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Original at Sleeping car

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For the 1933 film, see Sleeping Car (film).

Not to be confused with Sleeper (car) or Railway sleeper.

The sleeping car or sleeper (often wagon-lit) is a railway passenger car or carriage with accommodation for over-night travel, either in berths or compartments, usually with some form of bedding and a degree of privacy.

A sleeping car is different from a couchette car, which offers less comfort and more beds per compartment, with less, or no privacy.

There are either additional charges in the form of surcharges or a correspondingly higher fare to use either type of car.

Two main types of sleeper have evolved, the 'American' with berths to either side of a central corridor and 'European' with a side corridor and the berths in compartments.

Scheduled versus VIP or royalty, charter, tourist, these use sleepers as well!

History

Bed carriages

The earliest known example of a sleeping car (or bed carriage, as it was then called) was on the London & Birmingham Railway (L&BR) when it opened in 1838. The carriage had an end compartment with a boot behind it, it was arranged so that the backs of the seats against the boot could be hinged up at night and a cushion placed into the footspace between each pair of seats. Two passengers were then able to lie down lengthwise with their feet in the boot.

After a while the size of the first-class compartments was increased and the boot became superfluous, any first-class compartment could then be so converted upon request. The bed carriage arrangement lasted on the London and North Western Railway (the successor to the L&BR) until the introduction of sleeping cars in the 1870s.

Bed carriages were used by the Midland Great Western Railway in Ireland in the 1840s and as late as 1874 one was built in Austria, this one had a boot like the early British ones.

Early American style sleeper cars

The first American sleeping car, the "Chambersburg" started service on the CVRR in 1839.

In 1838, the Cumberland Valley Railroad pioneered sleeping car service in America with a car named "Chambersburg", between Chambersburg and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The thirty-eight-foot-long car was divided into two sections. One end was a coach section with bench-style seating that held as many as forty passengers. At the opposite end were three sleeping-car berth sections, separated by partitions, two for men and one for women. Each of the men’s sections was fitted with nineteen-inch-wide berths that were arranged three tiers high along each side of the car. The women’s section contained only a single level of double-width berths. The berths consisted of upholstered boards that were held firmly in place by leather straps, which folded back against the wall to create side benches for daytime travel. Each passenger was issued a coverlet and a round pillow; no extra charge was levied for riding in the berths. A couple of years later a second car, the "Carlisle", was introduced into service which lasted until 1848.

In October 1838, the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad ran a sleeper service. Their car had longitudinal seats that were made up into two-tier berths at night, twenty-four berths in all. This, and similar cars on other lines, were more a sort of bunk car, often poorly conceived and converted from other stock.

Theodore Woodruff demonstrated a model of a sleeping compartment to the Wason Manufacturing Company of Springfield, Massachusetts that allowed four passengers to sleep in privacy, which erected an experimental car based on his idea. The finished product had six sleeping sections on each side of the car and each section was three single berths high with an additional berth alongside of the lowest of the three stacked berths. That car, which was demonstrated on the New York Central Railroad on 26 October 1856 eventually became the property of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad where it was operated.

Canadian railways soon followed with their own sleeping cars: first the Grand Trunk in 1858, then the Great Western. The Great Western's sleeping cars were manufactured in-house, with the first three built in 1858, and the railway operating six by 1863.

In 1859 George Pullman contracted with the Chicago and Alton Railroad to convert two of the line’s day coaches to sleepers. He divided the cars into sleeping sections, each having an upper and lower berth on each side of a center aisle. (No accurate records of the original car were kept, and the number of sleeping sections has since been variously stated as eight, ten, or twelve.) Box stoves, a linen locker, and two washrooms were provided.

Interior of a Pullman car on the Chicago and Alton Railroad, c. 1900, configured for daytime operation

The backs of the seats were hinged. To make up the lower berth, the porter merely dropped the back of the seat until it was level with the seat itself. Upon this he placed a mattress and blanket. There were no sheets. The upper berth was suspended from the ceiling of the car by ropes and pulleys attached to each of the four corners of the berth. The upper berths were constructed with iron rods running from the floor of the car to the roof. During the day the berth was pulled up until it hugged the ceiling; at night, it was suspended about halfway between the ceiling of the car and the floor.

