Data story

The night-train revival, by the numbers

Sleepers were written off in the 2000s. Since 2016, 22 routes have launched or come back — 13 of them in the 2020s alone.

For most of the 2000s the story of the night train was one of closures: dining cars scrapped, sleeping cars sold off, routes quietly axed. Then it reversed. Airlines' short hops fell out of climate favour, ÖBB bet on its Nightjet brand where others retreated, and start-ups crowdfunded whole new lines. This atlas records 103 sleepers across 58 countries; counting them by the decade each launched or was revived turns the comeback into a shape you can see.

Sleepers in the atlas

103

Launched or revived since 2016

22

In the 2020s so far

13

Countries with a night train

58

Night-train launches and revivals, by decade

Each column counts the night services in the atlas that launched or were most recently revived in that decade. The dip is the 2000s; the two brightest columns are the ongoing revival. 1950s–2020s.

How we counted it

Each sleeper is placed in the decade its current service launched or was most recently revived, as recorded in the atlas — for long-running classics that is the original launch year, so the earlier decades are context, not new lines; the story is the modern collapse and recovery. Only overnight sleeper services are included, not day trains or purely scenic lines. Every figure comes from the open TrainRouter Atlas (CC BY 4.0, archived at DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21322030) — free to check or reuse.

Every sleeper that has launched or returned since 2016