Night trains in Europe tend to split into two camps: the expensive ones with a private cabin, and the cheap ones where you share a bunk with three strangers and hope for the best. A Berlin start-up called Nox Mobility wants to end that trade-off, and it has picked a promising way to do it: private rooms for every passenger, at fares starting from €65 (about £55) one way.
The first service launches on 23 March 2027, running overnight between Hamburg and Munich with stops in Bremen and Augsburg. Trains leave Hamburg around 9pm and roll into Munich at roughly 8am, and the route has been planned to avoid stop-start shunting through the night — the kind of detail that decides whether you actually sleep or just lie there.
Rather than traditional couchettes, every booking gets what Nox calls a Nox Suite: your own compartment with sliding doors, a lie-flat seat, a table for working or eating, luggage space and power outlets. It's essentially a private room for the price of a budget hotel. Bathrooms are shared, and from 2029 the company plans to upgrade to fully enclosed rooms for one or two passengers. Families get a break too — children under four travel free with an adult.
The people behind it have form. Co-founder Thibault Constant is better known as the face of the Simply Railway YouTube channel, with some 300,000 subscribers and more than 400 night trains under his belt. His co-founder Janek Smalla led the operational launch of FlixTrain, which suggests they know how to run a low-cost rail operation, not just talk about one.
The ambition goes well beyond one German route. By 2035, Nox aims to connect more than 100 European cities, with Stockholm, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Paris, Rome and Barcelona all on the wishlist. Constant frames the concept as combining what would normally take three separate bookings — transport, a night's accommodation and your morning arrival — into one purchase.
Why it matters: if it works, this makes overnight rail genuinely competitive with budget flights on price, without the airport hassle, and without the shared-cabin gamble that puts many people off sleeper trains. For anyone flying Hamburg–Munich or looking to swap a short-haul flight for the train, March 2027 is the date to watch.
