It is Friday evening and the Nightjet from Zurich is due to arrive at platform 13 of Berlin’s central station. Instead of boarding, Anne, Juri and about a dozen others stand in colorful pyjamas to protest. Similar gatherings are taking place at stations across Europe, from Lisbon to Helsinki, as campaigners press for more overnight rail connections.
“I don’t want to fly anymore because of the damage it does, but I still want to travel,” one protester in a blue-and-white robe told reporters. Her daughter added a practical observation: night trains let you sleep well because you’re gently rocked. For Juri, the appeal is simplicity: no airport transfers, no check-ins or long queues. “You get on in one city, sleep, and wake up in another,” he said.
Night trains were once a common part of travel in Europe, but the spread of highways and cheap air travel from the 1980s onwards decimated demand. Today only a limited number of long-distance sleeper services remain. A brief resurgence came in 2023 when Austria’s ÖBB relaunched links between Paris, Berlin and Vienna; cuts to French subsidies ended ÖBB’s run after two years. The Paris–Berlin service has since been taken up by European Sleeper, a Belgian–Dutch operator that will also call at Brussels. Sweden’s state operator withdrew from the Berlin–Stockholm route launched in 2022, leaving some services to private firms including European Sleeper and the US-based RDC, though coverage is uneven.
“The reason night trains still run in Europe is largely thanks to idealists like European Sleeper,” says transportation expert Felix Berschin, who reviewed European night services for Germany’s transport ministry in 2024. His analysis found sleeper operations are often unprofitable: staff costs rise because of night surcharges, and sleeping cars carry far fewer passengers than day trains. By comparison, a Deutsche Bahn ICE 4 can seat up to 918 people; an ÖBB Nightjet holds roughly 254 passengers; Finland’s equivalent has space for about 500. That lower capacity is a core economic challenge campaigners want to address.
One proposed solution comes from Luna Rail, a startup founded by Anton Dubrau in 2024, which is designing compact individual cabins to combine privacy, comfort and denser use of space. A prototype sits on the Technical University of Berlin campus. The unit looks like an ordinary seat with a table, hooks and luggage shelves; at the push of a button the backrest folds into a bed, and by day it functions as a small workspace that could appeal to business travellers.
Sleeping cars traditionally run only overnight because they provide little seating during the day. Dubrau hopes single-person cabins can change that by converting easily between day and night layouts while keeping costs down. He says 60 such cabins could fit into one carriage, stacked two levels, and that older rolling stock could be refitted rather than replaced. On a maximum-length train of 14 carriages, he estimates, that approach could carry up to about 700 passengers. “We try to get as many people as possible into a small space,” he told DW.
Price remains decisive for most travellers. A 2023 Swedish study found cost is the top factor when choosing transport. Current night-train fares can be high: the roughly 1,000-kilometre Paris–Berlin journey costs about €180 for a five-berth compartment and about €440 for a private compartment. Dubrau’s target is much lower: around €100 for a second-class private cabin and €150 for first class. “We want prices comparable to flying, but with enough comfort to persuade people to switch,” he says. A German transport ministry survey suggests that if rail fares were similar to air, roughly a third of travellers would choose trains instead of planes.
There are environmental incentives as well. The International Energy Agency estimates that rail emits almost six times fewer greenhouse gases per passenger than aviation. Trains also use energy more efficiently and can recuperate electricity through regenerative braking.
Dubrau hopes his cabins could be in service by 2030. The European Commission aims to double rail’s share of passenger transport and triple it by 2050, but practical barriers remain. Infrastructure constraints and timetable complexity make cross-border night services difficult: fixed paths, limited platform slots and differing national rules complicate scheduling on routes such as Prague–Brussels, Berschin notes.
For many regulars, the overnight ride is part of the experience. On platform 13, Anne praised women-only compartments — initially a practical choice, she joked, because “I thought women snore less than men” — but added that she values meeting fellow women of different generations and hearing their stories.
This piece was originally published in German.