How Austria Became Europe's Night Train Leader: Inside the Sleeper Revolution

"Whenever I plan a long trip across Europe these days, night trains have been popping up as an option everywhere - way more than I remember from, say, 10 years ago. And strangely enough, most of the cool routes seem to come from this tiny mountain country you'd never guess." Austria's state rail company is running daily night trains all over the continent - more than any other operator. In fact, almost everyone else is cutting back services, because night trains are a pain to run and cost a lot. But Austria's night trains are comfortable, popular and punctual. "I want to know: What's their secret?" So, I hopped on an overnight train (what else?) and went straight to Vienna to find out exactly how this small country

became Europe's night train powerhouse, and who else is joining the party. "Oh, and stay till the end." I'll tell you exactly when tickets are the cheapest. "We're at a local station near Hamburg and it's currently about 8pm. We're supposed to arrive in Vienna at 10am tomorrow in the morning, so I've got a 14-hour journey ahead of me. Oof." And then the slick-looking sleeper pulled in. "We wanted to book a train from Berlin, but Austrian rail said we have to take this one if we want to film because it's their newest carriages."

The Austrians are definitely putting their best foot forward. "They've made sure to put us on a train that's polished and white. We've got carpet floor! I wanna take my shoes off." I'm booked into these mini cabins. "I think we're there. This is my humble abode for the night." It's giving Japanese capsule hotel vibes. but more capsule, less hotel. It did feel like playing Tetris to fit myself and my stuff in.

"Okay. this will do for the night, I guess. Okay, we've got a pillow, a blanket which I'm not sure will keep me warm, doesn't look very warm. I've got a mirror and it folds down to be a table. And I've got my own private window. Currently, I can't see anything. And I've also got a panel here. Ooooh. We've got disco lights in here! Cozy. nice and cozy." "We paid 99 euros for this which, if I can sleep, is a fair deal to me because I'm saving on a night in a hotel."

So for an okay price, you get some privacy - rare for night trains in Europe. And passengers in the shared compartment are enamored with the capsules, as I realized when I met Will and Florian. "I was impressed with just the thoughtfulness of the design. It felt like really making the most of a compact space." They just met because they're sharing the compartment - which gives it a bit of a youth hostel feel. "Do you snore?" "Hmm, not frequently. But I do have, like, those. earplugs, you know?" "So you can't hear him but he can hear you?"

"I have earplugs too." This is the cheapest option- if you dare to spend a 14-hour journey sitting up. Why would you do that? "I chose the seated one just because it's way cheaper and it's very normal where I come from. I come from India." In Asia, sleeper trains have long been an integral part of travel. Especially in vast countries like India and China, where people travel long distances, regular trains often include sleeping compartments.

They're very affordable. "It's like a tenth of the price of a flight. So the price I have to say in Europe is, in general, is way higher and if I don't have so much luggage I would have gone with a flight." So, the seated car is often a compromise - it was pretty empty at this point, too. "Do you think you'll be able to sleep?" "That's a good question. I have some entertainment planned, so." Of course, there's also a fancy first-class option. That's where my cameraman Henning will be sleeping. "He gets the bigger cabin because of all the equipment." A whopping 330 euros for the entire suite. It fits two people and he's got his own toilet and even a shower. When traveling long distances, people mostly care about two things: price and time.

If those were improved, 10-30% would be willing to switch from plane to night train, studies have found. So, why are these people doing it already? "I can carry a lot of luggage, I don't have a restriction: I can travel at night where I would consider it's not a productive time." Others just find it convenient. "For me, it's the most comfortable way to travel because you can sleep - which I can do anywhere!"

"Okey." "You don't lose any free time, and flying isn't really an option." "Why?" "Because of the environment." "Within continental Europe I always try to take night trains." "Why?" "For sustainability reasons." The environmental benefit of electric night trains is real. This German study looked at their potential. Per kilometer traveled, the hierarchy is clear: Night trains beat cars and they absolutely crush planes on emissions. If 30% of current air passengers shifted to night trains, which would require several dozen new routes to and from Germany,

that could save up to this amount of emissions - which would offset the entire climate impact of flights within Germany. But flying is the reason why night trains almost went extinct in the first place. Over the course of the 1800s, faster trains and longer routes made overnight travel possible. The US "Pullman Sleeper" was one of the first overnight carriages. "These deluxe accommodations are now accepted as a matter of course on any overnight train trip and an established part of our way of travelling."

