The sleeper service is being phased out across the continent as operators are hit by hefty taxes and rise of budget airline

"To their fans, night trains sum up the best of the European project. They are time efficient, environmentally sustainable, and irresistibly romantic: you go to sleep in one country and wake up in another, possibly having made friends along the way.

In public at least, Europe's politicians and railway companies agree: in December 2009, many of them ceremonially boarded a specially commissioned "Climate Express" from Brussels to the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.

Yet five years later, sleeper trains are being silently phased out across the continent...

The sleeper service is being phased out across the continent as operators are hit by hefty taxes and rise of budget airline

"To their fans, night trains sum up the best of the European project. They are time efficient, environmentally sustainable, and irresistibly romantic: you go to sleep in one country and wake up in another, possibly having made friends along the way.

In public at least, Europe's politicians and railway companies agree: in December 2009, many of them ceremonially boarded a specially commissioned "Climate Express" from Brussels to the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.

Yet five years later, sleeper trains are being silently phased out across the continent...