George Pullman founded the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1867 (it later became the Pullman Company), at that time the company had 37 sleeping cars. By 1872 the company 365 sleeping cars.

Pullman had competitors but he either bought or leased most of them, White (1978) lists around thirty companies that came under Pullmans control by 1900. At this time the Pullman company had 3,258 cars operating across north America.

In the late 1880s Pullman started to produce whole trains of stock in addition to the sleepers that were supplied individually to railroads as needed, one of the first of these was a five-car train of which three cars were sleepers, for the Pennsylvania Special. This was one of the first Pullman trains to be fitted with vestibule ends.

<<overview of services and changes to stock to 1900-1914>>

Pullman made arrangements in 1873 with the Midland Railway in England to supply them with sleeper cars based on what had become the 'American' style, longitudinal berths, convertible into pairs of seats, with a central corridor were the basic plan for Pullman sleeping cars. Above them the upper berth rested during the day against the spaces immediately below the lower deck of the clerestory roof, and let down at night. For the Midland the principal variation was that the lower berths by day converted into a longitudinal sofa with its back against the windows. The Midland ran its first Pullman sleeping car on January 25, 1874 and on June 1, 1874 started a regular service between St Pancras and Bradford.

Following the Midland's lead several other railways started running Pullman services including the GNR, LB&SCR, L&SWR, LC&DR and the HR, not all of these were sleeper services but they utilised sleeper stock. Pullman made incursions into Italy and ran services between 1876 and 1888 on the Italian Southern Railway (SFM) connecting to the Indian Mail service.

European style sleeper carriages

Saloon and sleeping car on the Saint Petersburg to Moscow railway(the Nikolaevskaya railway) built around 1860

The European approach to the development of the sleeping carriage was different, for it retained the compartment arrangement of the standard daytime passenger carriage. Russia during the 1860s introduced four-berth compartments accessed by a side corridor. Some of these sleeper compartments were luxuriously appointed, a factor facilitated by the considerable width of Russian carriages, and a Russian sleeping carriage of the late 1860s could provide five compartments, each with four berths, a central saloon, and above this arrangement an extensively glazed observation compartment accessed by a short stairway.

Georges Nagelmackers founded the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL, known as the International Sleeping-car Company in English) in Belgium in 1872. Nagelmackers ordered his first five sleeping cars from wagon factories in Vienna; one example built by the Hernalser Waggonfabrik was shown at the 1873 Vienna World's Fair.

During the 1880s the CIWL introduced luxury sleeper trains across Europe, CIWL provided the sleeping and dining carriages and the railway companies supplied the locomotives, the companies got the ticket revenue and the CIWL got the supplement that was charged.

CIWL-Sleeping carriage No.74, built in 1880

The CIWL did not have a monopoly, their sleeping cars travelled on the railway networks of Baden , Bavaria , Belgium , Bulgaria , Denmark , France , Italy , the Netherlands , the Ottoman Empire , Austria-Hungary , Prussia , Romania , Russia , Switzerland , Serbia , Spain and Württemberg.

The Prussian state railways were nationalised in 1880 and they operated their own sleeping cars on their network in Prussia and neighboring German states.

Swedish State Railways , which was the first railway company to introduce 3rd class sleeping cars between Malmö and Stockholm in 1910.

From 1894 Bosnian-Herzegovinian Railways operated several types of narrow-gauge first-class passenger carriages with sleeping facilities, explicitly referred to as sleeping cars , on their express trains running on a 760 mm gauge.

Others

Austria-Hungary provided sleeper services from Vienna to destinations such as Berlin. The “Hernalser’ sleeping carriage was essentially a hybrid of European and American features, the former the type of compartmented arrangement favoured by Georges Nagelmackers, the Belgian who became the leading light in European sleeping carriage development, and the latter the Pullman arrangement of seats and berths. Heating was provided by stoves under a floor fitted with gratings, and the central clerestory structure was American in basic concept but European in features such as its windows and ventilators, which were derived ultimately from stagecoach experience. This type of sleeping car was popular in Austria-Hungary, and also spread to other parts of Europe including Prussia and, to a limited extent, to the Great Western Railway in the U.K.

