Sleeper Trains / Night Trains Your Experience?

I took a night train last year from Rovaniemi in Finland to Helsinki. I had a private compartment with an ensuite bathroom.

I'll put it bluntly. I hated it. The walls were paper thin so I could hear the conversation in the next compartment. The pillow was the size of a marshmallow. The table and chair was so small I couldnt fit one side of my "you know what" in the chair. The supplied bar of soap could be covered by a quarter. The shower would only give ice cold water and in 10 second spurts. If I hadn't watched a video, I would never have known that I had to move the wall with the sink to get to the shower.

I got very little sleep since the train kept moving about and making stops all night.

Fortunately, I thought this might happen so I arranged for my hotel room to be ready for my early morning arrival.

I'm glad I experienced it but won't do it again.

I have heard that some of the newer European services are better but I think I'll give them a miss. I'd rather look at scenery during the day and stay in a comfy hotel.

Mostly I use the Cornish Riviera Sleeper, a couple of times a month. Sure beats an extra work night in London followed by a five hour train journey the next morning. Home by 0730. Comfortable bed. And yes, trains do move and make stops because, you know, they are trains.

I think a lot is what kind of sleeper you are, and a little about attitude. Attitude can change so much about how we interact with life.

My last two sleepers I was blessed to share the 20+ hours in a compartment with 3 wonderful ladies who between the 3 of them maybe spoke 6 words of English.

The protocol was the bottom bunks were the seats until bed time. Bed time was when the train turned out the lights (after which the little private lights at each bed sufficed).

Until bed time the ladies took care of ordering the tea and everyone shared what food they had brought. They talked, I listened and they tried to make the old guy feel included by feeding him.

Sort of a captive audiance cultural experience.

Sleeping? I slept like a rock, but there were few stops. The train was noisy and the toilet was ancient and i suspect dumped on the tracks. No shower, no hot water. Tea was about 10 cents anf was delivered. Sheets and pillows and cases were spotless and new looking. Tge matress was also pretty darn good. But i slept on a futon half my life, so what do i know. On the two occasions on the return when train did make an unexpected stop everyone got out of bed, talked and stared out the windows. That was unsettling.

Would I do it again? Well, I did 4 days later to go home. A very similar experience in reverse but this time 2 of my 4 room mates ran to my rescue with the immigration officer. By the time the ladies finished with him he did everything but salute me.

I would do it again in a heart beat. But would I do a sleeper where Wizz or Ryan flies? No. Airports dont bother me the way they do some people.

Back in my early 20s over 25 years ago, I backpacked in Europe and took some sleeper trains. One with a friend, and another alone. I was young and on a short budget, and I didn't sleep at all.
I knew then that sleeper trains weren't for me. In my 30s, I had to take a sleeper train last minute because of a flight cancellation. I paid more for private cabin and still couldn't sleep.
Let's say that I prefer to fly than to take a sleeper train and happy to pay for an extra hotel night.

I've taken 3 sleeper trains. Two were shared with my own traveling companions.

The most recent was solo, in 2018. I had misjudged my timing for the trip. Rather than lose a day of sightseeing, I took the sleeper train from Krakow to Prague. Instead of paying for that hotel night, I paid for a private en suite sleeper compartment.

It was an adventure and I loved everything about it. Even if the bathroom was tiny and the train made a lot of stops, it was part of the fun.

I slept great and was ready to go for my morning sightseeing tour in Prague!

For context, I grew up enjoying RV vacations traveling thousands of miles, snoozing while we bounced on down the highway, with 5 people sharing an even tinier bathroom, and me sleeping in the top bunk.

The train was luxury, by comparison, and brought back fun memories!

CW, what i said "attitude" and sometimes discovery.

I took several night trains back in the 1970s, sleeping in couchette compartments with strangers. The only specific trip I remember is Berlin-Amsterdam in 1972. At that time of my life, I used to say I could sleep anywhere as long as I was horizontal. That's helpful in a couchette, because you're sleeping on a slightly-padded ledge. I didn't sleep well on those trips, but I did get some sleep and was able to function the next day. Otherwise, I wouldn't have done it more than once (despite comparative poverty at that stage of my life).

There were two significant issues on those early couchette journeys: the stopping and starting of the train at all the intermediate destinations and Europeans' love of fresh air. My couchette compartments (all probably north of the Alps) were not air-conditioned, so opening a window was reasonable. But if your bunk is on the trailing side of the compartment (especially if you're in the upper bunk), you get blasted constantly with air, and that gets colder amd colder as the night wears on. That had a major negative effect on my ability to sleep.

Fast-forward to 2015 when I decided to take a night train (again in a couchette compartment because I am still cheap even if no longer poverty-stricken) from Rome to Catania in Sicily. The intention, of course, was to save sightseeing time. That trip was a nightmare because the carriage constantly jerked from side to side. I did not sleep one minute and was effectively jetlagged for more than 24 hours. So I lost a full day in Sicily. A few others have taken that train, but in sleeping compartments, and their experiences were not as bad as mine; maybe my couchette car needed new shock absorbers (or the rail equivalent thereof).

One further anecdote: About ten years ago I disembarked after a short morning train trip and headed to the station toilets, following a 20-something woman from the same train. Even in that wide-open space, she smelled. A lot. I ended up using the same toilet stall she had, and the odor was unbelievably bad even in her absence. I assume she had taken at least two back-to-back night trains and hadn't had an opportunity to shower. I really felt for anyone who had to sit next to her on the train.

We have taken 2 night trains, but that was more than 15 years ago, so perhaps the experience is better now. One was from Munich to Paris. The other was Munich to Rome. In both we were in 4 bed compartments. The first trip was OK, except the compartment was really warm, until one of the other passengers opened the window a crack. The bed was like a board, but the bedding was fine. I slept fairly well, as we seemed to have only a few quick stops. The boxed breakfast and hot coffee in the morning was welcome. The trip to Rome was not good. Same hard mattress and decent bedding. But the train stopped and started so frequently that none of us slept much. And to make matters worse, on more than one stop we were shunted back and forth, with hard jerks each time. I assume they were either adding or dropping cars. No breakfast, but the coffee was more than welcome.

Would we do a night train again? That's a big maybe, depending on our destination.

I've always thought that calling a night train a "sleeper" is a cruel joke since, in our experience, there's very little sleeping involved. We've done it two times ... there will never be a third.