REVIEW | European Sleeper night train

October 2024. During a week-long whistle-stop tour of Germany, we visit Dessau-Roßlau in Saxony-Anhalt, Weimar in Thuringia, Coburg in Upper Franconia (Bavaria) and Kassel in Hesse. Smaller cities, yes. But each with their own significance. Untouched by overtourism. We’re avoiding using the white trains of DB Fernverkehr, Deutsche Bahn‘s long-distance section and opt to use the red trains of DB Regio and other regional operators.

“Seems to me problem is not with the train service itself but these blogs trying to make things better than they really are, so you are going to buy the ticket via their affiliate id. etc…. They don’t need to provide correct or up to date info. If I had a euro for every time I heard tourist complaining to ticket inspector that ticket is valid because some blog said so I could run my own sleeper network already”, a Heebicka writes on Reddit.

Well. Okay. Let’s try to write an honest review.

The European Sleeper. These photos ware take a few days before, so I had time to photograph the train properly.

Before we travelled

In the weeks prior to our trip to Germany, European Sleeper had issues with its rolling stock. For a while the sleeper car and / or the bistro car were missing for repairs. Rolling stock is the Achilles’ heel of European Sleeper. People had been downgraded. To make matters worse, they were put into a compartment with other people.

Danny and I had decided that if we were downgraded and put in a compartment with other people, we would get off and find an alternative way to Germany. We already had a plan B.

But that wasn’t necessary. We weren’t downgraded at all and we had our compartment for just us. We did receive an email asking to postpone our dinner reservation, which was fine for us.

What is European Sleeper?

Let’s first introduce European Sleeper. In February 2021, European Sleeper launched itself, announcing a night train sleeper from Brussels and Antwerp in Belgium, via among other stops Amsterdam in the Netherlands to Berlin in Germany and Prague in Czechia.

In June 2021, it announced it joined forces with the competing initiative Moonlight Express. That brand disappeared, so only European Sleeper remains.

After a long gestation time, European Sleeper started operating trains in May 2023. It has now big ambitions, with better rolling stock and night trains to Barcelona in Spain. It’s also offering seasonal trains to Venice in Italy via Austria and the Alps.

We’ve been following European Sleeper since the beginning and we were eager to finally ride along.

Start of the journey

We got on the train at our Heimat, Antwerp-Central Railway Station. As the train doesn’t stop for a long time, try to position yourself where your carriage. Under ‘Travel Info’, the European website shows the train composition. Beware: carriage numbers may not necessarily be in the right order.

But look up your carriage number and position yourself on the platform. It’s a bit tricky because Antwerp doesn’t provide position information, so you have to guess. Or ask around.

Sleeper car compartment

Boarding was swift. We found our compartment in the sleeper car easily. The sleeper car is the high-end car of the train. Like all ES rolling stock it’s an old carriage, dating from the 1950s but refurbished in the 1990s. Yesterday (lol).

Even if it was already 8 PM, our compartment was still in day mode. The seats are comfortable enough. There’s a table, a ‘hidden’ sink and a ladder for later. The room is compartment is quite spacious.

European Sleeper provides a bottle of water each and a pen. We kept the water to brush our teeth.

Welcome drink

A young attendant came to welcome us and offer a complimentary soft drink or a beer while we wait for our dinner reservation.

Dinner

Our booking was originally for 8.30 PM and then delayed to 9.30 PM. Still we had to wait. But that is fine. We had nothing else to do anyway. Around 10 PM our table was ready.

We had pre-ordered our meal: schnitzel and mashed potatoes, followed by cheesecake with pear. Apparently, a starter was on offer as well, but we didn’t order one. I don’t know why.

The meal was okay. It’s mostly a way to pass time. Danny got vegan panna cotta instead of cheese cake, but it was nice as well. It’s just so nice to have bistro or restaurant car. It adds something extra to the journey.

During dinner, the last announcement for the night was made. It’s not uncommon for sleeper trains to have this quiet time between 10 PM and 7 AM. No announcement during those hours. People are asked to be quiet and give people the chance to sleep.

An odd announcement was not to use aerosol deodorant (in the toilets) as it triggers the fire alarm.

Good night, sleep tight

After dinner we went back to our compartment, which was now set up for the night. As it was late and we wanted the option to get off the train in Berlin instead of Dresden, it was time to sleep.

Alarm!

Around midnight, an alarm went off. Fire alarm. Believe it or not, but someone used aerosol deodorant in the toilet, which triggered the fire alarm. That lasted forever. It lasted for as long the spray remained in the air and triggered the sensors.

“We’re too far”

Sometime later, still somewhere in the Netherlands, a group of noisy Dutchies yelled “we’re too far” repeatedly, waking up everyone in the carriage. Thank you for ‘respecting’ quiet time.

A rough night

Honestly, we did not sleep well. The noise disturbance didn’t help, but the ride was very hard. These are old carriages. I also wasn’t helped by the fact I had severe diarrhea (from something I ate a few days earlier). But Danny didn’t sleep well either.

Breakfast

As requested, we received our breakfast box nice and early. We had also some delay, so we decided we would get off at Berlin Main Station (Hauptbahnhof) to travel to Dessau.

The breakfast box included crackers and cheese, a pre-cut bread roll, jam, Nutella, orange juice and a yoghurt which does not need to be refrigerated. Neat.

We also got some tea.

Is the European Sleeper any good?

No and yes. The hard product, the infrasture, the rolling stock is old and you’ll know it. The ride hard, not helped by the state of railways in the Netherlands. There was barely water for the sink.

The toilets in the sleeper car were permanently closed (because they’re not closed circuit and offer a whole in the floor?) so we had to go elsewhere. Pretty bad service for the top product. There’s a lot of wear and tear.

This the reality of a general lack of decent night train rolling stock in Europe. A few companies rent out old carriages to others, such as Train Rental GmbH and Euro-Express Sonderzüge. Usually these are German, Austrian or Slovak carriages from the olden days.

But the soft product, the service, is good. So what European Sleeper has control of, is nice. The charming crew, the decent catering, the enthusiasm. That’s all good.

So?

We really hope European Sleeper can find other rolling stock. There is talk they want to renovate and transform the NS ICR carriages which were used for the Benelux train.

The lack of night train rolling stock is a general problem in Europe and there’s no quick fix. Someone will have to invest in new night train carriages.

European Sleeper does its best with what it has.

But!

But this is not the big breakthrough for night trains. We don’t see this appealing beyond the pool of train enthusiasts and adventure seekers.

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