The night train revolution has been hailed as an alternative to airplanes

One major issue is one of headspace, as you sacrifice a day of holiday for a day of travel. You have to feel on holiday right as you enter the train. If you're getting antsy for every hour not spend at your destination, you will never be happy with anything but flying. But we had a wonderful time on the ferry and waiting for our connecting trains, we had a nice time in both Newcastle and Amsterdam.

With a toddler in tow, the freedom of movement and the space in a train or on a ferry beats air travel or car travel almost every time.

For next year we plan on spending even more time "travelling". Adding one or two additional overnight stops between rail connections is fine with us. It's fewer days at the destination and it's a bit more expensive with the multi-leg train journeys. But as the travel is not very stressful that way, it comes out about even.

Yeah, it does take longer, but frankly I find air travel to be stressful and uncomfortable. The longer travel time is worth it to me, especially if it's roughly the same price. Not to mention that air travel at our airport has had declining on time reliability, probably because of problems with and shitty business practices of its biggest airline. Our trip might take double or triple what we expect anyway due to canceled or delayed flights.

As a bonus, a sleeper car ticket counts as "first class", so we get to enjoy the lounge at Moynihan Train Hall during our stopover in NYC.

Clarification edit: the Amtrak Crescent roomette has been on par pricewise with two regular old sardine-class airplane tickets. I'm not comparing first class to first class.

I've never actually flown first class. I doubt it is as nice as an Amtrak roomette.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001ryt1

Capacity is ultimately much harder to expand on 1D trains compared to 3D airspace. Economic pressure also means the removal of what is, for many people, the most romantic part of the whole experience: the dining car. The economics seem to be this is basically always going to be about first class travel, at least if you want a bed, which is a shame.

Listening to this program made me really want to experience it again. The last time I took night trains was when I was backpacking around China in the 90s where there was very much a culture of first class travel (closed cabins, duvets, two-double or one-double bunks) but also a very accessibly priced second tier of carriages with open cabins and a pair of triple bunks. I loved every moment of it.

When trying to visit a number of cities in not many more days, you could take an overnight into City X, arriving in the morning, and leave that same night on another overnight to your next city. This had the distinct advantage that you didn't have to waste most of a morning trying to find a room - not in a hostel, not anywhere. You had one day - but the full day - to explore.

The disadvantage was that you might have to deal with currency exchange (pre-Euro!) when making those same-evening sleeper reservations. In particular, Copenhagen was a PITA. Cash only, Danish crowns only, ripoff currency exchange only.

I recently had to go to Edinburgh. It was £235 standard class to get a train that takes several hours. Or £80 to get a plane that takes 2h door to door (1h in the air).

If I want to go anywhere in Europe it's quicker, easier and almost always cheaper to fly. Even on a bad Lufthansa flight where everything goes wrong :)

Edit: just checked I can go from my LHR to BER on Monday and back same day for £127. I can't get to the English Channel and across it at any time for twice that.

From what I can work out, the economics don't scale in the way we would assume. 200 people on a train sounds like a large economy of scale, and indeed, on the excursion trains we have been on, it is cheaper than a normal 1st class ticket for a longer journey even with 20-30 paid employees aboard but I don't think the access charges work for regular trains.

Hopefully they can work in the US although from what I understand, the Eastern seaboard is much more setup for passenger traffic than the rest where you are more likely to get slow average speeds or frequent stops for single track.

At the same time, people who compare the plane usually compare the air ticket to the train ticket, not the ticket to the airport, the things you might buy there, the time you have to waste waiting, the car parking at both ends etc.

In contrast, the sleeper train is easy: be at Munich Hbf at 2240, grab a few burgers for late night snack binges and beers to share with your roommates, enter the train at 2250, it leaves at 2252, empty the crate of beers and the burgers, fall asleep, wake up at 07:45, go for a shower, eat breakfast, arrive at 08:50 well rested in Hamburg.

They're essentially coach during the day, but at night the bench-backs swing up to become beds (so, two side by side bench seats become two vertically stacked bunk beds). This does require some consensus on the train about when the "transformation" is supposed to happen (incompatible with hyper-individualism?). I also suspect that it is made more viable by India's extra-wide rail gauge (they can fit an extra, sideways bench on the other side of the aisle).

Eastern European trains are close to this, but they seem to have 2/3rds the capacity, because they don't have the sideways benches. Soviet rail gauges are again wider than the "standard" Western one, but perhaps not as wide as India's.

Let's see:

- "The 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) gauge is now commonly referred to as Indian gauge."

- "The standard Russian railway gauge of 1,524 mm"

- "The U.S. federal safety standards allow the standard gauge to vary from 4 ft 8 in (1,420 mm) to 4 ft 9 1⁄2 in (1,460 mm)"

So yeah, India has nearly an extra foot to work with.

Still though, I think Eastern European style cars ought to be possible in the US. It shouldn't be "sit upright in coach all night, or get your own private room", with nothing in-between.

I remember going from Hyderabad to Delhi, a distance of 1500+ km, for Rs 626 or so during my college days, in a sleeper coach. (2010) The ride took 26 hours, but was comfortable, and my only means of travel to and from college multiple times a year. The price is now 695 for a sleeper coach, or about 8.5 USD. 3-tier ac is more comfortable at 1825 INR, about 22 USD. A one way flight is about 50-55 USD equivalent and takes 2h30m or so.

I used to tell people anyone who flew from hyderabad to bangalore was a masochist. It was my regular route, and an overnight sleeper ac bus costed the same as what a cab would cost me to and from airport alone. In addition, due to travel times, security checks, etc the overall time lost was far greater by air, given that you can sleep well and wake up refereshed when travelling by bus.

The only times I take a flight these days is if the bus or train options take over 15 hours or if there's. No good overnight sleeper option. Time awake and lost to transportation tilts in favor of shorter air travel then.

I am sure in the US it is and will always be talk. Train service in the US is terrible compared to what is in the EU. It will never happen.

Maybe this will work in Boston where the subways run a 3 MPH (~5kph) due to ignored repairs over the past 30/40 years.

every once in a while i read something or hear a narration and i cant help but suspect that GTP had some part in writing it. this article gives me very strong GTP vibes. i remember in 2018 i realized that i would never again be able to assume that an online account, post, comment, article was written by a human. and here we are. think about the author of this article. he would almost be forced to use GTP because it makes the writing and composition so much better. so much smoother. i dont think this is a good situation we are wading into…

I remember sitting at the Padova rail station until 3AM waiting for the beloved night train to Wien Hauptbahnhof (Vienna) to arrive; the train was four hours late. Let's not neglect to acknowledge the downsides.

Even after that bad experience, I still support them as a great alternative to air travel, but I hope for more reliability in the future.

They are super common in many countries including mine. It's a very neat way to travel somewhere for a weekend (leave Friday evening, return Monday morning), and it is typically fancier and more comfortable than a plane.

Air travel within Europe is cheap and easy, night trains are far more expensive, slow and run unreliable schedules sometimes, and they often don’t even take you to places you want to go.

In America though, night trains would be awesome, since air travel is expensive, hellish, and the country is built in a way that the destinations most people will want to go to are already laid out in an efficient layout due to the car focused culture.

We should not accept news that use weasel words so blatantly.