Page 155

The definitive form of the European sleeping carriage was created by Nagelmackers, whose success resulted in the establishment of the celebrated Compagnie Internationale des wagon-Lits(International Sleeping Car Company), which was also known for a time as Mann's Railway Sleeping Carriage Company, Colonel William D'Alton Mann being a dubious American who injected some capital into the project. The Nagelmackers concept for the sleeping carriage was an arrangement of compartments (with transverse rather than longitudinal berths) opening onto a side corridor providing access to the lavatories.

While sleeping carriages or cars became increasingly important for long-distance journeys, the type of intermediate-distance journey typical of many central and eastern European regions led to the limited introduction of carriages outfitted with chaises longues as well as a primitive underfloor heater and a small lavatory compartment.

Page 156 The French initially adopted a system in which each berth was created by tipping forward a high-backed seat so that the seat was hidden under the now-horizontal back which became the basis of the berth, and the same concept was adopted for the first British sleeping berths, which were produced in 1873 by the Scotland-based North British Railway for use on its services linking Glasgow with London. The idea had only a short career in the U.K., but lasted into the first quarter of the 20th century in France where such a carriage was called a wagon-lit (berth Carriages).

Typical of many American entrepreneurs of the period, Pullman soon turned his attention from the U.S.A. to Europe, where his starting point was the U.K. The first British operator of the Pullman type of sleeping carriage was the Midland Railway, which adopted the type in 1874 in a form that was essentially American but scaled down to suit the British operator, and most luxuriously appointed. Several other British railways followed suit, and a good market was also found in Italy for the Pullman carriage which was manufactured in the U.S.A. and shipped across the Atlantic in kit form for final assembly in the U.K. and Italy. In overall terms, however, the Pullman type of sleeping car failed to displace the Nagelmackers sleeping carriage on European railways.

Page 165-167

As far as sleeping carriages and cars were concerned, the need for third-class accommodation was met by the adoption of a superimposed trio of berths in each compartment in the carriages introduced in Sweden during 1910: this type of accommodation later spread to Germany and after that to France. The U.K. adopted third-class sleeper accommodation only in 1928, in the form of four-berth compartments with two berths on each side. The French had a similar arrangement in their compartiments a couchettes, which were in effect second-class accommodations for first-class passengers unwilling to pay the full supplement for the more luxurious full first-class sleeping cars. The Pullman sleeping cars used by the American railroads, which had become mainly of the side corridor type during the first part of the 20th century, had many gradations: the so-called bedroom was similar in standard to the European Wagon-Lits accommodation.(there's a bit on Egypt as well)

PCC in UK 1874

Sleeing car service providers

Pullman

Main article: Pullman Company

CIWL

Main article: Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits

Others

Pullman porter making an upper berth aboard the B&O Capitol Limited bound for Chicago, c. 1944

Night trains today

Europe

International

Trenhotel Alhambra between Barcelona and Granada

A long-distance night train at the Oulu railway station in Oulu, Finland

In Europe, the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (French for "International Sleeping Car Company") first focused on sleeping cars, but later operated whole trains, including the Simplon-Orient Express, Nord Express, Train Bleu, Golden Arrow, and the Transsiberien (on the Trans-Siberian railway). Today it once again specializes in sleeping cars, along with onboard railroad catering.

In modern Europe, a number of sleeping car services continue to operate, though they face strong competition from high-speed day trains and budget airlines, sometimes leading to the cancellation or consolidation of services. In some cases, trains are split and recombined in the dead of night, making it possible to offer several connections with a relatively small number of trains. Generally, the trains consist of sleeping cars with private compartments, couchette cars, and sometimes cars with normal seating.

In Eastern Europe, night trains are still widely used. In Western Europe, they have been in decline for decades. However, in December 2020 the state railways of Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland announced a 500 million euro investment in a network of cross-border night trains linking 13 major European cities, in the largest extension of Europe's night network in many years.

An example of a more basic type of sleeping car is the European couchette car, which is divided into compartments for four or six people, with bench-configuration seating during the day and "privacyless" double- or triple-level bunk beds at night.

