By Scott Hartbeck
From TravelPulse
Over the past few years, much has been made about the renaissance of the European night train. A while back, I gave sleeper trains’ newfound head of steam a shout-out in a broader story on the healthy status of European rail back in early 2020—right before the travel world was turned upside down by the pandemic.
For those who are just tuning in, overnight train services in Europe—once commonplace and very famous indeed thanks partly to services like the legendary Orient Express—had become all but extinct by the mid-2010s. Then, just when it looked like night trains were down for the count, a remarkable thing happened: a rising desire for greener travel options coincided with plucky Austrian national rail operator OBB’s reinvigoration of its Nightjet line to set the stage for a comeback….