Is spending life time in a train your goal? I like trains. To get quickly, safe and comfortable from A to B. Changing to a ferry is ... what I would consider a one time experience, but I rather would have the option to go by fast train straight to sicily whenever I feel like.
As of now, flying remains way cheaper, despite being worse ecological. But this won't change like that.
The time you spend on a night trains is spent sleeping. They deliberately don’t run full pace - no one wants to arrive at 5 in the morning. So they slow-roll on a long stretch to make arrival times reasonable.
Very often you can make an earlier arrival at a destination via night train than you can via plane - unless you fly in the evening before.
There are often distances I like to travel, far longer than one night. I really don't see the point in making it harder on purpose. There are plenty of places where getting there is an adventure. I like adventures. But not when just visiting family or alike.
Nobody is making anything harder on purpose. You can take a plane. But for a lot of European distances, night trains are perfectly good. I would love if they’d resurrect the night train that went to my parents place - I would board it on Friday 10pm to go home, be there Saturday for breakfast, board the train back at midnight on Sunday and roll into the Berlin main station in time to make it to work. Not a single lost minute for the trip, maximize time at the destination.
"You can take a plane."
I know. But my ecological consciousness has a problem with that. So yes, I also like night trains. And I also like bridges in general for better connection. I did not run the numbers to see if it makes sense here or just for the Mafiosi (I heard that complaint a lot). I am arguing against the romanticed point above, keeping the ferry because some think it is romantic.
> The time you spend on a night trains is spent sleeping.
Have you ever been on a night train?
I love train travel but night trains are rough since I find it very difficult to sleep. But, I cant really sleep on planes either.
Yes, I have. As I wrote in the sibling comments the last time just a week ago, the actual train that’s being discussed here. I’ll be again on Friday, for the return. I’ve taken multiple other night train connections before and in my experience, the quality depends to a large extend on the operator and the rolling stock. Older stock makes for less comfort, especially if not well maintained.
In my experience sleeping on the train also takes a bit of getting used to. Then again, maybe it’s really not for you - that’s ok.