build four or more parallel tracks instead of the usual two.

I don't see much change from the current scheme of medium speed trains (150 km/h) connecting medium sized cities and high speed between major ones. And slow trains doing every single stop for small cities, if they even have a station.

1:15 suggests a distance of less than 600 km. (45 min actual flight time). Not really a long distance train (or perhaps one with very bad connections to take 15 hr). Probably not an “average” case.

This seems useful for finding which site has routes between which major cities. I tested out a few routes on nightjet and if you aren't traveling between capital cities then the route seems likely to include several transfers in the early morning hours (not exactly sleeper then). It would be nice if they showed the transfers up front, as I was only able to get them listed in a roundabout way.

Yeah, a while back I was looking at booking a train for a decent distance and you could only get connections that had ~5 min or ~5 hours in padding, and nothing in between.

It's a real planning train wreck (ha) and god forbid you need an international connection.

Those sound good on paper but then reality hits you. Last summer we as a family decided to take a night train to reach our vacation destination.

What should have been 6-7 hour car drive was ~12 hour train ride. Sleep was not great, getting to and out of train stations, herding two small kids etc so at the time we've reached our destination we were pretty tired. Much more tired if we just drove.

The route back is where things went south. One of the beds in our cabin fell apart. Then there was some sort of the outage en route back so the train had to skip our station and we landed almost 150km away from our home.

Train company was trying to get us on the bus or train to get us back home but there were no free seats so it looked like we were to spend a night there. In the we've decided to take cab back home. We should have been back home ~10 in the morning. When we got home it was close to 6pm.

On top of that bathrooms were super dirty and there was no running water in the sinks.

We've paid ~700 euros for both ways and additional ~150 euros for the cab. If we just drove the whole round-trip would have cost us under 100 euros including lunch on our way there and back.

I just don't see this as an alternative to driving or flying in Europe — they are too expensive and the level of comfort they offer for the price is just horrible. Even if everything went according to the plan and our route back was without any hiccups driving would have been much more convenient.

Maybe it's not convenient for a whole family but more for solo travelers. A car with one traveller is an absolute waste. And instead is more convenient to travel by train

It's still better to fly.

Depends on how you define better. I don't mind planes but I hate the process of getting off and on a plane. There is no single best mode of transport. There are so many variables involved. Price, time, proximity, personal preferences,..

Trains are as close as you can get to frictionless travel. (Getting to space and back still means traveling through all that atmosphere at insanely high velocities.) That alone determines huge energy, and, by extension, carbon emissions, savings.

When flying accross europe, you spend so much more time in the terminals and going in and out of the airports you need to sometimes double or triple the time of the actual flight to get to your destination. This + the usual extorsion to buy drinks and a meal in and off the plane + potential need for a uber/taxi. It soon becomes less appealing, even more so when you can't get a direct flight.

It's not a waste in all ways.

A car gets you where you want at the time you want. Whereas a train gets you close to where you want to go at some time.

So better depends on what's more important to you. If you take a look at ecology, sure, trains are far better than a 1 person in a car. If you look at flexibility, cars are far more better.

> It's not a waste in all ways.

I think you are talking about convenience while they were talking about ecology.

Also safety could also be a factor. Car travel is more unsafe than trains.

Your oversimplified comparaison sounds good but is not true : trains spend (way) less fuel AND are more flexible:

- you can pee anytime

- you can choose different class without changing materials

- you can book as much tickets for your whole family and kid's friends. Everybody will travel together, no separate cars, no additional drivers

- and my favorite : you can enjoy your ride with meditation, work, movie...

edit:formating

You used to be able to meet great people and have a good chat in the smoking carriage. Alas it is no more.

You can also rent a car at your destination, or take cab

I think that oversimplifies it a bit. I traveled to enough places in Europe where either there are no close renting stations or cabs are way to expensive. Think Switzerland.

I went from London to Barcelona and back by train. On the way down, a sleeper from Paris to somewhere like Perpignan, then a morning express from Perpignan to Barcelona, and on the way back, daytime TGV from Barcelona to Paris.

The return leg was far better.

