European Sleeper
European Sleeper is a Belgian–Dutch cooperative operating international open-access night train services in Europe. It currently operates a thrice-weekly night train service between Brussels and Prague via Amsterdam and Berlin which it launched in May 2023.
In March 2026 it plans to supplement its existing service with a new thrice-weekly service between Paris and Berlin via Brussels and Hamburg, in total providing six trains per week between the Belgian and German capitals. In June 2026 it will add a third route from Amsterdam and Brussels to Milan via Bern. The cooperative has long expressed a desire to connect Amsterdam and Brussels to Barcelona via France but has encountered delays reaching agreement to operate in France.
History
European Sleeper was launched in 2021, with an announcement in April 2021 of a proposal to operate a sleeper train service between Brussels and Prague, with Czech operator RegioJet announced as a partner, providing rolling stock as well as hauling the service in Germany and the Czech Republic. The National Railway Company of Belgium would be responsible for hauling the service in Belgium, and at the time an operator had not been selected yet to haul the service in the Netherlands. The service was expected to begin in spring of 2022, and a second service was slated to begin in December that year.Around the same time, Belgian startup Moonlight Express announced its intention to commence night train services between Berlin and Brussels, via Liège, with an expected commencement date of April 2022. Having been announced at around the same time, coincidentally, both services from European Sleeper and Moonlight Express were also scheduled to begin at around the same time.
In May 2021, European Sleeper launched a crowdfunding campaign and managed to raise €500,000 in seed capital by selling shares in the cooperative to more than 350 small investors, reportedly in just fifteen minutes.
One month later, in June 2021, it was announced European Sleeper and Moonlight Express would join forces, with the combined entity taking up the European Sleeper name and pursuing the European Sleeper proposal of a Brussels to Prague route with a start date of spring 2022.
A subsequent fundraising round was launched just before the summer of 2022, with €2,000,000 worth of shares sold to 1400 investors. Around the same time, the company announced that the Brussels to Prague route would be indefinitely delayed, with no revised start date provided.
The cooperative announced in December 2022 that the planned Brussels to Prague route would initially terminate in Berlin due to track capacity constraints imposed for 2023, with German authorities only permitting one long-distance train every two hours south of Dresden Hauptbahnhof due to infrastructure works on the Děčín–Dresden-Neustadt railway. The scaled-back route commenced operations on 25 May 2023 with a view to extending service to Prague to complete the original proposal in December 2023, dependent on whether track rights could be secured. The company said that its biggest challenge was that no sleeper coaches could be bought, and that the service would initially use leased rolling stock, eventually changing to a mix of new and refurbished rolling stock.
Services commenced on 25 May 2023, with the inaugural service running from Berlin to Brussels arriving 45 minutes late. Deputy Prime Minister and Mobility Minister of Belgium Georges Gilkinet met the service at Brussels South on its arrival on the morning of the 26th and saw off the train on its return leg to Berlin that evening.
In June 2023, a third fundraising round for €3 million of growth capital was announced, which will open on 21 June and be available to both new and existing investors, who can invest at a starting price of €250, with shares worth €3 million to be issued. The cooperative announced it would be the last fundraising opportunity for some time. Funds raised would go towards enabling technical integrations to sell tickets through additional sales channels, hiring a dining car for the existing service, preparing service expansions to Prague as well as the proposed services between Amsterdam and Barcelona and ordering new rolling stock. At the same time, the cooperative announced it had sold 10,000 tickets for its existing Berlin-Brussels service, with expectations that €5–6 million worth of tickets would be sold by the year's end. It also announced that Interrail and Eurail passes would be able to be used on services from 1 July, with reservations able to be made from 12 June.
A seasonal service linking Brussels with Innsbruck and Venice ran in February and March 2025. Six trains were run in each direction, with two terminating at Innsbruck and four continuing to Venice via Bolzano and Verona. It was joined by a dining car as part of a trial operation which launched on the Brussels-Prague route on 1 October 2024, offering a reservation-only restaurant in the evening followed by a walk-in bar open late. Due to problems reaching agreement with Arenaways, the open-access operator undertaking responsibility for the train in Italy, European Sleeper was unable at the last minute to have the first two of the four train pairs to Venice actually continue beyond Innsbruck. Alternative transport for passengers was arranged using regular trains operated by ÖBB and Trenitalia. The trains departing from Brussels on March 4 and 12 did eventually run to Venice after an agreement was reached with FS Treni Turistici.
