My first sleeper train? Like trying to nap on the Central Line

Times

18-05-2025

It was the second time he yanked on the door handle, at 3am, somewhere in western Armenia, that pushed me over the edge. I still hadn't slept and we only had four hours to go before the sleeper train arrived in Yerevan, the capital. A drunk man occupied the cabin next door, but every time he came back from the loo he mistook our room for his. The first time I was terrified. The second time I was seething. (Luckily the door was locked, so I didn't have to fight him off wearing only a T-shirt and pants.)
Romance and glamour were notably absent on the 8.20pm from Tbilisi in Georgia, my first ever overnight train. Orient-Express levels of comfort and service were never expected; our tickets cost £37 each rather than thousands, after all. But with all the recent hype around new night trains across Europe — from European Sleeper's Brussels-Berlin route to SJ Night's Stockholm-Hamburg service — I had anticipated at least some hard-to-put-your-finger-on magic. Jovial company, maybe? Beautiful scenery, perhaps? Sadly, the reality, on a Monday night in early April, was quiet (there were two dozen passengers, tops), too dark to see anything (the sun had set before we left) and prosaic (making your own bed on holiday? Not a vibe). And what I definitely didn't expect was to feel quite so awful in the morning.
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There were some aspects of the journey that pleasantly surprised me. The pillows may have been a questionable shade of yellow, but the sheets, delivered to our door just after the train departed? Crisp, spotless. Our modern, second-class, Russian-designed cabin was roomy and we loved unpacking our possessions and making it feel (a bit) like home. Of course, it helped that the other two berths in our cabin hadn't been booked. It was toasty in our nest too; just the antidote to the soggy Caucasian spring.
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But fundamentally, I discovered, this mode of travel is not for me. Travellers can be divided into two camps: those who can sleep basically anywhere and those who can only do so in a bed. A proper bed, that is. I'm among the latter and I found that, although the pulldown mattress may have been functional, there was no way I was going to sleep while the carriage wobbled and jolted so persistently (this was particularly bad on the Armenian side of the border). It felt like trying to nap on the Central Line.
In such a stressful environment, my fellow travellers came across all the more irritating. We had Drunk Idiot on one side, of course. On the other, a couple played tinny pop from their phones until 1am. And at the border, when everyone had to disembark, we were delayed by an obnoxious trio who refused to pay an existing fine — unclear what for — to the Georgian police. One of them, perhaps harshly, wasn't allowed back on board.
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When we trundled into Yerevan at 6.55am, we found the city deserted. Why? Because it was 6.55am. No cafés were open and our Airbnb host wouldn't let us in until 3pm, so there we were on the streets, dragging our bags around the city having had just an hour of sleep. Next time we resolved to choose a train that would get in later, allowing for at least an attempt at a lie-in. Or maybe to just find another way to reach our destination. As it happened, we had intended to take the sleeper back to Georgia a week later. Er … no, thanks. Instead we booked a four-hour coach during the day that was quicker, cheaper and followed a spectacular route through the mountains. I put on a podcast and snoozed through the entire journey.
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