Getting the sleeper train means hanging around in some dingy third-rate terminal waiting for it to leave. I didn't really sleep on the train, because even though they run it slowly, it's still pretty loud and bumpy. I shared a cabin with a well-behaved friend, so i wasn't even mixed in with strangers. Changing trains in rush hour was not fun. In the end, it took me long enough to recover in Barcelona that i could have stayed over in Paris, got a TGV that morning and not been far behind.

Whereas the TGV back was a TGV. Comfortable, nice scenery to look at, decent bar for a train.

If you sleep more heavily than i do, or if there is some real value in being at your destination earlier in the day, a sleeper might be a good choice. But in the age of high-speed rail, i don't think it makes much sense.

I'm curious what was the price for London to Barcelona and what was time on the TGV return leg?

I can't remember the price i'm afraid, and i think the return leg was six hours from Barcelona to Paris. I then spent an evening and a night in Paris before going back to London, because why wouldn't you?

The TGV is excellent and cost-effective, IMO. Elsewhere trains are way too much trouble and expense, even as a solo traveler.

TGVs don't do night trains though. There's a few night trains in France, mostly Perpignan -> Toulouse -> Paris. They're mostly a nice for people who want to be at work in Paris early and don't want to take a plane, because the Bordeaux -> Toulouse LGV does not exists.

Why didn't you drive?

With a full car, the environmental and certainly economic argument for the train is gone.

I have used about 5 night trains in recent years. I don't sleep very well, unlike my Russian colleague who grew up with this, but they have all been more or less on time.

We wanted to try it for the sake of trying it. The fact that it is potentially more environmental friendly than a car came in as a plus.

Probably depends on the route / company. What route did you do? NightJet (OBB) is supposed to be pretty good.

With how things change in EU (i.e. combustion engine ban after 2035), driving for seven hours does not look to be an option for long. At some point the airliners may have to take more drastic emission curbing measures too, so in the long run, despite its inconveniences, the electrified rail may become the only real travel option for masses out there.

It's a ban of sale of new vehicles, not usage nor second-hand sale. If the economics of BEVs don't significantly change we're going to be using ICE vehicles at least 15-20 years after the ban (this is normal age of vehicles here - I myself drive a 19 years old car).

So far it’s only an agreement that needs to make its way into legislation of all other member states.

To approach this from a different angle — we have a euro7 norm that has been brewing for quite some time now and we still failed to come to an agreement. And there are talks now that the norm should also include production of EVs, electricity production and pollution from degrading brakes and tyres. Which is again stalling it even further.

So the reality might be that 2035 ban will be pushed further into the future as the date comes closer.

What is probably my favourite hotel/restaurant which is 15km up a single track road from the nearest village on the edge of the Moor of Rannoch is right next to where the wonderfully named Deerstalker train has a stop - so even though there are like 3 buildings in the middle of nowhere they have a direct train service from London:

https://www.seat61.com/deerstalker.htm

https://www.moorofrannoch.co.uk/

Very cool, didn't even realize the UK had such large mountains/ranges.

Well, the mountains aren't very high but they can be quite challenging and rather pretty:

e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opAWJnD0Jro

Also for more details:

https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/

Also, for the mountain bikers out there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ_IQS3VKjA

> mountains aren't very high

Yes and no. For example Aonach Beag is 4049 ft above sea level. But it basically begins at sea level. By contrast Mt Cowen, one of the highest local peaks near me here in Montana is 11212ft above sea level, but the bottom of it is roughly 5000ft so not that much higher in terms of actual mountain to climb.

A fair point - I remember thinking that when I worked in Denver for a bit and visited the Rocky Mountains up past Estes Park and thought that the scale of the mountains top to bottom looked kind of familiar - just that the bottom was a hell of a lot higher than sea level!

Prominence is one measure of relative height of mountains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topographic_prominence

I suppose since there's only three buildings they can choose to charge whatever they want. I had a look on the hotels website and it was £700 per night. While I'm sure it's lovely, a room for the night is certainly not affordable for most of the UK population.

That's not correct - for an extremely good dinner, room and multi-course breakfast we've always been about £450 for two people - which includes the dinner at £85 pounds each (on the website), wine etc.

So its not really that expensive and actually quite good value compared to a lot of places - it is a treat after all, not somewhere you'd go every weekend.

NB I've no connection to the place other than really liking it.

