Sleeper or couchette . . .

What are sleepers?

A sleeper is the most civilised, comfortable, and romantic way to travel...  European sleeping-cars are hotels on rails, with compact, carpeted bedrooms with proper beds freshly-made up with mattress, sheets and blankets or duvet.  There's a washbasin, towels and toiletries are supplied.  On a handful of routes (for example, Paris-Madrid, Paris-Barcelona, Paris-Munich, Brussels-Berlin, Cologne-Vienna, Cologne-Prague) you can now opt for a deluxe room with private shower & toilet.  For the daytime parts of a journey, rooms normally convert into a sitting room with sofa and small table.

How many people per compartment?

Sleepers come in 1-bed, 2-bed, 3-bed and occasionally 4-bed varieties, depending on the route and type of sleeper.  You normally don't have to book the whole compartment, you can book just one bed in a 2- or 3-bed sleeper and share with other civilised sleeper passengers, which is much cheaper than paying for a single-berth sleeper all to yourself *.  Compartments are single-sex unless all the berths are booked by people travelling together.  A woman travelling alone and booking one berth in a 3-berth sleeper will share with other female passengers.  A man and a woman travelling together but choosing to pay only for berths in a 3-berth sleeper will be booked into two different 3-berth rooms, one for male passengers and one for female passengers.  A man and woman travelling together and paying for two berths in a 2-berth sleeper will share the same compartment.

* With Spanish 'gran classe' sleepers both within Spain and between Paris & Madrid/Barcelona and (from December 2007 until December 2008 when they're allowing it again!) all City Night Line sleepers run by German Railways including Paris/Brussels to Berlin/Hamburg/Munich, Amsterdam/Cologne to Vienna/Prague/Copenhagen, only whole compartments can be booked, you can no longer share with other passengers in sleepers.  In couchettes, you can continue to book individual berths in shared compartments.

What's sleeper travel like?  Luggage space?  Security?  Power sockets?

The sleeping car attendant will normally greet you at the door to the sleeper, check your reservation, and direct you to your room.  You walk down the carpeted corridor, looking for the door with your room number on it, just as you'd walk down a hotel corridor.  Once in the room, you stow your luggage - there's plenty of room on the rack above the window and in the big recess above the door, projecting over the ceiling of the corridor.  The attendant  will come round shortly afterwards to take your rail tickets, and (in Western Europe) your passport.  You will not normally be disturbed by either ticket inspections or (except in eastern Europe) passport control, and your tickets and passport will be handed back to you at the end of your journey.  If you're sharing, you can agree a time when you ask the attendant to convert the seats into beds.  It may be polite to stand in the corridor while the other person(s) get undressed and into bed.  Once in bed in your own cosy berth, you can't see the people above or below you, and this gives you all the privacy you need.  Compartment doors have both normal locks and security locks (or chains) which CANNOT be opened from outside, even with a staff key, so you'll be both safe and snug.

Generally speaking, sleepers & couchette cars do not have power sockets, apart from a simple shaver socket (which can often be used to recharge mobile phones etc., if you have a 2-pin adapter.  I wouldn't recommend relying on a shaver socket to work a sleep apnoea machine, though).  However, City Night Line 'Comfortline' sleepers do have a power socket specifically for laptops & mobiles, under the berth/seat at one end.

Room service...

In many cases, the sleeping-car attendant can sell you drinks or snacks on request, and may ask you in the evening whether you would like morning tea, coffee or light breakfast.  A light breakfast is included in the fare on City Night Line trains, EuroNight trains and an increasing number of other sleeper services, either delivered to your compartment or in some cases taken in the nearby restaurant car.

The traditional European sleeper...

Until recently, sleeping cars all over Europe came with one standard layout:  Each sleeping-car had 10, 11 or 12 identical compartments, each room capable of being used with a lower, middle and upper bed folded out, as:

• Single:  1st class ticket + £70-£95 supplement  (£35-£50 in eastern Europe).

• Double: 1st class ticket + £25-£45 supplement per person (£17-£25 in eastern Europe).  Only a 2nd class ticket is now required on many routes.

