Sometimes you want to get to your destination as quickly as possible. Others, you fancy avoiding the stress and taking the scenic route, and there’s nothing more relaxing than drifting off in one country and waking up in the next.
Sleeper trains are an ideal way to travel, but they’re less common than their daytime counterparts. While it might have felt like overnight trains in Europe were having a renaissance in the past few years, some of the most popular services are now getting scrapped due to budget cuts.
But, thankfully, the dream isn’t over yet. Two brand-new routes are in the works – and they could begin operation as early as next year.
Back in 2023, European Sleeper announced plans to introduce an Amsterdam-Barcelona sleeper train in 2025. Obviously, that hasn’t happened, but the Dutch-Belgian company says that it still intends to make the route a reality – albeit starting in Brussels, rather than Amsterdam – with a tentative new launch date sometime in the latter half of 2026.
Delays to the Barcelona route have mostly come from a breakdown in negotiations with the French railway managers SNCF Réseau, who European Sleeper co-founder Chris Engelsman described as ‘simply difficult to do business with’. That’s not all though – the company is also missing the actual train carriages it needs, although it says that it’s in the process of sorting those out.
But Barca isn’t the only destination that European Sleeper is eyeing up; it’s also interested in Milan. If Barcelona plans continue to derail, Engelsman says that the company will begin taking passengers to Milan first. Speaking to Treinreiziger.nl, he explained that ‘it remains to be seen which one will start first. It’s possible that one will run in 2026 and the other in 2027’.
Trains to Milan should be easier to organise as it’s a shorter trip, and there’s no need to pass through France. Instead, the route will go from Amsterdam into Germany, then cross over Switzerland to finally reach Italy.
Eventually, both sleepers will depart three times a week, but it could be well into 2027 before both of them are up and running. Fingers crossed things stay on track for a smooth opening sooner rather than later.
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