You're right, sorry. I'd two days selected rather than one. £450 is still quite a lot, but like you say, manageable as a one-off event and certainly seems worth it from how you've described it.

>> NB I've no connection to the place other than really liking it

Understand. How you described it made me consider a visit. Great venue and location.

I would love to do this more! Trying to replace short flights with trains. I'm taking the Zürich - Venice one in a couple of weeks.

But I'm looking for example at Zürich - Amsterdam. 12 hours - 10pm to 10am, perfect. But it has a 2:45am - 3:15am change at Frankfurt, so it's actually a ~5h train followed by a ~7h train at a very inconvenient time. Sure, I'd be in Amsterdam by 10am, but after the equivalent of a terrible night. Is there a better way to do this kind of thing?

Coincidentally I took Zurich-Amsterdam and Amsterdam-Zurich right this week. It was a direct nightjet sleeper, not sure what you're talking about.

I am not sure which connection you found - the 21:59 Nightjet NJ 402 from Zurich goes directly to Amsterdam (9:58). NJ 402 has some additional cars attached which run as an InterCity, so it might be possible that no bed is available until Frankfurt, and you have to sit in an IC car until Frankfurt and change into the sleeper there, or vice versa.

> 21:59 Nightjet NJ 402 from Zurich goes directly to Amsterdam (9:58)

something seems off.

it takes 12 hours by train from zurich to amsterdam?

it looks like just 8 hours by car.

and the same distance ~800 something kms took me 3h50m Tokyo to Hiroshima with the Hakata shinkansen.

Night trains typically use slower routes and are parked somewhere during the night to ensure that you have enough time to eat something in the evening, get dressed for bed, sleep 8 hours, get up, get dressed again, and eat breakfast.

8 hours is definitely not enough time for a comfortable night train ride, especially if you travel with children. We took an 11-hour night train from Vienna to Zurich a few months ago with a 3 year old, and we would've been grateful for an additional hour in the morning.

It's not lost time either. The whole point of a sleeper train is that you get in, sleep a decent night's sleep, wake up, and move on. Ideally you board around 21:00 and get off around 7:30. The extra space in the train's timetable is also helpful in keeping the train on-time if delays occur en-route.

There are also many stops on the way and you might only get on in Basel or get off somewhere in Germany already, leaving you with even less time on the train, so 12h for the full Zurich-Amsterdam trip is not unreasonable.

Hmmm, interesting. Google Maps shows the 21:59 with a connection in Frankfurt, but the Nightjet website shows no change.

I've used Trainline [0] twice for cross-border train travel because it fits in-between those 2 options (Google Maps vs Nightjet).

[0] https://www.thetrainline.com/

https://rome2rio.com is also helpful when searching for trains

I'm not sure where you're looking but I've taken that exact train several times, without any connection, and with a bed the whole way. I recommend looking directly on NightJet's website.

Google Maps seems to think there's a change of trains.

There is a clear lack of connection toward France and Spain. EDIT: Paris is of course well connected, but southern France and Spain are not. I live in Zurich and it's quite easy to go north, south, and east by train, but going south-west towards Marseille, Toulouse, Barcelona is really inconvenient. And it's not just about Zurich, because doing so from Milan or Frankfurt, I would guess, is the same. However I heard of plans for a Zh-Barcelona night train, does anybody know anything about it?

True. One of the issue is the different gauges. This used to be avoided by variable-gauge Talgo cars, and now by high-speed trains (TGV) on standard gauge on the Spanish side. But AFAIK there are no sleeper high-speed trains, and I am not even sure those Talgo are still running (and they also were not sleepers when they did run). So even in the best cases there could be connections but no direct services. Also, there will be only 2 possible routes because of these pesky mountains.

There are several ways to work around that though, and I think this will happen in the reasonably near future.

One issue with running standard gauge trains to Barcelona are the extremely high track fees on the cross-border (Perpignan-Figueras) segment.

One cause is that France is rather obstinate when it comes to sleeper trains passing through, but not stopping in, France. A direct line from the Netherlands and Belgium to Spain (e.g., Barcelona) would be viable and possible on standard gauge, but it wouldn't make sense to stop in Paris at 2:00 in the night or so. SNCF and the relevant French agencies insist on trains serving France as well.