In 2021 the French start-up company, Midnight Trains, announced plans to set up a network of sleeper trains, centered in Paris. Planned destinations include Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Berlin, Venice, Rome, Barcelona, Madrid, and Porto, with some intermediate stops. The plans were backed by telecoms billionaire Xavier Niel, the co-owner of Le Monde newspaper. However, the project later collapsed due in part to a lack of funding. Europe has seen a recent (in 2021) increase in the provision of sleeper trains which is thought to be the result of increasing awareness of the environmental effects of long-distance travel.

In 2022 the design and engineering faculties of three European universities – Aalto , KTH and TalTech – discussed plans to reshape sleeping cars for flow production. The ADLNE project aims to create the railcar from modules that are themselves composed of interchangeable segments, compartments and fittings, allowing bespoke designs at low cost.

Austria

A CityNightLine double-decker sleeping car

ÖBB's modern Nightjet services operate in Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, France, Netherlands and Belgium, and Nightjet's partners will also take passengers to Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The services usually leave at around 20:00 hours and arrive at around 09:00 hours at the destination.

Former Soviet Union countries

1st class two berth sleeper Kyiv to Moscow

A Russian TVZ double-deck sleeper car

In the Soviet Union overnight train travel formed the most common and accessible mode of long-distance travel, distances between the capital of Moscow and many outlying cities being ideal for overnight trips that depart in late evening and arrive at their destinations in the morning. Sleeping cars with berths are the only reasonable solution for railway trips lasting several days (e.g., trains running along the Trans-Siberian Railway, or direct trains from Moscow or Saint Petersburg to the capitals of the Central Asian Soviet Republics).

Since then, the railroads in the smaller ex-Soviet nations have largely transitioned to daytime intercity trains, such as in Belarus, where the process is based on government-funded purchases of rolling stock supplied by Stadler, which operates a train factory in Minsk, or in Uzbekistan, which has established a 600 km Afrosiyob high-speed rail service between all of its major cities.

In the larger Soviet Union successor states like Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine, on the other hand, night trains are to this day a prime method of railway travel, as a shift towards faster daytime trains with seating rather than sleeping arrangements is hampered by insufficient investments in the railway infrastructure restricting the speed, lack of train sets, and most importantly, the distances involved. While certain numbers of high-speed trains have been acquired by the national railways of these countries (such as Talgo 250 in Kazakhstan, Siemens Sapsan in Russia, or Hyundai Rotem HRCS in Ukraine), all of them continue to operate a large number of sleeper trains both on domestic and international routes.

The need to compete against aviation with its soaring passenger numbers forces the railroads to maintain modest ticket prices, starting at below 10 Euros for third-class tickets in Ukraine, if higher in the richer ex-Soviet nations. Rolling stock age and quality also varies by country. In countries like Kazakhstan and Russia, locally-produced cars are purchased regularly to update the fleet, with newly introduced comforts such as showers, dry toilets, or conditioning units in passenger compartments becoming an increasingly common sight; Russian Railroads have also introduced double-deck sleeper cars; yet comfort levels still suffer from a modest degree of innovation in the bogie suspension systems and the passenger compartment design. Some other post-Soviet nations rely more heavily on the rolling stock fleet inherited from the Union, to a large extent based on vintage life-prolonged cars assembled in East Germany or Soviet Latvia back in the 1980s.

Croatia

history of stock and services?

current stock Croatian sleeping-cars are air-conditioned, they have ten compartments with a washbasin, each of which can be used as 1, 2 or 3 berth, with toilets at the end of the corridor. Compartments convert to a private sitting room for evening or morning use.

Croatian couchette cars are also modern & air-conditioned with 4 & 6 bunk compartments. Couchettes convert from bunks to seats for evening or morning use. RegioJet provides them on various trains on the Prague - Košice line.

France

Another of the more substantial examples of current European sleeping-car service is the Train Bleu, an all-sleeping-car train. It leaves Paris from the Gare d'Austerlitz in mid-evening and arrives in Nice at about 8 in the morning, providing both first-class rooms and couchette accommodation. The train's principal popularity is with older travelers; it has not won the same degree of popularity with younger travelers. Recently, the upper-class coaches (wagons lits) have been sold to foreign railroad companies, so that only couchette cars (1st and 2nd class) and seating coaches remain. The Train Bleu is part of the French night service network called Intercités de Nuit.

