Some information to put into perspective the articles which are now regularly published about the revival of sleeper trains.
First, if you look at Europe as a whole, you will see that sleeper trains were never really dead. There are plenty of them in Germany and Eastern Europe. Often they go from large cities to holiday destinations and therefore are mainly used by people travelling for leisure.
The novelty of these new lines (be it this company or the transeuropean effort to connect european capitals with sleeper trains) is that they mostly travel business travellers, people who would usually have taken a place. As plane journeys are often the largest item in a company carbon account, they are betting that some will push their employees towards the train.
It might not be easy however. Track capacity at night is often severly limited by maintenance work in France for example and these trains will have to compete with rail freight transport at a time when Europe wants to massively develop rail freight.
I have taken the DB sleeper from Amsterdam to Prague. It was great. Not the best night of sleep ever, but it's great to go to have a full day in one city, have a nightcap and sleep on the train, drink a coffee with a light breakfast and be in a new city at 08:00 the next morning. No having to get trains/busses/taxis to airports, waiting around for hours, a short flight where you can't sleep at all for the light and noise, etc.
DB got rid of its sleepers (which were the last ones to serve the Netherlands) in 2016. The Austrians bought most of the rolling stock, and kept some of the routes that served Austria going. They've now started expanding again, and a route from Amsterdam to Vienna and Innsbruck has just opened.
What ticketing sites do you guys use? Whenever I want to try (night) trains around Europe I run into a myriad of national websites with poor information on non-national trips, a lack of decent information on what to expect, annoying pricing/planning/booking UIs, and generally lack of information about how it 'works', as in some require you to have an App, a card, to print out tickets etc.
I often just give up.
In that sense, flying somehow feels like a much more standardised and straightforward experience, despite a ton of different ticketing websites, airlines and airports which all have their own apps and gates and conditions etc, too.
If you need information on train routes and where to buy tickets, the #1 place to get it is https://www.seat61.com/. It's an incredibly complete site run by a train enthusiast from the UK.
The DB app is horrible. It can only use your local time, at least when I used it. Was not fun to plan a trip from Japan. DB has the worst ticket machine I’ve ever seen too, I think in Berlin, although I might not remember the details perfectly and am probably exaggerating a bit.
Buy one ticket, and it asks you for money, the bill slot opens, you put money in, the bill slot closes, the ticket prints, and then the change return door opens. After you take your change, the change return door closes.
If you buy 4 tickets: it asks you for money, the bill slot opens, you put money in, the bill slot closes, the first ticket prints, and then the change return door opens, you take you change and then it closes. Then, the bill slot opens and closes, the second ticket prints, then the change return door opens and closes (repeat 2 more times). I know just the type of “meets the requirements” engineers that made this.
> First, if you look at Europe as a whole, you will see that sleeper trains were never really dead.
In the UK, experiences vary. The new Caledonian Sleeper (London-Highlands) is apparently a pretty rubbish experience. However, I took the Night Riviera (London - Cornwall) a few years ago and found it a pretty good experience even though I very nearly missed my stop in Truro. The problem for a business traveller is that you would need a shower.
The other problem facing the Caledonian sleeper is that London-Glasgow is only something like 4 hours and the day trains are very good. The same is not so true for getting out to Cornwall.
I've haven't taken the Caledonian sleeper since the revamp but did take it a few times before that.
In my experience it was a near perfect form of travel. Arrive at a train station long after most people had gone home, board the train and fall asleep, wake up at the platform very early the next day. You lose practically no 'useful' time.*
The one thing which stopped us making use of it more frequently was the cost. It was generally more expensive than flying, much more expensive than driving and even more so now that we have a child.
* In fairness, it's pretty loud and not massively comfortable so if you are a light sleeper you might not get the full magic carpet effect.
Part of the expense can be discounted against sleeping accommodations you would need otherwise though, and for many of us another part of the price is simply investing in something that is desirable for a variety of reasons (ecology being a prominent one).
