Robert Hampton

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5th October 2014

Berlin Finale: Night Train

Berlin Hauptbahnhof Upper Level

This is a very long post about my journey on the sleeper from Berlin to Paris. I also made a YouTube video of this journey – it’s embedded below, but you want to watch it first, or instead.

I’d been mulling a trip to Berlin for months. As far back as June 2013, I was considering the possibilities and had started saving up.

My original plan: take Eurostar to Brussels, then an ICE train to Cologne, stay there for a couple of nights, then travel onward to Berlin. On the way home, I would return via the overnight sleeper train to Paris, then take Eurostar back to London.

Of course, this is complete madness, given that easyJet fly between Liverpool and Berlin, a journey taking (in theory) just a couple of hours. But I’m a rail enthusiast, and the chance to take a long train journey on some of the most iconic trains in Europe was almost too good to resist.

The City Night Line sleeper runs daily between Berlin and Paris. The journey takes approximately 13 and a half hours, which sounds like a long time, but of course the idea is that you’re asleep for most of them. Go to sleep in Germany, wake up the next morning in France, refreshed and with a full day ahead of you. It’s undoubtedly the most time efficient option and a very civilised way to travel.

I wanted to do it so badly, but then… I hesitated. I sounded out some friends about the trip, but for one reason or another, none of them could come with me. Then I contemplated going on my own, but that was a scary thought. What if I was robbed, or kidnapped by bandits? No, I couldn’t possibly travel alone. It looked like my epic train trip would have to wait until 2015.

Then Deutsche Bahn threw another spanner in the works. The German rail operator announced that, from December 2014, the City Night Line sleeper from Berlin to Paris would cease operations.

It looked like I’d missed my chance. I spent a good few days kicking myself for not seizing the opportunity. I would never get to ride the City Night Line train, as I’d so often dreamed of doing.

Then, one day in early June, I sat staring at my computer screen. I can’t remember what made me do it. I remember that I was in the midst of revision for my Open University exams; was probably looking for something to distract me. Whatever the reason, I called up bahn.com and started searching for night trains.

There was still good availability on night trains in September, but the cheap advance-purchase fares from London to Cologne had sold out. I therefore revised my plans: I would fly out from Liverpool to Berlin and then

So I thought about a trip to Germany, then decided against it, then changed my mind and booked a slightly different trip. That’s spontaneous, by my standards.

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15th September 2013

A View To A Kilt
Posted by at 8.40pm | Trains | 4 responses

There are many, many blog posts to come, both here and on The Station Master blog.

It was hard to contain my excitement on Monday afternoon, as I boarded a Virgin train to London. Most people would regard travelling 200 miles south, in order to travel back north again by the same route, as slightly mad. But there was method in my madness: firstly, I was meeting my friend and regular partner in various rail-related adventures, Ian Jones, who was going to join me on the journey. Secondly, I wanted to get the fullest possible experience from ScotRail’s overnight Caledonian Sleeper service.

Neither Ian nor myself are sleeper virgins – we have both, at different times, “done” the Cornish sleeper – the Night Riviera – from Penzance to London Paddington (read Ian’s account here, and mine here). As special as that journey is, it pales in comparison to the Anglo-Scottish services. Sorry, First Great Western, but you are Star Trek Voyager compared to ScotRail’s Next Generation.

After sauntering down to Kings Cross for dinner at the Parcel Yard restaurant, we returned to Euston to begin our adventure. I’ve travelled countless times from Euston, but tonight felt different. There was not going to be an undignified dash to the platform to cram aboard a Pendolino tonight. On the departure board, alongside Watford Junction, Manchester Piccadilly and Tring, was an altogether more exotic train: the 21:15 to Inverness, Aberdeen and – yes! – Fort William.

Euston departure board

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28th March 2012

Sleeper Hit
Posted by at 11.25pm | Trains | 7 responses

Photo of First Great Western Night Riviera Sleeper coachPenzance station on a Thursday evening is a quiet place. In platform 3, a Sprinter sits silently at the buffer stops, lights off and engine powered down, waiting for the next morning’s rush hour (or what passes for it at the extreme southern end of Britain’s rail network). In the ticket office, only one of the four windows is nominally open, occupied by an extremely bored-looking booking clerk. Eventually even he gives up and pulls down his Position Closed blind.

Trains are few and far between at this time of night, but there is a service for Plymouth due to depart soon. A train arrives but the guard doesn’t unlock the doors immediately, instead disappearing into the mess room for a well-earned cuppa. The handful of intending passengers are forced to wait on the platform. They are an unsavoury bunch: among their number I notice an unwashed man with an aggressive-looking dog in tow and a young couple who have clearly had too much to drink.

The driver and guard finally return and release the doors for the grateful passengers. Within a few minutes the diesel engine revs up and the train disappears into the night. This causes some chagrin to a teenage boy and girl who arrived at the station just as the train was leaving. They are convinced that the timetable shows a different departure time and spend some time arguing with the point with the train dispatcher. Eventually they concede and disappear – no doubt to find somewhere comfortable to wait: the next train to Plymouth leaves two hours later.

Ticket for the Night Riviera sleeper serviceOn another platform, a few people are milling around. They are waiting for the late evening arrival from London, which left the capital some five-and-a-half hours earlier. The HST duly pulls in. Its journey has taken it through inner-city grime and dreary commuter towns; it must be a joy to finally reach open countryside, where the driver can open the throttle and speed along the tracks for mile after mile. Upon reaching the southwest, the train will have slowed down again, giving passengers a chance to appreciate the scenery flicking past their windows. Then, every twenty miles or so, there has been a stop at one of the characterful stations that make Devon and Cornwall’s railways such a pleasure, before it finally reached here, its final destination, some 300 miles away from where it started. An epic journey, but just another day’s work for the pinnacle of British Rail train design.

On the platform, a plethora of mini-reunions take place. A daughter runs up to hug her father; a middle-aged woman gratefully hands over her oversized suitcases to her husband. A man in his early twenties proffers a bouquet of flowers to his sweetheart. The station briefly bustles as people stream out in search of onward transport.

The alighting passengers, in their eagerness, have neglected to close the train doors behind them. The guard walks along the train slamming them shut. With all doors secure, the platform staff signal “right away”. The InterCity 125 reverses out of the station and heads for the nearby depot where it will be serviced and refuelled. Tomorrow morning it will head back to Paddington and the whole cycle will begin again.

Photo of platform indicator showing Night RIviera sleeper to London PaddingtonThe roar of the powerful diesel engines recedes into the distance, and the station falls silent once more. The Cornish rail network is undoubtedly beginning to wind down for the night. However, there are two or three trains left on the departure board and I am here to catch one of them: the 2145 to London Paddington, better known as the Night Riviera Sleeper.

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