[HN Gopher] Night Train Map with all regularly served night trai...
___________________________________________________________________
Night Train Map with all regularly served night train destinations
in Europe
Author : robin_reala
Score : 176 points
Date : 2023-02-23 13:32 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (back-on-track.eu)
(TXT) w3m dump (back-on-track.eu)
| martopix wrote:
| 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?
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| The train gauges are (or at least used to be) different in
| Spain.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| 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?
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| 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.
| flal_ wrote:
| 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
| twic wrote:
| 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.
| rwmj wrote:
| Isn't that because of the Pyrenees, a rather large mountain
| range in the way?
| eginhard wrote:
| 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)
| kergonath wrote:
| 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.
| ant6n wrote:
| One issue with running standard gauge trains to Barcelona are
| the extremely high track fees on the cross-border (Perpignan-
| Figueras) segment.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Both France and Spain are greatly invested in high speed rail
| so you can travel there via daytime trains.
| martopix wrote:
| 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.
| occamrazor wrote:
| 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).
| NiagaraThistle wrote:
| 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.
| bannedbybros wrote:
| [dead]
| rwmj wrote:
| 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.)
| grishka wrote:
| The trick is to be very tired. Then it feels like
| teleportation.
| malermeister wrote:
| Or take a dramamine, which both helps with the motion
| sickness and knocks you out.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| 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.
| ggambetta wrote:
| I would love to do this more! Trying to replace short flights
| with trains. I'm taking the Zurich - Venice one in a couple of
| weeks.
|
| But I'm looking for example at Zurich - 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?
| martopix wrote:
| Coincidentally I took Zurich-Amsterdam and Amsterdam-Zurich
| right this week. It was a direct nightjet sleeper, not sure
| what you're talking about.
| lqet wrote:
| 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.
| ggambetta wrote:
| Hmmm, interesting. Google Maps shows the 21:59 with a
| connection in Frankfurt, but the Nightjet website shows no
| change.
| smhg wrote:
| 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/
| kmlx wrote:
| > 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.
| lqet wrote:
| 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.
| eginhard wrote:
| 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.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| 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.
| korfuri wrote:
| 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.
| ggambetta wrote:
| Google Maps seems to think there's a change of trains.
| sinistersnare wrote:
| 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?
| oakesm9 wrote:
| 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...
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| 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.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Expensive is very relative. I'm taking the OBB NightJet in
| April from Utrecht Centraal to Innsbruck Hauptbahnhof, taking a
| private cabin with two beds (my partner and me). It costs
| almost EUR400 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 EUR80 a night per
| room, EUR120 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 EUR140, per person,
| in any case. The extra EUR50 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.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| On that last point, for the very adventurous, also works[1]
| on non-private sleeper cabins if you're quiet enough :)
|
| [1]source:experience
| the_third_wave wrote:
| > 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.
| manchego wrote:
| 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).
| the_third_wave wrote:
| 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 EUR5.90 (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 Goteborg (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.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| 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.
| Roark66 wrote:
| Are these all proper sleeper trains? I took the one that goes
| from Gdansk to Kolobrzeg 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.
| mns wrote:
| 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.
| petschge wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway29495 wrote:
| 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.
| pmontra wrote:
| 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.
| itronitron wrote:
| 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.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| I don't think there's a sleeper train between Gdansk and
| Kolobrzeg. It's too short a journey, and it's not on the way to
| anything. AFAIK, the sleeper trains start from Gdansk (or
| actually, Gdynia Glowna, which is not far away), and then head
| south to Warzawa, Krakow, Wroclaw, etc.
| moffkalast wrote:
| 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.
| hobbescotch wrote:
| Stockholm to Narvik without changes and with private room was
| amazing. Very cozy experience, would do it again.
| mastax wrote:
| 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.
| asow92 wrote:
| 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"?
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| 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.
| ant6n wrote:
| You can take long distance trains, which incidentally have
| pretty nice sleeping accommodations, much nicer than most
| European sleeper trains.
| grishka wrote:
| 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.
| thriftwy wrote:
| 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...
| vaccarium wrote:
| Azerbaijan has closed its land borders for Covid. Still
| hasn't reopened, three years later.
| thriftwy wrote:
| The map has Tbilisi-Baku trains, though!
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| 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. ;-)
| kylecazar wrote:
| Oh wow. Based solely on my own grappa experiences, that may
| have been for the best.
| sofixa wrote:
| 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..
| excieve wrote:
| 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 Przemysl, Poland
| on the way here and then a sleeper to Wien, Austria on the way
| back. Both arrived more or less on time.
| braymundo wrote:
| They are (the Ukrainian trains). :) I took one recently from
| Przemysl to Kyiv and back. On time, comfortable, highly
| recommend.
| rob74 wrote:
| I guess they are also needed, as flying is not possible (or
| highly hazardous) at the moment:
| https://safeairspace.net/ukraine/
| martopix wrote:
| Yes, even heads of state who visit Kiev are currently
| mostly travelling by train afaik
| braymundo wrote:
| 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-...
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| 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.
| Symbiote wrote:
| I think expecting first class rail travel during a major war
| is probably the most entitled attitude I've ever seen on HN.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| 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.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| 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.
| contravariant wrote:
| That one seems a bit weird to me though, that doesn't sound
| like the kind of distance that requires an overnight stay.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| 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.
| tmilard wrote:
| 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
| aziaziazi wrote:
| 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.
| ant6n wrote:
| 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.
| Arrath wrote:
| 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.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Was it a platzkart? Those are only for the most hardy
| travelers. I've only done kupe, but SV looks pretty decent.
| Arrath wrote:
| No it was a more traditional sleeper car ala From Russia With
| Love. Private cabins of 2-4 bunks per.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| 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.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| 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.
| agapon wrote:
| No night trains to / from Baltics?
| synotna wrote:
| 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...
| thriftwy wrote:
| 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/Rigas_Vagonbuves_Rupnica
| arethuza wrote:
| 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/
| whalesalad wrote:
| Very cool, didn't even realize the UK had such large
| mountains/ranges.
| arethuza wrote:
| 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
| dboreham wrote:
| > 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.
| zokier wrote:
| Prominence is one measure of relative height of
| mountains:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topographic_prominence
| arethuza wrote:
| 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!
| iShrimp wrote:
| 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.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Probably depends on the route / company. What route did you do?
| NightJet (OBB) is supposed to be pretty good.
| woile wrote:
| 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
| joshe wrote:
| It's still better to fly.
| armarr wrote:
| 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,..
| prmoustache wrote:
| 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.
| uoaei wrote:
| 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.
| chrisandchris wrote:
| 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.
| Gud wrote:
| You can also rent a car at your destination, or take cab
| aziaziazi wrote:
| 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
| b800h wrote:
| You used to be able to meet great people and have a good
| chat in the smoking carriage. Alas it is no more.
| timeon wrote:
| > It's not a waste in all ways.
|
| I think you are talking about _convenience_ while they were
| talking about _ecology_.
| billfruit wrote:
| Also safety could also be a factor. Car travel is more
| unsafe than trains.
| twic wrote:
| 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.
| Symbiote wrote:
| 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.
| iShrimp wrote:
| 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.
| mjhay wrote:
| The TGV is excellent and cost-effective, IMO. Elsewhere trains
| are way too much trouble and expense, even as a solo traveler.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| 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.
| philposting wrote:
| 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?
| ant6n wrote:
| 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.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| That looks like it's the same PDF.js viewer that Firefox
| bundles anyway.
| thesimon wrote:
| Looks like they are using nextcloud and just uploaded the file
| there instead of providing a direct download link. Probably
| just out of convenience.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| 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.
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