Night Train to Berlin

At 16:25 a red Vectron locomotive pulls out of Stockholm Central with a row of couchette cars, and sixteen hours later the same carriages stand at the platform in Berlin Hauptbahnhof. In between they run the length of southern Sweden, cross the Öresund to Denmark, go under and over the Great Belt, and reach Hamburg at five in the morning.

The train belongs to Snälltåget, a private operator owned by Transdev. It is an open-access company: it owns no track and has no state contract, and it runs the trains it can sell. It ran its first train in 2007, sent its summer night train on to Berlin in 2012, and until 2019 took the carriages across the Baltic on the train ferry from Trelleborg to Sassnitz. When that ferry stopped in 2020, the train was rerouted by land through Denmark.

It is not the only sleeper on the route: a EuroNight also runs between Stockholm and Berlin. Snälltåget's offers seats, six-berth couchettes and private compartments, and carries a restaurant car between Malmö and Stockholm.

The locomotive is a Siemens Vectron, class 193, in Snälltåget's red with the name painted three times along each side; the company has run its own since September 2016. Behind it come couchette cars, among them the Bvcmz type bought from Germany in 2019, which once ran on Deutsche Bahn's CityNightLine. Each compartment has six berths, three to a side, which passengers make up themselves with the pillows, sheets and duvets left in the compartment.

Through Sweden by daylight

The first five and a half hours are the Southern Main Line, in the evening light for much of the year: south from Stockholm through Södertälje to Norrköping and Linköping, then up into the forests and lakes of Småland at Nässjö and Alvesta, and down into Skåne at Hässleholm, Lund and Malmö, reached at 21:55. Between Malmö and Stockholm the train carries Krogen, the restaurant car; south of Malmö there is a kiosk instead, selling drinks, snacks and the breakfast bags ordered in advance.

The two crossings

From Malmö the train takes the Öresund Bridge, opened on 1 July 2000, on its lower deck beneath the motorway, and stops at København Syd at 22:32. It does not call at Copenhagen Central. Across Zealand it reaches the Great Belt, where it runs through the East Tunnel, 8 kilometres under the sea, to the island of Sprogø, and over the 6.6-kilometre West Bridge to Funen — a fixed link opened to trains on 1 June 1997, which replaced the ferries that had crossed here since 1883.

Jutland, the border and Hamburg

The night is spent crossing Funen and Jutland to Padborg, the Danish border station, where the locomotive is changed in the small hours. Border police check documents on this route, which is why every passenger, children included, must carry a passport or an EU national identity card. In Schleswig-Holstein the line loops round on itself to climb onto the Rendsburg High Bridge, 42 metres above the Kiel Canal, and comes down to Hamburg Hauptbahnhof at 05:06. The last three and a half hours run east across the plain to Berlin, arriving at 08:35; in the autumn of 2026 the Friday departures carry on to Dresden, at 11:00.

The other sleeper, to the Alps

Snälltåget runs a second night train, from Malmö to the Austrian Alps, and it is a holiday train rather than an everyday one. It leaves Malmö on Friday afternoons, crosses Denmark by Odense and Kolding to Hamburg, and runs through the night to Austria: St. Johann im Pongau at 10:16, then Zell am See, Kitzbühel and Innsbruck at 13:02, coming back on the Saturday a week later. In the 2026/27 winter it runs from 18 December to 14 March, with buses on to the ski resorts; in summer 2026 it ran on the Fridays of July, by way of Munich and Salzburg. Berths and compartments are normally sold as returns.

The train runs on set days through the autumn and around Christmas and New Year, pauses after 7 January, and returns after Easter. Every seat and berth is reserved. The times below are Snälltåget's own 2026 timetable, which it marks as preliminary because track work can move them, read in October 2026.

Stockholm to Berlin

The train also calls at Södertälje Syd, Alvesta, Hässleholm and Eslöv. On Fridays until 11 December it runs on to Dresden, arriving at 11:00.

Berlin to Stockholm

On Sundays until 6 December it starts from Dresden at 18:40.

Days of running

Times are published by the operator: Snälltåget · Night train to Berlin (opens in a new tab).

There are three ways to travel: a seat, from 399 SEK between Malmö and Berlin and 499 SEK from Stockholm; a berth in a shared six-berth compartment; or a private compartment for your own party of up to six. From 2 November to 17 December a private compartment on a flexible ticket costs 1,499 SEK for two between Malmö and Berlin, or 1,999 SEK from Stockholm. Berth prices vary by date and are shown when booking.

Tickets are booked on snalltaget.se. A breakfast bag costs 99 SEK ordered in advance, 109 on board. Checked against Snälltåget, October 2026.

A pass gets you on, but a reservation is still to pay, and it is not small.

Interrail's table of the companies a pass is valid with — checked in October 2026, when it carried a last updated 21 October 2026 stamp — lists Snälltåget's night train under Germany and Denmark as covered by a Global Pass, with a reservation compulsory, and not by those countries' One Country Passes. Snälltåget's own page agrees: the whole journey must fall within the pass's validity, and on a Flexi pass the night counts as one travel day. A Germany pass covers only the part of the trip inside Germany; a Sweden pass covers Sweden, and in 2026 the run to Copenhagen too.

Pass holders book on snalltaget.se. Stockholm–Berlin costs 199 SEK for a seat, 499 SEK for a berth or 1,999 SEK for a private compartment in the low season, and 399, 849 and 3,499 SEK in the high season. A private compartment normally needs four pass holders. Against a full seat fare of 499 SEK, a pass is worth carrying only as part of a longer trip across Europe.

Prices and conditions read on interrail.com (opens in a new tab) and snalltaget.se (opens in a new tab) in October 2026.

The times below are taken from the 16:25 from Stockholm, which is at Norrköping by 17:53, Lund by 21:15, Hamburg by 05:06 and Berlin by 08:35.

They come in the order the railway meets them: the old town the train leaves from, the mill district of Norrköping, the Romanesque cathedral at Lund, the warehouse quarter of Hamburg's port, and at the end of the line the museums on the Spree.

The train leaves Stockholm at 16:25 and the northbound one arrives at 13:17, so a night in the capital at either end is the natural addition. Everything described is what the house says about itself on its own site, read in October 2026. No price, grade or star count appears here, because none has been verified.

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