The quiet return of the sleeper train
Night trains were supposed to be finished. Budget airlines had eaten their routes, the rolling stock was ageing, and operators quietly wound them down one timetable at a time.
Then something shifted. Austria kept its network running while everyone else cut theirs, and the bookings kept coming.
A berth from Brussels to Vienna now sells out weeks ahead in summer, and the passengers are not nostalgics; most of them are under forty.
Part of it is arithmetic. A sleeper swallows the hotel night and the airport transfer in one ticket, and you wake up in the centre of town.
Part of it is quieter than that. There is a particular pleasure in watching a city slide past while you brush your teeth.
The operators have noticed. New carriages are on order across Europe, with proper mattresses and doors that lock.