[TooCreative]

Flying is a lot of hassle though. You need to go to the airport which is far away from the center. In most cities half an hour to an hour. And you have to arrive at least an hour before your flight takes of. And you cannot buy a ticket spontaneously.

I love trains. They often go every hour. You can spontaneously take them. Right from the center. And you arrive right in the center. And you can freely chose your seat. So you can pick a pleasant neighbor. Or just change seat if your neighbor annoys you.

[johannes1234321]

Especially night trains - if you are able to sleep in that somewhat noisy and shaky environment. You travel overnight, where you can't do anything anyways and come up in the other place in the morning and have the full day available. When flying you typically need a hotel night more and have to get to city center first.

[standardUser]

Personally, I can't start a day without a proper bathroom to shower and groom myself. An overnight train doesn't even come close to a hotel replacement in my book.

[johannes1234321]

For a true hotel room comparison you can go to Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Stars_in_Kyushu

In general however it is a compromise. At least "true" sleeper cars often have a (shared, small) shower, but yes, no comparison to equally expensive hotel rooms.

[lmm]

> For a true hotel room comparison you can go to Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Stars_in_Kyushu

That's a super-expensive luxury cruise train that only does irregular (and mostly circular) tours - it's the equivalent of the Venice Simplon Orient Express. There's one scheduled sleeper train left in Japan, the Sunrise Izumo/Sunrise Seto.

[m4rtink]

We almost rode Sunrize Izumo last year in Japan! We even booked accommodation accordingly, leaving out the one night we ecpected to spend on bord of Sunrise Izumo going from Izumo to Tokyo.

Unfortunately even though we tried to book the train as the first thing after arrival, right on the Narita train station ticket office, it was already fully booked. :P

At least we managed to book the marvelous SL Hitoyoshi steam train from Hitoyoshi to Kumamoto over Hisatsu line. We were actually double lucky on that one, as SL Hitoyoshi is actually out of service right now as floods in July 2020 washed away key bridges on the Kuma river, cutting the rail connection between Hitoyoshi and Kumamoto, until the bridges are repaired...

Still we did go to the very inaka Izuma anyway and spend a very nice old school and almost mythical four days there.

And what we did about that missing accommodation? We booked a night in a ryokan in the splendid Kinosaki onsen town instead and it was indescribably good decision! :)

It took as like 6 hours by multiple small local diesel trains to get from Izumo to Kinosaki, possibly the only tourists to arrive from that direction in quite a while! :)

And on the very elegant Kinosaki station we even discovered a special gate reserved only for guests arriving by one of those luxury cruse trains - namely Twilight Express Mizukaze: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_Express_Mizukaze

Likely inspired by the special gate only ueed by the Emperor on Tokyo station. :)

[kennydude]

Ideally you could have a lounge area at the start and end stations where passengers can shower and generally freshen themselves up. Kings Cross in London already has shower facilities, which are wonderful for long days as a tourist.

[TooCreative]

I never tried a night train. Are there any good ones in Europe?

[lmm]

The Italian ones are nice, as are the UK ones (if a bit cramped). The Nightjets mentioned in the article (mostly taken over from DB's CityNightLine a few years ago) are variable; the Poland-Ukraine one is pleasant enough but poorly timed. I had a pretty bad time on a Hungarian Railways one. The Russian Railways ones from Paris and Nice to Moscow have a reputation for luxurious looks but bad (or at least not westerner-friendly) food.

[johannes1234321]

Austrian ÖBB, which runs in multiple countries like most lines going through Germany, is working on modernizing their trains, but they also have quite old cars. Not sure if there is a good site showing car types and train lines. https://www.nightjet.com/en/komfortkategorien/nightjetzukunf...

[TooCreative]

I was on that site a couple of times but never managed to find out which routes offer a single cabin for yourself.

I would not want to have strangers sleeping next to me.

[johannes1234321]

During Cornona this probably is different, but here's the relevant page: https://www.nightjet.com/en/komfortkategorien/ganzes-abteil-...

[TooCreative]

Well, that is a page which describes the options.

Bit have you tried the "Book ticket" button?

For me, it simply goes to the start page.

So I still don't know how to find the routes that offer these options.

[lmm]

Almost all of them. Certainly at least Cologne-Vienna, Basel-Vienna, and Amsterdam-Munich back when it existed. What ones did you try?

[bryanrasmussen]

Well I sort of prefer night trains also, in theory at least, but I have to say where I am in a suburb of Copenhagen, it takes me 20 minutes to get to the center station where I could conceivably board a night train.

And I couldn't really spontaneously take a train to the center station where I would then catch a night train because of course I have to make sure I get there in time for the train going to where I want to go.

[flemhans]

The upcoming night trains will depart from Høje Taastrup since they arrive from Sweden, and don't want to go to the Central Station just to turn around (takes another hour or so to do).

[bryanrasmussen]

So even longer for me.