This summer, my family and I enjoyed a fortnight’s backpacking around northern Europe, travelling mainly by rail. As part of that, we booked the European Sleeper service for the final leg of our journey from Berlin to Amsterdam. The cost was €499 (£428) for a couchette compartment for the four of us.
The company’s website showed pictures of very smart and comfortable-looking compartments, and extolled the comfort and convenience of its service.
But when we boarded it was clear that the carriage, and our compartment, had seen much better days.
Although the bedding was clean, there was visible ingrained grime in the corners and crevices of the compartment.
There was no air conditioning, so we were all too uncomfortable to get any sleep.
Worse, there were no working toilets in our carriage and, by the middle of the journey, all the toilets on board had become unusable because the bowls were blocked.
About a week before departure, we were told that, because of track maintenance, the train would now halt at Utrecht in the Netherlands and that we would have to make our own way to Amsterdam and claim a refund.
The final outrage was finding that the door to our compartment had somehow locked itself in the small hours, leaving us locked in. We only realised we were trapped as we approached Utrecht.
There was no call button, and we were only freed after another passenger heard our calls for help.
We have written to European Sleeper to ask how they intend to address these issues and reimburse us, pay our additional train costs on to Amsterdam and compensate us for our experience but so far we haven’t received any reply.
AW, Perth
Reading about your trip – and the toilets in particular – brought back some (happy?) memories of Interrailing in my youth.
However, I can appreciate the situation was a bit of a trial. You would think train firms would have left those terrible toilets behind by now.
And as for being locked in … thank goodness there wasn’t a fire.
I asked European Sleeper about your experience, and it was quick to apologise at length and maintain that your experience was not the norm.
It conceded that its couchette carriages are quite old (there was never any air-con, apparently) and that the company is working on a technical solution to improve the loos. It sounds like your trip was not the only one to experience toilet trouble.
In the long term, the company says it is buying new rolling stock. It has also promised to address your safety concerns.
After initially offering you a 20% refund of the fare paid, plus your onward travel, it has agreed to pay you about double that: €263 in total (£225). This includes the extra that you were forced to spend on onward tickets to Amsterdam.
You are happy with the outcome.
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