The Paris-Vienna night train is back on track from Dec 13. Yay!
The French national railways have been sending me ads about it, like:
Free translation of the last line: “In one night, travel 1400 km between France and Austria, it’s a great deal.”
Indeed, there are in theory some cheap tickets going, starting at 30 euros:
However, that’s for seats, not beds. To paraphrase The Man in Seat 61: Seats in a night train are a false economy (unless you have amazing sleeping pills).
To get a feel for what the couchette and sleeper tickets will cost if you get then in advance, I checked out some dates in January 2021. For instance, I tried Friday 7 January for Paris to Vienna and all beds were already sold out! Gah! So then I tried Friday 21 January and a 4-bed couchette spot is currently 80 euros:
That’s a no-brainer if you don’t mind sleeping in the same space as three other people, given that you save the airfare and potentially a night in a hotel in Vienna (which is going to cost 60 euros for something dodgy and even more for something pleasant).
In the same train on Friday 21 January, a sleeper bed in a 3-bed cabin is currently 110 euros:
They’re not doing themselves any favours with that terrible photo though, making it look like you can barely get into the middle bed. To be honest, if I was going to be sharing, I’d pick a bed in the 4-bed couchette rather than in the 3-bed sleeping compartment on this train. Not a fan of the 3 beds on top of each other.
You can however privatise the 3-bed sleeping compartment and have it all to yourself for 160 euros, but that’s pretty steep, and you only get one breakfast included, not three:
Also, these are traditional sleeper cars. It’ll be quite interesting to see how the Austrian Railways price their newly-constructed sleepers with the private Japanese pod-like beds. Hopefully less than 160 euros!
If you want to get a feel for how the established operators between Paris and Vienna think about this new night train, do a Google search for “Nightjet Paris Vienna”:
Austrian airlines probably pays for ads like this by the savings it makes on its aviation fuel not being taxed.
Competition, eh?