Originally Posted by
hotturnip
Well, the sleeper trains I've taken in Europe (with "couchettes") were pretty awful. I'd rather a coach seat in an airline. If they actually had tiny private cabins (like you see in old movies), that might be different.
Don't confuse couchettes with sleepers. Couchettes were introduced on overnight European trains in the 1950s to offer cheap accommodation to an impoverished postwar populace that could finally travel and overcome some of the horrors of the war. They offer just bunks with a pillow and blanket, so one could get some sleep, but they could never compare with real sleepers which offered a real bed with washbasin and more recently a private toilet and shower down the hall. One could also get undressed for sleep in the sleepers, but not in the couchettes. Sleepers had one, two or three beds (today generally one or two), couchettes generally six, sometimes four bunks per cabin and no washbasin. Both couchettes and sleepers have gradually disappeared from European trains, the couchettes perhaps even more quickly than the sleepers, as travelers could afford more expensive options.