The Night Train to Warsaw

Yes, I know it sounds like the title to a thriller by Ken Follett or
Frederick Forsyth. What can I say? I couldn’t resist. The EN347 train
leaves Amsterdam Centraal at 1903 for points east. EN=Euro Night. It was
a fifteen car train. The Warsaw service has just been added, so the printed
schedule on Platform 11 shows only Moscow, Copenhagen, and Prague as
destinations. The electric sign did show Warszawa. We found our berth on
one of the very nice, very new Jan Kiepura sleeper cars were crewed by
Polish national rail personnel. This train had two cars that were Russian and
destined for Moscow, then one that Belarussian (and very plain looking)
destined for Minsk, the the two Polish cars, followed by a long string of
German cars with the Die Bahn logo. Quite a production! The mattresses
were very hard, but there was a thick comforter that somewhat made up for
it. We had brought on a stash of food, and so all in all, we had a comfortable
journey. We stopped for quite a long time in the Hannover Hbf, which may
be the reason that our train arrived one hour late in Warszawa Centralna.
We were met there by María and her husband, Marek, who drove us to Eric
and Krzystina’s home at Truskawiecka 23 where we would stay.