What It’s Really Like to Take a European Night Train

So what's it really like to take an overnight train in Europe? A travel writer did it, and he shares the details of his experience. Dreamstime/TNS

By Scott Hartbeck From TravelPulse

Over the past few years, much has been made about the renaissance of the European night train. A while back, I gave sleeper trains’ newfound head of steam a shout-out in a broader story on the healthy status of European rail back in early 2020—right before the travel world was turned upside down by the pandemic.

For those who are just tuning in, overnight train services in Europe—once commonplace and very famous indeed thanks partly to services like the legendary Orient Express—had become all but extinct by the mid-2010s. Then, just when it looked like night trains were down for the count, a remarkable thing happened: A rising desire for greener travel options coincided with plucky Austrian national rail operator OBB’s reinvigoration of its Nightjet line to set the stage for a comeback.

Before the pandemic, seemingly every month brought an announcement from OBB about a new Nightjet service or news about an upstart competitor intending to ride in their tailwinds.

Reading about it is one thing; experiencing it for yourself is quite another.

So as I began to plan the itinerary for a recent trip around Europe using a Eurail pass, I knew the journey had to include at least one sleeper train. I chose to take the OBB Nightjet from Amsterdam to Vienna, and for all the details on what it’s really like to take a European night train these days, read on.