Why aren't sleeping cars on overnight trains used more?
#46
Moderator: UK and Ireland & Europe
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Biggleswade
Programs: SK*G, Lots of Blue Elsewhere
Posts: 13,611
Heh, you'd have loved it back in the 90s. Central and Eastern Europe had opened up, but the long old train routes were still there. However, old habits die hard, and the immigration and customs inspections were harsh. And they happened on the border, in most cases - none of this "give your passports to the sleeper host" or "passport control at the station of origin" or "Schengen agreement" malarkey, back then. I remember several 2am border wake-ups (or, if you were really unlucky, 1:30am as you left one country, then 2am as you entered another, then repeat again as you were only transiting that country for a few hours) to thuds and rattles on doors, shouting men in comedy peaked caps, sniffer dogs and big wooden sticks, being ordered off trains in the border zone (not a station, just a siding) while a carriage was searched... Fun...