For us specifically that didn't work out because the main reason we were travelling was usually to see friends or family who we'd be staying with anyway. I appreciate that's not the general case.
While I'm happy to spend a little more for the sake of the environment we're talking something like 3-5x more expensive.
The revamped Sleeper is great, albeit pricey, especially now they've sorted the early issues with the new trains and crews.
It's also ideal for getting a full day of work in either London/Glasgow and returning. Doing that by plane is also possible but is environmentally horrible and taxing, doing it by train eats into good chunks of the days either side.
Competing with freight at night isn’t necessarily so bad, if the trip benefits from being slow. For example the sleeper I usually take is around 7-8h if done as fast as possible, but that’s not the most convenient duration since you either leave very late or arrive too early. A few hours extra to make it 10 or 12 hours is perfect.
> As plane journeys are often the largest item in a company carbon account, they are betting that some will push their employees towards the train
I think just betting on companies going for the better option carbon-wise won't be enough, it also needs price parity (or better) and more convenience than taking the plane
> Track capacity at night is often severly limited by maintenance work
Makes one wonder what it would do to the economics of train transportation if maintenance work was required to be carried out during daytime and passenger transportation was optimised for comfortable sleeper trains.
Kill it. Even assuming we are limiting ourselves to long distance trips (that is commuting to work is still allowed to use tracks during the day), and hand wave away some tricky where to draw the line issues.
Trains work best when the track is used. That means trains need to leave often to keep the track busy. Leave at 9pm, and arrive at 7am sounds great, but you don't get anyone leaving at 2am, which means there isn't enough users to pay for all the infrastructure needed.
Day trains work because some people leave at 8am, some noon, some 6pm... You need enough riders to fill to 70% capacity 3 trains per hour for 13 hours a day just to break even on all the costs of running a train for a reasonable price. (the numbers are approximate and depend strongly on local details). The more often you can run nearly full trains the better. Your night trains can't do this.
Which is a good problem to be had right now, from a citizen’s perspective. Proves there’s a market for these trains and we can only expect more of them coming.
This startup is not from the SNCF (national railroad), it's not comparable in terms of service with another national railroad.
I'd love to see the project including ÖBB, SBB, & SNCF!
> It only seems useful if you're Paris based, since this appears to be the center node of the network
That’s France’s rail network in a nutshell. It’s great, if your trip starts or ends in Paris. If you’re not, you might still go through Paris and driving could be faster than a high-speed train.
The other issue with domestic sleeper networks in France, other than sounding like a terrorist, is that high speed trains usually take 3-4h anyway.
I think the only takers for an overnight equivalent would be tourists that can save a night of stay somewhere. And that’s if you’re not staying with family or friends.
And the trains are almost all electric, so it’s harder to make an argument for “slower, therefore less carbon burn”.
That would be great. Hopefully the new tunnel[1] linking Zealand and North Germany should make that possible. A direct connection from Oslo to Hamburg would open up so many good train connections. Here's hoping DB doesn't screw up the connection like they did with the Gotthard tunnel.
I once took the train while backpacking from Hamburg to Copenhagen. I was incredibly surprised when part way through the journey I awoke on a ferry. It still blows my mind that they have a train that can roll on and off a ferry. Unfortunately, it looks like it no longer takes the ferry and one day will take that tunnel instead https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/hamburg-to-copenhag...
I live in Copenhagen. Nowadays we have bridges or tunnels everywhere except when traveling to Germany. However, when I was younger ALL train travel outside Zealand (with Lolland and Falster) would involve going on a ferry. The carriages were on the lower deck sometimes mixed with cars and sometimes with cars on a separate deck. After departure you could leave the train for a nice break. It wasn't particularly fast but very relaxing. Surprisingly, I also remember that I sometimes would meet old friends while strolling on the deck. These ferries were bottlenecks and would put a lot of people in the same place at the same time.
> These ferries were bottlenecks and would put a lot of people in the same place at the same time.
It's easy to sound like a luddite when talking about these things, but something has obviously been unintentionally lost when the ferry was replaced with a tunnel.
