The night is not just for sleeping – you can also walk. Our author has the train Towards tomorrow taken.
Test object: Author Kirstin Bock, beyond the Interrail age
Test environment: The couchette car in the “Nightjet” from Berlin to Basel
Mission: Well: have a good night. Anyway …
Night train, that sounds so nostalgic …
Berlin Central Station, I'm at platform 13 and wonder who I'm spending the night with and whether that was really such a good idea: with the night train from Berlin to Basel. Because the sleeping car is booked out for weeks, I booked a place in the couchette, a four-person compartment only for women, basically a mobile hostel room. There are no wash basins or toilets in the compartments, but two washrooms and toilets in the whole car. Well, it'll be fine for 10 hours and 13 minutes. The plane takes 1.5 hours, but I prefer to refrain from it because of Corona, and the climate also no longer suits me. Night train, on the other hand, sounds so beautifully analog, old-school, nostalgic. The look at the crowd with a mask is rather irritating. Around every second person has a hiking backpack with them, and the density of jogging pants and leggings is extraordinarily high, even for Berlin. What do young people in Switzerland want? Are they cleverly disguised business types with a backpack full of bills and the digits of their numbered account in their heads?
At 9:02 p.m. it gets nostalgic, a dirty red locomotive rumbles in, behind it wagons that I remember from my Interrail time 30 years ago. Nothing with automatic door opening, here the doors are still slammed open by hand. All aboard, please!
I imagined my first night train to be somehow more romantic.
A blonde woman is already standing in the slightly worn compartment that I have also booked and does not know what to do with her suitcase. "Underneath?" I suggest and point to the upholstered lounger on the lower left that I have reserved as a night camp. It works with a little squeezing, then my roommate stumbles awkwardly up the ladder to the sleeping area above. "I imagined my first night train to be somehow more romantic," she says, and I'm glad that I've been spared such a climb.
The professional night train woman
Next up is a backpacker with luggage the size of an oil barrel, which she heaves onto the end of the bunk next to me, and a petite dark-haired woman who takes off her shoes with a brief greeting and skilfully climbs the rungs to the other bunk with her bag. "You do that more often," I realize, using the formal you doesn't even occur to me. Neither does her, she says that she has been cruising around in the night train for nine years, traveling to Germany, Switzerland, Serbia and even Russia. That saves time, nothing stupid has ever happened to her, the worst would be if someone snores. I remember one night in a Norwegian hut in a mixed eight-bed room, which was devastatingly snored. At that time I was by far the oldest, it's the same here, but it could have been worse in terms of occupancy. None of the girls seem like an aggressive sleeper.
Out of nowhere, a tense train attendant with a tattered note-clipboard stands in the door and looks vaguely into the compartment. "Ticket. Coffee or tea," she says impassively, takes the tickets, notes down the drink requests for breakfast and slams the door shut behind her. That seems to be a keyword for the woman with the gigantic luggage: She pulls her mouth and nose protection over her eyes and fades out.
After a while, the night train professional leaves the compartment with a toothbrush, then locks the door again with the old-fashioned locking chain and ends the day with an impressive choreography: while climbing up, pull the blind halfway down, turn off the ceiling lamp, turn on the reading lamp, lie down, cover it. Sleeping pill and earplugs in, sleeping mask on, reading lamp off. Phew There's routine in there. In the absence of such, I use my cell phone – no WiFi. It's a shame, I was looking forward to episodes of my favorite podcasts, just not downloading them beforehand. Rookie mistake. But of course I have the book "Night Train to Lisbon" with me. But that doesn't get me anywhere either. The work about a man in his late fifties who escapes his everyday life in the night train in order to find his true self through the Portuguese philosopher, with its cumbersome and very long sentences is only tiring, but not soporific.
I decide to write down my own philosophical thoughts on the subject of the night train for the world and pull my notebook and pen out of my pocket. First insight: I now know why the train takes three hours longer at night than during the day. It really stops at every train station. After Spandau, Wannsee, Potsdam and an hour's drive, we have at least reached Brandenburg main station. 10:31 p.m., stop on the open road. What's going on there? I put my paperwork aside, stare into the dark landscape for minutes before the train abruptly pulls away again. My pen rolls off the bunk and is swallowed by the compartment and cannot be found. No more clever notes.
Sleeping isn't really working out yet
When the train stops in Magdeburg at 10:55 p.m., it occurs to me that there is often free WiFi at train stations. Bingo! I log in and download as many podcast episodes as possible. Now I'm crouching by the window with stories on my ears. 11:47 p.m .: Braunschweig. 12:13 am: Hildesheim. There is another way of comfort. The loungers are not made to sit on. So: take off your headphones, stretch your body. The upholstery is amazingly comfortable, I didn't expect that. Only now I notice – without the voices in my ears – how loud it is, despite the earplugs. Footsteps rumble across the corridor, the metal ladder rattles, and when you stop, the brakes squeal for minutes. Once the train has started moving again, it humps like a plane in turbulence, it shakes me. In addition, it is too warm, not only because of the mask, the ventilation does not counter the stuffy atmosphere. For the tachograph: It is 1:12 a.m. and the train is now reversing until it starts moving forward again at 1:21 a.m. Probably a maneuver. 1:26 a.m .: Göttingen. 2:56 am: Fulda – it's good that the train stations are labeled, they all look the same and would provide a perfect setting for a post-apocalypse movie. No human. No sign of life. No announcements. A clean-swept deserted scenery. 4:25 a.m .: Frankfurt / Main. I give up trying to sleep, otherwise I might be more exhausted than when I go through. Besides, I'm here both to drive and to work. I mustn't miss anything, I turn all my senses sharper again. The ventilation squeaks in a singsong, as if it wants to send secret messages – why do I notice that around 5:00 a.m. in the city of Mannheim? Does that have something to do with one of your sons? 5:19 a.m .: Karlsruhe, 5:51 a.m .: Offenburg, into the dawn.
A breakfast arrangement like in Lloret de Mar in 1990
When it is light, the functional train attendant stands at the door, holds out a tray with a paper cup of coffee, two rolls, a packet of butter and one-way strawberry jam towards me. I had exactly this arrangement in 1990 in the Hotel Rosamar, Lloret del Mar. Is it the same provider? In any case, it tastes pretty retro. Shortly before 7 a.m .: Freiburg. Shouldn't a couple of border guards show up now? No way. We roll into Switzerland in a very unspectacular way.
Shortly after half past seven, the first announcement of the day: "We're reaching Basel." Splendid. I pack my stuff, quietly leave the compartment, the others can still sleep until Zurich. Done, but euphoric, I hobble into the train station. That may be because of sleep deprivation and because I achieved my goal. A great feeling, a route like Berlin-Hamburg can't do that. If you are preparing for a night without rest, the night train is a real alternative. And there will definitely be a habituation effect with sleep routine at some point. I will try it out, definitely. Before I check out the next travel options, I need a decent coffee first.