We’d be lacking imagination if the idea of travelling through the night snugged down in a sleeping berth on a night train didn’t attract us as at least a bit alluring.

The romance of the Orient Express floats to mind.

Classic rail luxury reimagined for Accor’s new Orient Express in Italy.

Champagne and dressing in formal evening attire for a splendid meal in the dining car, the night’s slumber soothed by the clickety-clack of wheels on rails, a steward delivering a pot of tea and toast to your compartment in the morning … here, surely, was old-time bliss.

Few sleeper trains are likely to equal the luxury of the Orient Express these days, of course. Rare, truly grand trains still offer something of the experience, but they are multi-day affairs, where the journey is more important than the destination; holidays by rail.

In the 21st century, however, slightly humbler sleepers for overnight commuting are increasingly popular, particularly in Europe.

There are good reasons.

Travellers can go to sleep in one city and wake in the centre of another, the fare often less than what otherwise would have been required for a night in a hotel.

More to the point, such commuters do not have to go through the increasingly soul-destroying business of finding their way to an airport an hour or so before their flight, only to line up with multitudes at security, and even when their flight is done........

© Brisbane Times