Stories from a night train attendant

Endless tales of my adventures…

• The time in Venice I drank two litres of Tocai on the hotel roof and the alarm clock fairy set my alarm for me.
• My Milan-Munich couchette with 50 Albanians from the same village.
• The time the Austrian police arrested a refugee family off my couchette. They wouldn’t let the little boy keep his balloon.
• The time at Stuttgart at 2 AM the police brought me a man and his 5 year old daughter. The man was so drunk he couldn’t get onto the train. The girl had her little orange bucket and pink spade from that day’s Bodensee outing.
• Meeting my wife on platform 3 at Roma Termini.
• Taking her to Milan with me in the guard’s van, just because I could.

Most continental European night trains have three types of carriage

• seated cars, like on day trains. These are the cheapest, least comfortable option for a long journey over night. Fine if you have a compartment to yourself. Not fine if it is you and five other smelly people.
• couchettes (say: cooSHET). From the French „to lie down“. Carriages with four or six bunks per compartment in which you can take your trip lying down. Think hostel on wheels. Cheap, but you do get to sleep.
• sleeping cars. Your hotel on wheels. One, two or three proper beds stacked over each other in one compartment. The compartment has a wash basin or even an en-suite bathroom.