PowerSwitch

News report https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64950747

Glad to hear of this, almost certainly greener than driving or flying. Sleepers do use more energy per passenger mile than do daytime trains, but this can be largely renewably generated electricity. And of course use of a sleeper train may save a night in an hotel, and thereby saving the fuel used by the hotel.

Perhaps we might see more sleepers in the UK, and perhaps to/from Europe ?

I keep meaning to take a sleeper train in Australia, maybe from Maitland to Brisbane one time.

A good idea for slow trains that are common in Australia.

I don't see why anyone would want to go by train to Europe. They hate you and don't want to buy your products.

Any train is a sleeper train for me, years of commuting into London by train means I can switch myself off at will. I'd definitely travel Europe by sleeper, especially France who have a great rail service. I took the train via Toulouse to Narbonne then along the coast to Perpignan, it was a joy.

BritDownUnder wrote: ↑17 Mar 2023, 20:24 I keep meaning to take a sleeper train in Australia, maybe from Maitland to Brisbane one time.

A good idea for slow trains that are common in Australia.

I don't see why anyone would want to go by train to Europe. They hate you and don't want to buy your products.

I have no desire to travel to Europe by train or other means. However huge numbers of people do fly or drive to Europe, and use of a sleeper train would be greener than short haul air transport, or driving. Once in Europe, trains and other public transport are often cheaper and arguably better than in the UK.

Quite an old link (dating back to 2013) on the decline of sleepers. I am guessing they are coming back in vogue again.

If you search low tech magazine there are a few interesting articles on the relative energy consumption of slow and fast trains.

Regarding the quality of train services in Europe I would have to agree with you based on what I have read as I have not experienced European trains except for Russia
I can only conclude the reasons are
(1) that places like France and Spain have better planning rules regarding trains, their civil services are better trained and more competent. I think France has a world renowned "school" the name escapes me that they use to train their civil servants rather than who you know which is, or rather was, the way for the UK civil service.
(2) European countries are larger in area than the UK and lower population density too, so easier and less disruptive to build new tracks and faster trains are likely to save more time on longer journeys. Of course countries can get too large and too sparsely populated like Australia which don't have fast rail either.
(3) Perhaps if you look at UK net contributions to the EU and contrast with net French and Spanish receipts from the EU they had more money to spend on discretionary public services than the UK. Going back to point 1 you could argue that they have also spent their money more wisely.

I have traveled a bit on trains in France, Spain and Germany and generally was highly impressed. The railway system in the UK has been totally banjaxed by the breaking up of an integrated national system and the ideological imposition of an insane and disastrous "competitive" market based structure where nobody knows their arse from their elbow anymore.