European Sleeper's first season: 20,000 passengers on rented, rattling couchettes

European Sleeper is a Dutch-Belgian startup running night trains, starting with a Brussels-to-Berlin service launched in May 2023

That a crowdfunded startup could run reliable night trains on Europe's ageing rail network against state-backed incumbents and budget airlines

Raised via investors and crowdfunding so far; now seeking €40–60 million to buy its own rolling stock — ten times what it has raised

European Sleeper launched on 26 May 2023, when the first train left Brussels Midi for Berlin as part of Europe's night-train renaissance — a lower-emissions alternative to planes that promised back 'some of the romance of an older and slower form of travel'.

The first season exposed the model's fragility. Agreeing timetables with national train operators took months of back-and-forth — 'It's very bureaucratic and complicated,' co-founder Chris Engelsman told Reuters. The company spent a year and a half scouring Europe for second-hand sleeper coaches to rent; the refurbished couchettes arrived with faulty power sockets and broken toilets as they carried more than 20,000 passengers over the summer. Extreme cases saw last-minute technical faults downgrade passengers to overnight seats or cancel tickets altogether; the ES453 service in November pulled into Berlin an hour and nine minutes late.

Still running and expanding: the Prague extension was planned for March 2024, with Amsterdam–Barcelona in its sights — contingent on the raise for owned rolling stock.

Renting second-hand coaches made the launch capital-light but handed the startup everyone else's maintenance problems — broken toilets and dead sockets on night one.

Europe's fragmented rail bureaucracy meant timetable negotiations with multiple national operators dominated the launch timeline.

The economics compete with subsidized incumbents and budget airlines: without owned stock or state backing like OBB's €720 million fleet programme, margins are structurally thin.

Demand is the easy half of a transport startup: without owned rolling stock, every timetable negotiation and faulty toilet lands on your brand instead of your landlord's.

As of November 2023, European Sleeper was raising €40–60 million for its own coaches, preparing the long-delayed Prague extension for March 2024 and eyeing Amsterdam–Barcelona — while backers lobbied for VAT exemptions and lower track-access charges, and France pushed a minimum price on EU flights.