Maybe some company will manage with a perfunctory stop in Perpignan?

You van already do Bruxelles to Perpignan with a direct ( french ) TGV train, in 6/7 hours. If you want to go to Spain I believe bruxelles Barcelona via Paris is also quite practical. Everything is much pricier than plane and no night train though

I've done Paris to Barcelona on a sleeper to Perpignan and an express from there. I think for people who like sleeper trains, a through service would be far more convenient, even if it stopped in Perpignan early in the morning.

I suspect there is not a lot of track capacity across the Pyrenees, though, which would mean the sleeper train would have to get in before the morning expresses start.

I have a solution from yesteryear for you. Behold, the slip coach.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq0aA9RZ1ls

The train passes through France non stop. Along the way, around 2AM, a single carriage decouples from the end and smoothly glides into a Paris terminal, where it functions as a de facto hotel room for the night as guests won't be kicked out until morning. Will anyone use it? IDK. But it does satisfy the requirement of stopping in France.

Isn't that because of the Pyrenees, a rather large mountain range in the way?

Both France and Spain are greatly invested in high speed rail so you can travel there via daytime trains.

well no. Have a look at how long it takes to go from Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium (i.e. all countries that are not France) to Barcelona.

NightJet trains from Zurich to Barcelona and Rome were indeed planned to run from 2024, but this will probably be delayed because the Swiss Federal Railways won't receive subsidies they were expecting: https://www.srf.ch/news/wirtschaft/ausbau-des-nachtzug-netze... (article in German)

There used to be a Milan-Barcelona night train, with Talgo stock, but it has been discontinued a few years ago.

The problem with Spain is that the majority of the network has non-standard gauge (approximately everything except the AVE high speed trains).

The train gauges are (or at least used to be) different in Spain.

I clicked to look at the highres version... and I really don't understand why websites feel the need to put PDFs behind an interface. Every common browser has a perfectly good PDF viewer built-in, in fact it's normally better than anything website-provided.

Am I missing something?

Looks like they are using nextcloud and just uploaded the file there instead of providing a direct download link. Probably just out of convenience.

That looks like it's the same PDF.js viewer that Firefox bundles anyway.

This site is run by volunteer sleeper train fans, working with WordPress, not some paid web developers. But they’d probably welcome some more technical volunteers.

Wonderful global Map of all sleeping train ! My god, I Wish I had this map last summer when using my interrail pass.

Why ? : - All sleeper trains are scattered with so many booking Apps or internet service. A real pain.

Thanks for this wonderful MAP!

Ps: If traveling in Europe, I recommend booking really in advance as most sleeping wagons are usually all booked 2 months before departure. ( In one trains only 2 cars are sleepers).

Also do not even think of jumping into a night train with no reservation : you will be kicked out immediately. Security is king.

PPS : After 20 years of scaling back, sleeping trains are making a slow come-back. Hence, new trains lines should arrive during the next 3 years .

PPS: I work for SNCF ( french rail) so you can trust my words

What line "booked 2 months before departure" did you encountered ? Just checked my routine line (Paris-Toulouse) and there's still seats and bed available for tommorrow night at a reasonable price.

Many night trains running through Germany will have some intercity seating cars operated by Deutsche Bahn, which doesn’t operate sleeper cars anymore. The seating cars won’t require a reservation, just a ticket.

Tangential I know but I hate just how dominant and unquestioned the London Tube style is for transit maps. Its supposed benefits are less important than imagined. Those thick ribbons of all one color could all just be a single line. People are perfectly capable of making that abstraction, there's no need to spell it out with 6-8 lane ribbons of mostly redundant information. All that does is add clutter, not clarity. Even more egregious is the empty space between the lines. It makes them needlessly fat and it interlaces clashing colors from the background geography. I will give it credit for coloring things in a way that incidentally sorts the lines into useful groups (namely, colored by operator). The dotted line thing is mostly ok but the last one ("opens this year") is out of order and misleading. The choice of visual vocabulary could have been better.

Not the worst map, but I've been obsessed lately and had to nitpick.

It's strange that Moscow and St Petersburg are both on the map, but the train route between them is not shown. It's very popular and very cheap. There are multiple trains per night every night.