I've noticed that travelling with my noise cancelling headphones on precludes serendipity. What I mean is, 99% of the time I don't speak to someone when sitting on the train but every once in a while I get into a conversation and something comes of it. If I always have headphones on, I'm guaranteeing that will never happen.
Getting off topic, but skimming past I read that as "the new tunnel linking New Zealand and North Germany", which would be an impressive feat of engineering!
I'm really looking forward to the Brenner Base Tunnel[0]. Apart from cutting train time from Innsbruck to Bolzano from 120 to 50 minutes, it will increase the number of trains that can go through, and I hope it will absorb a lot of the lorries going through the Brenner Pass,
It would be even more awesome, if it were directly connected to the German train system, but on the German side, the connection is severely lacking and might not be there for many years. The state of the German railway system is pretty scandalous. The connection to the Swiss is also overloaded.
Yeah I'm unfortunately well aware. Also, Bolzano-Verona is quite lacking! But the Berlin–Palermo railway axis is one of the "core" projects of the EU, so I hope it will improve in time
Every year, 3.7 million Dutch visit the Mediterranean. Even if you had sleeper trains with 500 beds (the current ones seem to have around 200), you'd need a staggering 7400 trips (and another 7400 back) for just the Dutch population. Since most people leave within a period of 3 weeks, that's one every 5 minutes. Totally infeasible, I'm afraid.
I understand many of them use cars these days. Otherwise, to counter your argument, there would have to be a plane every 5 minutes, and short-haul narrows bodies don’t carry 500 passengers, either.
Cars are not that big of a problem, especially if fully occupied, which I imagine is very often the case when going for holidays. And especially with increasing electrification, they will keep becoming lesser of a carbon footprint contributor.
I think charging several times during a trip is going to be a blocker. And there are really many planes from the Dutch airports to the Mediterranean: 30 in the coming three hours from AMS, EIN and MST combined.
hmm, it might be that your calculation is the start of something wonderful, not the end of it :-)
The narrow holiday season is quite artificial: we live through the pandemic-induced work-from-home experience. rethinking why and when we travel in large numbers seems like a timely idea. Besides facilitating a sustainable migration this lowers the environmental burden at the destinations not to mention the enjoyment of less crowded facilities.
The train size / frequency etc could be worked-on although I suspect you can't achieve large multiple differences.
In any case its not about getting all the summer migration to happen via train. Its more appropriate to think of it as another justification to have a complete and streamlined rail network across Europe (this being another potentially significant and steady source of passengers).
This is a great idea. I really like the concept of sleeper trains but I don't think they make sense for when for most national destinations. A german sleeper train network only has a few routes that are long enough. But when viewed from a European perspective, there should be enough connections long enough for a real sleeper-train experience.
I will almost always opt for a sleeper train when possible, even though the routes are always served by day trains with a shorter (sometimes significantly so) journey time. The night trains I take are slower, but personally I believe 16 hours in a bed easily beats 7 hours on a seat.
On the ends of the trip, the train often offers a night of accommodation that is required by the slower pace of the train travel.
For a business trip, I'll often leave on the first flight out Monday morning and fly back Thursday night or Friday night. If the train changes that into leaving Sunday evening and returning Friday or Saturday morning, the "included" nights of accommodation aren't an actual benefit as compared to the competitive mode of travel. Instead, they're a fix to a problem that the train created.
There are trips where I'd rather arrive the night before, so I'm fresh and unrushed for the first morning's meeting. In that case, the train could be better as I'm already taking a night away from the family for performance reasons.
I don't think you can always add in the price of a hotel night. If I'm flying from Paris to Copenhagen at 0900, arriving at 1100 and being in the city center by 1200, I wasn't expecting to have to pay for a night in Paris.
A train that leaves Paris the day before at 1347 and arrives at 0655 the next morning (current schedule) isn't as useful, unless what I really wanted was to spend all day in Copenhagen instead of half a day.