• Tourist 3-berth (T3):  2nd class ticket + £20-£39 supplement per person (£10-£20 in eastern Europe).

A typical sleeper is shown below.  You'll find sleepers built to this traditional layout on the Paris-Italy, Switzerland-Italy & Austria-Italy overnight trains, on sleeper trains within Italy, and all over Eastern Europe:

Sleeper in evening/ morning mode, with beds folded away, seat folded out.

1st class single.  The middle and top berths remain folded away, unused.

1st class double.  The top berth remains folded away unused.

2nd class 3-berth ('Tourist' or 'T3').  Lower, middle & upper berths all used.

Sleeper berth numbering system...

Here is the standard numbering system used for sleepers, which can sometimes be confusing.  If you book a 2-berth sleeper, the berth numbers will be those for the bottom & top bunks, with the third bunk unused.  So for example, berths 21 & 25 are in the same compartment.  If there are enough of you to need two compartments, you can often ask for a pair of compartments with a connecting door between them.

Spanish Trainhotels...

Spanish Railways run special 'trainhotels' on important national and international routes including Paris to Madrid & Barcelona, Madrid to Lisbon, Madrid to Barcelona, Barcelona to Milan & Zurich, and Barcelona to Seville, Granada & Malaga.

These trainhotels use unique articulated 'Talgo' coaches, with 4-berth compartments in tourist class ('Turista'), 1- & 2- berth compartments in 1st class ('Preferente'), and 1- & 2- berth 'Gran Classe' rooms with private toilet & shower.  There is also a restaurant & café-bar.  See the London to Spain page for photos & info, or www.elipsos.com for an excellent virtual tour.

City Night Line:  Double-deck sleeping-cars

City Night Line is the brand name for German Railways' sleeper services crossing Germany between The Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Austria & Prague.  Some City Night Line trains (including Berlin to Zurich & Hamburg to Zurich) use impressive double-deck sleeping-cars which have deluxe rooms on the top deck with 1- & 2-berths, small table and chairs, private toilet and shower, and very compact 'economy' rooms mostly on the lower deck with 1 or 2 berths with washbasin.  There is also one 4-berth sleeper compartment per sleeping-car.  Although not a City Night Line service, similar double-deck sleepers run on the 'Wiener Walzer' between Zurich and Vienna.

City Night Line:  Comfortline sleeping-cars

Other City Night Line services now use brand-new single-deck sleeping-cars called 'Comfortline'.  These run from Paris to Munich, Paris to Berlin, Amsterdam & Cologne to Milan, Prague, Munich and Copenhagen.  They have 9 'economy' compartments with 1, 2 or 3 beds with washbasin and 3 'deluxe' compartments with 1, 2 or 3 beds plus private shower & toilet.  There's a shower at the end of the corridor for 'economy' sleeper passengers, there's CCTV in the corridor for security, and all rooms have wing-card locks so you can lock up when you go to the bistro-restaurant.  Click for more pictures and information about these German sleeping-cars.

Sleepers within Italy:

There are two types of sleeper on most overnight trains in Italy.  The first is the traditional sort, described above with 12 largish compartments each of which can be used as 1, 2 or 3 bed (one bed above the other).  The second is the 'T2S' design with 17 much narrower compartments, each with an upper and lower berth for 1 or 2 bed occupancy. On the Trenitalia website, berths in the former type are referred to confusingly as 'Single seat compartment', 'double seat compartment' and '3 bed cabin' depending on the occupancy you want.  The much smaller T2S compartments are described as 'Special seat compartment' (if used as single-berth) and '2 bed cabin'.  I recommend the larger traditional type if price isn't critical, as they have much more space than the T2S type.

A handful of sleeper trains in Italy (for example, Milan-Naples & Rome-Palermo overnight trains) have a third type of sleeper called 'Excelsior' as well as normal sleeping-cars.  Excelsior deluxe sleepers have 1- and 2-berth rooms with private toilet and shower.  One room in these cars (the 'matrimonial suite') even has a double bed.  They used to run in the Paris-Italy overnight trains, but no longer do so.

Types of train

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