In the first section of the article they refer to another map[1], which is more detailed and has Russian/Caucasus trains.

It is still lacking though - very detailed for Azerbaijan (some of which may not be served by proper sleepers?) but does not show many destination of Russian Caucasus (Makhachkala for example)

Looks like they only plot named trains.

Still, I was surprised to learn there is no sleeper rail connection between Russia and Baku, which turns out to be true.

1. http://www.night-trains.com/files/night-trains-europe-map.pn...

Azerbaijan has closed its land borders for Covid. Still hasn't reopened, three years later.

The map has Tbilisi-Baku trains, though!

Sleeper trains sound fun, but I found it tricky to sleep on. I don't think I can sleep in a bed which suddenly moves back and forth.

Anyway here's the cool video I took of our JR sleeper (Aomori City to Sapporo if I remember correctly, through the Seikan Tunnel the world's deepest tunnel at the time): http://oirase.annexia.org/tmp/VID_20110215_213825.3gp (No idea what a 3GP file is, but it plays in my browser.)

The trick is to be very tired. Then it feels like teleportation.

Or take a dramamine, which both helps with the motion sickness and knocks you out.

Try a top bunk in a Chinese hard sleeper coach, only 80cm vertical clearance! See https://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/hard-soft-slee...

I've only ever taken one soft sleeper before, and it was fine. Hard sleepers are OK for me as well (e.g. from Shanghai to Urumuqi), but I was younger back then.

Here we are wishing that we had daytime trains half as good in the US. Yes it's fine if you live near the northeast corridor, but what about the rest of us out here in "flyover country"?

You can take long distance trains, which incidentally have pretty nice sleeping accommodations, much nicer than most European sleeper trains.

I've taken the Lake Shore Limited overnight from NYC to Chicago and loved it! Would love to try the California Zephyr next.

Amtrak runs a whole 3 cross country services. Empire Builder (parallel Canada to Oregon), California Zephyr (Chicago to SF straightish line), Southeast Chief (LA through the Southern border states). These trains run through some of the most sparsely populated low demand regions to exist. Every state in the lower 48 except for Wyoming has at least one service passing through it. There's only so much Amtrak can do. At some point, if Americans want to see quality rail travel, they will need to make some life style changes with respect to the sorts of houses they buy, neighborhoods they choose, tradeoffs they make. We can't make trains to literally everywhere, so at some point people will have to choose living close enough together to justify a train.

Let’s put it this way: I live in a small upstate NY city with roughly 100k people in its metropolitan area, but am still two hours driving distance from the closest Amtrak station. How much bigger should we get before we should expect a station in a state that’s better than most for rail service? We once had rail service here via the Erie Lackawanna Phoebe Snow, and those tracks were demolished decades ago.

Oh that one. IDK how far the plans extend, but I've heard the Lackawana cutoff is going to be revived. The ROW and bridges are still there. But you're right, there's a whole lot of things we had which were foolishly demolished, and New York state and city are no strangers to that fact. A solid half of transit proposals I see consist of reactivating some line that was already built 100 years ago and has laid dormant for 50.

It's terribly sad, and yes I'm excited about the ongoing work to connect Scranton. Lots of people commute daily via bus between Scranton and NYC and I feel for them.

I've heard mixed quotes from people who've talked in person with Schumer on whether this will eventually connect Binghamton, Elmira, Corning, or the rest of the Southern Tier and eventually to Buffalo. Some say he said they're talking about it and others have said he said there's no chance.

Look at railroad maps from ~1930, and you see railroads connecting to almost everywhere, even in much of so called flyover country, and difficult terrain.

To get an impression, just have a look at the first map from there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_and_Rio_Grande_Western_...

What can be seen there extends to much of the rest of the CONUS. Therefore I conclude it has nothing to do with life style, tradeoffs regarding location, and so on.

> We can't make trains to literally everywhere...

You could, and you did.

Then the Great Depression and WWII came, and after this you decided to throw it all away for the automobile.

The same with streetcars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...

vs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_streetcar_systems_in_t...

I'm looking forward to the new Brussel–Amsterdam–Berlin sleeper line. Not sure if I'll manage to book something this year (the site was overloaded when it opened this week), but still cool.

