Operator: European Sleeper
Headcode: ES453
Route: ROO-DRE
Class: Comfort Plus
Seat: C18 S11/15
Date: Friday 12th September 2025
After a day exploring the Dutch city of Rotterdam, it was time to continue our journey east to Germany and our final destination of Dresden. However, before we could head east, we needed to head south as I had made a slight error when booking our tickets. So, after a quick journey with Nederland Spoorwegen, we were at Roosendaal and ready to start the next leg of our journey, an overnight trip on the European Sleeper. However, before we get to that, if you want to check out the other posts from the trip so far, you can find them here and here.
The European Sleeper is an independent train operator that launched its first route, Brussels to Berlin back in May 2023, and I travelled on this just over six months later in January 2024 at the start of Snoozing to Split (read about that here). Since then, the route has been extended to Prague and there has been a seasonal route between Brussels, Innsbruck and Venice, whilst just a few months after our trip, European Sleeper have announced their intention to operate a new service connecting Paris and Berlin in Spring 2026. Our journey to Dresden would be on the core Brussels to Prague route, with the service having called at Anvers before we boarded at Roosendaal. After we boarded there would be stops at the Dutch stations Rotterdam; Den Haag HS; Amsterdam Centraal; Amersfoort and Deventner to pick up passengers before we travelled across Germany through the night.
Around 0600 the first stop to drop passengers off would be Berlin Gesundbrunnen, an alternative to Berlin Ostbahnhof caused by, I assume, engineering works on the Berlin Stadtbahn. The next stop after Berlin would be our destination of Dresden, before the train continued to Bad Schandau; Decin and finally arriving in Prague at 1155, some 16.5 hours after leaving Brussels Midi. We arrived at Roosendaal around 35 minutes before we were due to depart, with the European Sleeper arriving just a couple of minutes before our scheduled departure time. Unfortunately, we ended up leaving a little late, mainly because it took us a while to board through the not at all accessible narrow doorway of the 1960s vintage sleeping coach.
European Sleeper has four classes of travel onboard their services, Comfort Plus; Comfort Standard; Classic; and Budget, which in standard terms translates as Sleeper; Couchette (3 in a room); Couchette (5 in a room); and Seats. We were travelling in Comfort Plus so had berths 11, 12, 15 & 16 in coach 18, the only sleeper coach on the train. The berth numbering is a bit confusing, with berths 11, 13 & 15 in the first room, and berths 12, 14 & 16 next door. So, if you book tickets onboard, don’t be concerned if your berths are not sequential as they probably are in their own weird way. Each comfort plus room can have up to three people, however they are private, so if you’re a solo traveller you won’t be sharing with strangers.
As hinted at above, the doorways and corridor of the sleeper coach are quite tight and can be a challenge to negotiate if you’ve got bulky luggage, and I found it easier to board wearing my hiking rucksack and then taking it off in the vestibule before making my way down the corridor. Our rooms weren’t yet made up for sleeping, with the lower two bunks still folded up to allow us to make use of the seats for a while before heading to bed. Comfort plus tickets on the European Sleeper include a welcome drink from their small menu which includes alcohol, and our host then gave a welcome talk and delivered our breakfast boxes shortly after we departed. Unfortunately, despite European Sleeper having introduced one earlier in the year, our service didn’t have a dining car and so we relaxed in our rooms for a while after leaving Roosendaal.
Recovering our slight delay, we departed Rotterdam on time and shortly after requested the host lower the bottom bunk so we could get some sleep. With the top bunk quite high and in a fixed position we decided to use this and the bottom bunk to prevent the latter feeling too claustrophobic. Unfortunately, after the host left we realised the top bunk didn’t have any bedding provided and had to track them down again to unlock the middle bunk to use its bedding. Eventually settling down after the stop at Amsterdam, we unfortunately had a VERY bumpy night, probably not helped by being over the bogie of the carriage and ended up feeling every bump and jolt. Despite the bumpy ride, I was able to get a reasonable amount of sleep, although did wake up around 0145 just north of the town of Hamm and was surprised how far south we were going to get across to Berlin.
After a few more hours sleep I woke again briefly during the Berlin stop around 0600 and then ended up waking properly as we headed through the southern Berlin suburbs although I was initially a bit confused as at some point during the night the loco had run round the train, and we were now travelling in the opposite direction. After getting ourselves sorted for the day ahead, we settled down for the last hour or so of the journey with our breakfast boxes which included plenty of ‘snacky’ foods along with some orange juice and a coffee that was delivered fresh by the host. Around 0830 we entered the northern edge of the Dresden conurbation and, after crossing the Elbe, arrived at Dresden Haupbahnhof a few minutes early at 0847, allowing me to grab a final few pictures of the locomotive and sleeper coach.
There some sort of romance about travelling on sleeper trains, and I’m glad to see that Europe is starting to experience a night train renaissance. The European Sleeper provides a great route to Germany and Czechia from the low countries, with easy connections from the UK via Eurostar or Stena line ferry, and overall, it was a pleasant journey from Roosendaal to Dresden. Unfortunately, the journey was marred by the very bumpy ride making it hard to sleep, a key selling point of a sleeper train, so hopefully European Sleeper can resolve this issue with its old carriages, or look at investing in newer rolling stock. It was also disappointing to find there was no dining car onboard, especially given the publicity when the dining car was introduced. In conclusion, whilst it’s a great connection and overall a good experience, I think there are a few things that I thought were teething problems during my first trip with European Sleeper that are still present 18 months later.
Lounge 0*
Seat/Facilities 2*
Food 2*
Service 4*
Punctuality 5*
Overall Rating 13/25 (read about my rating system here!)
Flights & Times 