>A train that leaves Paris the day before at 1347 and arrives at 0655 the next morning (current schedule) isn't as useful
That's with several transfers. No way a direct train would take 17 hours for that connection. Most likely it'd leave late at night and arrive in the morning.
> If we correctly price externalities (i.e. environmental cost) then the train should win hands down!
I would not be so certain on that one. The downside of trains is the massive infrastructure requirements. I don't think there are any privately funded and profitable tracks anywhere in Europe. Government pays for this, of course. Of course, if you only account for carbon dioxide, things can look different.
In Europe, 60% of airports are government owned: https://simpleflying.com/how-airports-make-money/ From that page, Heathrow makes half its money from passengers from operating a train line into the city, car rentals, restaurants, retail, parking, VIP lounges.
Is that saying, if you couldn't extract money from a captive audience for how inconvenient the airport is, it wouldn't make enough to cover its own running costs?
Surely, trains need less infrastructure than cars - a road to every building in the country? Government pays for this, of course.
https://greennews.ie/eu-airlines-propped-up-subsidies/ claims that small European airports are not profitable, and are propped up by government subsidies, which RyanAir uses to undercut competitor rates, and they essentially act as a subsidy to RyanAir.
> Surely, trains need less infrastructure than cars - a road to every building in the country?
Trains need that too. It can be a road from the train station to the building, or it can be tracks. However in the end every building sometimes need something delivered.
Maybe the trains allows you to downgrade the road to gravel, but trains still need the road network for that last mile.
You could walk on a mud path to the train station. You could walk on a cobbled street, not wide enough or strong enough for cars, to the train station. It wouldn't be as convenient, but cars are useless without roads in a way that trains aren't.
A two-way road between every building, and space for on-road parking or space for off-road parking around every building, bloats out the space between buildings and lowers density in a way that makes cars more necessary. It's possible for thousands of people to live within a short walk distance of a train station without even resorting to residential towerblocks.
Which is great until you buy a new bed, your toilet breaks, or any other large service is needed in your house. Sure a plumber can carry everything to your house, but it is much more efficient when he drives a van with all the different pipe adapters that your might need instead of walking to the office. You won't get a heavy appliance down a mud path unless the delivery is scheduled for a few weeks after the last rain.
I agree we don't need large two-way roads everywhere. However we still need a lot of small roads everywhere because some things cannot be done well by humans walking.
In the context of this thread, can you say "it is much more efficient" to have every single house on the planet tarmac'd, on the off-chance that a plumber might need to carry more than one basket worth of stuff to your house?
The up front cost is enormous, the ongoing maintenance is huge regardless of usage.[1] says "deteriorating roads are forcing [American] motorists to spend nearly $130 billion each year on extra vehicle repairs and operating costs" and "The U.S. has [...] a $786 billion backlog of road and bridge capital needs. The bulk of the backlog ($435 billion) is in repairing existing roads, while $125 billion is needed for bridge repair, $120 billion for system expansion, and $105 billion for system enhancement (which includes safety enhancements, operational improvements, and environmental projects).", and of course the amount of people who die on roads, and the amount spent on motoring costs just because people have to run a car because everything is so far away because everyone has cars in a circular way.
Whereas if that wasn't such a convenient option, you'd be more likely to use parts which lasted longer, and not change them frivolously for fashion reasons, and standardise on pipe adapters, and have more local caches and stores instead of big central warehouses a long way away.
> "You won't get a heavy appliance down a mud path unless the delivery is scheduled for a few weeks after the last rain."
I'm not deliberately missing your point when I say this, but "it's impossible because that would require forward planning" does show society in a bit of an unfavourable light, doesn't it?
Where did I say anything about putting every single house on tarmac? I said several times that gravel is good enough for most roads. As you get into dense cities you will discover that tarmac is a better choice than gravel just because the large number of tasks that don't work well via mass transit makes the disadvantages of gravel show.
> "it's impossible because that would require forward planning" does show society in a bit of an unfavourable light, doesn't it?