That one seems a bit weird to me though, that doesn't sound like the kind of distance that requires an overnight stay.

Amsterdam–Berlin takes 6 hours now by day (7 hours from Brussels). Something which might improve to 4 hours eventually. That's OK, but if I have the choice between getting a sleeper and stepping out of Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Tief) at 6:30 or arriving past 14:00, I know which has my preference.

The service is planned to eventually continue to Dresden and Prague by the way, further increasing its usefulness.

Extremely cool and useful map! Night trains fill an important travel niche in terms of distance/comfort/time/eco-friendliness and can be super practical.

Recently I took a night train for the first time since I was a teen instead of a 40 minute flight for the comfort levels and the emissions, and it was surprisingly comfortable. Not a perfect night's sleep (I'm a light sleeper), but perfectly enjoyable.

PS: Sadly I doubt the Ukrainian night trains are all running at the moment..

They are (the Ukrainian trains). :) I took one recently from Przemysl to Kyiv and back. On time, comfortable, highly recommend.

I guess they are also needed, as flying is not possible (or highly hazardous) at the moment: https://safeairspace.net/ukraine/

Yes, even heads of state who visit Kiev are currently mostly travelling by train afaik

Ukrzaliznytsia (https://www.uz.gov.ua/en/) are heroes. There is a nice piece on the NYT about it: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/29/world/europe/ukraine-war-...

Ukrainian Railways are operating even close to the front lines (where physically possible due to destruction). Outside of those the service is pretty much as usual — both sleepers and daytime intercity. Sometimes there are delays if the electric grid gets hit by the missiles, but then they just attach a diesel locomotive to pull the train instead.

International connections work too. My mother recently came to visit it us here. She took an intercity from Przemyśl, Poland on the way here and then a sleeper to Wien, Austria on the way back. Both arrived more or less on time.

Ukrainian trains are still working fabulously, and are putting most of the rest of Europe to shame.

They’re cheap, reliable, and comfortable. Even in a war.

The only frustrating thing is they don’t seem to be doing first class cabins going across the border into Poland anymore (because of the war), and taking a first class cabin across Ukraine to Lviv and then another connection across the border is not particularly convenient.

I think expecting first class rail travel during a major war is probably the most entitled attitude I've ever seen on HN.

Have you visited Ukraine? Have you travelled by train in Ukraine? The first class carriages are still in use between Odessa and Kyiv or Odessa and Lviv, just not on the train between Odessa and Przemysl. I can't work out why.

I couldn't care less about first class train service in Ukraine. Anyone who does care has the wrong priories.

(I've been, but it was a brief visit a long time ago.)

I live in Ukraine and I’ve had to shelter from the missiles. I’ve seen and heard them. And the attack drones. The sirens. The explosions.

Who the hell are you to tell me where my priorities should lie?

I just spent two weeks going across Europe by many modes of transport.

- Australia to Amsterdam by plane (of course)

- Amsterdam to Berlin by train (first class cabin, ~6h)

- Berlin to Krakow by plane (Ryanair, at airport 2h before flight via train, plane ride is 1h)

- Krakow to Vienna by plane (roughly the same deal as the previous flight)

- Vienna to Verona by ÖBB sleeper train (11h or so)

- Verona to Breschia by train

- Breschia to Milan by bus

- Milan to Australia (3h buffer before flight, 20h flying total with 3h stopover in Doha)

- More transport to get home from the airport after that.. a bus, a train and another bus.

A hell of a lot of transport. I was glad to have it all over and done with. Plane trips were quicker and cheaper normally. I would only travel by train if I there’s a sleeper cabin available and you can book it so it’s private. Otherwise you’ll be travelling and sleeping near other people. If I could, I would probably just take planes everywhere. The night train to Verona was OK, but it’s still cramped and uncomfortable depending on the cabin you book. And it’s pricey depending on when you book. It’s fun to experiment but planes were a bit better, at least on this trip.

As a young traveller I took a handful of night trains...one time a family member had shared a bottle of homemade grappa - I was super excited about this! We were on a night train sharing a sleeper with an Austrian single mom with a couple of tweens. I think we were headed to somewhere deep in the Italian boot and it was summer - so very hot, with eight people in the sleeper car. Somewhere in the middle of the night, the heat in the room caused the stopper in the bottle of grappa to come loose. It didn't just spill - it evaporated into everything in the car. Every inch of our clothes, hair, etc reeked of booze. Conductor's face when he opened the door to check our tickets was absolutely hilarious.

