Sleeping with strangers

To wear pyjamas or not to wear pyjamas? That is an increasingly common question for Europeans as they contemplate catching a night train around the continent and sleeping with strangers, rather than dealing with angry airport security staff.

- Cathrin Schaer

Overnight train travel has become increasingly popular in Europe over the past few years. Less than a decade ago, night trains were almost extinct. But over the past few years, they've been making a comeback. European Union officials have been advocating a "night train renaissance", seeing it as a way of cutting the bloc's greenhouse gas emissions. Rail advocates tout polls saying seven out of 10 Europeans would travel by night train if they could. But nobody ever tells you what you should wear to bed on the train.

It seems like a strange question to pose to random fellow travellers so, instead, I ask why they're taking the night train from Berlin to Budapest. All mention the environment. "I can't stop flying altogether but I'm trying to fly less," one of my bunk-mates-to-be explained.

According to the website Eco-passenger, which measures the carbon footprint of different modes of travel, the 13-hour journey we're on will produce only about a third of the carbon dioxide a three-hour plane ride would.