In April-June 2025 it raised €1.5 million in 3-year loan stock at 8% interest, and also attracted some donations. From August to December 2025 it also offered a further €2m of shares for sale, with the stated aims of acquiring tour operator GreenCityTrip, securing "more and better coaches", and launching a new route in 2026.
On 12 November 2025, a Berlin–Paris night connection was announced for end of March 2026 following the cancellation of the ÖBB Nightjet service on the same route. This was followed by the announcement of a new service from Brussels and Amsterdam to Milan via Switzerland from June 2026. Both new routes will operate three times per week.
Routes
Brussels–Prague
European Sleeper's main service operates between Brussels and Prague. It commenced operations on 25 May 2023, initially between Berlin and Brussels, before being extended to Prague from 26 March 2024. The service is thrice-weekly, with trains from Brussels to Prague via Amsterdam and Berlin leaving on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and trains from Prague to Brussels via Berlin and Amsterdam leaving on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.In an article in The Sunday Times about the inaugural Brussels to Berlin service, travel writer Kate Leahy commented, "Orient Express-style luxury this is not," but concluded it was "undeniably an adventure." The Man in Seat Sixty-One praised the friendly staff, beds and meals provided.
Paris–Berlin
On 12 November 2025, a thrice-weekly Paris-Berlin service was announced commencing 26 March 2026. This was a direct response to the decision by ÖBB to cancel its Nightjet services from Paris to Berlin and Vienna from 14 December 2025 following the cancellation of subsidies provided by the French Government. This replaced European Sleeper's previous ambition to extend its Brussels-Prague route to a daily operation, but with the Paris-Berlin route operating on alternate days to this, a combined six-days-a-week service between Brussels and Berlin will be provided.It was later announced that from 13 July 2026 an additional stop will be made in Hamburg, providing onward connections to Scandinavia.
Brussels/Amsterdam–Milan
Soon after the announcement of the Paris-Berlin route on 10 December 2025 European Sleeper announced another new thrice-weekly service to be operated from Brussels and Amsterdam to Milan, with planned intermediate stops including Cologne, Bern, Brig, and Stresa on Lake Maggiore following the Simplon route. In a first for European Sleeper, this will involve splitting and combining train parts at Cologne to serve Brussels and Amsterdam separately, which it argued was necessary "to offer suitable departure and arrival times" from each of these three cities.Other plans
In June 2022, a partnership with tour operator Sunweb Group was announced, with plans to start new night train services between the Netherlands and French ski resorts by the summer of 2023, and an extension to Southern France the following year. In November, it was announced by the two parties that these plans would be put on hold, citing difficulties in securing rolling stock, track access rights and an operator for the services.European Sleeper's proposed service from Amsterdam to Barcelona was selected in January 2023 as a pilot project as part of the European Commission's efforts to improve cross-border rail service and encourage ther opening of new links. It joins two other night train proposals from Snälltåget and Midnight Trains. In September 2024, the cooperative confirmed that the proposed Barcelona service would be delayed until at least 2026. Co-founder Chris Engelsman put the blame for this squarely with French infrastructure managers SNCF Reseau, describing the issues as "partly understandable but also partly incompetence”. Upon the announcement of the Milan service in December 2025, the co-operative stated that this "implies that European Sleeper will not start the route to Barcelona in 2026 already. Nevertheless, the company is still preparing for this route as a next step, probably starting operations in 2027 or 2028."
Rolling stock
The company suffered from the general scarcity of sleeping cars in Europe, but at the end of 2022 it announced that it could rent sufficient equipment to begin operation. European Sleeper uses second-hand carriages, dating from the 1950s to the 1990s. All these carriages were renewed between 1990 and 2010 by various national railway companies, such as Deutsche Bahn and ÖBB.Between May 2023 and March 2024, the train usually consisted of the following carriages:
- one or two CIWL type P sleeping cars, leased from TRI
- several couchette cars of type Bcmh with two larger 'comfort' compartments in the middle of the car, leased from GfF or WAGON SERVICE s.r.o.
- one or two couchette carriages of type BDcm with space for 20 bicycles, rented from TRI from June to August
- one or two seating carriages of type Bomz, rented from TRI
In December 2025 European Sleeper began offering an upgraded experience in some of its Bvcmz couchette cars which it describes as Comfort Standard. These compartments have their capacity restricted to no more than three people and mattresses and duvets are provided on the berths. This contrasts with the simpler sheets and blankets provided in the remaining couchettes, which were rebranded Classic.
A bistro car from TRI was also used during a trial period for Fall/Winter 2024/25 but doesn't operate as of summer 2025.