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SUBSCRIBE & SAVE Less than $3 per week View Profile The Explainer Talking Points The Week Recommends Newsletters From the Magazine The Week Junior Food & Drink Personal Finance All Categories Newsletter sign up Culture & Life the week recommends The romance of the night train Discover the magic of long-distance rail journeys with a bucket list trip from Vienna to Rome Newsletter sign up Austria’s Nightjet leaves Vienna in time to catch twilight in the Alps (Image credit: Alamy) The Week UK 26 September 2025 I fell in love with night trains while travelling around India in 2010, said Monisha Rajesh in The Guardian. Rail journeys by day were often great, but darkness brought a special kind of magic. I would “find peace in the cool of the open doorway”, chatting to hawkers and ticket inspectors, and seeing the world beyond while other passengers slept. Back in Europe, I was sad to discover that sleeper services were being culled there, owing to the rise of budget airlines and high-speed rail lines. But recently, that trend has been reversed, owing partly to concerns over climate change, as well as the change in perspective brought by the pandemic. Campaign groups such as Back on Track have helped drive the resurgence, and companies such as the crowdfunded European Sleeper have created new services. The main pioneer, however, has been Austrian Federal Railways, which launched its Nightjet network on 14 routes in 2016, using old rolling stock bought from Deutsche Bahn – and then, “to the delight of train nerds like me”, expanded to 20 routes with a brand new fleet in 2023. Its couchette compartments have “minicabins” for solo travellers that a friend compared to sleeping in a bread bin (though I didn’t find them too claustrophobic, just not all that comfortable). But for a recent journey with my two young daughters from Vienna to Rome, I booked a four-person private compartment, with safety barriers on the upper berths and a large window. We left Vienna before 7pm, and it was still light as we “swept” around the Alps, past horses grazing in paddocks and scattered hamlets. In the “blue-grey twilight”, we watched streams “gleam like strips of metal”, and spotted a single stag “poised at the edge of a wood”. At 7am, we woke up “to rumpled clouds and a golden flare on the horizon”, and had plenty of time to enjoy a “leisurely” breakfast onboard before our 10am arrival in Rome – unusually late for a night train. Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives. SUBSCRIBE & SAVE Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. Monisha Rajesh’s latest book about rail travel is “Moonlight Express: Around the World by Night Train”, available at The Week Bookshop Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. 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