Italy

In Italy, Ferrovie dello Stato operates an extensive network of trains with sleeping cars, especially between the main cities in Northern Italy and the South, including Sicily using train ferry.

Poland

Sleeping trains in Poland are run by PKP Intercity.

Romania

Night train numbers have been reduced significantly, as the quality of the rail infrastructure is declining and repairs are insufficient, which leads to longer ride times between cities. A journey from the Bucharest main station to Arad (599 km) usually lasts 11 hours 20 minutes when there are no delays. Most night trains in Romania cross the country, covering distances of 400 to 750 km, usually to end at certain international destinations or in large cities at opposite ends of the country. The overwhelming majority of night trains with sleeping coaches are owned and operated by CFR Călători. Recently, private operators such as Astra Rail Carpatica, the newly founded private operator of Astra Vagoane Arad, has started offering sleeping train services, using own-made sleeping cars and Servtrans locomotives.

A WLABmee 71-31 car, the standard sleeping car of the CFR, at the defunct Belgrade Main railway station

CFR today prefers operating more couchettes than sleeping cars in its trains, a practice used in Italy and Austria, adopted by the CFR in the early 2010s, thus enabling it to increase the capacity on sleeping trains. The sleeping cars of the CFR in the 1990s consisted of Bautzen and Görlitz-made sleeping cars, standard in the Eastern Bloc. They were replaced by Grivița-made WLABmee 71-70 and Hansa-made WLABmee 71–31, bought second-hand from Deutsche Bahn. The most recent sleeping cars are the WLABmee 70-91 made by Astra Arad, which is the same type used by Astra Rail (although the liveries differ), starting from 2014, 2 of the WLABmee 71-70 cars were refurbished, but no other examples have received the same treatment. Other examples that have been withdrawn since were second-hand examples of the TEN MU and T2S types.

Spain and Portugal

In Spain, Trenhotel was a long-distance, high-quality overnight train service which used Talgo tilting trains technology and sleeping cars developed by the Spanish rail network operator Renfe. It was operated by Renfe and CP where it operated International Sud-Express and Lusitanea services between Spain and Portugal, and by its subsidiary Elipsos (a joint venture between Renfe and French SNCF with a 50% share each) when operating in France, Switzerland and Italy.

Trenhotel services were discontinued during the COVID-19 pandemic, although Renfe announced that trains to and from the Spanish region of Galicia would eventually be reintroduced. This marked the end of sleeper trains in Portugal and it left Celta as the last international train service between Portugal and Spain.

The Estrella (Star) is a low-cost night train between Madrid and Barcelona served by berth carriages, with compartments for up to 6 people.

Turkey

While most of Turkey's overnight trains operate within Anatolia, in Asia, TCDD Taşımacılık operates one train from Istanbul to Sofia and Bucharest. The train runs through Turkey as a single train and later splits in Bulgaria. Formerly, overnight trains departed Istanbul to several European destinations such as Thessaloniki, Belgrade, Budapest, Warsaw and Kyiv but were all discontinued in the 1990s and 2000s.

A privately operated overnight train, the Optima Express, runs between Edirne and Villach in Austria with an average trip time of 35 hours.

United Kingdom

A Caledonian Sleeper double berth in the UK.

The first sleeping carriages appeared for first class passengers in April 1873, firstly on the east coast route between London King's Cross and Glasgow Queen Street and then six months later via the west coast route between London Euston and Glasgow Central

In 2024 United Kingdom, sleeper services run from London to Scotland and Cornwall.

Caledonian sleeper services run between London Euston and Scotland. The service consists of two trains:

• The Highland sleeper which has three portions, one goes to Stirling, Perth, Aviemore and Inverness, another for Dundee and Aberdeen, and another for Fort William.

• The Lowland sleeper has two portions one of which goes to Edinburgh and the other to Glasgow.

Each portion consists of up to six sleeping-cars, each train will have one or more one club cars and one seats/baggage car with bike spaces.

The sleeping cars in service since 2019 comprise six club single bed compartments with en-suite shower and toilet rooms and four classic single bed, non-ensuite compartments. There are also an accessible sleeping-car in each portion of each Caledonian Sleeper train, featuring two different types of accessible room and two non-accessible double compartments, with a double bed.