So be careful on those night trains. ;-)

Oh wow. Based solely on my own grappa experiences, that may have been for the best.

To paraphrase Steve Jobs said "You're holding it the wrong way" ;-D. Grappa can be a wonderful, bonding experience... or it can taste like something you should put in your petrol tank. ;-D.

I've been on one night train (Moscow to St Petersberg) and, for the experience, I greatly enjoyed it. Was it the most comfortable? Naw. The bed was too short, too hard, and it was far too hot and stuffy in the cabin. But I'm glad I did it.

Was it a platzkart? Those are only for the most hardy travelers. I've only done kupe, but SV looks pretty decent.

No it was a more traditional sleeper car ala From Russia With Love. Private cabins of 2-4 bunks per.

If it was 4 bunks (two upper, two lower) then it was a "kupe" (2nd class). If it had 2 bunks (lower only), then it's SV (1st class). Though these days they may have other combinations.

Kupe it was. That was expensive enough, I don't even what to know what SV cost.

I LOVE this! As someone who tells EVERYONE to take a night train to save precious time during daylight hours for walking around a destination and not staring out of a window wishing you could, this is a great tool.

So often people online tell me such-and-such night train route is no longer in service (my first trip was almost 30 years ago now, so many of my night train memories stem from an earlier era). But now i can actually see and point to something with night train routes people can take advantage of.

Also, as someone who is building a Europe Travel planning web app, this is also a great resource to link to for train travel.

Thanks for posting/making this.

I've taken Zurich - Budapest, and Paris - Vienna sleeper trains years ago, was a great experience. (Though the Zurich - Vienna ride is so beautiful you'll want to take a day-time train, which I have on other occasions.)

Not shown here, but I've also taken sleeper trains across Russia (Moscow - Novosibirsk) which was quite a fun experience. Get to meet all kinds of people, drink lots of tea / vodka :). Always wanted to the 7-day Moscow-Vladivostok but didn't quite make it. This was early 90s though -- no idea what the experience is like these days.

This seems to be a great resource! However, when I looked at prices, seats are quite expensive. Does anyone have any advice for finding cheaper train tickets?

If you're not from any country that the train travels through and you're taking a few trains, then maybe getting an Interrail pass[1] would be an option. You need to pay a bit extra for seat reservations and sleeper trains, but it could work out better in some cases[2].

[1]https://www.interrail.eu/en [2]https://www.seat61.com/how-to-use-an-interrail-pass.htm#over...

Expensive is very relative. I'm taking the ÖBB NightJet in April from Utrecht Centraal to Innsbruck Hauptbahnhof, taking a private cabin with two beds (my partner and me). It costs almost €400 for the two of us, one-way, but a sleeper train does a number of things that significantly benefit your journey:

* You arrive early in the morning, (somewhat) well-rested, and have the whole day ahead of you for further travel or activities — essentially this means you save on accommodation (hotels in Austria and Italy cost upward of €80 a night per room, €120 and up if you want something actually nice).

* Breakfast included (nothing fancy, but hey).

* Travel in a sleeper train doesn't fatigue you like the equivalent day time trip of almost 9 hours would.

* Day time travel by train costs at least €140, per person, in any case. The extra €50 or so is more than worth it.

* Flying is not only environmentally burdensome, it is also (for this trip) a lot more expensive, and airports in Europe suffered from a lot of problems last year with missing luggage and queues in excess of 4 hours — want to bet that this year these issues will all be solved?

And of course: cheaper is possible, even in the same train. Still young and on a budget? Grab a bunk bed in shared cabin or a sleeper chair. The latter is a non-starter for me with my 200cm, but then again I am gainfully employed and can afford to book a private cabin.

One additional benefit for couples in private sleeper cabins:

* Sex on a train. Can recommend.

On that last point, for the very adventurous, also works[1] on non-private sleeper cabins if you're quiet enough :)

[1]source:experience

What route did you planned to book ? During my studies I used night trains in France every month or so to visit my family to save time and because it was not much more expensive than daily train.