Across the Atlantic, this Belgian firm copied them. By the 1930s, it ran more than 2,000 sleeper cars across Europe, including the legendary Orient Express - a rolling palace which cut the journey from Paris to Istanbul from a matter of months to three days. A development that sort of turned the whole geography of Europe on its head. For decades, night trains were the classy way to travel - if you could afford it. But then came cheap flights, mass-produced cars, and motorway networks - which lured passengers away from night trains. Sleepers couldn't keep pace in the economic race and were largely discontinued.

Today, the fascination still lingers - though it's largely sentimental. "Now, the legendary Orient Express is making a comeback. The historic train service is being restored to its former glory." You can hop on the new version if you're part of a Netflix cast or fork out a casual 20,000€. But back to our less glamorous trip to Vienna. After frantically searching for an on-board-restaurant (spoiler: there is none), I discovered I can order food to my cabin. On my way back there, I checked this info board.

"We're about three hours into the journey now, we're still crossing Germany, and we're going at an average speed of 92 km/h." And that's when I made a terrible discovery. "What happened? Explain it to me." "I left my card in the cabin and now I can't get in." After straying around looking for help, I finally managed to kneel down for dinner. I went for classic Austrian dessert Kaiserschmarrn - although at this point I would've eaten the menu. Then I found out that Austria, a country of 9 million people, transports 1.5 million passengers on night trains every year. And they have a vast network.

Austrian rail runs daily sleepers to Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Czechia and the Netherlands. Some don't even go through Austria, go figure. But that's a question for tomorrow. "Ok, so it's almost midnight now, I've brushed my teeth. So, now I guess is the moment of truth and we'll find out if I can actually sleep in here." Rise and shine. "Morning. this went better than expected. I got about six and a half hours of sleep." It was way comfier than my last night train in a chaotic six‑bed compartment where I fell asleep late and even missed breakfast.

Not this time! But I'm having it in Henning's fancy suite. Let's see how everyone else slept. "Hello." "I feel like a seven out of ten." "Yeah. seven of ten." "Yeah, like a six or seven." "Not too bad, but no comparison to sleeping in my own bed." "I struggled a bit but I had my sleep mask on and some noise cancelling headphones and I was listening to something and I slept." After two more hours whooshing through the Austrian countryside, we finally made it to Vienna main station. Here, I'm meeting Kurt Bauer, who has been heading Austria's night trains and long-distance passenger services for the past 10 years.

He says their focus is on dedication and building a reliable brand. And inevitably: a fair few influencers have checked out their sleeper cabins and posted about them on YouTube. Austria's location also helps. It's surrounded by other countries but quite stretched out. At night, it can take almost ten hours to go from one end to the other. So. "We operate domestic night trains and they are still necessary because we don't have high speed connections within Austria." That's why a train trip from, say, Vienna to Amsterdam would take.

"Something like 10 to 11 hours. And then you really have to be either very strong into this green travelling or a real train enthusiast. But I would say for a lot of people that wouldn't be an option." Unless you can sleep through most of the journey. But the big break for Austrian Rail came in 2016 when Germany's Deutsche Bahn officially walked away from night trains. "We had to decide: Do we also want to cut down the night train network dramatically? Or do we want to become one big operator with a distinct brand. And we decided to go for the second because to be quite honest for a small state operator

like ÖBB [Austrian Federal Railways], there are very few opportunities to become a real European player and that was one of those opportunities." They took over 40% of German rail's nighttime connections and bought a lot of their sleeping carriages second hand. Since then, Austrian rail has also ordered new coaches. The move was actually pretty huge. Because having sleeper carriages that fit all the technical requirements is one of the biggest bottlenecks in the whole business.