Night Riviera sleeper services run between London and the West Country as far as Penzance in Cornwall. The Night Riviera service uses British Rail Mk3 sleeper coaches which offer a choice of single- or double-occupancy bedrooms, with two single beds. The carriages were refurbished in 2018.

North America

Canada

In Canada, all regularly scheduled sleeping car services are operated by Via Rail, using a mixture of relatively new cars and refurbished mid-century ones; the latter cars include both private rooms and "open section" accommodations.

United States

Bedroom of Amtrak Viewliner sleeping car in 2014

In the United States, all regularly scheduled sleeping car services are operated by Amtrak. Amtrak offers sleeping cars on most of its overnight trains, using modern cars of the private-room type exclusively.

Today, Amtrak operates two main types of sleeping car: the bi-level Superliner sleeping cars, built from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, and the single-level Viewliner sleeping cars, built in the mid-1990s. Superliners are used on most long-distance routes from Chicago westward, while Viewliners are used on most routes east of Chicago due to tunnel clearance issues in and around New York City and Baltimore.

In the most common Superliner sleeping car configuration, the upper level is divided into two halves, one half containing "Bedrooms" (formerly "Deluxe Bedrooms") for one, two, or three travelers, each Bedroom containing an enclosed toilet-and-shower facility; and the other half containing "Roomettes" (formerly "Economy Bedrooms" or "Standard Bedrooms") for one or two travelers; plus a beverage area and a toilet. The lower level contains more Roomettes; a Family Bedroom for as many as two adults and two children; and an "Accessible Bedroom" (formerly "Special Bedroom") for a wheelchair-using traveler and a companion; plus toilets and a shower.

The Viewliner cars contain an Accessible Bedroom (formerly "Special Bedroom") for a wheelchair-using traveler and a companion, with an enclosed toilet-and-shower facility; two Bedrooms (formerly "Deluxe Bedrooms") for one, two, or three travelers, each Bedroom containing an enclosed toilet-and-shower facility; "Roomettes" (formerly "Economy Bedrooms", "Standard Bedrooms", or "Compartments") for one or two travelers, each Roomette containing its own unenclosed toilet and washing facilities; and a shower room at the end of the car.

Modern Amtrak Accommodations

Amtrak's Superliner Economy Bedrooms (now called Superliner Roomettes, although they are structurally closer to open sections) accommodate two passengers in facing seats that fold out into a lower berth, with an upper berth that folds down from above, a small closet, and no in-room washbasin or toilet, on both sides of both the upper and lower levels of the car. Effectively, they are open sections with walls, a door, and a built-in access ladder for the upper berth (which doubles as a nightstand for the lower berth passenger). Superliner Deluxe Bedrooms are essentially the same as historic Compartments and Double Bedrooms, with the toilet cubicle doubling as a private shower cubicle. In addition, each Superliner sleeping car has two special lower-level accommodations, each taking up the full width of the car: the Accessible Bedroom, at the restroom/shower end of the car (below the Deluxe Bedrooms), is a fully wheelchair-accessible accommodation for two, with a roll-in cubicle for the toilet and shower; the Family Bedroom, at the Economy Bedroom end of the car, accommodates two adults and up to three small children, without private toilet or shower facilities.

When the Viewliner sleeping cars were built, the accommodations were patterned after the Superliner accommodations, except that the Economy Bedrooms (or "Viewliner Roomettes") include Roomette-style washbasins and toilets, as well as windows for the upper berths.

Asia

China

A double-deck conventional passenger sleeping car of China in April 2006

China Railway operates an extensive network of conventional sleeper trains throughout the country, covering all provincial capitals and many major cities. The Chinese "hard" sleeping car in use today is very basic, consisting of 6 fixed bunk beds per compartment, which can be converted into seats in peak season, especially during Chinese New Year. The middle level bunk bed will be folded and top level bunk bed will still be sold as sleeper, while the lower bed will be occupied by three passengers. Chinese trains also offer "soft" or deluxe sleeping cars with four or two beds per room.

