European trains - sleeper service

[MrsHJ]

I just wanted to mention that when looking for cycle options on SNCF at the moment I’m regularly being offered an intercity sleeper with bookable cycle space to the south of France. The one I was looking at recently was to get me to the Cévennes and it wanted me to take the overnight train to Narbonne from Gare D’Austerlitz. I’d need to reflect on overall travel time and costs though.

https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-route ... e-nuit.htm

[CJ]

Note I did say scheduled.

My apologies for continuing this off-topic discussion, but it seems to me that the old distinction between scheduled and charter flights has lost its meaning. Nowadays every carrier is competing on cost, with EasyJet and RyanAir publishing comparable "schedules" of flights to those of BA and Lufthansa.

[Will]

European Sleeper have just announced that they will be starting this service in May next year:

https://www.europeansleeper.eu/en

To begin with they will only be going as far as Berlin, as engineering work has prevented them from getting a path all the way to Prague next year. They hope to be able to extend the service to Prague in 2024.

Will

[Galactic]

European Sleeper have just announced that they will be starting this service in May next year:

https://www.europeansleeper.eu/en

... and the best bit is that they are taking bikes. 24€ one-way.

Now if only Eurostar would start carrying bikes again ... (although you could also take your bike on the ferry to Rotterdam/Europoort/Ijmuiden and pick up the nighttrain at Rotterdam or Amsterdam after a day of sightseeing - although taking bikes on trains from NL to Berlin has never been a problem, it's always been the Belgian-German border that has presented difficulties).

[MrsHJ]

Somewhere I saw a list of which nightjet services take bikes (it isn’t all of them yet). Can anyone think where that might be? Really useful service for Central Europe to Paris/Amsterdam etc. I continue to have the issue that somewhere like Budapest is doable by train but with finite holiday it’s probably a flight for me until there is an overnight service to somewhere like Geneva or Paris with the bike.

EDIT- found it https://www.nightjet.com/en/angebote/fahrradmitnahme

For Budapest I think the journey might be someone like cycle during the day then evening train Budapest to Vienna (no bike service on nightjet yet), overnight train to Zurich, morning train hop to Basel, local train to Strasbourg then TGV to Paris and onwards. You could probably get yourself and the bike to Paris or western France in 24 hours but it’s a lot of connections and you still haven’t got back to the UK.

FYI I think all of the intercity de nuit services do take bikes (I haven’t found a non bike service yet anyway but I tend to focus on getting to south west France). As far as I can see they stick within the french borders but are a useful onwards service leaving Gare d’Austerlitz after 9pm if you’ve arrived from a channel port or similar during the day.

[scragend]

Somewhere I saw a list of which nightjet services take bikes (it isn’t all of them yet). Can anyone think where that might be? Really useful service for Central Europe to Paris/Amsterdam etc. I continue to have the issue that somewhere like Budapest is doable by train but with finite holiday it’s probably a flight for me until there is an overnight service to somewhere like Geneva or Paris with the bike.

EDIT- found it https://www.nightjet.com/en/angebote/fahrradmitnahme

For Budapest I think the journey might be someone like cycle during the day then evening train Budapest to Vienna (no bike service on nightjet yet), overnight train to Zurich, morning train hop to Basel, local train to Strasbourg then TGV to Paris and onwards. You could probably get yourself and the bike to Paris or western France in 24 hours but it’s a lot of connections and you still haven’t got back to the UK.

FYI I think all of the intercity de nuit services do take bikes (I haven’t found a non bike service yet anyway but I tend to focus on getting to south west France). As far as I can see they stick within the french borders but are a useful onwards service leaving Gare d’Austerlitz after 9pm if you’ve arrived from a channel port or similar during the day.

The NS International help page on travelling with a bicycle on Nightjet says that from the new timetable in December 2022 it will be possible to take a bike on the Amsterdam-Vienna service:

https://support-en.nsinternational.com/ ... a_id/15284

The ÖBB Nightjet site however makes no mention of this at all. The timetable changes always take place on the second Saturday in December so if it was happening it should have happened by now. I'm wondering whether the introduction of bike carriages on this route has been scrapped but the NS English page hasn't been updated to reflect that.

I don't actually have that much confidence in the English version of that NS page. Note the way it refers to "unassembled" bicycles in a context where I think it actually means "assembled" bicycles. "Disassembled and packed" bicycles are referred to separately. The Dutch version of the page has a different layout and different wording - and makes no mention of the December 2022 change.

As for Budapest, I had a plan (had Amsterdam-Vienna Nightjet with bikes actually been a thing) of taking the NJ to Vienna then over consecutive days riding Vienna>Bratislava>Gyor>Esztergom>Budapest. But like you, without an overnight train option I am finding that time constraints probably prevent me from doing it just yet.

[Will]

The NS International help page on travelling with a bicycle on Nightjet says that from the new timetable in December 2022 it will be possible to take a bike on the Amsterdam-Vienna service:

ÖBB is converting 22 conventional Bmz series passenger coaches into new multifunctional Nightjet couchettes:

https://www.railjournal.com/fleet/obb-a ... couchette/

I believe the Amsterdam Vienna service is going to include one of these converted coaches, so will include 3 bike spaces.

