There will be overnight trains from London to Berlin. Later also to Prague
On Friday afternoon you will board the train in London as a quick transfer in Brussels on Saturday morning to get off at the station in Berlin. And when everything works out, once a few hours later in Prague. Starting next year, the European Sleeper service will offer such a novelty in travel between European capitals. It will launch its first line from Brussels via Amsterdam to Berlin in May 2023, and it will also be relatively easy to connect to it from London. In the future, there are plans to extend the route to Dresden and Prague. Ticket prices start at 49 euros, i.e. roughly 1,200 crowns.
European Sleeper is a young Dutch-Belgian railway company that focuses on night trains. The first new service will depart on May 25, 2023, from Brussels to Berlin. “As a brand new, community-based rail company, we are introducing a special east-west connection between three European capitals,” stands on the website European sleeper. Amsterdam will also be one of the stops. The original plan to go all the way to Prague is postponed until 2024 due to works on the German railway.
The train from Brussels to Berlin will start running three times a week, in the future it could run daily. Breakfast in the compartment will be included in the ticket price. It will cost at least 49 euros (1,200 crowns) per seat. From 79 euros (1,900 crowns) you can get a seat in a couchette car, and the price of a sleeper car starts at 109 euros (2,600 crowns). The train will leave Brussels at 7:22 p.m., arrive at Amsterdam Central Station at 10:34 p.m., and stop in Berlin at 6:48 a.m. It will depart in the opposite direction at 10:56 p.m. and arrive in Brussels before 10:30 a.m. the next day.
The connection to London will then be provided by the international rail carrier Eurostar. It provides a direct connection from London St Pancras station to Brussels Midi station, which takes two hours and ten minutes. Currently, ticket prices start at 59 euros (1,400 crowns).
“The new pan-European service, which will start operating in May, opens up the possibility of hopping on the Eurostar at St Pancras Station on a Friday afternoon and waking up in Berlin the next morning with breakfast included. Passengers on the European Sleeper sleeper line will only have to change trains once in Brussels. Luckily, there’s plenty of time in that timetable for a quick Belgian beer with cheese and mustard before Berlin shows up.” he wrote British newspaper Guardian.
European Sleeper co-founder Chris Engelsman said that such timing is ideal for weekend trips, for example. The train will leave Brussels on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. From Berlin on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. The biggest obstacle for the fledgling Dutch-Belgian railway service is said to be the lack of sleeping cars on the market. “It’s not just us who have problems with it. It’s the same as other initiatives, even the larger rail carriers,” explains Engelsman, noting that there has been no investment in the vehicle fleet in Europe for many years.
How skillfully Guardian, precisely the long night flights through Europe are experiencing a renaissance in recent years. Among other things, this is partly a reaction to the rise in aviation fuel prices and people’s ever-increasing prudence in protecting the environment. This opened up, for example, routes from Brussels to Prague and Graz or from Hamburg to Stockholm. The European Sleeper service also has long-term plans for further trips to Scandinavia or Barcelona, which, in addition to the mentioned Engelsman, is also supported by Elmer van Buuren.
It was these two men who founded European Sleeper thanks to the merger of their startups – the Belgian Moonlight Express and the Dutch European Sleeper. At the same time, they cooperate with the low-country travel company Sunweb Group. Last May, the European Sleeper itself raised an initial capital of 500,000 euros (over 12 million crowns) by selling shares to more than 350 small investors. This year, the company received another two million euros (48 crowns).