Overnight trains, not sleepers

[DeeGee]

Some time during the last Millennium, in the days before TGV Est, I travelled from my parents' home in Maidstone, via the Ferry, TER Calais-Ville to Lille-Flandres, and then onwards on what I believe may have been a regularly timetabled train designed to serve the Foreign Legion at Lille (One day a week only, perhaps?) to Strasbourg. It was an overnight Corail train, getting me in to Strasbourg in the early hours of the morning, and it was really quite empty, so I was able to take a double seat and sleep.

I believe such a service no longer exists.

I'm conscious that such trains are getting fewer and further between, but it was an interesting experience and saved quite a bit of money as there was no supplement to pay for the train, and no need for a hotel night.

Are there any other (relatively) regular trains travelling East or south from near to Channel/North Sea ports that travel overnight in this fashion, without needing to book sleeper accommodation? I quite fancy a week's adventuring with my son in the future and think he'd quite like this. Also, if the timings are right I can exploit this to save money on marathon trips.

 

[DaiGog]

If you get yourself to Cologne, there are overnight IC/ICEs to Munich and in the opposite direction to Hamburg, even though these leave in the early hours rather than the previous evening. Even more 'exciting' is the 2100 DB bus from Brussels Nord to Dusseldorf, arriving just before midnight - so you can get the last Brussels Eurostar from St Pancras at 1934 to connect with it.

Some German sleeper trains also have 'day' coaches attached for use by ordinary IC passengers, examples being the Munich - Amsterdam (as far as Cologne IIRC) and the Basel - Leipzig/Berlin.

 

[Panceltic]

The City Night Line overnight trains all have 'normal' seating coaches, too. The supplement (with a normal ticket) is €4.50 if I remember correctly.

 

[Gordon]

Three things put paid to the type of service you are thinking of: two miltary, one econonic.

Economic: the removal of postal services from rail. Most of the trunk radial routes from Paris had an overnight train that ran later than the main couchette/sleeper services. These were essentially postal trains with seats coaches added for conveninece of anyone wanting to travel overnight in basic fashion.

I used the Paris - Lyon and Paris - Strasbourg postals on a few occasions. Very useful for Inter Railers and a sad loss to those Inter Railers who are now Grumpy old men like me!

Military: the end of French national service conscription and the end of the French sector of occupied post war Germany. These former requiremenst necessitated a network of 'Trains de Permissionaires' designed to be essentially exclusively for squaddies. Some of these trains were open to public use, oficially or unofficially, but were not always pleasant to ride on as the chaps could be quite raucous.

A few years ago I rode on a normal Paris - Belfort Corail that was about 40% military personnel due to its timing and the day of the week. I was struck by the total change in lifestyel from the old days of trains de permissionaires. Card games, drinking, smoking, joking etc of the 1980s replaced by just about every one of the chaps I saw glued to a mobile/app/computer game/laptop/tablet of some sort



.

 

[leytongabriel]

There should still be overnight trains from Paris Austerlitz to Toulouse via
Limoges and to Clermont Ferrand which have some carriages with seats and no supplements.

 

[DeeGee]

Even more 'exciting' is the 2100 DB bus from Brussels Nord to Dusseldorf, arriving just before midnight - so you can get the last Brussels Eurostar from St Pancras at 1934 to connect with it.

Now that is something exciting. I can leave work a couple of hours early and be in Germany for the next morning. You say it's a bus, is it bookable on bahn.de?

 

[DaiGog]

Now that is something exciting. I can leave work a couple of hours early and be in Germany for the next morning. You say it's a bus, is it bookable on bahn.de?

Yes, it is. It comes up when you make a simple journey enquiry Brussels to Dusseldorf, but if you Google 'DB Bus Brussels Dusseldorf' or similar there is a dedicated page with further information. The 2100 (at least) is non-stop too and drops you off at Dusseldorf Hbf, where there is a convenient selection of hotels!

Fares start at 19 Euros one way.

 

[gordonthemoron]

Even more 'exciting' is the 2100 DB bus from Brussels Nord to Dusseldorf, arriving just before midnight - so you can get the last Brussels Eurostar from St Pancras at 1934 to connect with it.

The 19:34 doesn't get into Brussels until 22:55, you need the 17:04 from St Pancras to catch the DB Bus

 

[DaiGog]

The 19:34 doesn't get into Brussels until 22:55, you need the 17:04 from St Pancras to catch the DB Bus

Yes, you're right of course.

 

[dutchflyer]

There should still be overnight trains from Paris Austerlitz to Toulouse via
Limoges and to Clermont Ferrand which have some carriages with seats and no supplements.

To Cl_Fr long since ceased.
There are since a few yrs NO overnight trains at all in FR without ''supplmt'' though for seats (reclining) this is simply the REServation fee (4-5 eur for normal tickets, 9 eur for Interrail). The new plan for IC proposed to cease them all.
The Tlse train has portions (vary with season) to Spanish borders-west Hendaye and east Port Bou (for Barcelona) and sometimes also for La-Tour-decarol (for Andorra), but i recall this has ceased alltogether now.
About the only countries offering overnight trains-with seats and old style without any REServation needed- are Germany (incl. a few ICE: Dortmund-München), Czech Rep. and further on in the balkans. Together with the CNL Switzerland-NL are also 2 coaches-old IR-style with ''seatlandscape'' from Basel till Duisburg (and closed from there-they are hauled empty to AMSterdam), these are ''D-train'' and do NOT require seat-RES. The tipical seats in the real CNL are reclining, but now mostly rather cramped 6-seat coupe's in old refurbished ex-DR wagons.
There are now scores of long-dist bus/coaches from UK to Germany: megabus (cramped and cheap), owned by stagecoach, eurolines (cooperates with Nat.Express) and various Polish operators (like Sindbad and Ecolines) via DE onward. The French ID-bus (owned by SNCF) runs to Paris and Amsterdam.