China is the only country to operate high-speed sleeper trains. Sleeper services are operated using high-speed CRH1E, CRH2E and CRH5E trains outfitted with sleeping berths (couchette). Services run between Beijing - Shanghai and Beijing - Guangzhou at speeds of up to 250 km/h (160 mph), one of the fastest sleeper trains in the world. A new variant of CRH2E consists of double level bunk capsules in lieu of sleeping berths. These trains have been dubbed "moving hotels".

Exterior of the CRH2E sleeper high speed train

Interior of the CRH2E sleeper high speed train

A 16 car CRH2E sleeper high speed train leaving Beijing South

India

Further information: Indian Railways coaching stock

A major portion of passenger cars in India are sleeper/couchette cars. With railways as one of the primary mode of passenger transport, sleeper cars vary from economical to First Class AC (air conditioned). Most Indian trains come in combinations of first class A/C and non-A/C private sleeper cars with doors, and A/C 3-tier or 2-tier couchette arrangements.

Japan

JR East Cassiopeia sleeper car service from Tokyo to Sapporo with 180 degree views

Further information: Blue Train (Japan)

Japan once had many sleeping car trains, but most have been abolished because of the development of air travel, overnight bus services and high-speed rail. As of May 2016, sleeper car trains of regular service in Japan are as follows:

• Sunrise Izumo: Tokyo – Izumoshi
• Sunrise Seto: Tokyo – Takamatsu

Indonesia

The Indonesian State Railways once operated sleeper cars on the Bima between its launch in 1967 and 1995, when the last berth ("couchette") cars were decommissioned.

The successor to the Indonesian State Railways, PT Kereta Api Indonesia, operates some first-class train services that are officially called the Luxury class, but are misinterpreted as sleeper trains by mainstream media. There are two generations of Luxury class cars. The rental cars, kereta wisata Nusantara and kereta wisata Jawa, have a bedroom for two people.

Other countries in Asia

• Philippines: The Philippine National Railways operated a number of 7A-2000 and 14 class sleeper cars between 1999 and 2013. These units were first built for the Japanese National Railways in 1974 as 14 series passenger cars (ja), and were donated to the Philippines in 1999. They were meant to serve the Bicol Express in the South Main Line. The 7A-2000 class were a group of 5 single-level cars that were decommissioned after being involved in the fatal 2004 Padre Burgos derailment. On the other hand, the 14 class were a group of bilevel-style couchette cars. After all services to the Bicol Region were halted in 2013, the 14-class couchettes were stored in the Tutuban Yard in Manila.

Oceania

Australia

Sleeping cars on The Ghan near Alice Springs in 2015.

Sleeping cabin of a NSW TrainLink XPT in 2013.

Sleeping cars are used on:

• Great Southern Rail's east–west transcontinental train the Indian Pacific between Sydney and Perth, and the north–south transcontinental train The Ghan between Adelaide and Darwin.
• NSW TrainLink's overnight XPT services from Sydney to Melbourne, Casino and Brisbane.
• Queensland Rail's long-distance trains the Spirit of Queensland and Spirit of the Outback.

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Railway Sleeping Carriages. — A sleeping carriage has been built for the North British Railway Company by the Ashbury Railway Carriage Company of Manchester. Itis 80 ft. long, and 7 ft. 6 in, wide, outside measurement, andis 6 ft. 10 in. high in the centre inside ; at one end is a luggage compartment; at the other an ordinary second-class compartment, the central portion being devoted to the sleeping accommodation. This consists of two commodious saloons, which are each fitted with seats and beds for three first-class passengers. These saloons are connected by a lobby & passage, off one side of which opens a well-arranged lavatory, off the other a water-closet.(edition also has articles on german sleeper and Mann sleeper) "Railway Sleeping Carriages". Engineering. 15 (3 January – 27 June 1873): 126 & 238. 1873.

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• "Night Train Map". back-on-track. Archived from the original on 5 January 2024. Retrieved 5 August 2024.
• Winchester, Clarence, ed. (5 July 1935). "International Sleeping Cars: The Growth of a World-Wide Travel Organization". Railway Wonders of the World. Archived from the original on 27 June 2019.

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Railway magazine centenary of Wagon Lits Nov & Dec 76

External links

man at seat 61