Hamburg - Train conductor Wolfgang Kriesel stands beside the door to his Paris-bound sleeping coach. The train is standing on platform nine in Hamburg's Altona station. Kriesel greets guests and checks their tickets as they arrive.
His train is owned by the Germany's national railway company, Deutsche Bahn, who provide 29 overnight connections to destinations in nine European countries.
Night sleeper trains have gained in popularity in recent years as rail passengers have come to recognise that travelling on a "mobile hotel" does not cost the world.
Kriesel's train bears the number 236 and rolls out of the station on time at precisely 08.08 pm. By 9.14 am the next morning, it will be in Paris.
Kriesel, who has worked on the railway for the past 30 years, asks his guests at what time they would like to be woken or what they would like to drink in the morning.
He provides one guest with useful tips and suggestions about his favourite city, Paris.
The guest, Mike Berger, a logistics manager, will leave the French capital in the evening and travel onwards to Madrid with another night train.
Berger is a railway enthusiast who prefers to take a train even on journeys where a plane would be much faster.
Madrid is not his final destination. "I'll put my luggage in storage and travel to Lisbon where I'll spend the next two months working," he says.
"There was a direct connection by night train from Paris up until a few years ago but that got cancelled," he says regretfully. "But it does give me time to spend one day in Madrid."
Germany's railway company also offer one-week night train journeys through Europe.
"It's become very popular with railway fans," says Deutsche Bahn's Michael Kolb.
Depending on the season a berth in a couchette costs between 280 and 350 euros (435 and 544 dollars) per person for seven nights.
The same offer in a sleeper coach costs between 455 and 546 euros. "Breakfast is included in the price of a ticket for a sleeper coach."
Gerd Mahnke and his girlfriend Silvia are also travelling to Paris aboard the sleeper coach.
The couple intend travelling to Munich after visiting Paris. Their journey will then take them to Cologne, Berlin, Copenhagen and then Brussels before they return home to Hamburg.
Kolb says passengers are not limited to spending one day in each city as their ticket is valid with a number of sleeper train operators throughout Europe.
Due to its location, Germany plays a prominent part in the sleeper train network.
But railway fan Mike Berger idolises Poland's trans-continental train, "Jan Kiepura," that connects Amsterdam to Moscow via Warsaw.
Destinations such as St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk or Odessa are all reachable by night train.
"It's possible to travel from Lisbon to Moscow by sleeper coach. You just have to change train a few times," says Berger.
The by-word for railway-luxury was once the Orient Express which linked Paris to Istanbul.
The train no longer exists in its original form but its name lives on thanks to Austria's railway company, OBB, which operates a night train between Strasburg and Vienna.
Germany's night train service has several categories of comfort such as deluxe cabins with separate showers and WC.
There's also an economy class with washing facilities, simply furnished couchettes, reclining chairs, and of course, ordinary passenger seats.
Passengers travelling with other companies, especially those in eastern Europe, have to make do with a slightly lower standard of comfort. "But the trains in Spain and Portugal are wonderful," says Berger.
More than 300,000 passengers travel by sleeper coach every year with another 700,000 travelling by couchette.
Many business people also travel by night train as they arrive at their destination at a convenient time in the morning and leave again in the evening with time enough for a decent meal.
"A lot of managers work in the evening in their compartments," says Kriesel.
Direct connections are easy to book online. But combining trains can be complicated especially when it involves different national companies.
"You can get tickets in the bigger booking offices," says Deutsche Bahn's Sabine Brunkorst. "But it will take more than five minutes to complete a booking."
Mike Berger can confirm that. "It took the women behind the counter quite a long time to book my three tickets to Lisbon."
Internet: www.nachtzug.de
