Into the Night

After a long decline, sleeper trains are now a booming market in Europe

- Chris Wright

THERE HAS LONG been an air of romance about sleeper trains—the very name calls to mind George Pullman’s “palace cars” and the Orient Express, both products of the late 19th century, a time when overnight rail travel was very much in fashion. Fast-forward a century or so, however, and you’d be looking at a different picture.

Sleeper trains as a form of mass transit have always come with difficulties—high costs, low yield, logistical headaches—but the real crunch came with the rise of budget airlines in the 1990s. By 2016, conditions had become so dire that Deutsche Bahn, Europe’s largest rail operator, scrapped its sleeper services completely. The end, surely, was in sight.