There is a specific moment I always think about when someone asks me why I prefer night trains. I am on the ÖBB Nightjet from Zurich to Vienna, sometime around 2 a.m., half-asleep in a private sleeper cabin. The train slows through a small Austrian station, lights on the platform, nobody getting on or off, a station master in the orange vest checking something on a clipboard, and then we pull away into the darkness again. I feel, for a few seconds, completely located. I know exactly where I am in the world and what I am doing there. That feeling, which airports categorically cannot provide, is what night trains offer.
The Practical Case
The practical argument for night trains is often undersold. Vienna is nine hours from Zurich by Nightjet, leaving at 11 p.m. and arriving at 8:30 a.m. A flight, accounting for airport transfers, check-in, and security on both ends, takes roughly the same amount of door-to-door time, and costs you a hotel night. The night train costs you nothing except a few hours of sleep that were going to happen anyway. For city pairs within eight to ten hours of each other, this arithmetic is difficult to argue against.
The Nightjet network covers Vienna, Munich, Hamburg, Brussels, Amsterdam, Rome and more from Zurich. Austrian Federal Railways have invested heavily in new rolling stock, the new Nightjet cars are genuinely good, with proper beds in private cabins, power outlets, a breakfast service, and staff who are evidently proud of what they operate.
The Environmental Case
A Nightjet journey from Zurich to Vienna produces roughly 11 kg of CO2 per passenger. The same journey by air produces roughly 89 kg. For clients who care about this, and increasingly many do, the night train is not a compromise. It is the better choice on every dimension.
What Makes a Great Night Train Experience
Book a private sleeper cabin, not a couchette. The couchette experience (six bunks, no privacy, shared bathrooms at the end of the car) is fine for students and for the romantically stoic, but it is not sleep. A private double or single cabin, with a proper mattress and a lockable door, is something else entirely. ÖBB's new deluxe cabins include a small shower; I have used one and it works.
Bring your own pillow if you are particular about them. Bring noise-cancelling headphones if you are a light sleeper, the car does move at night, especially through mountain tunnels. Bring something to read that you do not mind putting down when the train pulls through a lit valley at midnight and you need to look.
The Network Is Growing
Night train services had been declining for twenty years as budget airlines ate the market. The decline is reversing. European Sleeper now operates Brussels to Prague. Midnight Trains (French, launching soon) has announced Paris to Barcelona, Madrid, and Porto. ÖBB continues to expand Nightjet routes. Trenitalia's Intercity Notte connects Italian cities on schedules that actually make sense.
This is not nostalgia. It is a transport category returning because the conditions, the climate conversation, the congestion at airports, the improving quality of rolling stock, now favour it. The golden age of the night train is ahead, not behind.
Every Alpina itinerary that crosses a border overnight is designed around the night train where possible. If you would like to discuss including one in your journey, mention it when you get in touch.