Train geeks from all over Europe flocked to Vienna during the first week of the railway’s opening in December. I meet a British man who has traveled all the way across the continent to try out this new service, a Ukrainian who works for his country’s national railways, and his ÖBB employee who is checking out the fancy new trains for himself. did. All this buzz may sound a little unfair, but it’s not. A fleet of new night trains – another between Paris and Berlin opened on the same day – is redrawing Europe’s travel map and meeting a surge in demand for rail travel. Night trains haven’t seen an update like this in decades, and this new design is especially special because of the variety of sleeping options on board. More new Nightjet trains are scheduled to go into service in Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
“That’s what’s so great about this train,” passenger and train enthusiast Stefan Stopko told me breathlessly. “It was designed from floor to top as a night train. It’s not just a modified regular train.”
Here’s what I learned on my first trip.
When I travel, I often choose the cheapest option. It used to mean hitchhiking, couchsurfing, and sleeping in cramped six-berth bunks with snoring strangers on night trains. No one wants to endure an overnight trip with someone who can be heard snoring so loud that the train shakes on the tracks, but when you’re traveling alone, it’s good to make connections, even if fleeting. That’s it. So I wondered if the new minicabins would take the sociability out of solo travel.
I was lucky enough to fly with some great people, and the minicabin is a huge innovation, especially for solo female travelers who want the privacy and security of a lockable door.
Prices go up as the date approaches, but if you book far enough in advance, you can get a mini cabin for about $70. There are also options for couchette cabins for four (starting at $70) and beds in two-person “comfort compartments” with private toilets (starting at about $125). Compartments with private showers cost a little more. The same applies if you reserve the entire compartment for yourself. There is also one wheelchair-accessible compartment and a wheelchair-accessible toilet. The cheapest option is the seat car (approximately $44). This is mainly for people who don’t travel completely.
Unfortunately, the development did not go as expected. It is normal for new railway services to have problems, but the new Nightjet had its fair share of problems.
On the afternoon of departure, a few days after the train’s first run on December 10th, I was informed by text and email that the train had been cancelled. As it turned out, it was just a technical error. However, I only realized this after rebooking the service the next day.
Anyway, when I went to Vienna’s central station that night, I waited on a cold platform with other passengers and watched the delay go from 20 minutes to 40 minutes to over an hour and a half. In the end, the train was cancelled, and after staying overnight in a hotel (provided by ÖBB), we returned to the station to try again the next evening. There was a similar delay that evening, and we ended up waiting more than two hours for the train to arrive.
What you can expect in the cabin
When the train miraculously arrived at the station just after 10pm, all the passengers hurriedly boarded the train, eager to explore the new facility.
A “mini-cabin” is a more familiar euphemism for what is essentially a spacious coffin. If you’re taller and not as flexible, or don’t want to feel buried before your time comes, you might prefer a couchette or a more comfortable option. However, it was much more luxurious than the previous generation sleeper trains, and I enjoyed the sense of adventure. There’s even space to sit, something that doesn’t exist in a six-berth room. Water, closed-ended sheets similar to sleeping bags, pillows, and blankets are provided.
In terms of technology, the cabin comes with European-style pin plug and USB charging ports, as well as a wireless charging station that only worked intermittently. One of the Nightjet’s best new features is the WiFi, which worked perfectly the entire trip. There’s a small foldable table (which doubles as a mirror when propped up against a wall) and a control panel, which takes some getting used to. For example, the coffee mark is not what you order for a hot drink, but what you order from the train manager. , arrives at your cabin looking polite but confused. The unique gimmick is mood lighting. From brothel red to cool blue to tangy purple, you can change the color of your boudoir.
The storage space in the mini cabin is small. Each mini-cabin has a small shoe locker that you can only really put your sneakers in or shove your boots into. The luggage locker is large enough for a small suitcase or backpack. Everything is lockable. Just like in a hotel, you will be given a card key and can close the cabin with a sliding door that automatically locks when closed.
However, this is not always convenient. The cabin door had a habit of sliding shut when the train turned a corner, and something like that happened to me during my trip, trapping all my belongings and key cards inside. The moral of the story? Always try to make friends with people around you. I was able to ask a nice German guy in the minicabin next to me to crawl around and open the door from the inside.
Yes, that means each cabin is connected to the next cabin. With this new design, you’ll actually sleep closer to your sleeper mates than in a regular sleeper. Importantly, however, the small sliding door at the head end of the cabin can be locked from either side.
What was the trip like?
There’s something magical about a night train that rides along hundreds of kilometers of track and sees different landscapes pass by. The train made various stops between Vienna and Hamburg before entering the German border town of Passau around 1am. I woke up because the mini cabin was so cold. There was no way to adjust the temperature, cold air conditioning blasted us, and we were forced to sleep with our jackets on. And, like many night trains, there is still not enough soundproofing in case the train stops at night and people board or pass through the corridors.
I looked out the small porthole-like window next to my head at the snow-covered train platform and peered into the city beyond. I love this moment of quiet solitude on a night train. It’s also somehow emphasized within the capsule. As you smoke on the platform and watch the train workers pass by, you feel like you’re in a bubble. Individual windows in each cabin give it a less coffin-like feel, allowing you to curl up and watch the countryside skim past you, the edge of the snow momentarily illuminated by the light of a passing train. .
I woke up with a jolt at 8:40am, so at some point I fell asleep again. It was exactly the time it would have arrived had there not been a two-hour delay. Once the attendant sees that you are awake, they will bring you a standard breakfast. If he’s been on an ÖBB train before, he’ll know the drill. Choice of coffee or tea. Served with two plain white bread rolls with jam and butter. It’s a good idea to prepare dinner and snacks. Breakfast is the only meal served on board, as there are no restaurant cars or meal menus in the cabin.
So, should I take this train again? Without a doubt. It felt like a huge step up from previous generation sleepers and we really enjoyed the privacy of the mini-cabin during the 12.5 hour journey. This new option will appeal to solo travelers who need a break from polite chats with strangers, as well as female travelers who feel safer having their own private space with a lock. We also see it being used by people on business trips who are looking for an easy way to get from point A to point B without wasting time at the airport.
Various travel related issues will surely be resolved as this service becomes established. And I strongly believe that night trains are the future of cross-country travel in Europe. We hope that these innovative new services are just the beginning.
Catherine Bennett is a writer based in Paris.