Things break without warning. Or are you proposing we automatically replace our large appliances every few years even though they could probably last for 5 times longer? (even then you will still have random early failures). Not everything is worth repairing.
My original point was under "trains need more infrastructure than planes" to say "and less infrastructure than cars". You then said that trains need cars - which they don't. If you had mud paths, and wilderness between cities, and intercity train would be an improvement on that, so would a local metro. Cars wouldn't be an improvement - everyone getting a Honda Civic wouldn't be able to move on the too-small, too-muddy roads, it would be instant jam. So, trains don't need cars to add value.
I agree gravel roads at the end of a train journey with motorised vehicles would also add a lot of value.
Small-ish gravel roads for occasional supply vehicles to travel down isn't the original "road network" that I was arguing about efficiency of - small gravel roads in a world built around walking distances wouldn't be a world where everyone could run a Honda Civic and drive in two-way lanes of traffic. That is, by "cars" I didn't mean "motorised vehicles", but "everyone has a car and uses it for most journeys, and the road network to support that".
> You then said that trains need cars - which they don't. If you had mud paths, and wilderness between cities, and intercity train would be an improvement on that
All you needed to say was: the "wild west".
Trains provably added a lot of value for decades without cars, because cars didn't even exist yet.
It is actually rather simple. Airports are extremely expensive of course, but if you build three airports you have three connections. Four airports give six. Five airports ten... Each of these connections require dedicated tracks if you want to go by train.
The EU ETS applies to flights within the EU, so carbon externalities are already priced in.
Also the choice isn't between trains and poorly connected airports. You can build high speed rail connections between city centres and airports, and many cities do so.
I'm not sure how externalities should be priced, but it does seem like a good idea, especially in the age of climate change. It is likely politically and practically very difficult though.
France are I think effectively banning internal (non connecting) flights in return for the airline bailout. Most of the night trains are international, but the EU could ban short non connecting flights overall too at some point.
Don’t most airlines already offer to buy carbon credits to compensate the flight at a minimal price? Accounting for all other externalities shouldn’t make flight much more expensive.
Aumont was reluctant to give ticket prices, but said these would be competitive with that of a short-haul flight, including what he called the “hidden costs”.
“This includes what you would have to pay for baggage and things like taxis to and from the airport,” he said.
So it will cost more than a flight, but not by much.
>> Train travel is just too expensive.
Why do you say this? I travel through Europe by train a couple of times a year at least. It's certainly not "too expensive" and if you book early it comes out the same as flying.
Actually you have the same holiday but you're arriving at your destination in the morning after sleeping all the way, instead of waking up early to be at the airport 2 hours before the flight etc.
It's easy to say, but if you look at the environmental impact, it really is too cheap. If airlines would pay the same tax on fuel as cars and were expected to compensate for their pollution, they'd be a lot less attractive.
CO2 analysis of train travel needs to take into account the cost (and emissions) of building and maintaining the rail network.
The other factor is that air travel is consistently profitable in the EU, without subsidies. But the reverse is true of rail.
The simplest solution is just to impose a $100/ton carbon tax, and let the market figure it out. But EU bureaucrats seem intent on socialism and planned economies instead.
Socialism isn't really a dirty word in Europe (or anywhere else in the world) like it is in the USA. 20% of elected representatives in the EU are socialists.
So it's less "EU bureaucrats intent on socialism" and more the European zeitgeist.
Depends on which part of Europe. In former communist countries 'socialism' is associated with economic system of their communist past, while center-left politics is called 'social democracy'.
I feel like in the 21st century (at least in the context of parties with widespread support and elected officials), there's no practical difference between social democrats and democratic socialists.
But you're right, the Eastern European parties call themselves "social democrats" and the Western parties call themselves "socialists"
After the politically inevitable taxes on short-haul flights are brought in, it may not be. As Hebert Stein said (on a different subject): if it can't go on forever it will stop.
Railways also benefit from considerable cost economies of scale, similar to the post office, the internet and of course...short haul flights. I wonder what the cost of flying will be when passenger seat miles drop by a factor of 5-10.
