Can someone please give me some details? I'm using Rick Steves to help plan a trip to Europe. He mentions that couchettes/sleepers are available for overnight trains. These are cheaper than the hotel trains (for example, a hotel train from Paris to Madrid, overnight, is going to be $100 pp plus the rail pass).
My question is this: do all trains have a berth for sleeping? even if it isn't a hotel train? For example, I'm looking at taking the train fron St-Jean-de-Luz-Ciboure into Madrid, to avoid the Hotel Train, and it's an overnight trip (leaves at 21:04, arrives at 8:20). (Trains are CVG 8543 and Coralt 204). I'm assuming that if I take this train, I can find somewhere to sleep for the night, or do I just have to sit up in my seat for 12 hours?