The sleeper train from Hamburg to Stockholm has only been running since 2022 – part of the new wave of sleepers that have been popping up around Europe since the dark days of the mid-2010s. The nadir was 2014–16, when Germany's Deutsche Bahn got out of the sleeper business entirely. But, aided by a heavy dose of shame, they're making a comeback, especially in Scandinavia.
And so I'm on one, and will be in Stockholm within the hour. That's about 1300km north from Konstanz, which isn't bad for just over 24 hours, the first four of which were spent trundling across the Schwäbische Alb. It hasn't all been plain sailing: the ICE to Hamburg ended up 45 minutes late, and the sleeper set off from Hamburg-Harburg rather than the city centre due to engineering works. At this point the sleeper is over an hour delayed, though in my experience that's not at all out of the ordinary for night trains (unfortunately).
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| A representative vista in southern Sweden |
The sleeper compartments are narrow, but the beds surprisingly comfortable. The train seems to be completely booked up; my compartment-mate tells me that there's far more demand than supply. Breakfast is a fresh bread roll with some butter, cream cheese and jam; the coffee is less shit than I'm used to on trains. Now that I've woken up, southern Sweden rolls by unremarkably, mostly birch or pine forests on level ground punctuated by serene patches of water. The sun is shining.