> Does anyone have any advice for finding cheaper train tickets?

What I did:

- got a DB Bahncard 25 (25% reduction on all prices)

- use the DB site or app to find the lowest-cost connections (enable "Show our best prices", only works 2 days in advance or later)

- select the lowest-price connection which has a bearable number of changes and waiting periods, for me this ends up between 6 and 10 changes for the trip from Sweden to the Netherlands which I make quite often. The price tends to end up about half of what it would cost to fly, sometimes a bit more, sometimes even less. I sometimes travel first class when the price difference between first and second is less than ~20%.

- as soon as there is a delay or reschedule - which seems to be "nearly always" - I reschedule to a route with fewer changes which normally would be sold for 3 or 4 times the price I paid. I then get reservations on the new route (easily done online, not always available though).

I just returned from a trip to the Netherlands where my original 10-change route ended up being a 4-change route including the NightJet to Bonn, ICE from Bonn to Hamburg through the night (train nearly empty so I could stretch out between the seats), Hamburg to Copenhagen followed by Copenhagen to Gothenburg. This is a long trip, about 22 hours. Travelling by car it would take around 16 hours but then I'd (a) have to have a car (which I don't) and (b) would have to drive while I can sit and walk and talk and work and rest in the train. Compared to a flight the train takes much longer (including travel to and from airports) but it is cheaper and I can take much more luggage and have much more freedom since I'm not treated as cattle to be herded. When I have the time I take a train, when not I either wait until I have the time - i.e. I change my plans - or I take a plane.

Also worth mentioning regarding Deutsche bahn ICEs, my understanding is that prices only increase over time. They never decrease like plane tickets do. And there's only a predetermined number of saver fares, so once those are gone, you have to buy the more expensive tickets (which are also more flexible, as opposed to the train-specific saver fares).

All true and with that it makes sense to either book in time or forego on the more expensive connections when you book - just choose the "best price" option. It is when you hit your first delay which causes you to miss a connection when things become interesting since then you suddenly can use those ICE trains which were much more expensive to book. A reservation costs €5.90 (for the whole trip, no matter how many trains are covered) when done the same day so as soon as you miss your first connection you can reschedule your trip to one with fewer changes - including ICE and IC. Thus far there has been only one connection I could not take, this being the night sleeper between Hamburg and Göteborg (SJ EuroNight) since it is not bookable through DB and has special fared not covered by the "ICE Fahrkarte, Super Sparpreis EU" train-specific ticket I tend to buy (which becomes non train-specific after a schedule change or connection-missing delay).

Having said all this it is remarkable that ICE and to a lesser extent IC seem to be far less reliable than RE (regional) trains in Germany. I've spent large parts of several nights in the dank tunnels of German train stations with alcoholics coming by every few minutes to ask for money to start new lives (i.e. get a new can or bottle) waiting for ICE trains which are delayed up to 4.5 hours.

If you're doing lots of traveling, the Eurrail pass includes sleeper trains; you still have to pay an extra reservation fee, but comes out cheaper overall.

Man I love vector maps, even if it's a PDF download. Compare TFL's tube map website: https://tfl.gov.uk/maps/track. That's a non-animated GIF.

Stockholm to Narvik without changes and with private room was amazing. Very cozy experience, would do it again.

No night trains to / from Baltics?

New/improved rail links are planned/in progress as part of TEN-T which will probably help

https://transport.ec.europa.eu/transport-themes/infrastructu... https://transport.ec.europa.eu/transport-themes/infrastructu...

They have mostly wasted their railway infrastructure following the collapse of USSR.

RVR[1] car maker wound down, some tracks has closed down due to lack of use or excessive wear. They have some commuter trains and some coordinated cross-border train pairs. Russia to Kaliningrad also runs through Lithuania as mandated by international agreements. I don't think you can embark at Vilnus though.

There were Moscow-SPb-Tallin and Moscow-Riga sleeper trains for a long time, but COVID and lack of funding led to their demise, and now the war, too.

There was also Moscow-SPb-Helsinki "Lev Tolstoy" sleeper train of the same fate.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rīgas_Vagonbūves_Rūpnīca

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