Will

[Jdsk]

European Sleeper have just announced that they will be starting this service in May next year:

https://www.europeansleeper.eu/en

To begin with they will only be going as far as Berlin, as engineering work has prevented them from getting a path all the way to Prague next year. They hope to be able to extend the service to Prague in 2024.

Thanks for the heads-up.

And it's always good to see this sort of thing covered in a national newspaper:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... m-may-2023

Jonathan

[Galactic]

Somewhere I saw a list of which nightjet services take bikes (it isn’t all of them yet). Can anyone think where that might be?

Not sure I've seen this one, but I generally start with www.bahn.co.uk and look for the night trains with the take a cycle option. As discussed before on various threads, the results can't be taken as gospel, but it's a start. Once I think I've found a suitable route, I double check on the operator's own travel planner (ie ÖBB for Nightjets). Having said that, a quick google got me this page: https://www.nightjet.com/de/angebote/fa ... nahme.html, is that what you were thinking of?

The inestimable Mark of Seat 61 also has some general information which you're probably already familiar with: https://www.seat61.com/bike-by-train.htm

[Will]

Somewhere I saw a list of which nightjet services take bikes (it isn’t all of them yet). Can anyone think where that might be?

Not sure I've seen this one, but I generally start with www.bahn.co.uk and look for the night trains with the take a cycle option. As discussed before on various threads, the results can't be taken as gospel, but it's a start. Once I think I've found a suitable route, I double check on the operator's own travel planner (ie ÖBB for Nightjets). Having said that, a quick google got me this page: https://www.nightjet.com/de/angebote/fa ... nahme.html, is that what you were thinking of?

The inestimable Mark of Seat 61 also has some general information which you're probably already familiar with: https://www.seat61.com/bike-by-train.htm

I site I use a lot is vagonWeb.

Here is the NightJet trains that go via Austria:

https://www.vagonweb.cz/razeni/razeni.p ... J&rok=2023

If you check out 40421 (Amsterdam-Vienna) you can see that the Bvcmbz carriage (no bikes) will be replaced with a Bbcmvz carriage (3 bike spaces) at some point.

Another useful site for Germany is fernbah.de. Here you can identify the types of carriages that are scheduled to be used on each service and cross check the carriage types on vagonWEB (if that particular service is not listed on vagonWEB).

This is the entry on that site for NJ 421 (Amsterdam-Vienna):

https://www.fernbahn.de/datenbank/suche ... 0230100421

Will

[Jdsk]

The Good Night Train starts on 25 May:
https://www.europeansleeper.eu/en/the-train

Does it carry bikes?

Jonathan

[bohrsatom]

The Good Night Train starts on 25 May:
https://www.europeansleeper.eu/en/the-train

Does it carry bikes?

Looks like it - the site allows you to add a bike to your booking.

With bikes currently banned on London-Brussels Eurostars I do wonder how useful this service would be for cyclists. To take your bike you’d probably be best catching the overnight Harwich-HvH ferry, and if you do that you’re better off getting the daytime Amsterdam-Berlin train rather than waiting in Rotterdam all day to catch the sleeper.

The sleeper might mean you can avoid spending on a hotel room but in my research a hotel for two in Berlin would be considerably cheaper than two tickets in a shared bunk on a train.

[Jdsk]

Thankyou

Jonathan

[st599_uk]

The Good Night Train starts on 25 May:
https://www.europeansleeper.eu/en/the-train

Does it carry bikes?

Looks like it - the site allows you to add a bike to your booking.

With bikes currently banned on London-Brussels Eurostars I do wonder how useful this service would be for cyclists. To take your bike you’d probably be best catching the overnight Harwich-HvH ferry, and if you do that you’re better off getting the daytime Amsterdam-Berlin train rather than waiting in Rotterdam all day to catch the sleeper.

The sleeper might mean you can avoid spending on a hotel room but in my research a hotel for two in Berlin would be considerably cheaper than two tickets in a shared bunk on a train.

Is there still a daytime ferry crossing?

[mjr]

The Good Night Train starts on 25 May:
https://www.europeansleeper.eu/en/the-train

Does it carry bikes?

Looks like it - the site allows you to add a bike to your booking.

With bikes currently banned on London-Brussels Eurostars I do wonder how useful this service would be for cyclists. To take your bike you’d probably be best catching the overnight Harwich-HvH ferry, and if you do that you’re better off getting the daytime Amsterdam-Berlin train rather than waiting in Rotterdam all day to catch the sleeper.

The sleeper might mean you can avoid spending on a hotel room but in my research a hotel for two in Berlin would be considerably cheaper than two tickets in a shared bunk on a train.

Is there still a daytime ferry crossing?

Yes. Harwich to the Hook about 0900-1800, the Hook to Harwich 1400-1945. Times very from time to time.