Europe’s Night Trains Are Picking Up Steam |
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Europe’s Night Trains Are Picking Up Steam
New rolling stock, new routes and a carbon footprint that makes flying look reckless. These are the sleeper services worth planning a trip around.
More than 450 TSA officers have quit since the Department of Homeland Security shutdown began on Feb. 14. Callout rates at Atlanta and Houston have topped 40 percent. Philadelphia closed three security checkpoints entirely. American air travel has always had its indignities, but in 2026, it feels more like a dare. And the alternative that every other developed nation figured out decades ago—functional passenger rail—remains, in the United States, a political afterthought. Amtrak connects a handful of corridors at speeds that would embarrass a European commuter train from the 1990s. There is no overnight network. There is certainly no concept of a plan for one.
Across the Atlantic, a different version of the same century is running right on schedule. Board a train at 9 p.m. in the center of Brussels, lock the door on a private cabin with a flat bed and a reading lamp, fall asleep somewhere over the Rhine Valley and step onto a platform in Prague by 10 a.m. Or climb aboard in Vienna after dinner, wake to the Brenner Pass carving through the Austrian Alps at dawn and arrive at Roma Termini before lunch. City center to city center, no security mess, and hot showers. Heck, you may even get sparkling wine at breakfast. The carbon math makes the case even harder to argue with. European rail emits roughly 10 to 20 times less carbon dioxide than an equivalent short-haul flight, and the policy landscape is starting to reflect that: France has banned short-haul domestic routes where train alternatives exist, and free carbon allowances for EU airlines vanished entirely in 2026.
For American travelers conditioned to think of train travel as quaint or impractical, the scale of what's available may come as a surprise. The network now spans more than 200 overnight routes connecting some 600 European cities and is expanding faster than at any point in three decades. New rolling stock rivals mid-range hotels. Fares on some routes far undercut budget airlines. And unlike a 6 a.m. Ryanair connection through a secondary airport 45 minutes from the city it claims to serve, a sleeper train drops passengers in the center of town, rested, by morning. What follows are the operators and routes worthy of building your next Eurotrip around.
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