Why do you think the taxes are inevitable? Not only are short-haul flights in Eastern Europe not heavily taxed, the building and running of the airports has been heavily subsidized. It has more than paid for itself by bringing tourism income to the region, and encouraging the diaspora to regularly revisit and spend the money they have earned abroad.
It depends. I've just been looking for (non-sleeper) tickets from Germany to Prague and back, found some for a group of five adults for 149€ one-way, three months into the future.
The last sleeper train I took was Berlin-Budapest and that was 39€ in a six-bed room, which I personally prefer to economy flights, where the cheapest option is usually somewhere between 10pm and 7am. I can't wait to take another NightJet train.
Of course, just going from any place in Germany _to Berlin_ for that sleeper train can cost you upwards of 100€ if you don't book in advance.
Realistically from what I've seen in Sweden, this isn't necessarily true. I'm sure it depends where you are going. I will be taking the night train this summer to go into Lapland from Copenhagen area and the round trip cost for my ticket was about $235 USD which includes a transfer in Stockholm. Similar plane tickets were priced roughly the same with long layover in Stockholm.
I suspect it will not be possible for the night train to ever beat a short haul point to point on a Ryanair bike seat halfway across Europe between two major cities. But for anything more remote the night train will probably be quite competitive. After all, the infrastructure already exists for the most part.
It really depends on where you're going. On the east coast going between DC and Richmond to visit my parents is <$100 and cheaper than driving or flying. Also airports really suck now and I'm happy to avoid them.
I envy those East-coast Amtrak routes. Amtrak's so damn much more pleasant than flying coach[0] but in most of the country the trains travel fairly slowly to begin with, which might be OK if they weren't also routinely subject to 50-100% increases in stated travel time due to having to yield to freight traffic, making them not just way slower than driving, but also extremely unpredictable (so, very inconvenient to anyone waiting for you on the other end)
[0] Of course, being stabbed with a hot poker is more pleasant than flying coach, but Amtrak's a lot more pleasant.
That hotel night might not be necessary when you take a plane, though. Maybe you just safe a day of vacation instead? In that case, how much money does the plane trip safe you?
My dad worked in DC three days every week (so that's two nights he wasn't home) and still managed to teach me and my siblings math (we were home schooled) and find time for fun with us. I don't want to sound harsh but being away for short periods of time isn't an excuse for bad parenting.
The price globular is mentioning is surely regarding CO2 emissions. If it was about the time spend being away from children, the train would never win over the airplane.
If the problem with air travel is emissions then we ought to work on alternative fuels. That's the positive thing to do.
There is too much finger pointing, though. Globally, air travel accounts for only a small proportion of emissions, which means it gets a disproportionate amount of attention at the expense of more important things.
They don't exist yet... Hence perhaps working on it and investing much more into R&D would be useful.
2% of global emissions is close to negligible. Certainly this does not warrant the constant media coverage against air travel on environmental grounds. This is the usual fluff while the real, hard problems are not discussed. Politics instead of pragmatism.
It's really important to go a such important problems in a pragmatic and systematic way, rather than following into PR and political games.
This is about prioritising issues. If your boat is sinking you do not discuss what to do about the slow drip at the back, you try to solve the massive hole at the front first.
If air travel only accounts for 2% of emissions then whatever we do will have a very small impact overall. So do we really need to bother at the moment or at all? It's not targeted because it makes a difference but because it's politically easier for a number of reasons. People, especially on HN, should really see through this theatre.
For example in France they tried (very badly) to add further taxes on car fuel and that ended in riots. So now they say that they will ban air travel when a train alternative exists. That will make no difference on anything but they can claim that they are doing something (that seems to target the rich more than the poor, so even better).
I think most people here understand profiling and starting with the big target first. But we can and should be doing multiple things at once and air travel is far enough up there to bother with.
Bruxelles to Paris : 90 minutes, Zurich to Paris : 244 minutes, London to Paris 149 minutes
I could go on.