More on that in a bit. Another factor for Austrian rail's success is politics. "What I really think Austria does much better than a lot of other countries is a consistent railway strategy over decades. Railway is long-term investment." Many European countries have in the past practically defunded their state railways. But Austria is one of the best financed railway systems in Europe. Especially when looking at the share of GDP that countries invest into rail infrastructure. Between 2000 and 2021, the state on average poured more than twice as much money into rail as into roads. Though the state only directly funds domestic night trains,

so the international ones need to pay for themselves. There's no official data, but experts say Austrian rail likely struggles to manage that. Why? Because, as another expert told me, these babies are expensive. "The industry is not keen on night trains. Because they say they're not viable." Jon Worth has analyzed the state of European railways for years. I want to know: What are the biggest problems? "Pheww. how long have you got? So there, ultimately, so, at the moment there literally are not enough night trains to go around.

We do not have enough carriages. And the only company that's built new carriages so far is the Austrian Railways at ÖBB." VR from Finland and Italy's Trenitalia have too, but only for domestic night trains. The crux: Investors won't pay for new sleeper carriages unless they're sure the market can make money - but operators can't prove they're profitable without those new wagons. "There is a chicken and egg problem. You can overcome the finance problems if you get the right players into the market to talk to each other.

Does the European Union and specifically the European Commission understand that? No." Also, carriages from France can't necessarily run in Poland. "There are, in Europe, three different gauges of the tracks, right? So the width of the tracks. There are four electrification systems for trains in Europe. There are more than 20 different signaling systems." Another problem is space. Our train fits 250 people. A high-speed day train from Germany's state operator can hold almost four times as many. And it can run multiple times a day,

whereas night trains only run once. Staff cost a lot at night, which is probably why there was no restaurant on my ride. And countries like Spain, France and Germany charge a lot for foreign trains to run on their tracks. So, for the biggest players on the market, it's simply not worth it. "State railways don't care. Basically. It's operationally complicated. You don't make that much money out of it. It doesn't fit your prevailing model of running high speed trains. For many railway countries it's just simply too much hassle, too much bother."

Also, it's really hard to draw up schedules. It's not just construction works; many train stations have already filled the evening and early morning slots which are crucial for night train journeys. A real dumpster fire of problems. and it shows. Even Austrian rail quietly dropped their Italian Riviera route and permanently shut the Paris-Vienna and Paris-Berlin connections in 2025. "Indeed there are no plans to extensively extend the network. The network, operationally, has a certain limit and we have reached this limit." So if Austria has maxxed out, who can step up for the rest?

Downtown Vienna, time for some digging. With more space and less jiggling this time. And I discovered something interesting. "That Paris-Berlin route that the Austrian Railways closed. It's still running." Because a private player has swooped in to save the day - or rather the night: European Sleeper. It hasn't been smooth sailing, their CEO told me. They only just managed to get enough bed sheets in time. I want to know what private players can do that state rail companies can't.

"Night trains are a really specific kind of product, so you need to focus on that." Chris Engelsmann co-founded European Sleeper in 2021. "You need stewards, you need bedding, the washing. And if you don't do that, it can cost a lot. But a lot of state-owned railways they do night trains just as a side business." To optimize, European Sleeper simply scraps stops that don't make logistical sense, like Vienna, and adds others depending on demand. Also, they only run on specific days of the week when demand is high. "Tuesday is always the worst day. So, if you want cheap tickets, then the Tuesday is the day to look for, by the way."

And they're renting old sleeper cars instead of buying them. some as old as 60 years. Which has earned them some pretty lousy reviews. But with this budget approach, they expect their route from Prague to Brussels to turn a profit this year. "We really want to prove that the night train business can be profitable. So that is our driver to get it going." It seems that night trains can work, especially if the EU prioritizes them. Because they are a prime solution to making traffic less polluting. And people want them. I'm hearing it over and over: "Demand is not a problem." "We are even growing in demand."

"The fact that passenger demand is strong means that in the end, someone is gonna solve this one way or another in the medium term." Time for me to plan my next trip. "Venice, anyone?" "Could you imagine travelling overnight like this? Tell me in the comments, don't forget to like and subscribe and check out dw.com for more stories."