Show me where a car is competitive for any of those routes. In addition, not even plane is competitive if you consider the airport to city transfer and back.
It also saves you, at least in the case of Paris, Europes most ghastly airport experience, which is CDG.
> It also saves you, at least in the case of Paris, Europes most ghastly airport experience, which is CDG.
Has it become noticeably worse recently? I flew into and out of CDG with my family in 2015 and I can't say it seemed any worse than most (admittedly not very many) airports I've been through.
Terminal 1, which (partially) serves inter-European Star Alliance flights is just pretty bad in terms of seating, amenities, space, interior decoration and general chaos.
Compared with terminal 2F it's actually pleasant. 2F is a packed confused mess with no seating whatsoever. Well, there are some seats by my impression was 1 seat per 10 passengers.
My observation is that I'm livid in 100% of all cases flying from there once I'm boarding the plane. Wait time and accessibility (by RER or unreliable bus) are just awful.
Flying in is less bad (if you didn't check in luggage). Still, connectivity is pretty bad compared to other European airports. Just getting your ticket for the RER can be a frustrating experience.
One caveat: I never flew intercontinental or transferred there. It may be a better experience.
> Terminal 1, which (partially) serves inter-European Star Alliance flights is just pretty bad in terms of seating, amenities, space, interior decoration and general chaos.
That must have been where we were. If that's "pretty bad", then no more so than any other European airport IME/AFAICR.
> Wait time and accessibility (by RER or unreliable bus) are just awful.
We took the RER both ways. Worked pretty well, I thought.
> Flying in is less bad (if you didn't check in luggage).
We did, and I can't recall any problem with that.
> Still, connectivity is pretty bad compared to other European airports. Just getting your ticket for the RER can be a frustrating experience.
IIRC we used the ticket-vending machines on the platform. Sure, the UI is usually somewhat cryptic on those anywhere -- did we overpay, again? Can't recall, but quite possible -- but no worse at CDG than anywhere else I can recall.
> One caveat: I never flew intercontinental or transferred there. It may be a better experience.
Me neither; Helsinki - Paris and back.
Either we had exceptional luck... Or maybe you've got a slightly irrational bee in your bonnet about CDG.
Depends on the route -- eurostar from London to Paris/Brussels knocked a lot of flights out. Vey few would choose to drive from Manchester to London when the cheap train (£45 return no time restrictions) is quicker and the fast train is half the time of driving, but people do fly because west london to west manchester is quicker than schelpping to Euston and out from Picadilly - at least until HS2 drops it to under an hour and connects with crossrail.
> People take the train in the same situations when they drive a car
Not always. I live on the south coast of the UK. If I had to get to Scottish cities such as Glasgow (450 miles) or Edinburgh in a single day's journey I would fly or take the train, but never consider driving - it would be an absolutely horrendous car journey (edit: at least 8 hours assuming perfect traffic).
It is the point. People in Europe very much do consider train vs. plane. I encountered this first hand in personal considerations, family vacation planning and in a policy handout in a big corporation.
Quite a few of my friends in Europe prefer not to fly for environmental reasons as well, which I don't see really discussed a lot here. Oftentimes flight is seen as a last resort mode of transportation.
Not in Eastern Europe and the Balkans where trains and rail infra are crap. If I were going from Austria to the Czech Republic, sure. Hungary to Greece? No way.
First, if you look at Europe as a whole, you will see that sleeper trains were never really dead. There are plenty of them in Germany and Eastern Europe. Often they go from large cities to holiday destinations and therefore are mainly used by people travelling for leisure.
The novelty of these new lines (be it this company or the transeuropean effort to connect european capitals with sleeper trains) is that they mostly travel business travellers, people who would usually have taken a place. As plane journeys are often the largest item in a company carbon account, they are betting that some will push their employees towards the train.
It might not be easy however. Track capacity at night is often severly limited by maintenance work in France for example and these trains will have to compete with rail freight transport at a time when Europe wants to massively develop rail freight.